Sino-American Relations during Obama’s Second Term: Competition, Cooperation,and Increasing Risks

By Shen Dingli

Executive Dean of Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, it is fair to judge that he will remain consistent with his foreign policy,which is determined by his values and pragmatism. On the one hand, he will continue to seek cooperation with the rest of the world in order to maintain the leading role of the United States in the international community. The United States will not be able to deal with global challenges single-handedly: responding to the financial crisis in the United States and the eurozone,maintaining regional stability after the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, and promoting the resolution of the Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues. As a result, the Obama administration’s foreign policy will continue to seek cooperation with other countries, including China.

On the other hand, after the presidential election, the domestic political situation in the United States, with the Senate and the House of Representatives dominated by different parties,will continue to be characterized by mutual constraint between the White House and Congress. President Obama will surely draw a lesson from his governance in the past four years to deal with the“fiscal cliff,”protect his health care bill from being challenged, and be on guard against the Republican Party’s attempt to increase its power in Congress during the mid-term election. If he succeeds in these various respects, he will face less domestic political constraints during his second-term and enjoy more leeway in the implementation of foreign policy.

Though remaining a central power in the world today, the United States is experiencing a rapid relative decline in power.In the new century, now that the United States has been waging the War on Terror for over ten years, the threat of international terrorism to the United States is relatively low. However, the collective rise of emerging countries is undermining American global dominance, regardless of whether these countries really intend to compete with the U.S. for power. It can be predicted that during President Obama’s second term, the relative decline of U.S. global influence will continue and the U.S. government will surely take active steps in its domestic and foreign policies to stop and try to reverse this trend.

A continuing shift toward the Asia-Pacific region is therefore inevitable in the global scheme of U.S. defense diplomacy.However, instead of a substantial increase in capable deployment in Asia-Pacific, the U.S. may largely maintain or increase to a limited degree the investment of resources in the region while reducing its presence elsewhere, mostly because it is undergoing a contraction of its overall capability. Despite the subjective need for strategic precaution, the relative adjustment of the military strength of the U.S. takes on a somewhat coercive form. It is likely to spark more mutual strategic misgivings and negative competition in East Asia.

During his first term, President Obama proposed a“strategic pivot”and“return to Asia”- essentially a“rebalancing”of its foreign policy. That was just the beginning. For Washington, now that its policies have succeeded in limiting China’s space in the Asia-Pacific, with certain results desirable to the United States,the White House will surely continue this policy. The selection of Southeast Asia as the destination of President Obama’s first overseas visits during his second term will further display the importance he attaches to East Asia and the intention to offset China’s influence on the region. Given the decline of nontraditional security threats to the United States and the return and enhancement of traditional competition, it is be easy to understand why the Obama administration will continue this practice in the later period of the first term.

The primary“security pressure”perceived by the United States is not any demand for its territorial rights or interests from emerging countries, but rather challenges to its traditional superiority in international waters, outer space, and the electromagnetic space. The United States has long enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in these so-called“public domains.”It has developed the most extensive and sophisticated remote sensing capability in outer space for round-the-clock, allairspace reconnaissance and scanning of the whole earth. It has deployed seabed information detecting systems for a close watch of other great powers’offshore activities. Furthermore, it watches the whole world closely in the electromagnetic space and has long been in the lead in competitions over defense and attacks in cyberspace.

However, with the rise of emerging powers, the United States has found that its superiority in these areas is declining. As a result, it is sparing no efforts to maintain its traditional sphere of influence. The United States has been using the current international law to restrain China’s maritime rights and interests and promote the formulation of new international laws and regulations for limiting such rights and interests. Because of dissatisfaction with the rules on seabed in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the United States has not yet ratified the convention, though it long ago joined the convention.However, the Obama administration has now stepped up its efforts to persuade Congress to ratify the convention because it has found it more urgent to use the convention to limit China’s rights and interests in the South China Sea. The United States has also vigorously been trying to persuade some ASEAN countries to draw up a“Code of Conduct in the South China Sea”in an attempt to incorporate China into the system and restrict the policy choices available to China when it safeguards its interests in the region. During President Obama’s coming term, America will probably continue these efforts, which will deepen related conflicts in Sino-American relations.

While China has announced its strategy of building itself into a marine power, the United States is stepping up its efforts to contain China in its neighboring waters. In the East China Sea, there has been a long-standing dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, and the root cause for the dispute can be traced back to the United States. In 1972, the United States illegally granted Japan the right to“administer”the Diaoyu Islands. However, it stated that this did not mean that Japan had sovereignty over the islands. This U.S. policy continued at least till the 1990s. Beginning in 2001, the United States changed its spoken statements and went so far as to openly announce that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty was applicable to the Diaoyu Islands. Such adjustments peaked during President Obama’s first term. In recent years, the U.S.Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense have separately and openly announced an interventionist policy. Support from the U.S. government was no doubt behind the Japanese government’s recent tough position over the Diaoyu Islands issue. Such a state of affairs is unlikely to change substantially during Obama’s second term.

Having abandoned hopes for the DPRK to give up its nuclear program, President Obama may strike a compromise with the DPRK during his second term in an effort to stabilize relations with the DPRK under the condition that it at least agrees to suspend its nuclear program. This would mean both opportunity and challenge for China. On the Iranian nuclear issue, the Obama administration will give first priority to reducing the nuclear threat. However, if the nuclear gaming with Iran fails completely, Obama may dare to take a desperate move because he is at least under no pressure for re-election and the United States is free for the time being from too much concern about its energy security. All these factors will bring new opportunities and risks to Sino-U.S. relations.

Obviously, there remains motivation for the United States to continue to give priority to resolving international disputes via peaceful means. The downturn of the U.S. economy and the United States’heavy reliance on the rest of the world remain the realistic sources of international cooperativeness in Obama’s foreign policy. Benign interactions between the United States and the rest of the world will increase global stability in the years to come. Additionally, the expansion of common interests in Sino-U.S. relations by both sides will surely contribute to the sound development of such relations during President Obama’s second term.