Small mercies: China and America after 9/11.

• Author: Lampton, David M.

"THIS CHANGES every thing" was Senator Chuck Hagel's verdict as he surveyed the transmogrified landscape of international and domestic politics in the immediate wake of the "911" attacks. Others, such as retiring senator and China nemesis Jesse Helms, asserted that nothing fundamental has changed in U.S.-China relations, and that nothing should change. As for Taiwan, it hopes Helms is right but fears Hagel may be. It worries that Washington may seek to win Beijing's help in the struggle against global terrorism at its expense; as the China Post in Taipei put it: "Communism... is no longer considered a serious threat but rather a helping hand in the new war against terrorism." (1)

The unsurprising but useful truth is that some things have changed and others have not. The trick is to figure out which is which.

What has not changed is the careful calculation of national interest that guides Beijing's decision-making process. What has changed is that the United States is now more focused and disciplined in defining its interests with respect to China. In dealing with Beijing, Washington has learned quickly to pursue a less cluttered agenda, with sharper priorities filtered through the lens of national security. This is imposing a discipline on the U.S. political system that has not existed since the Tiananmen bloodshed of 1989. As for Beijing, its elite sees an opportunity to improve relations to an extent that it has not perceived possible for over a decade.

The principal feature of U.S.-China relations for the foreseeable future will be that two realist decision-making elites will be dealing with each other within the constraints of their respective domestic political circumstances and the uncertainties inherent in wartime. But while the two governments have stumbled into a new framework for limited security cooperation, other realms of policy will be affected minimally--unless the common threat to both nations rises further, making more intimate cooperation both necessary and politically feasible.

Security cooperation will be limited because important constituencies in each nation remain skeptical of the other's long-term intentions. Both sides are uncertain about which forms of cooperadon would serve its interests. For example, in October as Washington sought Chinese support for the struggle against terrorism, and tried to create a positive atmosphere for President Bush's meeting with President Jiang Zemin in Shanghai, the Bush Administration found itself internally divided over whether to waive a Tiananmen-era sanction against supplying the Chinese with spare parts for previously sold Black Hawk helicopters. The administration demurred. In short, while there is a new context that fosters some cooperation, old problems ranging from Taiwan to proliferation to human rights have not disappeared.

Amid this mixed circumstance, four questions beg further examination. First, how do Beijing and Washington define their strategic circumstances, and how do those circumstances differ from the 1971-72 era when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger went to China? Second, what domestic constraints may make intimate cooperation difficult for both Beijing and Washington? Third, what can Washington expect in terms of Chinese cooperation, and will it be significant enough to overcome deeply embedded problems in the bilateral relationship? In turn, what steps might the American side take to facilitate more meaningful cooperation with Beijing?

A New Basis for Cooperation?

WHEN President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao Zedong set U.S.-China relations on a new trajectory in Beijing on February 21, 1972, the U.S. President said, "What brings us together is a recognition of a new situation in the world and a recognition on our part that what is important is not a nation's internal political philosophy. What is important is its policy toward the rest of the world and toward us." (2) The shared perception of threat from Moscow was so powerful that Beijing and Washington subordinated their many disagreements about territory (Taiwan) and ideology (human rights and democracy) to the exigencies of security cooperation. Thereafter, the United States and China engaged in parallel opposition to Soviet proxy wars in Africa, and Washington sought to deter Moscow from using armed force against China in the late 1960s and the late 1970s. The two governments cooperated in monitoring Soviet missile tests from western China. And most intimately, the two cooperated in opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan mujaheddin.

The comparatively long period of Sino-American security cooperation was brought to an end by a series of developments, the principal ones being that China's national power grew much more rapidly than had been anticipated in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the sharp reaction of Americans to the 1989 Tiananmen bloodshed. The coup de grace to strategic cooperation was delivered when the Warsaw Pact crumbled and the Soviet Union imploded in 1991. With security concerns no longer a trump card to discipline potentially dissenting voices in Congress and deter other claimants on America's China policy (such as economic and human rights organizations), interest group politics in America filled the void.

The new disciplining effect of renewed security cooperation in the wake of September 11, however, will be considerably weaker now than it was in the 1970s and...