What will the Presidents of Russia and China say to him when the three of them meet? To answer this question, you need to know about the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This regional grouping, now only three years old officially, just opened its headquarters in Beijing at the beginning of this month. It brings together, China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The SCO Heads of State are meeting in Tashkent this week, and Karzai is attending as an observer.

The geographical centre of the SCO in Central Asia is an area of groaning economic dislocation, of human rights abuse and radical Islamist militancy. Nevertheless, the SCO mobilizes, potentially at least, the entire territory and national power of both Russia and China. This is nothing to snigger at, as most Western commentators do. No other regional grouping, except perhaps the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the EU, dispose of such great potential as a regional grouping. As Khalil Hasan wrote in a Pakistan newspaper in 2002, ‘The six countries that constitute the SCO cover 30 million square kilometres – 60 per cent of continental Europe and Asia – and have a combined population of 1.5 billion – about one quarter of the world population. From a strategic perspective, a Sino-Russian axis is a formidable combination. Central Asia added to it makes the alliance a serious contender for power and influence in the evolving global scenario.’ If Pakistan, in response to its expression of interest in joining the SCO, were invited to join, then the window presented by the SCO on global order will be even bigger because of Pakistan’s size, its military power (especially nuclear), and its geopolitical position relative to both India and the rest of the Muslim world.

Karzai is going to Tashkent because Afghanistan’s long term economic future may well hinge on its joining the SCO. There can be no security for Afghanistan’s borders, without peaceful economic development of the border regions in neighbouring countries. But Karzai may also be going to Tashkent because he knows that the US/UK/NATO political-military solution for his country is not working. The assessments of the current situation being offered by specialists who should and who do know are very bleak. The Western commitment is weakening in the face of competing pressures.

The promise made that the UK would never walk away from Afghanistan again is now proving hollow because the UK and its allies have no answers. They cannot find a way to deal effectively with the currently dominant political forces in the country: the Taliban and the regional military commanders. Russia and China have no answers right now either, but they have much more potential through the SCO, possibly expanded to include Pakistan, to support Afghanistan’s long term development than NATO, the EU or its member states. The SCO stands out considerably from other, earlier variants of regional cooperation in Central Asia for one main reason: the richer regions of Russia and China can act in combination as the locomotive of development the poorer regions of Central Asia plus and Afghanistan. The weakness of earlier forms of regional cooperation in Central Asia was that they lacked this one crucial ingredient for success: a powerful economy (or economies) around which the weaker states could ‘integrate’. It also needs to be borne in mind that the SCO is a very new organization having only been established in June 2001. So it should not be tarred with the same brush of failure that has been evident in other, earlier efforts at regional cooperation. The best contribution the EU and NATO can probably make to the future of Afghanistan is to promote the vigorous and effective development of the SCO, with Pakistan and Afghanistan in it. This would be a project of one to decades for sure, but there may be no other answer for the long term security and prosperity of Afghanistan.

Greg Austin is Research Director of the Foreign Policy Centre (www.fpc.org.uk)To view a full list of Dr Austin’s publication’s please click on the link below

Within moments of the news, the nation was submerged in a tide of sentimentality mushy enough to bring a smile to the face of a B movie actor in Hollywood. Still I felt it was better to view this event from American eyes simply because Ronald Reagan was so quintessentially an American character that the inevitably well balanced and somewhat jaded European perspective could never truly understand him. There is sadly very little space in the modern European sensibility for someone who was as sure of himself let alone his beliefs as Ronald Reagan. Yet I was also unsettled by the eerily reverential attitude of the American press who were busily lionizing Reagan in a fashion that would please most of the dictators Reagan had so passionately decried. Was he really that great I thought? Was he the right man in the right place in the right time or was he simply right? The answer to all three questions is yes but the curious thing despite all those who claim the lasting nature of his legacy is that we have already forgotten why that is the answer.

The first thing you should know in that I am unlikely advocate for the greatness of Ronald Reagan. I was born in Iran, a country which America ruthlessly manipulated for decades in order to secure the oil which lit up President Reagan’s ‘shining city on a hill.’ I spent my formative years in Canada, a country which struggles mightily to define itself as something other than America. During my university years in the US, I volunteered for a homeless support group which convinced me that America’s reality was closer to former NY Governor Mario Cuomo’s evocation, ‘a tale of two cities’, than President Reagan’s dreamy descriptions. And I have spent my professional career in Europe during a period in which Europeans have felt increasingly distant from their righteous cousins across the pond. I am an unabashed political liberal, a dirty word in post-Reagan America, who has always supported and worked for parties of the center left and believes in the importance of Government programs to a healthy society. So how on earth can I come to the conclusion that Ronald Reagan, America’s cheerleader in chief and an avowed if not actual enemy of big government, can be described as a great leader? The answer is disarmingly simple: because he believed in the intrinsic superiority of Liberty for everyone, not just his own people, had the boldness declare it loudly, and the courage to fight for it.

Now you might think that that is no great feat. After all not even Saddam Hussein would openly admit to not believing in Liberty. As Americans themselves might say, isn’t this like Mom and Apple Pie, something we are all for. Well not quite. One of the sad developments of the 20th Century was the extent to which liberals in the west allowed the universal ideal of liberal values to disintegrate into the murky haze of relativism under the guise of avoiding conflict at almost any cost. Liberal ideas, as conceived in the bright reflection of 17th century Enlightenment, derived their very meaning and force from the fact they were upheld as universal truths. The prospect of nuclear conflict, however, forced other considerations to the fore. Progressive thought in the West increasingly chose accommodation with the enemy to secure peace as a better alternative than the risks of defiantly declaring the supremacy of liberal values and paying the price to promote them. The messiness and ruthlessness of America’s long hard campaign in the Cold War, which reached its pinnacle in Vietnam, made an entire generation uneasy with the struggle it found itself in. Liberals became more interested in promoting détente than democracy.

Ronald Reagan’s unique political journey reflected his frustration with this trajectory of the political Left. He started his adult life as a Democrat but was alienated by what he felt was its debilitating weakness in facing the Soviet threat. When he finally emerged as a Republican president, Reagan boldly declared that liberal values were good and the totalitarian values epitomized by the Soviet Union were not. No one was more scandalized than the political grouping referred to as liberals. How could anyone, let alone the President of a superpower be so utterly simplistic? There was only one small problem: he was that simplistic and what’s more, he was right. Ronald Reagan did not win the Cold War single-handedly but the clarity of his vision helped to shake the Soviet empire until it simply collapsed.

Sadly, the outpouring of praise and reverence that has marked President Reagan’s passing cannot disguise the reality that the lessons of this experience have had almost no impact on how much of the political left is facing the new challenges facing the world today. Communism may be a thing of the past but tyranny endures. Yet the comfortable confines of relativism once again offer more comfort than the prerogatives of a moralized view. Even apart from the war in Iraq, a convoluted adventure that is easy to criticize, the Left has taken upon itself to treat the entire project of actively promoting democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere with disdain. Apart from a besieged band of so called liberal internationalists, the chorus is back again to tell us that we should just accept that everyone is different rather than daring to think that everyone deserves to be free.

Ronald Reagan simply did not care what such people had to say. In fact, remarkably, he seemed to relish the prospect of confronting them. He was in the truest sense a non-elitist who believed that the privileges of liberty should be afforded to everybody. This stands in stark contrast to the abject elitism of those who claim that some people are more suited to democracy than others. An elitism that disguises itself in populist clothing by claiming its opponents are trying to impose their values on others as if anyone had bothered to ask the people in question whether they wanted to be free? Thankfully, whenever the question has been asked, the response has been resoundingly affirmative.

In office, President Reagan was an idealist rather than a realist but pragmatic rather than dogmatic. As a result, Reagan’s America exploited its greatest strength: the power of its example to the world. The Soviet Union collapsed not because it was defeated by the American military but because its leaders realized it could never defeat the American economy. This approach stands in marked contrast to that of the current President who has sadly wrecked America’s image abroad through the hubris of a superpower. Reagan, on the other hand, understood America’s authority came not from being seen as an empire but as the shining city of his dreams, however close or distant that was from reality.

Ronald Reagan was never fashionable among liberal intellectuals and I suspect his death will make little difference in this regard. In the age of W, America itself has become decidedly unpopular around the world. Just yesterday, I met an Arab Ambassador who launched into an hour long litany of America’s crimes and misdemeanours. Most of which were true. But so too is America’s long history as a free and vigorous democracy. With every new catastrophe in Iraq, the Relativists shout louder: we told you so, they say, the world is the way it is for a reason. Well Ronald Reagan never bought that line. He followed in the footsteps of Rousseau to see all mankind in the same light. The practices of his administration were often dodgy, sullied by the mindset of an unscrupulous combatant, but what endures was his vision. Countries, like people, are never as pure as their ideals. However the vision stood apart almost as a mesmerizing myth that changed the world as we knew it. Reagan understood that Liberty was a concept he could sell to them all including the hardened leaders of the Soviet Union as it turned out. And it was made possible by a single magical quality, optimism. In these dark days when anarchy reigns in Iraq and people feel America stands for power alone, that optimism is in short supply. It is at this moment when once again the meaning of being a liberal is so confused that Reagan, viewed by so many liberals as the enemy, would offer the best advice. First and foremost, he would say, have faith in Liberty.

Debate over trade barriers

LONDON The United States and Europe have long claimed that free-trade and poverty reduction are among their highest political priorities. But their recent record is hardly illustrious.

Ever since President Bill Clinton led the way to the creation of the World Trade Organization in the 1990’s, trade liberalization has floundered on the support of rich countries for their bloated farmers. At trade summits from Seattle to Doha over the last decade, Western politicians have pledged solidarity with the developing world, only to cave in to their domestic lobbies and leave the developing world mired in poverty.

This year, protectionist pressures seem to have become even stronger. The panic over the outsourcing of white-collar jobs led Senators John Kerry and John Edwards to vie in the Democratic primary race over who is most negative about free trade. In Europe, despite some minor reforms, both President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany have managed to block any cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy until at least 2013. Progress toward the UN Millennium Development Goals has been painfully slow.

On both trade and development, the common cry from politicians is that they are boxed in by public opinion. But new opinion data commissioned by the German Marshal Fund, based on 4,000 interviews in France, Germany, Britain and the United States, suggests that the public in both Europe and America is far more liberal than is often assumed, and also concerned about the damage that Western subsidies wreak on the developing world.

Support for free trade among the populations of Germany, France, Britain and the United States remains robust. In Britain, the highest proportion of respondents, nearly three-quarters, have a “favorable view” of free trade. Elsewhere, the figures are slightly lower, but they are still strong, given the vociferous campaigns of the antiglobalization movement. The principle of free trade remains firmly embedded in the public imagination.

Neither is the world neatly segmented into free-trading Anglo-Saxons and protectionist Europeans. Despite the recent French and German efforts to promote “national champions” in their industries, less than a third of the German and French populations want to subsidize manufacturers. The figures are higher in free-market Britain and the United States. There is more sympathy for agricultural subsidies in France and Germany, but even there, pork-barrel politics are beginning to lose support: 62 percent of Germans and half the French population want an end to subsidies.

There is little sign either of the much-discussed “compassion fatigue” in the West. Respondents overwhelmingly felt that fighting poverty in developing countries was a moral imperative for the West, and people expressed a strong preference for trade over aid to help developing economies grow. Most people responded well to arguments that poor countries should be allowed to maintain tariff barriers for a short period – a more sympathetic attitude than that displayed by international financial institutions.

These findings present political leaders with a way to galvanize support for trade agreements that will fight poverty. People reject closed economies, and they don’t buy the argument that trade results in a “race to the bottom” in standards. The majority of people appear to be realists and accept that there is no return to a pre-globalization age – though they have become suspicious about some of the messianic rhetoric from politicians on trade deals. The characterization of Nafta, the European internal market and the World Trade Organization as “opaque” and “undemocratic” by the antiglobalization movement over the last decade has created some public unease. Nearly half of the public expressed an unfavorable view of the WTO, despite the fact that it upholds principles with which they overwhelmingly agree.

Respondents felt strongly that multinational companies are the primary beneficiaries of trade liberalization. Until leaders are able to articulate the benefits for consumers and small businesses, support for future trade deals will be hard to achieve. In all the countries surveyed, there was a strong thirst for more training to help workers cope with the instabilities of the global labor market. Education, together with a new political language, may be the only way to see off the gathering forces of protectionism.

John J. Audley is senior trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund. Debate over trade barriers.

As the awkward neighbour straddled between East and West, Turkey is once again standing at the threshold of Europe. Can it face yet another humiliating retreat in its long and turbulent road to the gate of western civilisation? The stakes are higher than ever since the EEC Council of Ministers accepted Ankara’s application for associate membership in 1959. Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) swept into power to form the first single party government since 1987, they have determinedly pursued the reforms needed to meet the Copenhagen political criteria. These include the abolition of the death penalty, introduction of cultural rights for ethnic minorities (especially Kurds), expansion of democratic freedoms, introduction of laws to curb torture, institutional arrangements to reduce the influence of the military in politics, and the adoption of the Annan Plan in Cyprus to name but a few. Another rebuff would surely slow current reforms, both by sanctioning the more extreme but vocal groups, Islamist or nationalist, and bolstering Turkey’s sense of isolation.

The virtuous circle of positive negotiations encouraging reform will be broken and, in the eyes of many unequivocally pro-European Turks, membership will lose its status as a catalyst for change. Much to the bewilderment of sceptical European leaders, the European project has been more successful in exporting democratisation then any of them could have imagined. European ‘soft’ power alone has achieved more in Turkey than American might has ever done in the Middle East. The question now therefore is can Europe face the challenge?

In the lead up to the European Union decision in December, Philip Robins’ Suits and Uniforms, Turkish Foreign Policy Since the Cold War is required reading. There are three arguments. Firstly that ‘in the arena of foreign affairs, Turkey is a status quo power … wedded to the sanctity of borders, states, multilateral institutions and norms of conduct’ (p.6). Secondly, that Turkey is ‘firmly oriented westwards in terms of its foreign relations’ (p.7), seen in its earnest pursuit of the EU; and thirdly that it is an overly cautious actor (p.7). The author lays out his argument by initially examining the Turkish position within the international arena in the aftermath of the Cold War and pointing to its rise in prominence as a central actor. He then turns to the structural framework of foreign policy by arguing that the main players are comprised of the government, presidency, foreign ministry and the security establishment, with political parties, parliament, media, interest groups and public opinion as secondary players.

Given the shortage of studies which tackle the basis of the rationale behind Turkish foreign policy, the main strength of the book lies in Robins’ analysis of domestic motivators of foreign policy in terms of history, ideology, security and economics and how the relative importance of these factors have evolved over time. Robins rightly notes the pervasive influence of the experiences of the late Ottoman Empire and the early Republican period within the collective psyche of the nation. ‘History is a key determinant of perception in that it helps to form an identikit picture as to the make-up of others’ (p.94). The foremost case of historical memory is the ‘Sevres syndrome’, rooted in the plan of the victors of WWI to carve up the Empire, which remains an important reference point for the key players. Similarly, the author observes that the minority issue is ‘combustible’ (p.124), particularly because it was repeatedly used by the Europeans in dismembering the Ottoman Empire by stoking ‘the enemy from within’ (p.172); manifested in the support of the Armenians by the Russians, the Maronites by the French and the Arabs in Hijaz by the British. Robins comments that the lessons of these past encounters have been re-emphasised in the eyes of Turks by recent experiences and perceptions, from Stalin’s expansionism; Syrian territorialism; American unreliability best exemplified during the Cuban missile crisis and by the Johnson letter; Greek and Syrian cooperation on defence; European insistence on minority rights particularly with regards to the Kurds; and the acceptance of the Armenian historical narrative. The author correctly points out therefore that security has been an overriding concern in foreign policy given this prevailing sense of insecurity and encirclement; ‘history tells Turks to be suspicious, especially of their neighbours, who covet their territory or seek to erode the greatness of the nation through devious means’. In fact, even the commitment to the EU is juxtaposed with a deep distrust, with most Turks doubtful of their neighbours’ sincerity in negotiations (and as Andrew Mango points out, this is succinctly expressed by the Turkish recourse to the saying ‘the Turk has no friends except for other Turks’).

Robins places much of the European consternation over Turkey on its failure to emulate ‘liberal norms’. It is questionable however, to what extent the West has internalised these values itself in the era of the War on Terrorism, from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo, and to the endorsement by liberal circles of violations of civil liberties in the name of national security, or rather accepting the ‘lesser evil’ (Michael Ignatieff). On the other hand, Ataturk remains its visionary father, in his abandonment of the ancien regime and embracing of democracy when many of its richer neighbours were in the throes of fascism. Ataturk is thus a key part of the common identity of the Turks; they are united by the fact that they are all the children of his revolution. In that sense, as Mango comments, ‘Turkey can no more repudiate Ataturk today than France can repudiate the French Revolution’. It is an ironic twist of history therefore that it has been the Islamist AKP government which has worked harder to consolidate Ataturk’s revolution and the process of westernisation in the face of liberal procrastination over fears of increasing Islamisation. Alienated by what they see as a degeneration of their cultural identity many are constructing their own modernity, a process that is not mutually exclusive with a secular order. Despite the worst civilizational fears in the EU, studies have consistently shown that although they are pious, most Turks nevertheless believe religion to be a solely private matter; while 92.2 percent of people fast during Ramadan and 46 percent pray five times a day, only 10.2 percent expressed a desire to change the present secular order, though many of them were unsure once they realised what an Islamic order would entail (see Professor Binnaz Toprak and Ali Carkoglu’s latest survey). Most Turks do embrace the secular order, wanting to wear the headscarf or fasting does not necessarily mean otherwise. The AKP’s persistence over imam-hatips (religious schools) is resolvable via open debate and compromise, without posing a challenge to the fundamentals of the secular order. A prominent AKP MP and previous advisor to Prime Minister Erdogan, Turhan Conmez, has been making the case for reforming imam-hatips, particularly by restricting their role to the training of imams, and also introducing optional as opposed to compulsory religious education in schools. The vehemently secularist Alevis, making up to twenty percent of the population, is also a factor often overlooked. It is one of those idiosyncrasies of Turkey that it is on the path of ‘its own Third Way, an accommodation between secularists and Islamists within the framework of a fully democratic system’ (Marvin Howe); a valuable lesson to its European neighbours then, that should not go unheeded. The consequences on democratisation of a rejection in December will be far more wide reaching than has been contemplated with reverberations beyond Turkey’s borders.

What must the international community do now to end the violence?

By Greg Austin and Ben Koppelman

The Sudanese government has carried out a murderous campaign in its Darfur region through deliberate bombing of civilian targets and through support of Jingaweit militias raping and killing on the ground. It cannot be trusted to end the killing, though it may see some temporary gain in slowing or pausing it.

Yet current international measures seem to depend on the Sudanese government as a partner. The US has proposed a draft UN Security Council resolution calling on the government of Sudan to stop the violence in Darfur, to impose an arms embargo on the Jingaweit militia, and to arrest Jingaweit leaders.

In addition, the US is supporting the African Union’s monitoring of the ceasefire and its role in restarting talks for a political solution in Darfur. Yet the Sudan government is saying that the AU will do or can do nothing without Sudan’s consent. It remains an open question whether the new-born AU will be prepared to override this taboo of non-intervention without Sudan’s consent.

To end the violence, the UN and major powers, like Canada, must understand that the government they are dealing with is a dictatorship that has directly sponsored terrorist attacks and harboured Osama bin laden. This government has already been subject several times to UN sanctions or unilateral US sanctions, which have not always been successful.

Despite repeated promises by Sudan to disarm the militia, including to Kofi Annan in June, the Jingaweit continues to kill with impunity. Moreover, some of those being ‘disarmed’ are reportedly being absorbed into government police and paramilitary forces operating in Darfur. Given the extent of the proliferation of arms in Darfur now, an arms embargo seems equally futile.

Ultimately, it is government officials who are responsible for the murderous campaigns in Darfur. Until their calculus of political gain is specifically targeted, the violence will not stop. These officials should be publicly named and shamed, and be subjected to personal sanctions, such as freezing of bank accounts or banning of international travel. Simultaneously, the major powers or the UN should form a working group to document and publicise the war crimes in Darfur in a rapid and authoritative manner.

In the short term, it is paramount that there is a ceasefire. But the two previous ceasefires (September 2003 and April 2004) have not held. This suggests that another ceasefire would be of no value unless supported by other firm measures.

First, the AU ceasefire monitoring team must be more robust in terms of troops as well as logistical support, especially transport and modern satellite communications. Darfur is a vast and remote region (as big as France), has a low population density (one tenth that in Rwanda), and has few transport links.

Second, the mandate of the AU troops to protect the monitors should be extended. Their duties must go beyond observing to include protecting refugees and disarming militias, a measure Kofi Annan identified in 2001 as a necessary adjunct to any UN peacekeeping deployment.

However, a necessary condition for diplomacy to succeed is the threat of international military action, especially since the sanctions against Sudan in the late 1990s were not fully effective. The only way to demonstrate the seriousness of such resolve would be through the contribution of troops from non-Western countries — in particular, African and Arab states. A force led by, or even containing troops from, the USA or the UK may be out of the question entirely.

Along with threats, there must also be incentives. An effective way to end attacks by the Jingaweit and their opponents may be to offer cash incentives to them, or communities who support them, to stop fighting. (Such an approach worked well in Mozambique.) The international community should also provide emergency funds for quick effect projects to revamp the regional infrastructure.

Over the last 12 to 18 months, the UN and interested major powers have avoided dealing decisively with the Darfur conflict due to fear of disturbing the peace talks to end the civil war between the government and rebels in the south of the country. However, there has to be some recognition – based on the Darfur events — that this government of Sudan may not be not a reliable partner in that longer standing negotiation process. It is now open to serious question whether that peace process can be saved in the absence of a political process across Sudan as a whole, in which all rebel groups and marginalised communities can participate.

It has taken a long time for the international community to act despite being aware of Khartoum’s genocidal campaign against non-Arab tribes in Darfur, at least as early as September 2003. The international community must act without delay. The Security Council cannot allow more time to see if Khartoum will fulfil its pledges because this only provides more time for further atrocities to be committed or for Khartoum to manipulate the cease-fires to its own murderous purposes.

Direct, tangible and imminent threats – combined judiciously with incentives – and targeted at the Sudanese leadership and Arab militia leaders are needed now to end to the violence.

Greg Austin is Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Centre, Ben Koppelman is a Research Officer there.

The £17m it costs Britain annually to run its embassy in Paris, a former home to Napoleon’s sister, is justified on the grounds that grandeur is required to impress political elites. In the words of Pauline Neville Jones, former political director of the UK’s Foreign Office: “If you want to be important in France then you need to be grand.”

It also means, however, that Foreign Office resources are tied up acting as an unofficial arm of the National Trust, the UK’s main guardian of stately homes, rather than in putting Britain’s case to the French public. The running costs of the Foreign Office’s £1bn property portfolio seem untenable in an age when Sir Michael Jay, the department’s permanent secretary, has warned that job cuts will be necessary to help meet the costs of hosting the European Union and Group of Eight summits next year. An increase of £100m in the Foreign Office’s budget this year will barely cover the costs of setting up in Iraq and improving embassy security. Of course, most governments can raise revenue by selling embassies in costly capital cities and relocating to cheaper – and often more secure – buildings further out of town. Other foreign ministries are recognising the logic of moving out. In Kensington Palace Gardens, London’s “millionaires’ row”, the Russians and the Dutch have recently sold properties.

The UK Foreign Office’s “asset recycling programme” has helped the reallocation of funds, selling off 230 ambassadorial homes since 1997. But property sales raised a mere £13m in 2002-03, a derisory saving given the department’s requirement to cut 2.5 per cent of its running costs. European countries have more scope to reduce costs by sharing diplomatic premises. Nordic countries have long practiced co-operation and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first embassies in the Baltic states were shared between the British, German and Scandinavians. However, most European governments believe that national prestige requires national buildings. This will only end when leading EU countries collectively decide to end their diplomatic contest. Plans for a new EU External Action Service provide the perfect opportunity. Britain should champion a proposal to give the new service, staffed by diplomats from EU member states, powers to issue visas and passports. This would allow non-essential embassies to close.

It has been 25 years since Nicholas Henderson, a former UK ambassador in Paris, warned that EU integration would erode the importance of Britain’s embassies in European capitals. Influencing public opinion across the continent is more important than ever, but the original purpose for maintaining embassies appears increasingly irrelevant. In the early 20th century, an ambassador’s telegram was the only way for governments to follow political developments abroad. Now much of this information can be found by a civil servant in London via Google. Leaders of major allied countries, and those further down the ministerial chain, rarely go more than a few days without speaking, a fact that further lessens the need for the intermediary skills of ambassadors.

Yet, with so much of domestic politics now dependent on international decisions, foreign services have never been more important. But finance ministries everywhere increasingly use the trappings of 19th-century diplomatic life as a convenient excuse to impose tight financial settlements. The former US ambassador in London, Raymond Seitz, complained about having to run his official residence on a “beer budget”. In the UK, Treasury officials regularly criticise the Foreign Office’s largesse; and in France, diplomatic personnel went on strike last year in protest at budget cuts which, they claimed, had left them without paper.

Over the next few years, the UK Foreign Office is measuring the contribution of Britain’s overseas posts to the department’s “strategic priorities” on immigration, terrorism, crime and securing energy supplies. Reports suggest that minor posts such as Iceland and Mauritius will face cuts. But with the UK government planning to sack 104,000 civil servants and compiling a “doomsday book” of government property and the Foreign Office reviewing its functions, a change in British diplomatic priorities has never seemed more likely.

Rob Blackhurst is editorial director of the Foreign Policy Centre.

Published in The Financial Times on Friday 27th August 2004, http://www.ft.com

In recent years, Russia has transformed itself from a defunct military — although still nuclear — superpower into a new energy superpower.

New uses for oil revenues

Although Russia has retained many of the vestiges of Soviet “hard power” — including nuclear weapons and a massive conventional army — it is not the superpower of old.

New energy revenues have not been used to boost military spending or to revive Russia’s defense industry at the expense of every other sector as in the Soviet period. Oil wealth has been transformed more into butter than guns.

And there is more to Russia’s attractiveness than oil riches. Consider the persistence of the Russian language as a regional lingua franca — the language of commerce, employment and education — for many of the states of the former Soviet Union.

Russian pop culture

Then there is a range of new Russian consumer products, a burgeoning popular culture spread through satellite TV, a growing film industry, rock music, Russian popular novels and the revival of the crowning achievements of the Russian artistic tradition.

They have all made Russia a more attractive state for populations in the region than it was in the 1990s. Over the last several years, Russia has become a migration magnet for Eurasia.

New prospects

Millions of people have flooded into Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities — from the South Caucasus and Central Asia in particular — in search of work and a better life.

Instead of the Red Army, the penetrating forces of Russian power in Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia are now Russian natural gas and the giant gas monopoly, Gazprom, as well as Russian electricity and the huge energy company, UES — and Russian culture and consumer goods.

Gazprom is the primary provider of gas to the Eurasian states and has regained its position in markets like Georgia, where other companies had entered in the late 1990s. UES has similarly expanded its markets, especially in the Caucasus and Central Asia, where early energy sector privatizations brought in foreign investors.

Defining the term

In addition, private firms — such as Russia’s Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods — have begun to dominate regional markets for dairy products and fruit juices.

Russia may not be able to rival the United States in the nature and global extent of its “soft power” —which Harvard Professor Joseph Nye defines as emanating from three resources: “[a state’s] culture (in places where it is attractive to others),” its political values (where it lives up to them at home and abroad) and “its foreign policies (where they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority).”

Regaining influence

But Russia is well on its way to recovering the degree of soft power the USSR once enjoyed in its immediate sphere of influence.

Since 2000, Russia’s greatest contribution to the security and stability of its vulnerable southern tier has not been through its military presence on bases, its troop deployments, or security pacts and arms sales.

Rather, it has been through absorbing the surplus labor of these states, providing markets for their goods, and transferring funds in the form of remittances (rather than foreign aid).

Central Asian states in particular are fearful of the social consequences of large numbers of labor migrants returning to the region from Russia if there were to be a political backlash against migrants or a Russian economic downturn. This migration to Russia has become a safety valve for the whole region.

More powerful than the United States?

As a matter of fact, Russia has the potential to achieve the economic and cultural predominance in Eurasia that the United States has in the Americas.

It will succeed in this mission if the influx of migrants to Russia continues, if Russian business investment grows in neighboring states, if regional youth continue to watch Russian TV and films, purchase Russian software, CDs and DVDs and other consumer products.

Trade — not military muscle

Most of all, it would succeed if the heavy-hand of Moscow is pulled back — and the hand of commerce is extended instead in Russian foreign policy. Given this list of “ifs”, clearly some skill is required to draw upon Russia’s soft power resources in crafting a successful regional policy.

The current U.S. failure to capitalize on its own undisputed soft power and growing global anti-Americanism demonstrate the risks involved, and the limits of soft power if a state is not seen to live up to its own values abroad or its foreign policy motivations are questioned overseas.

It is by no means assured that Russia’s increasing soft power will be used to positive effect. But the prospect is clearly there – and should be encouraging Russia’s current leadership to chart a new regional policy for itself in Eurasia.

This article is adapted from Fiona Hill’s study on “Russia’s Energy Empire”, which will be published by the Foreign Policy Centre in September 2004.

Russia’s democratic institutions have always been weak and fragile. Since becoming President in January 2000, Vladimir Putin has made them even weaker. He has systematically undercut the freedom and independence of the press, destroyed the checks and balances in the Russian federal system, arbitrarily imprisoned both real and imagined political rivals, removed legitimate candidates from electoral ballots, harassed and arrested NGO leaders, and weakened Russia’s political parties. In the wake of the horrific crime in Beslan, President Putin has announced plans to further centralize power and to push through measures that will take Russia a step closer to authoritarian regime.

We are also worried about the deteriorating conduct of Russia in its foreign relations. President Putin’s foreign policy is increasingly marked by a threatening attitude towards Russia’s neighbors and Europe’s energy security, the return of rhetoric of militarism and empire, and by a refusal to comply with Russia’s international treaty obligations. In all aspects of Russian political life, the instruments of state power appear to be being rebuilt and the dominance of the security services to grow. We believe that this conduct cannot be accepted as the foundation of a true partnership between Russia and the democracies of NATO and the European Union.

These moves are only the latest evidence that the present Russian leadership is breaking away from the core democratic values of the Euro-Atlantic community. All too often in the past, the West has remained silent and restrained its criticism in the belief that President Putin’s steps in the wrong direction were temporary and the hope that Russia would soon return to a democratic and pro-Western path. Western leaders continue to embrace President Putin in the face of growing evidence that the country is moving in the wrong direction and that his strategy for fighting terrorism is producing less and less freedom. We firmly believe dictatorship will not and cannot be the answer to Russia’s problems and the very real threats it faces.

The leaders of the West must recognize that our current strategy towards Russia is failing. Our policies have failed to contribute to the democratic Russia we wished for and the people of this great country deserve after all the suffering they have endured. It is time for us to rethink how and to what extent we engage with Putin’s Russia and to put ourselves unambiguously on the side of democratic forces in Russia. At this critical time in history when the West is pushing for democratic change around the world, including in the broader Middle East, it is imperative that we do not look the other way in assessing Moscow’s behaviour or create a double standard for democracy in the countries which lie to Europe’s East. We must speak the truth about what is happening in Russia. We owe it to the victims of Beslan and the tens of thousands of Russian democrats who are still fighting to preserve democracy and human freedom in their country.

(Names listed below are for identification purposes only. The signatories have signed this letter in their individual capacities.)

Mr. Mark Leonard, The Foreign Policy Center, United Kingdom
Mr. Urban Ahlin, Member of Parliament, Sweden
The Honorable Giuliano Amato, Former Prime Minister, Italy
Dr. Uzi Arad, Institute for Policy and Strategy, Israel
Dr. Timothy Garton Ash, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Dr. Anders Aslund, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, United States
Dr. Ronald D. Asmus, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, United States
Mr. Rafael L. Bardaji, Strategic Studies Group, Spain
Prof. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Former Foreign Minister, Poland
Dr. Arnold Beichman, Hoover Institution, United States
Dr. Jeff Bergner, Former Staff Director, U.S. Senate, United States
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Senator, United States
Mr. Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister, Sweden
Mr. Max Boot, The Council on Foreign Relations, United States
Ms. Ellen Bork, Project for the New American Century, United States
Mr. Pascal Bruckner, Writer, France
Mr. Mark Brzezinski, McGuire Woods LLP, United States
Mr. Reinhard Buetikofer, Chairman, Green Party, Germany
Dr. Janusz Bugajski, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States
Sir Michael Butler, Former Permanent Representative to the European Community,
United Kingdom
The Honorable Martin Butora, Former Ambassador, Slovakia
Mr. Daniele Capezzone, Italy
The Honorable Per Carlsen, Institute of International Affairs, Denmark
Ms. Gunilla Carlsson, Member of Parliament, Sweden
Dr. Ivo Daalder, Brookings Institution, United States
The Honorable Massimo D’Alema, Former Prime Minister, Italy
Mr. Pavol Demes, Former Foreign Minister, Slovakia
Dr. Larry Diamond, United States
His Excellency Philip Dimitrov, Former Prime Minister, Bulgaria
Mr. Thomas Donnelly, American Enterprise Institute, United States
Mr. Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute, United States Mr. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Former Foreign Minister, Denmark
Ms. Helga Flores Trejo, Heinrich Böll Foundation of North America, United States
Dr. Francis Fukuyama, United States
Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, Aspen Institute Berlin, Germany
Prof. Bronislaw Geremek, Former Foreign Affairs Minister and Member of European
Parliament, Poland
Dr. Carl Gershman, National Endowment for Democracy, United States
The Honorable Marc Ginsberg, United States
Mr. Andre Glucksmann, Writer, France
Dr. Phil Gordon, Brookings Institution, United States
The Honorable Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg, Member of Parliament, Germany
The Honorable Istvan Gyarmati, Institute for Euro-Atlanticism and Democracy, Hungary
Mr. Pierre Hassner, Center for International Studies and Research, France
His Excellency Vaclav Havel, Former President, Czech Republic
The Honorable Richard C. Holbrooke, Former Ambassador to the United Nations, United
States
The Honorable Toomas Ilves, Former Foreign Minister and Member of European Parliament,
Estonia
Mr. Bruce Jackson, Project on Transitional Democracies, United States
Dr. Donald Kagan, Yale University, United States
Mr. Robert Kagan, United States
Mr. Jerzy Kozminski, Former Ambassador to the United States, Poland
Mr. Craig Kennedy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, United States
Ms. Glenys Kinnock, Member of European Parliament, United Kingdom
Dr. Bernard Kouchner, Former UN Special Envoy to Kosovo, France
Dr. Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies, Bulgaria
Mr. William Kristol, Project for the New American Century, United States
The Honorable Girts Valdis Kristovskis, Former Minister of Defense, Latvia
Prof. Dr. Ludger Kuehnhardt, University of Bonn, Germany
The Honorable Mart Laar, Former Prime Minister, Estonia
The Honorable Vytautas Landsbergis, former President and Member of European Parliament,
Lithuania
Dr. Stephen Larrabee, RAND Corporation, United States
The Honorable Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Member of European Parliament,
Germany
Mr. Tod Lindberg, Policy Review, United States
Mr. Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch, United States
Mr. Will Marshall, Progressive Policy Institute, United States
Prof. Dr. Margarita Mathiopoulos, University of Potsdam, Germany
Mr. Clifford May, United States
The Honorable John McCain, Senator, United States
Dr. Michael McFaul, United States
Mr. Matteo Mecacci, Italy
Mr. Mark Medish, Former Senior Director of the National Security Council, United States
Prof. Dr. Thomas O. Melia, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, United States
Dr. Sarah E. Mendelson, United States
Mr. Michael Mertes, Dimap Consult, Germany
The Honorable Ilir Meta, Former Prime Minister, Albania
Mr. Adam Michnik, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
The Honorable Richard Morningstar, Former Ambassador to the EU, United States
Dr. Joshua Muravchik, American Enterprise Institute, United States
Gen. Klaus Naumann (ret.), Former Chairman NATO Military Committee, Germany
The Honorable Dietmar Nietan, Member of Parliament, Germany
Mr. James O’Brien, Former Presidential Envoy to the Balkans, United States
The Honorable Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Member of European Parliament, Poland
The Honorable Cem Ozdemir, Member of European Parliament, Germany
Dr. Can Paker, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, Turkey
Ambassador Mark Palmer, Capital Development Company, LLC, United States
Mr. Martin Peretz, United States
The Honorable Dr. Friedbert Pflueger, Member of Parliament, Germany
Ms. Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute, United States
Mr. Florentino Portero, Strategic Studies Group, Spain
Ms. Samantha Ravich, Phd, Long Term Strategy Project, United States
The Honorable Janusz Reiter, Center for International Relations, Poland
The Honorable Alex Rondos, Former Ambassador, Greece
The Honorable Jim Rosapepe, Former Ambassador to Romania, United States
Dr. Jacques Rupnik, Center for International Studies and Research, France
Prof. Dr. Eberhard Sandschneider, German Council on Foreign Relations, Germany
Mr. Randy Scheunemann, Project for the New American Century, United States
Dr. Gary Schmitt, Project for the New American Century, United States
Dr. Simon Serfaty, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States
The Honorable Stephen Sestanovich, United States
Mr. Radek Sikorski, American Enterprise Institute, United States
Mr. Stefano Silvestri, Institute for International Affairs, Italy
Mr. Martin Simecka, Editor, Slovakia
Dr. Gary Smith, American Academy in Berlin, Germany
Dr. Abraham Sofaer, Hoover Institution, United States
Mr. James Steinberg, The Brookings Institution, United States
Mr. Gary Titley, Member of European Parliament, United Kingdom
Mr. Ivan Vejvoda, Fund for Open Society, Serbia
The Honorable Sasha Vondra, Former Deputy Foreign Minister, Czech Republic
Dr. Celeste Wallander, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States
Prof. Ruth Wedgwood, United States
Dr. Richard Weitz, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, United States
Mr. Kenneth Weinstein, Hudson Institute, United States
Ms. Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House, United States
Mr. R. James Woolsey, United States

In a year’s time, he will almost certainly have a third election victory, but he will be a leader with a potentially terminal political problem: turning around the 2:1 Euro-sceptic majority against the European Constitution in a fast-approaching referendum. Pro-Europeans have previously argued that he can achieve this feat. The 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Community was won against similar odds.

There are also reasons to be optimistic this time around: new research by MORI for The Foreign Policy Centre shows that two-thirds of the electorate are undogmatic “waverers” on the constitution, ready to be convinced by political argument. These swing voters outnumber both the yes and no camps by 2:1. But here’s the rub. In the past many voters, aware of their ignorance on Europe, have been willing to be swayed by politicians they trust.

Since Iraq trust has become a scarce commodity. With 60% of the public calling the Prime Minister untrustworthy, blind supporters of the PM are as thin on the ground as WMD in Baghdad. To make matters worse, Blair’s ratings are at their lowest amongst the very groups that he needs to convince.

First, there are the “Tory Lost Sheep”. This 7% of the electorate are certain to vote, and are inclined to support the Constitution. MORI describe them as “natural Tories uncomfortable with the Conservative Party”. Mainly middle-class broadsheet readers – particularly influenced by the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian – they deserted the Tories in droves in 1997, and fell straight into the arms of Blair. But since the war they have been blind to his charms, though they are surprisingly keen on Charles Kennedy.

The second group could be seen as “Persuadable Sceptics”. They are sure to vote, make up 8% and are currently against the Constitution, though they claim their mind could be changed. But an Islington barrister isn’t the man do it. Older than the “Tory lost sheep”, these voters are more likely to mutter into copies of the Sun, Mail and Telegraph (Their favoured reading) that this country is going to the dogs than they are to embrace the spirit of European fraternity. They are on of the few groups who actually prefer Michael Howard.

The third group on the Pro-Europeans’ hit list are those 9% of the electorate that Tony Blair has spent a decade infuriating. They are the “old Labour heartlanders” –fed up with the Government, and are inclined to use any opportunity to give the PM a bloody nose, if they bother voting at all.

Only the fourth group of “swing voters” is likely to find Tony Blair truly convincing – and it is the most apathetic. These “Labour loyalists” are predominantly working class, don’t read any newspapers, and are profoundly uninterested in Europe. This 11% of the population would vote yes if they bother to turn up – but most predict they will stay at home.

The Prime Minister faces a conundrum: on the one hand he cannot afford to maintain his trappist silence on Europe any longer. The waverers will not vote unless the government can demonstrate that, far from the “tidying up exercise” that they originally claimed, the Constitution matters. But at the same time the more the Prime Minister personalises the issue the more likely voters are to take a pain-free chance to vent their frustration, as in the 1999 and 2004 European elections, without waking up to see Michael Howard waving from Number 10.

This does not mean that the vote is a lost cause. The key will be making the referendum a debate about Britain’s future in the world – rather than the prime Minister’s vanity. Many waverers will be won over if Gordon Brown and John Prescott are dispatched to drum up support in Labour’s heartlands, and if Charles Kennedy can take some time off attacking last year’s war in Iraq to focusing on the next war over Europe. But what is needed above all is a senior politician prepared to put Europe above party-political gain. This was the role that Roy Jenkins and Ted Heath were prepared to take last time around. In November, a new candidate for the role will return from Brussels. Chris Patten combines a strong commitment to the EU with an appeal to the “one nation Tories” and “Tory loyalists” crucial to the referendum. And as John Major found in 1992, he knows how to win the unwinnable. Granting the spotlight to Patten may not come easily to Blair, but it would be greater act of leadership than attempting to win this fight alone.

Mark Leonard is the director of the Foreign Policy Centre.

Published in The New Statesman on 9 September 2004, http://www.newstatesman.com

China’s rise through America’s eyes: “When a speeding freight train is heading towards you, you either get on board or you get out of the way. We want to get on board.” The locomotive is China, whose economy is forecast to become the second largest in the world by 2016 and to have overtaken America by 2041. “We” are the people of South Carolina, the southern US state whose textile-based economy is under increasing threat from cheap labour in the People’s Republic. And getting on board means trying to get the Chinese to invest in the state rather than trying to keep them out by erecting protective trade barriers.
The speaker is Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s Republican governor, who has travelled to Beijing to attract Chinese investment to revive its beleaguered economy. He is speaking at a private dinner in a club so exclusive that it doesn’t have a name, just an unmarked red door in a windowless wall. The late Deng Xiaoping used to come here to relax, but today the mix of privacy and transparency has become an irresistible magnet to China’s nouveau riche.

In his Southern drawl, Sanford speaks elegiacally of a knitwear factory that closed in his neighbouring state of North Carolina. This closure, and others like it, have led to a heated debate about attempts to restrict “off-shoring”. Sanford explains that his goal is to attract investment from Chinese companies such as Haier, which built a fridge factory in South Carolina in 2000, completing an integrated system of production and sales with its design centre in Los Angeles and trade centre in New York. He speaks about turning his state into a “poster-boy” for globalisation, a Chinese gateway into America, reversing the sense of an inexorable flow of jobs and business from the US to China, and creating a “win-win” scenario. The Chinese roar with approval at his speech: they like this new face of America, as supplicant rather than bully.

But Sanford is a lonely voice in preaching the need to woo China, despite the overwhelming force of the statistics: China has a population of more than a billion, an economy that is growing year-on-year by more than 8%, and had a trade surplus with the US of $124bn in 2003; Chinese imports into the US are outpacing American exports to China by more than five to one. More typical, perhaps, are the words of Roger W Robinson Jr, the former chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the official body charged with assessing the security implications of the trade between the US and China. “The US-China economic relationship is heavily imbalanced and undermining our long-term economic health,” he said at the launch of the commission’s last report. John Edwards, the vice-presidential nominee who represents the neighbouring state of North Carolina in the Senate, has taken a much tougher line than Sanford: he promises to review US trade agreements and investigate workers’ rights abuses in China.

China’s growing economic power is doing much more than harming America’s trade figures. Its development needs huge quantities of oil, forcing up prices on the world market. That is another big campaign issue in the world’s most oil-hungry nation. According to the International Energy Agency, China will generate one-third of global incremental demand for oil between 2002 and 2004. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has argued: “As Asian growth continues, the global balance between demand and supply will continue to be tight, unless (or until) a vast increase in investment takes place. With such tight markets, relatively modest disruptions could lead to explosive jumps in oil prices, as happened twice in the 1970s.”

If the US Democrats are exercised by China’s economic threat, the Republicans have focused on its military one. President George Bush’s first intelligence briefing from the CIA listed China as one of three strategic threats, along with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The thin red mist descends and China becomes, in the neo-con imagination, a Soviet Union of the east, intent on establishing puppet regimes, governed by a modern mandate from heaven. Though not all would go as far as denouncing Deng Xiaoping as a “chain smoking communist dwarf”, as the rightwing firebrand Pat Buchanan did, there is a segment of the US political class that recoils at reports of double-digit increases in Chinese military spending, an intense focus on military modernisation and the simmering tensions over Taiwan.

Back in 1997, Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative flag-carrier who is now deputy defence secretary, wrote an article in the journal Foreign Affairs that compared the rise of China at the dawn of the 21st century to the rise of Germany a century earlier. He characterised China as “a country that felt it had been denied its place in the sun”, that believed it had been mistreated by the other powers, and that was determined to achieve its rightful place by nationalistic assertiveness. He warned there may be another world war. But rather than a hot war, the two have engaged in a competition for influence in the Asian region.

The establishment of US bases in central Asia, America’s tightening defence ties with Japan and Australia, and its growing relationship with India are all seen by China’s elite as part of Washington’s design to keep them in check. China’s response has been to bend over backwards to prove it is no threat either to the US or its neighbours. Li Junru, the vice president of the Central Party School, one of the Communist part institutions, has said the policy of heping jueqi (literally “merging precipitously in a peaceful way”) means other nations need not fear. “China’s rise will not damage the interests of other Asian countries,” he told the Beijing Review. “That is because as China rises, it provides a huge market for its neighbours. At the same time, the achievements of China’s development will allow it to support the progress of others in the region.” He talks of the Chinese developing free trade areas and security organisations for the region on the model of the European Union and Nato. As part of this strategy, Beijing has resolved virtually all its land border disputes with its neighbours: it has signed a non-aggression pact with the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean); it is working to help resolve the North Korean nuclear issue; it is signing a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Asean which includes free trade agreements and economic aid; and it is conducting joint military exercises with Russia, Kyrgyzstan, India and Pakistan.

The American analyst Robert W Radtke, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, argued that China’s soft sell appeals to America’s allies in Asia: “China’s peaceful rise was introduced to Asia by Chinese President Hu Jintao on his tour of south-east Asia in October – on the heels of President Bush’s visit to the region that month. The contrast in tone between the two leaders couldn’t have been more striking. In short, China’s message was, ‘We’re here to help,’ while the US message was ‘You’re either with us or against us’ in the war on terror. It’s not hard to imagine which was the more effective diplomatic strategy.”

But the Chinese will not push this competition too far: their biggest fear is that the neo-cons in Washington will encourage Bush to ratchet up the pressure over Taiwan, whose government has been making noises about declaring independence from the mainland, to the displeasure of the Beijing administration. Since the spat early in Bush’s term when a US spy-plane crashed into a Chinese fighter, relations between the world’s two leading powers have thawed. Beijing has provided Washington with useful intelligence and, like Russia, used the war on terror as an excuse to damn its own separatist movements. Even over Iraq, the Chinese supported the first UN resolution and kept a low profile over the second. During Kosovo, by contrast, Chinese spokesmen were on a 24-hour rota condemning Nato’s illegal action. This time the risk of causing a rift with the Americans was judged too great.

American policy towards China is trapped between an imperative for engagement and a preference for containment. Earlier this year US policymakers welcomed a Chinese trade delegation for a multi-billion dollar buying and spending spree, during which the Chinese were to look at making investments. Within days of the delegation’s departure, however, the US threatened sanctions that would make the purchases impossible. And in the security sphere the US is seeking the People’s Republic’s help on the proliferation of WMD in North Korea at the same time as pushing a missile defence shield that could launch a new arms race between the two nations.

What is becoming clear is that the Chinese are no longer easily manipulated. China’s welfare is so intimately woven into the international order that its welfare affects the hope and dreams of others across the world. China is already on its way to becoming America’s chief banker: the $400bn of foreign reserves it has accumulated allows the US to sustain its astronomical budget deficit. If Beijing stopped buying dollars, the US currency would collapse. The security analyst François Heisbourg has even compared the Chinese hold on the dollar to a nuclear weapon: “Breaking the dollar would be the functional equivalent of using a nuclear weapon,” he wrote in 2003. “The possession of such a capability cannot be ignored by the weaker party.”

Because of this mutual dependence it is unlikely that Wolfowitz’s predictions of world war will come true. But as China rises, the balance of power will continue to shift to the east and more and more Americans will follow Sanford’s example: approaching China with a begging bowl rather than a stick. China itself will face intense pressures over the coming years – unemployment, labour unrest, environmental problems and financial problems – but any problems in the People’s Republic will also threaten American interests.

Maybe the neocons have got it wrong. Perhaps the only thing worse for the US than a China that is too strong in 2020 will be one that is too weak.

Mark Leonard is director of the Foreign Policy Centre.

Published in The Guardian on 11 September 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk