Christensen Offers New China Vision
The U. S.’s old ways of dealing with China, formed during the crucible of the Cold War, will not serve the future relationship of two superpowers with compelling international interests.
That was the thesis of Tom Christensen, who spoke on Sept. 14 at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and laid out a path forward for the world to work with China.
“I remember in 2011, I was reading the New York Times and dropped my coffee because China had voted with the rest of the U. N. security council to work against Qaddafi’s government in Libya. That was huge,” Christensen said. “With the right strategies, the U. S. and China can cooperate effectively.”
Some of the strategies laid out by Christensen included focusing on proscribed behaviors rather than regime change in international negotiations and building partnerships with Chinese people who have a vested interest in U. S. cooperation.
Christensen drew many of his talking points, which he laid out before the packed house at the Pardee School, from his June 2015 book The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power. The book shows why China is nowhere near powerful enough to be considered a global “peer competitor” of the United States, but it is already strong enough to destabilize East Asia and to influence economic and political affairs worldwide. Christensen describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order.
Christensen is William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University. From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. Professor Christensen has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and as co-editor of the International History and Politics series at Princeton University Press. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution. In 2002 he was presented with a Distinguished Public Service Award by the United States Department of State.
Christensen’s talk was organized and cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Asia.