THE “SHIRTSLEEVE SUMMIT”: AN EXPECTED WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY, SOME UNEXPECTED THOUGHTS

6/9/13

The “shirtsleeve summit” between President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the blazing heat of Rancho Mirage, CA, has just concluded.  As with just about all these summits, a lot of money was spent and nothing was accomplished, but, hey, it wasn’t their money the politicians were spending.

Yours truly, however, did manage to derive some meaning from what some of the participants, or ancillary participants, in the summit were saying.

First, outgoing placeholder for Susan Rice, er, sorry, National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon, opined that cybertheft

“…really now is at the center of the relationship (between China and the U.S.).  It is not an adjunct issue.”

Mr. Donilon and Mr. Obama doubtless wish that cybertheft were at the center of the Sino/U.S. relationship, but that does not make it so.  What is at the very center of the Sino/U.S. relationship is that China holds, the last I saw, $1.17 trillion worth of U.S. treasury securities and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of other debt issued by U.S. entities.   We owe the Chinese big time, and that will always dictate the terms of our relationship.   And we can’t blame the Chinese for this; it is we who spent ourselves into oblivion with money we borrowed from the Chinese.

Second, President Xi asked a very profound question at the summit.  When describing the relationship between China and the U.S., he asked, then stated

“What will happen when a rising power and a great power encounter one another?  The U.S. is trying its best to maintain its status quo, in order to retain its hegemony.  China…is eager to become a world power under the rules approved by Western countries.”

This was not at all a kind statement; though the Obama team may have missed it in its ongoing efforts to have hope trump reality, whenever people use words like “hegemony,” they are not speaking favorably of the nation to whom they ascribe hegemonistic aspirations.  Further, that last phrase “…under the rules approved by Western countries” had to be dripping with sarcasm.    Note, however, that President Xi does not feel at all compelled to be nice to the United States for the reason outlined above; though Japan is catching up of late, China remains our largest creditor.   We owe them big time…and they know it.

But Mr. Xi’s statement was interesting for more than its backhanded slap at the United States.  What does happen when a rising power and a great power encounter one another?  Let’s take a look at that largely forgotten subject, history:

Rising Power                                        Great Power                 Winner

Persia                                                   Babylon                        Persia

Macedonia (Greece)                             Persia                           Macedonia (Greece)

Rome                                                   Greece                         Rome

Assorted Germanic tribes                      Rome                           Assorted Germanic tribes

Great Britain                                         Spain                            Great Britain

Prussia (Germany)                                Austria                         Prussia (Germany)

Prussia (Germany)                                France                          Prussia (Germany)

And, on a less belligerent note, after the first two skirmishes…

Rising Power                                        Great Power                 Winner

United States                                        Great Britain                 United States

Now, the sides line up as

Rising Power                                        Great Power                 Winner

China                                                   United States                ??????

Unless one’s jingoism, or the consumption of one’s time with such vital fare as “The Khardashians” and “Dancing with the Stars,” leads one to totally ignore history, it doesn’t look good for the home team.