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This project aims to begin a thorough and mutually enlightening engagement between leading American and Chinese students of world politics, on the reform and remaking of global institutions. Our purpose is to familiarize ourselves with Chinese thinking on this important topic, to begin discussions that could lead to greater mutual insight and understanding, and to collaboratively develop a joint work program that would draw on contemporary research in both China and the United States. The sessions that we are planning would coincide with and build on a series of presentations of the Princeton Project on National Security Final Report scheduled to take place in Beijing and Shanghai in January 2007.
The global institutions created in the wake of the Second World War seem increasingly inadequate, and regional arrangements, especially in Asia, remain underdeveloped. The United States invaded Iraq without clear authorization from the United Nations, and the United Nations has been unable to agree on major reforms to the institution, as proposed in 2005 by Secretary-General Annan. The World Trade Organization (WTO), after years of success, finds itself deadlocked in the Doha Round, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is being avoided by many major potential borrowers. Indeed, China's huge foreign exchange reserves have been interpreted by some as a vote of no-confidence in the IMF. The World Bank, whose mission is to promote economic development, has difficulty showing that it has done so successfully. The Kyoto Protocol has come into effect, but this regime for limiting emissions of greenhouse gasses does not involve either the United States or China. Meanwhile, new challenges have arisen, including a vast expansion of terrorism and the danger of global pandemics. The ambitious hopes and disappointing results of last year's efforts at UN reform exemplify this challenge. Dissatisfaction with the status quo is near universal, yet little consensus exists regarding what changes would be necessary to create a viable set of institutions to cope with global problems in the 21st century.
Both the United States and China have displayed ambivalent attitudes toward multilateral commitments and international organizations during recent years, although China's policy has become more multilateral, while under the administration of President George W. Bush, the United States has often acted unilaterally. On the surface, US declaratory policy is to see China become a more "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, yet it often appears as if the United States wants China simply to accept a system largely constructed by the United States, A major purpose of this project is to explore the conceptions of leading Chinese foreign policy thinkers about how the multilateral order should be reconstructed and the role that China should play in it.
Basic Models of Interstate Politics and Global Order. Both the United States and China often find themselves defending a rather strict view of national sovereignty and power. At the same time, both also selectively invoke global norms. Both Chinese and US policy makers have been critical of each other's conceptions of sovereign prerogatives. Many of these tensions in each country's policy appear to reflect internal divisions, between those who argue that the world politics is basically shaped by hegemony, patterns of polarity, and hard power, and those who argue that it is increasingly characterized by globalization, soft power, and pooled sovereignty. At a deeper level, the crucial question to address concerns the issue-areas in which hegemony, polarity, and hard power are dominant, and those in which globalization, soft power, and pooled sovereignty prevail. Under what conditions does world politics reflect more one set of attributes, or the other?
China and the United States as "Responsible Stakeholders" in Global Institutions. China and the United States hold ambivalent, yet differing, positions on what constitutes responsibility to the international system, On some issues, the United States has sought to create and deepen multilateral institutions; on others it has either behaved unilaterally or insisted that multilateral institutions must follow the patterns that it prescribes. China, on the other hand, has become increasingly powerful, economically and militarily, and in recent years has begun to take a leadership role in multilateral institutions. Bilateralism remains an essential part of China's foreign policy and diplomacy. Yet over last few years China has become increasingly proactive in promoting multilateralism in its external relations, as manifested in taking a leadership role in creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), promoting a FTA with ASEAN countries, leading a Davos-style Asia Forum, agreeing with ASEAN countries on the "Code of Conduct in the South China Sea", leading the process of six-party talks on North Korean nuclear crisis and initiating a China-Africa forum, as well as normatively redefining the "UN-centered multilateralism" as a new general theme of its foreign policy. A dialectic of multipolarity and multilateralism has emerged in the conduct of China's foreign policy, as China seeks to reduce the constraints of American hegemony while adapting its policies to the new realities of globalization and Asian regionalism.
National positions and likely futures for Asian integration. Chinese and American approaches to Asian regional integration are also a mixture of conflicting and converging interests. China has been seeking to strengthen bilateral and multilateral relations between itself and other Asian nations. Japan has countered with initiatives of its own, and over the past decade the US-Japanese alliance has been strengthened. The United States has been uneven in its commitment to APEC and other trans-Pacific forums. Indeed, the first East Asian summit focused on building an East Asian community took place without US participation. The United States and China have sought to cooperate on the two most dangerous crisis situations in Asia, having to do with North Korea and the status of Taiwan, although on both these issues their policies diverge significantly.
Multilateral institutions are often valuable in situations characterized by mixtures of conflicting and converging interests, since they provide ways to share information, establish routine practices and norms, link issues together, build credibility, and coordinate the activities of a number of states. Identifying and exploring how multilateral institutions could promote cooperation is essential if the 21st century is to be prosperous, relatively peaceful, and ecologically benign.
Most of the structured Sino-American dialogue, both through official and unofficial channels, has focused on bilateral and regional military affairs. Less attention has been paid to the issues that are the focus of this project: comprehensive, cooperative, and common security, and the implications of globalization for multilateralism.