The D.C. Summit

Watching the picture-perfect pomp and ceremony surrounding President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington on January 18, 2011, was a dream come true. After writing four books that each, in it’s own way, advocates a Sino-U.S. partnership to lead the world through the 21st-century, and having given a talk earlier in the day advocating a Sino-U.S. partnership that is long overdue, I came to the realization that America and China have finally come to terms with each other.

Both president Barack Obama and Hu Jintao understand that a crisis in one will adversely impact on the other. What happens to one affects the other, and why shouldn’t the results be positive? “The China-US relationship is not one in which one side’s gain means the other side’s loss,” said Hu.

“What Deng Xiaoping said long ago remains true today. There are still great possibilities for cooperation between our countries,” Obama said.

The flawless formal highly choreographed red carpet-black-tie arrival, with welcomes from President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and their wives, and a long line of Cabinet members and Chinese dignitaries was just the long overdue face gaining spectacular and respect that protocol conscious China and Hu craved and deserve. China wanted to see Hu being treated as the respected leader of a nation taking its place at the head of the global table.

What a difference to the snubs president Hu received during his 2005 and 2006 visits to the U.S. The 2006 arrival ceremony was marred by protocol blunders including an outburst from a Falun Gong protester.

The ceremonial pomp-filled 21-gun salute, with full honors and color guard welcoming ceremony ushered in a page-turning “new chapter” with a new play book for the “new era” in Sino-U.S. relations.

The mutual feel-good factor by Americans and Chinese towards each other seemed to overnight replace the mutual mistrust and is on a harmonious trajectory for the prickly growth of bilateral ties. Both countries have recalibrated their tone and direction of their ties. More than 50 percent of Americans and Chinese regard Sino-U.S. ties as “very important,” more than double the 2009 percentage. With the changing of the global political and economic landscape, Sino-U.S. relations now go well beyond the boundaries of bilateral ties and have global ramifications. China and the U.S. share many common interests and both sides must “work together to open a new chapter of co-operation as partners,” said president Hu. The repeated calls for broader cooperation as partners by both presidents was long overdue.

The last 30 years of relations were marked by continued exchanges and increased mutual understanding, Obama said, before adding that Hu’s visit serves to lay the foundation for deeper prosperity between their two nations in the next 30 years.

Mutual Trust, Respect and Benefit

Before America and China embrace each other, there has to be true mutual respect, as distinguished from politically expedient respect, that is mutually beneficial. This is one critical relationship that cannot flourish by being limited to words alone. It is one that has to be based and developed on geopolitical and economic facts. The domestic political reality of each country ─ verbal and factual ─ are the special national sauces each has to get used to, and trust.

Wikileaks release of U.S. State Department highly classified confidential cables didn’t do much to restore any of the already eroding trust. Accusing China’s Politburo of directing the 2010 cyber intrusions into Google’s computer systems as part of a “coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and internet outlaws,” something I had warned would happen in Custom Maid War and Feasting Dragon, Starving Eagle, is again shifting blame and responsibility from where it belongs ─ Washington and the Pentagon.

Mutual suspicion gets neither anywhere, especially closer to each other, which is not really surprising. Both have to change politically and meet each other half way, politically and economically. Both have to co-operate and reciprocate more ─ and learn from each other.

Positive reinforcement with co-operative positive acts repeatedly reinforced by each other are a lot more constructive and productive than political duplicity where the cheating by one party results in the other responding in kind ─ tit-for-tat.

American arms deals with Taiwan do not motivate China to restrain North Korea. After all, if America doesn’t listen, why should China? The fact that Obama has met with Hu more than any other foreign leader since the start of his presidency is meaningless if no trust is developed because of the failure of America to listen. China is not receptive to lectures, especially when America doesn’t listen.

America refuses to sell its high tech technology to China. So why is America surprised when China refuses to sell its precious rare earths to Japan?

Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao, can and must turn a new cooperative page They both have to start trusting and respecting each other and their respective domestic agendas as national leaders if they want to leave a legacy of being the builders of the Sino-American bridge for constructive global leadership in the 21st-century.

Balanced Global Leadership

The New Year and decade will hopefully usher in the peace and prosperity the world has long been craving. The state visit by China’s President Hu Jintau to America this month, where he will finally be feted at the long overdue White House state dinner by President Obama, offers both leaders the opportunity to do just that. Balance their countries mutually beneficial ─ and globally beneficial ─ leadership roles.

America’s economic and financial crisis offers China a unique opportunity to become the new global leader. China can replace the U.S. as the world’s new superpower. The question is will it? China has little debt, enormous savings with huge growth potential. Its’ current per capita income of $3,300 could be raised to $10,000 within two decades through a combination of growth and currency appreciation. At the same time, gross domestic product could rise from today’s more than $4 trillion to $13 trillion in today’s dollar terms. Such an increase could offer plenty to investors who bet on China’s future.

Many countries are retreating from some free market rules that have guided international trade in recent decades and have started playing by Chinese rules. But for China to engineer a new capital and political world order, it has to end the rampant corruption, fraud, intellectual and political misrepresentation, allow its currency to float freely, open it’s capital markets, have a truly independent judiciary that adheres to the rule of law, a free press and a more democratic political system ─ all of which are achievable ─ and a good reason why America should embrace China as its partner and lead the world together to a peaceful and harmonious future, a theme I have repeatedly advocated over the years.

The reality is the world is not anxious to embrace China as the world’s new superpower. The world still looks to America for leadership because of its constitutional ideals and humanity. To continue to lead, America cannot do so alone anymore. It needs a partner. That partner is not Russia, Japan or the EU. It is China.

The Sino-U.S. currency and Korean clashes are good starting cornerstones for both leaders to build their balanced shared global leadership roles at their summit to ensure a mutually beneficial and financially secure and peaceful 21st-century.