Spent my insomnia hours last night reading "China's Foreign Policy and 'Soft Power' in South America, Asia and Africa." This was a report prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate (download .PDF here). I was interested in this mostly by what it tells us about the author(s) and of the U.S. perception of China. We all have our own opinions about China's role in the developing world, so that's sort of old hat at this point. Perception and policy is much more fun to talk about.

So anyway, here are a few choice excerpts with my comments (where appropriate).

Although U.S. Administrations for decades have pursued consistent engagement with China, periodic questions arise about whether the U.S. approach is based on a well-articulated and coherent strategy or is simply an approach of convenience that should be reassessed in the face of China’s rise.

Outside the Administration, the U.S. policy debate continues to be characterized by the strident dynamics that arose in the mid-1990s, in which American hard-liners (self-described as the ‘‘Blue Team’’) are pitted against those advising cooperation and engagement with China (pejoratively labeled as the ‘‘Red Team’’ by the opposing group). Thus, there is little agreement about the degree of threat or challenge China poses to the United States.

This last bit is quite an understatement. The disagreement in question is between rational folks and xenophobic Cold Warriors. Have I mentioned before how thoroughly I dislike the "Blue Team" and wingnuts like Michael Ledeen (he is currently focused on nuking Iran, but even so).

More on the distinction between the two groups. Note the terminology:

In the vocal minority are those who view China as a growing military menace with malign intent. These hardliners have been perceived sometimes by others as agitators whose counsel to treat China as a major threat to U.S. interests is designed to justify huge U.S. military budgets and is more likely to bring about conflict with China than to deter it.

The view that has been pursued more openly by U.S. Administrations is one that counsels cooperation and engagement with China as the best way to integrate China into the prevailing global system as a ‘‘responsible stakeholder’’— a nation that has ‘‘a responsibility to strengthen the international system that has enabled its success.’’ But opponents of this approach typically paint these as the views of ‘‘panda-huggers’’ who, seduced by the potential of the China market, are oblivious to PRC hostile intent, cave in to PRC wishes and demands unnecessarily, and thereby squander U.S. strategic leverage and compromise U.S. interests.

The confrontational and highly-charged dynamic between these two polar views continues to make elusive the kind of pragmatic and reasoned policy discourse that could create greater American consensus on how the United States should position itself to meet the challenges China poses.

Surprised at the boldness of this language? I am, sort of. In the above passage, we are told that China bashers are, in part, using the threat of China to justify military spending. Moreover, and obviously, this sort of thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is one of the reasons I dislike the bashers so much. If you talk about armed conflict long enough, people start to believe it's inevitable. Then you build more weapons, and violence becomes even more likely. Nasty spiral o' death, that. It's also rather difficult to discuss the environment, trade, and other bilateral initiatives when the "Blue Team" reduces everything to 1920s, or perhaps 1950s, stereotypes.

I think I'll wrap up this post and turn to the actual soft power stuff in a fresh one. The comments here on U.S. policy stand on their own, and this is running a little long anyway.