Should China Join a Military Pact?
U.S. and China are yet coming to closer
In winter of 1985, I was taking a course of international politics at the University of Michigan. In Ann Arbor campus, it got literally cold but the class of political science department was hot enough that all eager minds of tomorrow were directing their eyes to a tall African American Professor. Dr. Raymond Tanter discussed Strategic Defense Initiative, so called Star Wars. Star Wars was the idea that U.S. Department of Defense knock off all incoming intercontinental nuclear missiles from Russia. Ironically, one symbol movie theater on the State Street in Ann Arbor cast a road show of “Return of the Jedi”, the third episode of the first Star Wars series. In the film, there was no subtitle of Japanese so I barely understood the box-hit film.
The class of Dr. Tanter was similar to the Star Wars movie. It was very hard for me to understand a history of military diplomacy of the United States. No wonder, I had never had any class in English before. But Dr. Tanter was a very kind professor, navigating me thought the right path to understand the US diplomatic tactics along with his students. On night, my classmates surrounded professor at the Irish bar and discussed U.S. foreign policy with a pitcher of local beer of Michigan. I had never had an experience that professor talked and drank a glass of beer with students who made strong opposing argument to the intellectual who served as a senior member on the Middle East Desk of the National Security Council staff in the Reagan-Bush administration. Beer was a good oil to smooth out the conflict.
A recent story of the Economist, “Three’s a crowd, Donald Trump wants China to join a nuclear-weapons pact”, explains the recent situation of trilateral nuclear talk. For over 56 years, China had never disclosed the figure of its nuclear arsenal. The closed door was temporarily disrupted by a debate in social media in China over the number of nuclear warheads. The nationalist editor of Beijing suggested that China should expand the number to 1,000 weapons. On the National Day parade in Beijing, China displayed the DF-41s, the first missiles of its kind in China to reach anywhere in the mainland of America and to be mobile on roads so that America must have sophisticated targeting system to counter-attack the aggressions from Sino intents.
China has to start talking. The editor of the Global Times, Mr. Hu Xijin, claimed as true to Western estimates that the deployment of arsenal counts a far fewer than 1,000 and approximately 300 nuclear warheads are a good guess. China sat out arms control talk. The New START treaty will expire in February and President Trump wants China to sign up first, a pressure to join a three-way deal.
China should enter the talk. According to my limited but reliable personal source, China needs to end the obsessive secrecy. Hiding the evidence is counter-productive in international community. The secret diplomacy creates a lot of conspiracy theories, which must have each of three countries, U.S. Russia, and China, ready for the worst case scenarios. Furthermore, if something happens, as in the case of COVID-19, China has to make a convincing justification to the rest of the world for a long time. Compensation will eventually pile up in secret diplomacy.
Should China join the military pact? Public officials in the Chinese government are in the tough spot. The talk will be conducted in English language, which is not the mother tongue of China. The treaty will be drafted by legal experts, trained with Western legal institutions. The procedure comes with a Western approach. China does not have a long history of legal settlement with Western counterparts, not to mention at the state affairs. It is doubtful that China accepts American way of signing the pact.
It has been 35 years past since Tanter’s class. He explained to me all new ideas of national interests, balance of power, deterrence, and arms-control. He was regarded as leaning toward a hawkish side of international politics as an advisor of Middle-East policy of the United States. But he was misunderstood by many students in Michigan at that time. Nobody, including my classmates, remembers a brief debate at Irish table at night any longer. But I remember Dr. Tanter say, “Wait, we are going to settle the conflict in a peaceful manner. To do it, we need a long conversation with the opposing views. ” I would say and ask, “Dr. Tanter, it is nice to meet you again. Do you still remember me? Should China join the treaty next February?” I hope he will navigate me again with his passion and knowledge, not with pitcher of beer this time but with pizza at Uno’s restaurant.