NEW YORK, Sept 22: US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick on Wednesday called upon China to take concrete steps to assure the world it will use its power responsibly and said Beijing’s approach to Tehran would prove its seriousness on combating nuclear proliferation.
The ‘essential question’ for the United States and the world was ‘how will China use its influence’ because the answer would have a profound effect on international development for years to come, he said.
In a speech to the National Committee on US-China relations, which promotes ties between the two countries, Mr Zoellick acknowledged that ‘many Americans worry that the Chinese dragon will be a firebreather. There is a caldron of anxiety about China’.
China must become a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system that has enabled its success because ‘uncertainties about how China will use its power will lead the United States, and others as well, to hedge relations with China’, he said.
Noting rising protectionist pressures in America fuelled by a huge trade deficit with China, Mr Zoellick said Beijing ‘cannot take access to the US market for granted’.
“The United States will not be able to sustain an open international economic system — or domestic support for such a system — without greater cooperation from China,” the former US trade representative said.
He also urged China to open its political system, saying those who believed they could secure the Communist Party’s power monopoly through economic growth and heightened nationalism were following a ‘risky and mistaken’ course.
Mr Zoellick, in charge of what Washington calls a new US strategic dialogue with Beijing, discussed key issues facing the two powers a week after President George Bush met Chinese President Hu Jintao during the UN General Assembly.
Amid rising US concern over China’s growing military, economic and political clout, Mr Zoellick made a strong argument for fostering greater cooperation.
“You hear the voices that perceive China solely through the lens of fear. But America succeeds when we look to the future as an opportunity, not when we fear what the future might bring,” he said.
In an apparent reference to suggestions the United States seeks closer ties with India as a counterweight to China, Mr Zoellick said: “We are too interconnected to try to hold China at arm’s length, hoping to promote other powers in Asia at its expense.”
“Nor would the other powers hold China at bay,” he added.
Mr Zoellick said China had a strong interest in working with the United States on halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction and its ‘actions on Iran’s nuclear program will reveal the seriousness of China’s commitment to non-proliferation’.
China has received high marks for hosting six-country negotiations that this week produced an initial accord on North Korea’s nuclear programs.
But it has joined Russia in helping to block the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency from referring concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
China should work with the United States to develop diverse energy sources, crack down on theft of intellectual property and forgive $7 billion in Iraqi debt held by Chinese state companies, he said.
Mr Zoellick said China needed to realize how its actions were perceived. “China’s involvement with troublesome states indicates at best a blindness to consequences and at worst something more ominous.”
In addition to Iran, the United States is anxious about China’s ties, spurred mostly by energy needs, with Sudan, Venezuela, Myanmar and Zimbabwe. —Reuters
