'Clash of Civilizations' Has No Place in U.S. Foreign Policy

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'Clash of Civilizations' Has No Place in U.S. Foreign Policy

Bloomberg  Hal Brands,Bloomberg Sat, May 4 8:00 AM PDT

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It isn’t often that high-ranking U.S. diplomats publicly invoke the ideas of ivory-tower academics. But earlier this week, the director of policy planning at the State Department, Kiron Skinner, used a controversial concept created by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington to describe America’s unfolding rivalry with China. Speaking at a Washington think tank, Skinner said that China’s rise constitutes a generational challenge that will require a generational response. She also argued that the rivalry represents a great “clash of civilizations,” the term Huntington, who died in 2008, coined in predicting what would take place after the end of the Cold War.

The Trump administration is undoubtedly right that competition with China will be a decades-long affair. Yet the Clash of Civilizations model won’t help the U.S win that competition, because it actually supports Beijing’s strategy better than America’s.

Huntington introduced the clash thesis in a famous Foreign Affairs essay written in 1993. He argued that, with the collapse of communism, ideological rivalries would no longer drive global affairs. Rather, conflict would occur between groups defined by culture, religion and identity. Among the clashing groups would be a Western civilization in Europe and North America, and a “Sinic” civilization made up of China and many of its Asian neighbors.

The clash thesis gained popularity amid bloody struggles between Muslim and Christian communities in the former Yugoslavia, and particularly after the eruption of the war on terror after 9/11. The U.S. government always rejected Huntington’s framing, though: the George W. Bush administration argued that the war on terror was a product of a clash within a civilization — between the tolerant and intolerant parts of the Muslim world — rather than a clash between the Muslim world and the West.

Today, there are profound cultural differences between the U.S. and China, in addition to myriad economic and geopolitical strains. But critics of the Trump administration will hear talk of a civilizational conflict as an echo of the idea, promoted by the controversial former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, that the world has reached a confrontation pitting the Christian West against the rest. And even leaving that loaded issue aside, the concept is ideologically and geopolitically counterproductive.

For one thing, “clash” rhetoric sacrifices the moral high ground in the U.S.-China competition. America has long claimed that democratic values and human rights are not distinctly Western ideas. Instead, they are universal ideas that people everywhere deserve to enjoy — and that no government has a right to deny its people.

This argument, although sometimes selectively applied, represents a fundamental foreign policy strength because it allows the U.S. to identify itself with the aspirations of people around the world — even in countries that are controlled by hostile regimes. Moreover, U.S. officials have used the idea that human rights and democratic values are universal as an ideological bludgeon against authoritarian governments, as it did to great effect against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Chinese government, by contrast, has embraced the concept of civilizational difference as a means of autocratic self-protection. Beijing has long rejected the idea that it should liberalize its political system — or simply stop throwing dissidents in jail — on grounds that “Western” concepts of democracy and individual rights are incompatible with the traditions of China’s unique civilization.

The U.S. should not be supporting this idea, even implicitly; it should not be affirming the civilizational wall the Chinese regime has sought to build between its citizens and the democratic world.

The clash thesis is also geopolitically dangerous, because here, too, it plays into China’s hands. The Chinese government has long argued that the world should, in fact, be divided along civilizational lines: That Asians have more in common with each other than they do with the U.S., and that Washington should therefore leave Asia to the Asians — meaning that it should allow China to dominate that part of the world. This argument provides an intellectual underpinning for everything Beijing is doing to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific: Undermining U.S. alliances, building up its military, and weaving webs of economic dependence around its neighbors.

The idea of drawing sharp boundaries between East and West is thus critical to China’s strategy — and it is lethal to America’s. To counter China, the U.S. will need to rally a coalition that cuts across civilizations. This includes, but is not limited to, the democracies of the Western Hemisphere and Europe and an array of Asian countries that are troubled by China’s rise. Yet talking about civilizational clashes merely highlights the cultural and racial differences between the U.S. and Vietnam or India, at precisely the moment when common geopolitical interests need to be brought to the fore.

To hold together a diverse balancing coalition against an ambitious China will be hard enough. American diplomats shouldn’t make that task any more challenging than it has to be.

(To contact the author of this story: Hal Brands at Hal.Brands@jhu.edu

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Most recently, he is the co-author of "The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order."

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.)

My translation

（彭博意見） - 高級別的美國外交官通常不會公開援引象牙塔學者的觀點。但本週早些時候，美國國務院政策規劃主任姫朗斯金納 (Kiron Skinner) 利用哈佛大學教授塞繆爾亨廷頓(Samuel Huntington) 所創建的一個有爭議概念來描述美國與中國正在展開的競爭。斯金納在華盛頓的一個智囊團發表講話說，中國的崛起​​是一代人的挑戰，需要一代人的回應。她還認為，這場競爭代表了一場偉大的“文化衝突”, “文化衝突”這一詞是已於2008年去世的亨廷頓所創出，用作是預測冷戰結束後將發生的事情。

特朗普 (Trump) 政府毫無疑問是正確的，與中國的競爭將會是一個長達數十年的事件。然而，“文化衝突”模式無助美國贏得這場競爭，因為它實際上支持北京的戰略多於美國。

亨廷頓在1993年撰寫的著名外交文章中介紹了衝突論點。他認為隨著共產主義的崩潰，意識形態的競爭將不再是全球事務的推動力。相反，在文化，宗教和身份所定義的群體之間會發生衝突。衝突群體中包括歐洲和北美的西方文明，以及由中國和許多亞洲鄰國組成的“中國”文明。

在前南斯拉夫的穆斯林和基督教社區之間的血腥鬥爭中，特別是在911事件後的反恐戰爭爆發後，衝突論文得到了普及。儘管如此，美國政府總是拒絕亨廷頓的框架：喬治布殊(George W. Bush) 政府認為，反恐戰爭是文化衝突的產物 - 是穆斯林世界的寬容和不寬容两派之間衝突 - 而不是穆斯林和西方世界的衝突。

今天，除了無數的經濟和地緣政治壓力之外，美國和中國之間存在深刻的文化差異。但特朗普政府的批評者將聽到關於文明衝突言論的迴聲，這是具有爭議的前特朗普顧問史蒂夫班農 (Steve Bannon) 提出的這一想法，即世界已經達到西方基督徒對抗其餘所有的人。即使撇開其中付加意思，這個概念在意識形態和地緣政治上都會帶來消極效應。

一方面，“衝突”言論犧牲了美中競爭中的道德制高點。美國長期以來一直聲稱民主價值觀和人權並非西方的特有觀念。相反，它們是世界各地人民應該享有的普遍觀念 - 並且任何政府都沒有權利否認其人民應該享有。

這一論點雖然有時被選擇性地應用，但它代表了一種基本的外交政策力量，因為它允許美國認同世界各地人民的願望 - 即使在受敵對政權控制的國家。此外，美國官員使用的觀點是，人權和民主價值觀是普遍的，是反對威權政府的意識形態打擊，因為它在冷戰期間對蘇聯產生了巨大影響。

相比之下，中國政府已經接受了文明差異作為專制,自我保護手段的概念。北京長期以來一直拒絕接受它及應該放開政治體制這一觀點 - 或者只是停止將持不同政見者投入監獄 - 理由是 “西方” 的民主和個人權利概念與中國獨特文明的傳統不相容。

美國不應該支持這個想法, 就算在不经意之中; 它不應該認同中國政權在其公民和民主世界之間尋求建立一幅分隔文明的牆。

衝突論也具有地緣政治危險性，因為在這裡，在中國的手中它也會被發揮作用。中國政府長期以來一直認為世界應該按照文明的方式劃分：亞洲人彼此之間的共同點多於對美國的共同點，華盛頓因此應該把亞洲留給亞洲人 - 這意味著它應該讓中國主宰世界這一地區。這一論點為北京為推動美國脫離西太平洋所做的一切提供了知性的支持：削弱美國聯盟，建立軍事力量，並圍繞鄰國編織一個互相依賴經濟網。

因此，在東西方之間劃清界限的想法對中國的戰略至關重要 - 而且它對美國來說是致命的。為了對抗中國，美國需要團結一個跨越文化的聯盟。這包括但不限於西半球和歐洲的民主國家以及一系列受中國崛起困擾的亞洲國家。文化衝突論只會突出了美國與越南或印度之間的文化和種族差異。

將一個多元化的平衡聯盟與雄心勃勃的中國团结起来將是非常困難的。 美國外交官不應該讓這項任務變得更具挑戰性。

My comments

I think the present conflict could be understood as a regional conflict of interest between China and the US.  When China became the world’ second largest economic entity about a decade ago, it began to flex its economic muscle towards its Asia neighbors, and started to advocate its territorial rights in Asia in general, and in the South China Sea in particular. China’s leader is trying to realize its “China Dream” (中國夢) in bringing China back to a strong country (for more information on 中國夢 please see the same hashtag in my blog). China is challenging the US’s presence in the South China sea and causing the conflicts. There are little cultural elements in the present conflict, it is mainly about economic interests. Yet economic power of a country can easily be transformed into political and military power. To find out an answer on the cause of the present conflict, one may try to ask why this conflict sudden appeared starting a few years ago while cultural different between East and West has existed for over several hundreds if not several thousands of years.

While CCP practices ideological control inside its country on grounds that “Western” concepts of democracy and individual rights are incompatible with the traditions of China’s unique civilization, yet one could find it difficult to define what is meant by “the traditions of China’s unique civilization”. Tradition and civilization are cultural components of a nation which are always changing over time. It is absurd for a country to always adhere to its past tradition in charting its future course in development. For CCP, the only reason to advocate the uniqueness in tradition and civilization is to use it as a pretext to say no to freedom of speech and thinking etc. One way to understand the present conflict between the West (mainly the US and EU) is that it is a competition between two political systems: China that advocates state control for high efficiency at the expenses of democracy verses the West that advocates democracy at the expenses of efficiency. Chances are that usually a highly efficient political system could have a higher chance to win conflicts with other countries. For example, Nazi Germany in Europe before the US joining WWII.

Japan in late 1960s became the world’s second biggest economy. Its soft power was reflected in its high-quality consumer and household products, for example cars and cameras; and in cultural goods such pop music, cartoon and TV drama. Contrasting this, China’s present soft power is money, in the form of a huge consumer market at home and exporting construction projects abroad. This is further supplemented by its the ability to give out easy loans to other countries. China's  ambitions are wrapped in its  “One Belt One Road” thinking.

The only way for the US to check China is to use trading power; and to build up a strong alliance by outreaching to new friends such as Vietnam who has a worry over an expansive China. On the ideological front, the US should continue to advocate that human rights and democratic values are universal and to use it as an ideological tool against authoritarian governments, as it was done in fighting against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

So, a “clash of civilizations” is not relevant to the present conflicts between China and the US. Rather I love to liken the present confrontational situation to the national relationship between Imperial Japan and the US before WWII when Japan was under a totalitarian regime and tried to dominate Asia.  If there were no Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941 that dragged the US into a war,  I think Imperial Japan would continue enjoying a much longer prosperity by relying on its military superiority over its Asian neighbors.