China...
Enviado: Dom Mai 30, 2010 1:31 pm
Robert Kaplan é um dos principais analistas militares hoje em dia.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussio ... n-on-china
GIDEON ROSE: Hi, everybody. It's Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, here. We are delighted to have with us Robert Kaplan, the author of a major new piece in our May/June issue, "The Geography of Chinese Power." Bob is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic and has a new book out, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, which will appear in the fall.
Let's get right to it. You all know who our author is; that's why you're here. So for those who haven't read the article -- those few people living under a rock somewhere -- can you just summarize briefly what the gist of the piece is? And then we can discuss further some of the issues it raises.
ROBERT KAPLAN: Sure, Gideon. We've been reading a lot about China, about China holding so much of our debt, about -- you know -- all these problems the U.S. has in their bilateral relations with China over global warming, over China's support of authoritarian regimes in Burma, in Sudan, and all that. But one thing that's the most obvious thing that nobody writes about is Chinese geography; in other words, what does the map say about China?
That's what this piece is all about. And it's got several themes. Whereas Russia is north of the 50th degree of parallel and is in the frigid Arctic zone for the most part, China is a temperate-zone power that harnesses a lot of the mineral and energy wealth into Central Asia as well as having a long 9,000-mile frontage in the temperate and subtropical zones on the Indian Ocean.
And this gives China tremendous advantages. China is also -- as a rising power, it is through demographics, aggressive corporate practices, signing border agreements and trade practices, it's expanding its zone of influence into contiguous zones: into the Russian Far East, into Mongolia, into Central Asia, into Southeast Asia. And it is building ports or helping to build ports along the Indian Ocean. It's taking steps with its navy that will secure for China at least partial control of the South China Sea, of the East China Sea.
The map of China is growing, and this presents a geopolitical challenge, because just as the U.S. is the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, China is becoming -- on its way to becoming -- a sort of hegemon over, we'll say, much of the Eastern Hemisphere.
ROSE: Okay. Let's talk about this for a second. How inevitable is this, and does it depend on things like the rates of growth in the Chinese economy or political stability in China, or the political system that the Chinese themselves have?
KAPLAN: Well, as I say early on, history is not linear. We cannot take for granted that China is going to have the kind of economic growth in the future that it has had over the past 30 years. There'll be a lot of bumps and bruises along the line. And this will definitely affect China's ability to project power through its navy and through its corporations and the deals it signs on land.
But a few things should be mentioned. First is that China is projecting its power -- its hard power, rather -- largely through its navy. And there was a good New York Times story to that regard by Edward Wong just about a week ago. The fact that China can do this, as I say in the article, represents a luxury for China, because continental land powers go to sea not as a matter of course but as a luxury. And the luxury in China's case is that its land borders are more secure than they have been in a very long time. And that, in and of itself, says much about how China is a rising power, because as we know from much of Chinese history, a lot of these land borders were insecure -- you know, 100 years ago, China barely had control over Manchuria, over many other regions.
ROSE: Okay. Let's talk for a little bit about the means by which all this is going to happen. I mean, a greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere is a very bad thing if acquired in some respects, and may not -- may be less so -- if it's more benignly originating. Are you arguing that this is going to be basically a source of conflict on China's part?
KAPLAN: It may not be. I say early on in the piece that China is not an existential threat. China is not a -- China's military threat to the United States, for instance, is indirect only, through its trying to limit America's access to the East and South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan.
I think that China's geographic growth of sorts is more an expression of a situation going back to normal than it is of some power that means to do harm. I think that -- as I say in the piece -- Chinese leaders are not a proselytizing power. They're not a missionary power like the United States; they're not trying to promote any particular system of government. They're in search of mineral wealth and oil and energy in order to raise the standard of living of one-fifth of humanity. And this makes them, as I call it, an über-realist power. That is going to be a challenge for us to deal with but is in no sense negative or evil.
ROSE: Okay. Realists have often talked about the incidents of conflict that occur, not just from crusading powers or ideological systems but simply from the normal logic of competing interests. And so even if China is not aggressive or crusading, if it tries to expand its interests and sphere of interests naturally -- along the lines you suggest -- it'll start to bump up against what the United States considers its sphere of interests in the Pacific and in the region.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussio ... n-on-china
GIDEON ROSE: Hi, everybody. It's Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, here. We are delighted to have with us Robert Kaplan, the author of a major new piece in our May/June issue, "The Geography of Chinese Power." Bob is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic and has a new book out, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, which will appear in the fall.
Let's get right to it. You all know who our author is; that's why you're here. So for those who haven't read the article -- those few people living under a rock somewhere -- can you just summarize briefly what the gist of the piece is? And then we can discuss further some of the issues it raises.
ROBERT KAPLAN: Sure, Gideon. We've been reading a lot about China, about China holding so much of our debt, about -- you know -- all these problems the U.S. has in their bilateral relations with China over global warming, over China's support of authoritarian regimes in Burma, in Sudan, and all that. But one thing that's the most obvious thing that nobody writes about is Chinese geography; in other words, what does the map say about China?
That's what this piece is all about. And it's got several themes. Whereas Russia is north of the 50th degree of parallel and is in the frigid Arctic zone for the most part, China is a temperate-zone power that harnesses a lot of the mineral and energy wealth into Central Asia as well as having a long 9,000-mile frontage in the temperate and subtropical zones on the Indian Ocean.
And this gives China tremendous advantages. China is also -- as a rising power, it is through demographics, aggressive corporate practices, signing border agreements and trade practices, it's expanding its zone of influence into contiguous zones: into the Russian Far East, into Mongolia, into Central Asia, into Southeast Asia. And it is building ports or helping to build ports along the Indian Ocean. It's taking steps with its navy that will secure for China at least partial control of the South China Sea, of the East China Sea.
The map of China is growing, and this presents a geopolitical challenge, because just as the U.S. is the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, China is becoming -- on its way to becoming -- a sort of hegemon over, we'll say, much of the Eastern Hemisphere.
ROSE: Okay. Let's talk about this for a second. How inevitable is this, and does it depend on things like the rates of growth in the Chinese economy or political stability in China, or the political system that the Chinese themselves have?
KAPLAN: Well, as I say early on, history is not linear. We cannot take for granted that China is going to have the kind of economic growth in the future that it has had over the past 30 years. There'll be a lot of bumps and bruises along the line. And this will definitely affect China's ability to project power through its navy and through its corporations and the deals it signs on land.
But a few things should be mentioned. First is that China is projecting its power -- its hard power, rather -- largely through its navy. And there was a good New York Times story to that regard by Edward Wong just about a week ago. The fact that China can do this, as I say in the article, represents a luxury for China, because continental land powers go to sea not as a matter of course but as a luxury. And the luxury in China's case is that its land borders are more secure than they have been in a very long time. And that, in and of itself, says much about how China is a rising power, because as we know from much of Chinese history, a lot of these land borders were insecure -- you know, 100 years ago, China barely had control over Manchuria, over many other regions.
ROSE: Okay. Let's talk for a little bit about the means by which all this is going to happen. I mean, a greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere is a very bad thing if acquired in some respects, and may not -- may be less so -- if it's more benignly originating. Are you arguing that this is going to be basically a source of conflict on China's part?
KAPLAN: It may not be. I say early on in the piece that China is not an existential threat. China is not a -- China's military threat to the United States, for instance, is indirect only, through its trying to limit America's access to the East and South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan.
I think that China's geographic growth of sorts is more an expression of a situation going back to normal than it is of some power that means to do harm. I think that -- as I say in the piece -- Chinese leaders are not a proselytizing power. They're not a missionary power like the United States; they're not trying to promote any particular system of government. They're in search of mineral wealth and oil and energy in order to raise the standard of living of one-fifth of humanity. And this makes them, as I call it, an über-realist power. That is going to be a challenge for us to deal with but is in no sense negative or evil.
ROSE: Okay. Realists have often talked about the incidents of conflict that occur, not just from crusading powers or ideological systems but simply from the normal logic of competing interests. And so even if China is not aggressive or crusading, if it tries to expand its interests and sphere of interests naturally -- along the lines you suggest -- it'll start to bump up against what the United States considers its sphere of interests in the Pacific and in the region.
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