Redefining Pragmatic Engagement: The “New Model” of U.S.-China Relations and the Opportunity of Shared Consequences

A response to this piece written by Doug Strub can be found here.

Abstract:Since the 2013 meeting of Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in Sunnylands, California, one phrase has come to define both the vast potential for bilateral cooperation and the failure to realize that potential: the Chinese proposal for a “new model of major country relations” (新型大国关系). While China has presented the concept in terms of “win-win” cooperation, U.S. skepticism has broadly centered on two critiques. First, U.S. policy makers are concerned that associated language regarding “respect for core interests” represents an attempt to procure concessions regarding longstanding differences of opinion on Taiwan, Tibet, and similarly fraught topics. Secondly, the United States has made clear its position that bilateral ties “should be based not on slogans but on the quality of the cooperation”: pragmatic, concrete results should come before rhetoric.This article compares three different ways of understanding this“concrete” dimension of political engagement: 1) Policy“realism,” as manifested in dominant strains of policy analysis in both the United States and China that, while distinct, share many important common premises; 2) the “empiricist” positions of those who argue the need to take into account various underlying trends which counterbalance realist considerations; and 3) the more thickly “pragmatic” model proposed here, in which rhetorical factors rejected in the above models are themselves regarded as empirically significant in the conscious development of “public, objective and shared consequences.” Embracing China’s “new model” language may, itself, thus enable otherwise unlikely pragmatic achievements.