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Mr. Hu, the Stakeholder? Beijing Can Wait
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Morton Abramowitz,
International Herald Tribune,
5/19/2006
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In recent years, the term stakeholder has been added to foreign-policy parlance. Like the miner of yore or a company stockholder, countries now also can be stakeholders on specific policy matters in a variety of international institutions.
Impressively, the United States has now put before China a new public offering to buy a piece of the whole international system. It is apparently the brainchild of Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who, using his Treasury expertise, began the initial deliberations with China in 2005.
China does not have to put up any money, for the moment, although its continuing lending to the United States shows that it merits the opportunity to buy a stake in the system.
While conditions for the buy-in have been stated in terms of pursuing shared interests, China's only real requirements are to recognize the United States as general partner and take a minority share. But China can attend all meetings of the partnership with the big guys (it has a separate stake, of course, in the United Nations).
Beijing-watchers have proclaimed this a monumental advance in Chinese-American relations. They particularly liked Zoellick's salutary warning to China that to become a responsible stakeholder it would also have to change its ways.
Having only recently joined the market-oriented world, Chinese leaders were not used to the notion of stakeholder and had trouble even translating the term into Chinese. Dissecting the prospectus, they were surprised at the extraordinary compensation that Americans provided to leaders of failed companies, which is certainly not the case in China.
They were also a little amazed that the managing partner continued to occupy that key position given the enterprise's massive failure and continuing hemorrhaging from its Iraq stock offering. The Americans explained that since they went around the world doing good, an occasional failing enterprise, however regrettable, was not an unreasonable cost.
Given their sensitivity to American feelings, China's leaders took all the American conditions in stride. They became a little agitated, however, when Zoellick told them that if they wanted to be responsible stakeholders they also had better stop fiddling around with guys like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Than Shwe of Myanmar and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, and they had better start throttling Kim Jong Il's nuclear games in North Korea. They also had to treat their people better and hold more elections.
Beijing's research apparatus was quick to note that many fervent Bush administration underwriters were insisting that China even give up Taiwan before it could become a stakeholder. Beijing found that a little excessive. It was a little more concerned with American annoyance at Chinese purchases of oil concessions and exploration rights aound the world, but at least Washington did not tell them that membership required reducing oil consumption.
Returning home a few days ago, President Hu Jintao immediately discussed this offer with the politburo. They decided that this international stakeholding wasn't all it was cracked up to be. They need oil, and they don't mind doing business with whoever wants to do business.
Hu instructed his associates to listen quietly to all the American complaints about their bad domestic habits and simply go about their business. China would wait to buy a stake another day, hold on to its American bonds to keep Washington happy, and even continue to provide Wal-Mart with cheap goods.
Maybe later, when the U.S. trade deficit has grown, the Americans will sell them a minority share at cheaper prices. "You know," he said, "I bet they they might even make us a general partner."
Morton Abramowitz, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, is a former U.S. assistant secretary of state. This article originally appeared in the International Herald Tribune on May 16, 2006. |
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Taking Note
