BY
PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
The stealthy but steadily expanding pandemic, which has put millions of people on
edge, worried about their lives and livelihoods, is proving to be a
game-changer. Its toll on human suffering and devastated economies is
reasonably well documented, but not the pressure it exerts on foreign policy.
The short tempers, petty provocations and latent prejudices seen erupting on
the street are echoed in the halls of governance as well; indeed a pattern of
top-down invective can be clearly traced.
Global anxiety about the pandemic is a force field full
of distortions akin to the “fog of war.” Fear, panic and a rush to self-preservation is
diminishing common decency and common sense.
Petty slights, retaliatory digs and mean-spirited
policy threaten to become casus belli. When China and the US each accuse each
other of weaponizing the coronavirus, the world suffers from the release of a
new, unwanted political virus.
The White House casts cruel aspersions about
Chinese people and summarily puts immigrants and foreign students on notice. In
the Pacific Ocean, routine patrols have been stepped up, “freedom of
navigation” asserted with bellicosity and surveillance increased. Companies get
slapped with sanctions without evidence. Journalists are tossed out on both
sides, leaving hysterical voices to fill the vacuum.
The world, riddled by the quick-flowing news and acidulous
misinformation on the Internet, is seeing angry reactions in reaction to angry
reactions, ad infinitum. The rapid exchange of insults and tribalization of
like-minded views is creating a Tower of Babel moment. Proponents of isolationism
and provincialism gain strength with each lockdown and the shock reduction of
travel, tourism and trade.
Virus-battered, hypervigilant populations are
beginning to shape relations between states. Reactionary populist demands make
for bad diplomacy, but diplomacy, too, has been contaminated by the toxic mood
of the times.
A kind of collective trauma has set in. Even after
the worst of the pandemic passes, stresses will linger. The irritability,
confusion, anxiety and despair has gone global. The tell-tale signs of denial, angry
outbursts and self-destructive behavior are in the daily news for all to see.
Everyone, everywhere, is on guard. China and the US
are part of a larger world collectively suffering from post-traumatic stress
syndrome.
But it takes two to tango, and therein lies a
strategy, if not a remedy.
Shi Yinhong at Remmin University recently touched
on a critical point when he told the South
China Morning Post that China need not respond in kind to every
provocation:
“China could choose not to retaliate in
this specific case,” Shi suggested, in reference to sanctions recently slapped
on Chinese officials. “I think by doing so China could avoid causing further
damage to its own interests.”
Indeed, breaking a cycle of resentment may well serve to create political capital. “An asymmetric approach could give China more space and leave a window to talk business with the next president,” Shi added.
Invoking asymmetry in the name of peace is break-through diplomacy. Asymmetry strategy has a long history in warfare, for example the rag-tag American colonial subjects who took on mighty Britain, or Ho Chi Minh’s under-fed, under-supplied troops who defeated both French and American attempts to take control.
But arguing for a foreign policy that invokes
asymmetry for the sake of peace is fresh, out-of-the-box thinking. It helps
avoid a race to the exits and a rush to the bottom. It is in tune with the
struggle for social justice within nations, where subtle wielders of power such
as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King played a seemingly passive hand to
great advantage.
In psychological terms, an asymmetric response to
deliberate provocation is a way of scorning the provocation and standing above
the insult. Properly practiced, it is a technique for taking control, not
ceding it.
In contrast, to answer every tit with a
corresponding tat, even if carefully calibrated, is a losing strategy.
To react quickly and vociferously to each instance
of being prodded is to be played. Impulsive reaction does not allow the
strategic pros and cons of a move to be thought through.
Unthinking retaliation to apparent provocation
creates the risk of kinetic conflict. It’s much harder to make a voluntary show
of restraint after the blood begins to flow, even if the alternative is a death
spiral leading to all-out war.
President Trump is by any reckoning a bad-mannered
politician, a failed businessman, a documented liar and a cheat, but he is
first-rate provoker. He has mastered the art of the insult and unexpected gibe
to deflect criticism and put others on guard, allies and opponents alike.
Xi Jinping is more enigmatic, his statements more
carefully scripted and less prone to public outbursts. But if veteran diplomats
such as Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi can be said to reflect official thinking, they
have shown, in their recent reports and published remarks a measured criticism
of the US and a willingness to pull back from the brink and get back to the
business of cooperative, civil relations.
Even if one sets aside the argument over which side
has done more to aggravate the other--and make no mistake there are many
serious issues that need to be addressed--both sides can and should exercise
the option of restraint in the face of petty provocation.
Anger, once aroused, has a life of its own,
resistant to logic. If provocations are played up by the press and popular
opinion is weaponized in this age of social networking and instant messaging,
it will be hard for even the most prudent politicians to call off the hounds of
war.
When it comes to recalling past insults, Chinese
collective memory is second to none. The “hundred years of national
humiliation” meme, very much alive and kicking in China today, is a case in
point.
Remembering is often a good thing, that’s what
historians do, even if taking lessons from the past offers an imperfect guide
to the future. But obsessing over every slight and reacting to everything all
the time is ridiculously counter-productive.
But if a new Cold War is allowed to congeal due to perceived
grievances and media-magnified complaints, the danger to both sides is
unimaginably high. Precipitous decoupling is a guaranteed lose-lose proposition
for all parties in this deeply fragile, deeply inter-connected world.
