With its marked penchant for playing-up tensions and ‘the out of the ordinary’, the world media chose to focus on the points of friction in current Sino-US ties, while US President Barack Obama conducted his recent ‘swing’ through parts of Asia. Not to be missed out on were the ‘ripples’ the US President made in the West when he bowed before Japanese emperor Akihito, while in Tokyo.

While one would be naïve in the extreme to visualize a trouble-free relationship between the US and China, the markedly stepped-up economic ties between the states notwithstanding, it is clear that it is only those sections which could be described as pathologically negative in outlook, which would fail to see the ‘pluses’ in the increasingly wide-ranging relationship.

Some Western news agencies did not fail to mention the ‘negatives’ in the US-China equation: currency issues, Iran, trade imbalances, human rights and climate change. While all this may be true, it is also a fact that the US and China are cooperating in a number of economic fora which are aimed essentially at providing a further fillip to the gathering growth spurt in parts of Asia. Some of these growth catalysts are: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN, and the Asian Regional Forum (ARF).

China is certain to be staunchly opposed to any tendencies on the part of the US to play the role of ‘global hegemon’ but it is quite some time since it shed the image of an orthodox Marxist state which saw itself as obliged to prolong the big power rivalries more characteristic of the Cold War era. Right now, China is an ideal foil for North Korea which is continuing to be mired in the interstate politics of the Cold War years. But even in the case of North Korea, it needs to be noted that China and the US are part of current efforts aimed at getting North Korea to abide by the present global nuclear non-proliferation regime. They are also members of the six party talks geared to bringing about a normalization of relations between North and South Korea.

So, there is more than meets the eye in Sino-US ties and fact would need to be sifted from fiction in efforts to see the relationship in the correct perspective. What would need to be clearly borne in mind is that economic linkages between the US and China have been on the upswing over the years, so much so that the equation could be said to be guided primarily by pragmatic considerations, above all else.

For instance, the trade volume between China and the US is currently topping US $ 250 billion and US companies are increasingly investing in Chinese business concerns and vise versa. More than 60,000 Chinese students are currently in the US for educational purposes and US goods are steadily penetrating the Chinese market. It is also reported that China holds more than half the US national debt in treasury bonds and other financial instruments.

Since US-Japan ties have been, generally speaking, unruffled over the years and non-conventional arms limitation talks are making some progress between the US and Russia, the US is likely to attach special importance to the consolidation of its relations with China and India. The fact that China and India are mentioned along with Japan, Russia and the EU as the emerging economic ‘power houses’ of the world, renders this undertaking doubly vital. Hence, the US President’s energetic diplomatic drive in Asia and the increasing prominence of this continent in the economic growth calculations of the US.

It does not follow from the foregoing that the world is on the verge of witnessing the birth of a global order which is free of interstate power politics with military overtones or of international rivalries borne of the need to consolidate national prestige, but the tendency that is gaining ground among the foremost economic powers is their increasing preference for the achievement of material advancement in a cooperative international environment. These powers realize that economic advancement of any significant proportions is not possible without international peace and this is the reason why diplomacy and multilateralism are increasingly taking the place of coercion, armed confrontation and unilateralism among the states that matter in the current international order. The global economic crisis and the increasing vulnerability of the US dollar are certain to prompt the US at least, to drastically remould its approach to handling international relations.

Whether these ground-breaking changes in foreign policy perspectives would issue in better times for the economically-disadvantaged of the states concerned is another matter. As events have proved, the free market is not proving a boon to the poor anywhere and the states at the centre of the current changes in global affairs would need to take cognizance of this. It is imperative that central planning, to a degree, is brought to the centre stage of economic planning if the poor of the world are to not be deprived of their due.

At present one in every six persons is believed to be waking-up every morning, totally unaware of from where her or his next meal is coming. Accordingly, the world’s foremost economic powers would need to ensure that the poor in their midst are strongly empowered, if they are not be mocked by their ‘wealth’. Economic betterment among states has a micro dimension which the wealthy could overlook only at their peril. For, social peace would not be part of their lot if the poor continuously suffer deprivations.