A Sino-US alliance, is that feasible?

I read an interview of Thomas P.M. Barnett by an oversea Chinese media, article in Chinese (the media itself is pretty anti the present Chinese political structure)


This guy is promoting the idea of Sino-US alliance, actually he is doing that for quite long time, here is his web site. But this time he is even saying China should send troops to Iraq.


This is not the new idea, a few months ago, Michael Lind said the samething


It's not the main stream idea yet, neither in US nor China. Their point is that US shouldn't threat China for Taiwan, and let the thing evolves itself. And US should form an alliance with China, since both have more common interests in the world.

Is this feasible? I know there are many hurdles in both sides, idealogy, history background, interest conflict, cuture difference, etc. But I predict this kind of thing will pop out more in the future.

fishhead said:

But I predict this kind of thing will pop out more in the future.

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It may, but as things stand Japan & India are counterweights to China- and unless the CCP passes to history the US-China military alliance will only exist in someone's imagination!

BLUEJACKET said:

It may, but as things stand Japan & India are counterweights to China

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I am really less concerned about India and Japan. If you know Asia history, Japan never has much influence in geopolitics (except Korea) until recently, neither India.

They are not the Britain to the Europe.

There's already a Sino-American alliance in the War on Terror. Terrorism is now the new common global enemy. However, I don't think the US want the relationship to go so far as establishing military ties at the moment - they still have the arms embargo.

More on Thomas Barnett - interesting lectures:

Never will happen unless some common enemy emerges. Then after that, the US will go back to be suspicious of China. Just like what happened with the Cold War. The outcome of the Cold War would be a whole different if there wasn't the Sino-Soviet split.

Japan looked at the US as it's best friend in the entire world during the Cold War. The US made Japan out to be worse than the Soviet Union during the same time. And the only reason why is because Japan had a strong economy that was culturally different from the West. If the US did that to someone who looked at them as the best friend it has in the entire world, the US and China in an alliance is just fantasy.

AssassinsMace said:

Never will happen unless some common enemy emerges. Then after that, the US will go back to be suspicious of China.

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I agree the first but doubt the second. "suspicious"? No, America fully knows what it's doing, they just believe they're too powerful so not to care.

But time will tell, China is already a global power in economy and political strength. Within 10 years, it will establish its global military existence. Besides, Russia will come back quite powerfully.

I would say at the present stage, there is no need for US to seek an alliance with China.

But if American withdraws from Iraq, and Iran goes nuke. Basically US is lamed in foreign influence while China will have more influcence in ME and has a good relationship with Russia.

That will change the whole picture of the world, and it may happen quickly.

Chinese leadership recently stressed their desire of a multipolar world rather often. They want to somehow form a counterweight to the US.
Besides, China has vital interests in Iran (and other countries) wich differ substantially from US interests in the region. This, among other things, IMO, stands in the way of a closer - especially military - cooperation.
Though economic ties are already there, there's always the point of intellectual property rights.
On a side note, the peoples congress recently "voted" to grant personal property.

There is an between JAPAN & AUSTRALIA- after all, both have bilateral security agreements with the US and are on the same side of the Pacific. So, why in the world undercut those allies and get in bed with China? If that were to happen, US relations with both Russia & India would go in the gutter also: Russia has thousands of nukes and the means to deliver them (unlike Iran & NK), while India has the 2nd largest Muslim population!

Normally one has an alliance with someone for a reason - who is the US going to want to ally against? Sure there could be reason to reach an "understanding" where both sides feel comfortable with each other, but I don't see any mutual concern that would push the two sides together in such a formal way.