APPLETON, WIS. — While the United States is preoccupied with the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former national intelligence officer and scholar on East Asia warns that China poses a more significant challenge to the United States’ status as a world super power.
Robert Suettinger, who is spending most of Term III as Lawrence University’s Stephen Edward Scarff Memorial Visiting Professor of Government, presents “U.S. – China Relations: Forward and Back,” Thursday April 12 at 7 p.m. Lawrence’s Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.
Suettinger, a 1968 graduate of Lawrence who served as director for Asian affairs for the U.S. National Security Council in the mid-1990s, will examine four major challenges that China poses to the United States: military, economic, diplomatic and moral.
China has the world’s largest army, with missiles capable of striking the United States or any of our allies, a formidable submarine force and a defense budget that is growing at a double-digit pace. Compounding the military challenge are two potential flashpoints — North Korea and Taiwan — either of which could quickly and easily erupt into an armed confrontation.
China’s economy has been growing at a rate of nearly 10 percent per year for the past 15 years and holds $1 trillion of U.S. currency. Ubiquitous “Made in China” labels contribute to a trade surplus with the United States of nearly $200 billion in 2006.
On the diplomatic front, beyond Asia, China is rapidly gaining influence throughout Africa, Latin America and Europe by dispensing foreign aid and building “strategic partnerships” with countries whose support the United States once took for granted.
Morally, China remains a one-party dictatorship, repressing political dissent and freedom of religion, the press and artistic expression.
In an attempt to explain how this situation developed, Suettinger will examine recent U.S. policy toward China and discuss what options are available to respond to these challenges.
Author of the 2003 book “Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000,” Suettinger came to Lawrence from Centra Technology, Inc., an Arlington, Va., consulting firm that provides national security research and analysis, where he is an analytic director.
In addition to serving as director for Asian affairs for the National Security Council in the mid-1990s, Suettinger served two separate stints on the National Intelligence Council for East Asia, first as a deputy national intelligence officer (1987-94) and later as a national intelligence officer for East Asia (1997-98). He also spent 12 years with the Central Intelligence Agency.
A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Suettinger earned a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in political science from Lawrence in 1968, undertook Chinese language study at Princeton University and Middlebury College and earned a master’s degree in comparative politics at Columbia University.
