China Struggles to Emerge from U.S. Shadow
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

China's peevish protests of U.S. actions reveals a stunted self-image of its own status as a new superpower.

In early June China rejected a proposed visit by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. On July 1 it announced that a Gates visit would be welcomed “at an appropriate time”.

The initial rebuff is attributable to the U.S. decision back in January to sell $6.4 bil. worth of hi-tech arms to Taiwan and Obama’s May meeting with the Dalai Lama. The recent reversal on a Gates visit is probably prompted by Obama’s invitation to Hu during the Toronto G20 summit to pay a state visit. Since Hu accepted, the earlier rebuff of a Gates visit needed to be reversed. And China may have also factored in what appears to be U.S. footdragging on executing the Taiwan arms sale to avoid antagonizing China at a sensitive time.

These twists in U.S.-China relations are similar to what happened back on November 21, 2007 when China unexpectedly rebuffed a Hong Kong port call by USS Kitty Hawk (the last conventionally-powered aircraft carrier, decommissioned in 2008) and its escort ships, disappointing thousands of sailors who had arranged trans-Pacific family reunions there on Thanksgiving weekend. Only a day later China reversed itself but Kitty Hawk had already reset course for its home base in Japan and it was too late to salvage Thanksgiving weekend .

That 2007 rebuff had come on the heels of a China visit by Gates and was probably provoked by word of a $1 bil. sale of missile technology to Taiwan and President Bush’s meeting with the Dalai Lama.

The way China still uses petty gestures to protest or reward U.S. actions is a symptom of its holdover self-image as a minor power at the mercy of the wake created by U.S. actions. To deny a port call by the ship of a major trading partner or to rebuff a proposed visit by a dignitary are diplomatic hissy fits worthy of third-tier powers. It suggests that China sees itself as powerless to respond except with petty breaches of the normal protocol observed among major nations. The impact of these breaches on the U.S. is negligible. Their impact on China is substantial, diminishing its image as a stable and responsible global power with an independent and growing sphere of influence.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, June 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)