Big Think

Parag Khanna: Well it is interesting, every country that America has labeled a rouge state, or a state of concern, when they are trying to be nice about it, is the country that’s also backed by China, either diplomatically, financially, strategically, militarily or otherwise. That includes even non-oil producing countries.

The notion of their list, out for the oil countries, quite a few, but it doesn’t cover Zimbabwe, North Korea and other places.

So the fact is that China is most certainly out there making friends and finding friends wherever it can. And if that means being friendly with so called rouge states, it will do that and it has good reasons. And, by the way, it is a very good friend of Cuba as well.

So China is most certainly causing tension for American foreign policy with respect to specific countries, but it's also, of course, causing tension with respect to current American priorities on trade, an international institution.

America would like India or Japan to be in the UN Security Council. China doesn’t want either of them to.

The United States would like certain countries to be sanctioned by the Human Rights Council of United Nations. China blocks that.

America would like certain trade reforms to happen through the World Trade Organization, but yet they have trade disputes on a regular basis there.

So questions of product safety for example, labor standards environmental standards, all of these issues that are on the agenda, in the Doha development round of WTO are associated with that, are issues where the U.S and China are on opposite sides of the debate.

Recorded on: 3/3/2008