Lyle Goldstein: scholar takes sober view of China's ambitions

The young China hand has seen China being smarter than that. "It's a different era, but China learned the lesson. They don't want to get involved in the Mideast, they don't want to throw their weight around too much," he said.

While saying that China will have problems with its neighbors, Goldstein expressed confidence that China and countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam need to solve problems by themselves. "I think bilateral negotiations are very promising," he said.

He said it's a bad idea for the US to get involved in Vietnam, making Vietnam-China relations more complicated. He cited history in the 1830s, when Texas was its own republic, asked outside power Great Britain for mediation. Americans responded aggressively.

To Goldstein, China has been quite restrained, for example, during the dramatic political transformation in Myanmar in the last few years when some people believed it would throw its weight around. "But I don't see that," he said.

He also cited MIT professor Taylor Fravel who demonstrated that China peacefully negotiated 17 of the 23 border disputes. "That shows China has a record, and we should trust they can work this out," he said, adding "it can be messy".

Goldstein said many Americans believe that China is so weak and can be pushed around. "What I told them is that those days when China was weak and we could push them around are now over," he said.

Like some scholars, Goldstein believes China is going to have more influence in Southeast Asia than the US.

"To think otherwise is just unrealistic," he said.

He believes China should be accorded its sphere of influence. "I think spheres of influence are natural in world politics. It's not something to be feared," he said.

While tensions between China and the US are building up in recent years, Goldstein was encouraged by the new type of major country relationship concept put forward by President Xi Jinping. "He does point a way forward. I hope more Americans would embrace that," he said.

Goldstein views China's One Belt One Road strategy to build connectivity in the region as positive for China-US relations. China could adopt a more confrontational approach; it could adopt a counter-rebalance strategy, but it pivoted away from the American rebalance.

While expressing concern over a possible arms race between major powers that leads to a new Cold War, Goldstein said China has shown admirable restraint in developing its military forces since the old days, starting with the minimum deterrence, referring to China's nuclear strategy.

"I think Chinese are proud that they didn't waste so much money on nuclear weapons the way Russia and the US did," he said. "I always thought that if my country does not waste so much money on nuclear weapons, we will have much better schools and nice trains," said Goldstein, who has ridden China's high-speed train many times.

China has spent trillions of dollars on high-speed rails and infrastructure projects in the past decade. Goldstein told people it could use that money on submarines and aircraft and nuclear weapons. "But they didn't, so you know it's good that China has exercised restraint," he said.

He believes China could play a powerful role in exercising restraint in its military buildup and increasing transparency.

On the South China Sea, Goldstein believes it's important for China to have some concrete examples of joint development, which is part of its policy.