Will China Rule the World?

It has become fashionable to posit and assert that the world of the 21st century is in flux and that a new world order is likely to emerge in the near future. This world order, it is held, will be defined by a new system polarity wherein new powers will challenge the primacy and hegemony of the United States.  In prosaic terms, the world will become multipolar. Leading this pack of powers will be China- a power in its own league and a civilization state whose time may have come. It is asserted that China’s encounter and tryst with modernity has been unique and unlike other non western powers, its tryst and encounter with modernity has followed a unique path.  An essential unity spanning centuries defines China. It’s economic growth and  increasing military prowess are held as specific and concrete examples of China’s inevitable great power status. Some go to the extent of positing that the rules of international relations and politics will be turned upside down and gradually and inexorably the rest of the world will gyrate to a Sino centric world view.

The implications of these assertions are stupendous. Given their enormity, a whole set of questions arise: to what extent are these assertions correct? Is there merit to these assertions and prognostications? What are they premised upon? Has the Westphalian state system reached maturation and is thus is decline? Is this decline related to the overall decline of the west?  If the west is in decline, how should the lodestar of the west, the United States react to China’s rise? And last but not least, will war be the arbiter of this somewhat civilizational clash?

First, let us discuss the probity of these assertions. It would appear that much of the commentary and analysis that presents China as either the threat to existing world order or the ideational and material hegemony of the west is self serving. That is to say, that the post Cold war world has left the west without familiar anchors and moorings. This has led to a degree of strategic drift and engendered fractiousness within the west. The most effective antidote to this is to manufacture and create an enemy that serves to be the west’s ‘Other’. China, given its unique and distinct approach, its authoritarian political system and its abysmal human rights record then becomes a picture perfect foil against which the west can define itself. This then energizes the western strategic community and imbues it with a sense of purpose and direction. Hence, the China bogey and presentation of the country as a threat to international order, system and structure.

Does this mean that the China ‘threat’ is a pure intellectual construct and thus chimerical?  The answer is a clear cut ‘no’. Undoubtedly, China’s rise will have consequences and implications on world politics and economics? Its economic rise is already rendering China into a growth pole and hence an important and significant player in the global economy. And as the history of international relations and politics reminds us, economic power can become the premise or foundation of other forms of power. This, in turn, has implications on system polarity and the nature of world order or disorder. The question here however is what kind of power China will morph into?  Teasing out an answer to this important question necessarily takes us into the nature of the international system pioneered in and created by the west.

The strength, durability and resilience of this Westphalian order and framework is such it gradually and inexorably socializes even the most recalcitrant and truculent into its animating principles and structural conditions. And whosoever or whatsoever challenges this order and framework is doomed. The decimation of fascism and Nazism, in some senses reactions to this order and capitalism, may constitute classic examples of this. As such, this order is a bulwark against forces of reaction and regression.

 It stretches reason and credibility to even conceive that China or more accurately modern China, which has been the beneficiary of this system, will challenge and overturn it. A more prudent approach for China would be to work within this system and then aspire for a status that is coeval with its aspirations. This essentially means getting drawn into the vortex of the system and the regimes that this system has spawned.  And China’s political and strategic approach – accession to the WTO, working within the constraints and opportunities of the system- suggests that China is precisely doing this. This approach means getting drawn into the web of complex interdependence wherein China’s welfare and its trajectory gets inextricably tied to the trajectory and developments of the rest of the world. In the final analysis, it can only mean openness, or to take recourse to cold war clichés and twist them, glasnost and perestroika with Chinese characteristics. Or in other words, it means modernization of China’s political system and gradual evolution towards democracy and political pluralism.

This then validates and vindicates western ideas and principles. Isomorphism of these ideas and principles reflects the vitality and vigor of these ideas and axiomatically gives short shrift to the idea of western decline. The reference here is to the west as an idea not a geographical zone or entity. The beauty of this lies perhaps in the fact that this spread and acceptance of ideas-modernity, human rights, democracy and political pluralism- takes place not by mimesis but through osmosis- a more durable and profound process. The question now is what should the approach and orientation of the sole superpower and lodestar of the west, the United State’s, be?

 The dominant strands of International Relations theory and history tell us that rising powers  regardless of their coloration inevitably strive for power and superiority and rising powers clash. And that this conflict which can take the form of war has systemic implications. Will China’s rise lead to such friction? The answer is a qualified ‘no’. The confidence in this assertion is premised on a confluence of structural trends: complex interdependence and those eternal laws governing geo politics since the time of Thucydides. The former, to repeat enmeshes China into tangled webs of interdependence which are the foundation of China’s economic power. Throwing these into a tizzy will be irrational and detrimental to China’s interests. Prudence then dictates that China play by the rules and not throw a spanner into the works, so to speak. Concomitantly, geopolitics of the region constitute an important structural constraint on Chinese hegemony of its immediate region. The security dilemma’s generated by China’s increase in its hard power, the mutual suspicions that define the regions states, historical memory and the desire to maintain sovereignty and not be vassals of a dominant regional power will ensure that China will, even it becomes militarized, be a truncated power.

  

All in all then, the balance sheet suggests that the alleged threat that is inherent in China’s is more or less a bogey. However , this does not mean complacence on part of the United States. Reactionary, irrational forces in China may take recourse to a militarized, expansionist and aggressive foreign policy. Even though their actions will be doomed like fascists and Nazi’s, the consequences for the immediate region will ne insalubrious. For this reason, eternal vigilance along with a policy mix that fosters caution and prudence among China’s elite, have to be taken recourse to. This policy mix must rest on two prongs: drawing China further into the webs of complex interdependence and simultaneously containing it. This role naturally falls on the United States and its partners. The forces of history and progress will then work their magic inexorably and China will morph into a normal state with prosaic and quotidian concerns. All sound and fury about the imminence of the ‘China threat’ will then turn out to be just that.