The existing world order mainly characterized by the triumph of Western liberalism is under threat with the emergence of new global power. The Asian great power, China is rising and ready to challenge the status quo. The United States (US) under Trump’s leadership is retreating from global leadership, while China is attempting to fill the power vacuum. China’s increasing strategic investment in international affairs and its commitment supports the argument that China is up for the challenge and serious about global leadership in playing the ‘responsible power’ role. This piece discusses what contributes to China’s rise as a global power in the security domain. It also argues that China’s recent assertiveness in domestic, regional affairs, and international relations is the realisation of China’s position as an emerging global power.
Keywords: China, United States, International Relations, Economic Power
By Makam Khan Daim and Mohammed Seid Ahmed
Introduction
The definition of ‘emerging powers’ is broad and vague due to wide debate in the literature surrounding it. The term is used by political scientists and international relations experts for countries that are perceived to be in the process of significantly increasing their economic and political power at a faster pace than the rest of the world. However, to be characterized as such, a country often needs to be large in terms of geography and population. There is also the issue that scholars are failing to determine when a country ‘ceases to emerge.’[1] The prediction of ‘emerging powers’ can sometimes prove to be inaccurate, due to a lack of theoretical and empirical scholarship. [2] Notably, Brazil was one of the countries seen as an emerging power in the 1970’s, but despite significant economic gains throughout the years, it is still not in a position to be a formidable force to challenge the existing world order. [3]
The existing world order and Western liberalism are under threat with the rise of another emerging power. It has always been the case that China was emerging as an economic power after its opening-up to the world since the 1970’s. However, not many people envisaged that China’s economic prowess would turn into a security challenge for the existing world order. This piece will discuss the realisation of China’s rise as a global power and the security implications that it poses to the current world order.
Challenges to the Liberal-Economic World
The renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama in his 1989 article entitled ‘The End of History?’ following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., famously declared the triumph of Western ‘liberal capitalist democracy.’ Certainly, China at that point in time was in its own economic transition and Deng Xiaoping believed that Gorbachev was an ‘idiot’ to have prioritized political reform prior to economic reform, which he believed resulted in the disintegration of the Soviet Union. [4] China’s communist leadership under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping significantly contributed to China’s economic rise and current status through the implementation of early economic reforms and opening up.
In fact, China’s economic reform was affected by Western liberal capitalism. As the scholar Au Loong Yu argues, China has benefitted from the capitalist empires of Britain, Portugal, and the US via their protectorates in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan respectively. [5] ‘These protectorates connected China to the world economy way before its full entry into the world system’, Yu states. [6] Thus, how is China challenging the existing liberal economic world order if it is also benefiting from it? Stanley and Lee argue that ‘a new Cold War has broken out. China’s Marxist capitalism suggests you can have wealth without freedom.’ [7] The idea of a Western liberal economy that is characterized by freedom and laissez-faire economics is challenged by the success of China’s state-led economics. The free market system that the Western liberal world embraced has been widening the gap between the rich and poor. Whereas China boasts that it has lifted millions of people out of extreme poverty and has enlarged the size of its middle-income population. None of this means there is no income inequality in China, but it has come a long way and it has proven to the world that there is an alternative to the well-established Western-led liberal economic order.
In 2018 China became the largest economy in the world based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) measures. [8] The US has been the dominant economic power since the turn of the nineteenth century, but is now losing some of its economic power to China. The US government believes that China’s rise as an economic power comes with unfair trade practices, including theft of intellectual property rights. China’s government control of the economy and companies will also continue to be a challenge for Western countries and companies in the foreseeable future. [9] Moreover, Chinese government’s control over big companies make things difficult for local companies to expand in the Western world and elsewhere. For instance, in China all companies are required to be compliant with the Chinese government rules, in order to boost the government’s power and reach domestically and internationally. Notably, the Chinese popular app, WeChat, with over one billion users including foreigners, is one of the ‘most surveilled and censored apps’ in the world according to cybersecurity analysts. [10]
In the recent escalation of tensions between the two economic powers, the Chinese technology giant Huawei has been caught in the middle. Huawei’s ambition to be a leader in building 5G infrastructure is currently inhibited by the US and its allies because of security concerns. As discussed above, these concerns stem from China’s control over Chinese companies, particularly big ones like Huawei. What are the potential implications for countries that allow Huawei to operate its 5G technology? Most importantly, it could be used as a tool of state espionage or personal data extraction that could be unlawfully used to manipulate customers in business or otherwise. Today, multinational technology companies are more powerful than governments because of the unregulated use of data and their access to personal information. If the Chinese government had access to large amounts of information, it would boost Chinese influence and reach across the globe.
At the international level, China’s strategic economic engagement has contributed to its consolidation of economic power. In terms of trade, the value of China’s imports and exports amounted to $280.9 billion or 3% of global trade in 1995. That amount has increased to a staggering $4.6 trillion or 12.4% of global trade by 2018. [11] Moreover, since the announcement of the ambitious ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ in 2013 by president Xi Jinping, China has been successful in signing more than 120 countries for the project. [12] Many of the countries that have signed up for the initiative are developing countries with the hope of filling their infrastructural gaps. The economic influence that China enjoys over these developing nations have successfully persuaded many developing and underdeveloped nations to sign up for the project. Although the project was introduced by China and the main beneficiary is China itself, the countries involved in the project will continue to pay their dues to China after the project is completed. That puts the developing and underdeveloped countries under immense pressure and will eventually make them more susceptible to China’s influence. [13] In other words, the initiative is trapping countries in debt, predominantly developing and underdeveloped ones. For instance, the Hambantota port is leased to China for 99 years because Sri Lanka was unable to repay its debt. [14] Djibouti, the small East African country, is also in huge trouble because of its accumulation of billions of dollars of debt to China. [15] This is another important subject that is linked to China’s emergence as a global power. These practices, if not addressed in a timely manner, will eventually undermine the sovereignty of smaller nations, which could face pushback from their own populations as is occurring in Pakistan. [16]
International Security
China’s economic prowess has given the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), an opportunity to build one of the strongest militaries in the world. However, the West still estimates that the PLA is behind in military terms technologically. [17] However, some argue that China is ‘dramatically’ closing the technological gap, but lack of experience is a huge factor. [18] Though the most important thing according to one Defense Intelligence Analyst is that the PLA and its leadership are fully aware of their deficiencies. [19] As a result, China’s military defense budget has significantly increased in the last two decades. The Center for Strategic & International Studies report on China reveals that since 2016, the defense budget was between 7.2% and 8.1% of GDP. [20] Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has also been assertive in its military activities in the South China Sea, claiming the resource-rich territory to be a ‘historic’ part of China. Recently, it has also squabbled with India at the so-called ‘Line of Actual Control Border in Ladakh.’ China’s territorial claim and the sensitivity of the issue to their home audience is very much related to its colonial past and relation to the Western world since the First Opium War in 1840. The perceived loss of territory and sovereignty is understood in Chinese society to bring ‘national humiliation’, which consequently arouses extreme nationalism. [21] Therefore, this extreme nationalism could result in irrational behavior in the Asia-pacific region, which will have serious repercussions.
Furthermore, Xi’s assertiveness in Hong Kong and Taiwan, despite warnings from the West, is another example of China's persistence to be recognized as a global power with global ambitions. In fact, China has imposed the so-called ‘national security law’ to crackdown on dissent in the former British protectorate Hong Kong, which has further soured relations with the West. [22] Now some experts are warning that Taiwan could be next in Xi’s ambition to bring China’s control over the de-facto island state. [23] If China pushes its current aggressive policy towards Taiwan, a major conflict with the West could be on the horizon.
To conclude, the security challenges that China has posed to Western dominance of world economic and political affairs that is led by the US, have forced the US to refocus in the Indo-Pacific region, shifting troops from African command. China claims it is not challenging the world order and does not seek global hegemony like the US has in the past, but its actions suggest otherwise. The recent tensions between the US and China have brought the nations closer to confrontation than ever before. The conflict between the two giants will have serious consequences for the world by disrupting major economic activities. The world needs strategic engagement to de-escalate tensions and address the security threats posed by China.
Sources
[1]. Stuenkel, Oliver. “Emerging Powers and BRICS.” International Relations, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199743292-0187.
[2]. Ibid
[3]. Ibid
[4]. Harrison, Mark. “The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR. By Chris Miller. The New Cold War History. Edited by Odd Arne Westad. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. (Cloth); The New Russia. By Mikhail Gorbachev. Translated by Arch Tait. Cambridge: Polity, 2016. The Journal of Modern History 90, no. 3 (2018): 746–49. https://doi.org/10.1086/698810.
[5]. Loong, Au Yu. “China's Rise as a World Power.” China's rise as a world power | International Socialist Review, July 1, 2010. https://isreview.org/issue/112/chinas-rise-world-power.
[6]. Ibid
[7]. Timothy Stanley, Alexander Lee. “It's Still Not the End of History.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, September 1, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/its-still-not-the-end-of-history-francis-fukuyama/379394/.
[8]. Desjardins, Jeff. “Visualizing the Composition of the World Economy by GDP (PPP).” Visual Capitalist, September 30, 2019. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-composition-of-the-world-economy-by-gdp-ppp/.
[9]. “Timeline: U.S. Relations With China 1949–2020.” Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed August 11, 2020. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-relations-china.
[10]. Feng, Emily. “China Intercepts WeChat Texts From U.S. And Abroad, Researchers Say,” August 29, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/29/751116338/china-intercepts-wechat-texts-from-u-s-and-abroad-researcher-says.
[11]. “Is China the World's Top Trader?” China Power Project, March 17, 2020. https://chinapower.csis.org/trade-partner/.
[12]. “Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).” Accessed August 10, 2020. https://www.ebrd.com/what-we-do/belt-and-road/overview.html.
[13]. “How Will the Belt and Road Initiative Advance China's Interests?” ChinaPower Project, October 18, 2019. https://chinapower.csis.org/china-belt-and-road-initiative/.
[14]. Hillman, Jonathan E. “Game of Loans: How China Bought Hambantota.” Game of Loans: How China Bought Hambantota | Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 7, 2020. https://www.csis.org/analysis/game-loans-how-china-bought-hambantota.
[15]. Manek, Nizar. “Djibouti Needed Help, China Had Money, and Now the U.S. and France Are Worried.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, April 6, 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-06/djibouti-needed-help-china-had-money-and-now-the-u-s-and-france-are-worried.
[16]. Kovrig, ‘National Ambitions Meet Local Opposition Along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’. July 24, 2018. https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/china/national-ambitions-meet-local-opposition-along-china-pakistan-economic-corridor
[17]. “China's Modernizing Military.” Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, February 5, 2020. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-modernizing-military.
[18]. Mehta, Aaron. “America's Greatest Advantage against China Is Slowly Eroding.” Defense News. Defense News, February 19, 2019. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2019/02/15/americas-greatest-advantage-against-china-is-slowly-eroding/.
[19]. Ibid.
[20]. Glaser, Bonnie S., Matthew P. Funaiole, and Brian Hart. “Breaking Down China's 2020 Defense Budget.” Breaking Down China's 2020 Defense Budget | Center for Strategic and International Studies. CSIS, July 22, 2020. https://www.csis.org/analysis/breaking-down-chinas-2020-defense-budget.
[21]. Xi, Luo. “The South China Sea Case and China's New Nationalism.” – The Diplomat. for The Diplomat, July 19, 2016. https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/the-south-china-sea-case-and-chinas-new-nationalism/.
[22]. Kim, Jo. “Explaining China's Assertive Approach to the Hong Kong Protests.” – The Diplomat. for The Diplomat, November 27, 2019. https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/explaining-chinas-assertive-approach-to-the-hong-kong-protests/.
[23]. Green, Michael, and Evan Medeiros. “Is Taiwan the Next Hong Kong?” Foreign Affairs, July 16, 2020. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/east-asia/2020-07-08/taiwan-next-hong-kong.