Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader in the 1980s, advised his country’s
strategists to bide their time with regard to the country’s rise as an
uncontested power in East Asia and then beyond. Today, however, several factors
are compelling Chinese leaders to hurry.
اضافة اعلان
The first is America’s new modus operandi in East
Asia. The US has stopped trying to incentivize China to become a member of the
existing US-designed and led global order. For many, this ambition was doomed
from the beginning in the late 1990s. And any serious understanding of China’s
interpretation of history would conclude that it is due to China, especially
when on the threshold of becoming a superpower, will never accept a global system
that does not accord it at least equal status to that of the US.
Today, the US is actively trying to encircle China
through political and economic structures such as the Quad, which also includes
Japan, Australia, and India, and military alliances such as the coming together
of the US, UK, and Australia in the AUKUS group to block China’s expansion in
the Pacific.
Along with this encirclement, the US has adopted a
more assertive posture in the region. It has made it clear that it is committed
to standing by Japan in the face of any Chinese attempt to take control of
islands claimed by both Japan and China. It has also indicated that it defines
its “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan to mean all sorts of support to
Taiwan save direct confrontation with China.
Perhaps more concerning to China, the US is
significantly enhancing its military capabilities in the area immediately
bordering the so-called “nine-dash line” that China considers its sphere of
influence in the East and South China Seas.
The US is also not alone. Almost all the
Asian-Pacific countries have effectively sided with it in its efforts to stem
China’s rise. The positions of Japan and India, two countries with
centuries-long fraught relationships with China, were never in doubt, especially
since each sees itself, with reason, as a regional power in its own right.
South Korea’s position was also always certain, given the close military
cooperation between the country and the US.
However, today there are indications that even
Thailand and the Philippines are willing to align themselves with the US.
Vietnam remains a unique case, keeping its distance from the US yet clearly
unwilling to accept China’s tian-xia, or order under Chinese hegemony.
The positions of these countries significantly complicate
China’s ambition to achieve unrivaled influence in its immediate neighborhood.
This is important because this ambition is known internationally and
domestically. As a result, the more distant this objective looks, the less
powerful the ruling Chinese Communist Party becomes at home, especially under
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is regarded as a generational leader expected
to catapult China to a higher global status, rather than merely sustain
economic growth and internal stability.
The Ukraine crisis has made geopolitics even more
complicated for China. It now sees US assertiveness in supporting Ukraine as a
potential scenario it could face if the US pivot to East Asia and its political
and military presence in the Pacific reach the levels the US desires. For some
Chinese strategists, this creates a window of opportunity for achieving
dominance in the East and South China Seas that will close in the not too
distant future.
China’s challenges also extend beyond geopolitics
and its immediate neighborhood. It has invested massively in Africa and in a
series of infrastructure projects spanning Southern Europe, the Balkans, parts
of the Middle East, and all the way to Central Asia. However, shadows have been
hanging over many of these projects for a few years now.
In Africa, there is a perception that Chinese
lending has had adverse economic consequences. And in China, there has been the
realization that many of these projects will not only prove economically
problematic but also fail to open up viable opportunities for Chinese
companies. There is also increasing pressure in Europe and parts of the Middle
East to lessen the Chinese reach. Together, these factors raise doubts about
the future of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s flagship economic program,
which acts as the umbrella for most of these projects.
Even within China itself, the clock is ticking. Aside from noting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, most China observers today now say that the country is at the end of its period of impressive economic growth of 7 or 8 percent per annum and that growth in the coming decade will be around half these numbers.
Economics aside, it is also intriguing that China’s
colossal investments and major on-the-ground presence in different parts of the
world do not seem to have even begun to build a distinctive Chinese narrative
or developmental model that many in these different regions can find appealing.
This low return in terms of soft power certainly resonates in decision-making
circles in Beijing.
Even within China itself, the clock is ticking.
Aside from noting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, most China observers
today now say that the country is at the end of its period of impressive
economic growth of 7 or 8 percent per annum and that growth in the coming
decade will be around half these numbers.
Even at 3 or 4 percent, Chinese growth rates will
likely exceed most Western countries. But the question is whether such a pace
of growth will sustain domestic stability. It is important to note that
although the Chinese Communist Party has created a highly controlled
socio-political system in China, people’s aspirations for better living
standards have been a bedrock of the system’s legitimacy and popular buy-in for
decades. As standards of living plateau and aspirations dwindle, the party
might face increasingly disgruntled feelings that could give rise to political
activism against it.
The aging of the population also complicates the
internal situation. As US journalist Howard French emphasizes in his book
Everything Under the Heavens, in the near future, China will have one of the
lowest ratios of working to non-working people worldwide. As a result, it faces
“the paradox of growing old before growing rich.”
China has arguably the world’s longest and most
patient perspective on history. But patience neither negates action nor
prohibits risk-taking when a decision-maker decides the risk-reward metric is
more favorable today than tomorrow. It is almost certain that because of the
above-mentioned factors combined, there is a Chinese calculation that acting
now to secure key objectives — particularly in the country’s immediate
neighborhood in the East and South China Seas — would have higher chances of
success today than in the future. There is also the view that securing prized
objectives with wide appeal in Chinese society today could be of major value
when socio-economic conditions become more challenging.
Many observers repeatedly fall for the fallacy of
projecting the status quo into the future. Decision-makers, however, think
differently, particularly those who see themselves as actors in their
respective national histories. For such individuals, the future must be
different from the present; if it is not, they will consider themselves to have
failed.
It is for this reason that their calculus is vastly
different from that of others, and it is also for this reason that they often
make decisions that others consider highly risky.
This article was previously published on Ahram
Online.
The writer is an Egyptian author, commentator, TV
presenter, and documentary producer who specializes in regional politics and
political economy affairs.
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