(LI MIN / CHINA DAILY)
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated and intensified many preexisting trends in the international system.
None of them is more important than the dramatic rise of China. During 2020, we saw China’s successful handling of the pandemic and the contrasting difficulties in Europe, North America and India. While the Chinese economy is back on track, others are likely to take time to get their economic act together. This is altering the regional and the global balance of power.
The rise of Chinese economic power will also change the nature of the global economic institutions. Beijing does not have to do anything. The sheer size and salience of China is going to make a difference.
The above are among the fundamental changes that are now unfolding. We have already seen emerging concerns and fears about China’s growing power manifest in the China policies of the former Donald Trump administration in the United States. And it is easy to see three problems that Washington and Beijing need to resolve to increase mutual trust.
First, China’s economic rise has affected US domestic policies. The economic integration between the two countries has created a political backlash within the US, which in turn is going to affect the nature of their bilateral trading relations as well as the future of the World Trade Organization.
The talk about decoupling highlights the urgency of a reset of relations. It remains to be seen how this is going to play out, but some readjustment is inevitable. How that recalibration plays out in terms of WTO reform, rewriting global trade rules, or regulating technology competition are all open-ended questions, and the rest of the world will be carefully following the debate.
Second, Joe Biden and his team in the new US administration are right in arguing that cooperation with China is critical for securing the global order and addressing urgent issues such as the pandemic and climate change. At the same time, many in Washington argue that geopolitical competition with China is inevitable.
Some people are calling the new condition, “competition without catastrophe”, some people describe it as a new Cold War. Whatever one might call it, the dynamic between China and the US will have profound consequences for China’s neighbors and the rest of the world.
The third problem is the tension between the forward military presence of the US in the Western Pacific that underwrites the alliances of the US in Asia and China’s growing military capabilities.
China’s rapid military modernization is beginning to weaken the ability of US military forces to operate in the Western Pacific, and the change in the distribution of military power in Asia is undermining the old political and security arrangements in Asia. The question is, can the US and China work together to establish a cooperative security order in Asia that respects the interests of all regional states?
From the perspective of India, the question is not only about the balance of power between the US and China. It is also about the far more consequential shift in the balance of power between a rising China and its neighbors.
Until the 1980s, India and China were roughly equal in comprehensive national power. Now the Chinese economy is five times bigger and its military spending is four times larger than that of India. The implications of this are real and inescapable for India.
As India’s worries about the power imbalance with China grow, India is doing what all countries do in such situations, which is to try and find ways to limit it.
The question then is how? Should India do it through alliance and coalition building? Or through internal balancing? Or developing asymmetric strategies?
The answers to these questions are not clear and will depend on how China exercises its power and how the US responds to it. As the weakest of the three powers, India is necessarily alert and sensitive to small and big changes in the power politics involving China and the US.
Considering the dangers of deepening confrontation among the US, China and India, we need intensive and sustained consultations among the three powers. The process will hopefully lead to some new ideas on how to minimize the differences among the three nations.
I believe India is open to engaging in bilateral, trilateral and multilateral political and security consultations with the US and China at all levels and is ready to explore durable solutions to the current security challenges — both regional and global.
The author is the director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at National University of Singapore and the founding director of Carnegie India. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.