What does a world look like where China might be No 1? This question is not a prediction. There are many caveats and qualifications that could be made to it. Economists even now are skeptical about whether, with the country’s current challenges, it will overtake the United States as the largest single economy in the world any time soon. And, of course, there are many ways in which a place can be No 1. In terms of the country as the largest trading partner of others, China is already in the top slot. Being No 1 in some limited areas does not, of course, have much bearing on whether you are No 1 overall.
Even so, what has been fascinating in recent years is to see the reaction to the very notion that China might, repeat might, become more preeminent and dominant across enough different areas to be accorded the top geopolitical slot. This has supported ideas about a sort of global domination plan drawn up in Beijing — a great gambit for hegemony, in which Beijing is slowly, through the United Nations, through investment, through the Belt and Road Initiative and other means, infiltrating and manipulating the West. Even Confucius Institutes are dragged into this argument, accused of being fronts for propaganda and mind control work outside China.
I have a vivid memory of the 2008 economic crisis. At that time, Chinese companies and outward investors were seen as potential helpers, coming to buy or invest in distressed Western assets. I recall the question of whether this would portend the takeover of the whole Western financial system by newly strong Chinese entities with their State backers. The China Investment Corp (CIC), acting as the sovereign wealth fund, figured in much of this discussion. We were about to witness — or so it was suggested — one of the greatest hostile takeovers of history!
Of course, that hostile takeover never happened. In the end, Chinese investment amounts were modest. There were a few symbolic stakes taken in companies, but nothing major. And for many of those dealing with this issue at the time, the refrain I got when discussing this new phenomenon was that we need have no fear: Our rules and regulatory regimes were robust and would be able to deal with anything that came our way. We were the capitalists and therefore had nothing to worry about when China came to play the capital game.
Every day going forward, we need to say, again and again, while China poses problems, they are not the sort of existential ones that some are so keen to posit. We can manage the design of a new world where China and others have space in it. What we can’t do is insist on no compromise, no adaptation, no change, and allow things to spiral out of control so that, in the end, everyone loses
Over the ensuing decade, that confidence eroded. It used to be supposed that the West’s self-belief was in itself a threat to China. But gradually, and decisively, that self-confidence was eroded. Suddenly, as Xi Jinping emerged as a more communicative and assertive leader in 2012, China seemed to be the confident one. In the 2010s, the West became gripped by this idea that a great power shift was taking place and that it was on the losing side.
This has been fortified by another astonishing phenomenon. As China has become more predictable (positively and negatively — this is a neutral judgment), the West has become less so. Events like Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as US president, and the almost daily sense of crisis in Europe have been crowned by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in early 2022 and its subsequent impact. In 2024, an election year, it is probable that the US will be a much greater source of worry than China, as it looks increasingly likely that President Joe Biden and Trump will have a rematch.
The West has managed over this period to work itself up into a frenzy about the problems and threats emanating from China. This is not an argument for us to pretend that China and the US and Europe do not have massive differences with each other and that they don’t pose problems going forward. But when has a problem been soluble through misdiagnosing it? The nature of Chinese power, and the vision that the country has for its future and its global role, can be interpreted in two very different ways. One is, as a rising hegemon, going for old patterns of domination and control. The other is a different and more complex kind of power, self-interested, more limited in its vision, and far more bespoke in how it wants to occupy global space.
For my money, the evidence still points strongly to the latter rather than the former as the best framework to view China. The challenges we are finding from China’s new global role are more about how it does not seek to duplicate previous models of geopolitical behavior rather than because it wants to be a new-style US with the military, political and economic dominance of that power. The challenge is that for the first time in modern history, the outside world has to take the unique values and intellectual and political heritage of China seriously and accept key areas where in fact, it will not easily fit the templates currently available.
I don’t suppose that this process of accommodation and adaptation will be easy. Evidently, we are already seeing plenty of evidence that it is proving tough. But to misidentify a problem is the sure way to leave it unsolved or allow it to create crisis and instability. Every day going forward, we need to say, again and again, while China poses problems, they are not the sort of existential ones that some are so keen to posit. We can manage the design of a new world where China and others have space in it. What we can’t do is insist on no compromise, no adaptation, no change, and allow things to spiral out of control so that, in the end, everyone loses.
The author is professor of Chinese Studies and director of the Lau China Institute, King’s College London, and the author of China Incorporated: The Politics of a World Where China is Number One, to be published by Bloomsbury in September.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.