Yuan Peng
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
Introduction
Yuan Peng (b. 1967) is Research Professor and President of the China Institutes of Contemporary Relations 中国现代国际关系研究院 in Beijing, and a well-respected scholar of international affairs, the United States, and Sino-American relations. He has published extensively in Chinese (some 25 essays are available on his Aisixiang page) and in English.[2] Yuan is fluent in English, and has done stints as a Visiting Scholar both at the Brookings Institute and at the Atlantic Council. His is an important voice explaining the United States and Sino-American relations to the Chinese elite.
Yuan’s essay, published online on June 17, 2020, is part of the larger roll-out of China’s story of the coronavirus pandemic and how the pandemic will shape the future of the world. These topics have, of course, been much discussed in China (and elsewhere); on this site, see the essays by Yao Yang, Xiang Lanxin, and Zhao Yanjing, among others. A major moment in this roll-out was the June 7 publication of the State Council’s White Paper on the subject, Fighting COVID-19: China in Action. Essays like Yuan’s are meant to supplement the official document, providing the intellectual heft and luster that white papers (or most government publications anywhere) naturally lack.
Yuan Peng organizes his text around the theme of a “once-in-a-century change” currently occurring in China and the world. The origin of this theme appears to be an address by Xi Jinping to the Central Foreign Affairs Working Conference 中央外事工作会议 in June of 2018, when he remarked that: “At present, our country is in its best stage of development in modern times, and the world is experiencing a once-in-a-century major change.”[3]
The theme has subsequently been taken up by the media and by scholars, producing roundtables, articles in theoretical journals, and at least one book. Yuan’s specific point of departure appears to be an article that appeared online on Xinhuanet on January 18, 2020, entitled “China’s Confidence and Responsibility during a Once-in-a-Century Change: In 2019, Chairman Xi Jinping Exercises Great Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics and Profoundly Affects the World 百年变局中的中国信心与担当——2019年习近平主席引领中国特色大国外交深刻影响世界.” The article is a predictable puff piece that chronicles Xi’s and China’s diplomatic triumphs over the course of the year, complete with many pictures and flattering remarks from foreign leaders. The piece of course makes no mention of the coronavirus, since the scale of the oncoming disaster was unknown.
The task Yuan Peng sets for himself in his text is that of integrating the effects of the coronavirus pandemic into the theme of once-in-a-century change, from the point of view of an academic authority on international relations, the United States, and Sino-American relations. My sense is that Yuan sees this as an important topic and an important text. He takes pains to be magisterial, painting a thorough picture of the world as a whole, seeking to be reasonable and even-handed (with Chinese characteristics), in a prose style that suggests seriousness (among other things, full of chengyu, the pithy four-character phrases that many Chinese adore and most translators abhor).
His argument is that the coronavirus pandemic will serve the same historic function as major wars in recent history: ushering in a new international order whose shape remains uncertain. Yuan compares current Sino-American relations, in geopolitical terms, to relations between Great Britain and the United States at the end of WWI. In hindsight, it is clear that Britain’s historical moment was waning; the cost of the war and the maintenance of empire were more than the budget could bear and decline was inevitable. At the same time, while America was on the rise, she was not ready to take Britain’s place. Today’s America, in Yuan’s view, is like Britain a century ago; not overextended but thoroughly dysfunctional, as the coronavirus is currently demonstrating, and incapable of making the hard choices necessary to engineer a national revival. China is vibrant, dynamic, but not yet ready to lead.
The results will be messy. Yuan is confident but not triumphant (for triumphalism, see Jiang Shigong), and imagines not a bipolar world but a world divided into an American “club” and a Chinese “club” through which America & co. attempt to contain China and China continues to play its hand through One Belt-One Road, the dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region, and the resilience of China’s supply chains. Yuan thinks globalization has already gone too far for the “clubs” to be “members only.” He foresees lots of fence-sitting, lots of playing-both-ends-against-the-middle. If the economic devastation of the pandemic is anything like what our gloomier experts are forecasting, it is hard to disagree with Yuan that every country will have its eyes open for opportunities, ideology be damned.
On the sensitive topic of how much “blame” China should assume for the pandemic, Yuan lets it be understood that “mistakes were made” but prefers to concentrate on China’s successes. And without indulging in the vitriol of the Wolf Warrior diplomats, Yuan is scathing about Trump’s America, Trump’s China policy, and America’s China hawks, and he seems resigned to the fact that Biden and the Democrats, at least until the election, will have little choice but to sound similar anti-China themes. Even a Biden victory, Yuan suggests, will change little in the trajectory of Sino-American relations. Fittingly, for an exercise in sober realism, Yuan ends his essay by stressing a renewed concern for security. To use an English chengyu, let’s batten down those hatches.
Translation
The pandemic is as bad as a world war, the existing international order will be difficult to maintain
Over the past few centuries, changes in the international order have often been the result of a great war. Examples include the Westphalian System which followed Europe’s Thirty-Year War, the Versailles-Washington system which followed WWI, and the Yalta system which followed WWII. The basic outline of the current international order is more or less the result of WWII. But after more than 70 years, the existing order is beginning to waver as a result of multiple shocks, beginning with the end of the Cold War in 1991, and including the 9-11 incident in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008, and Trump’s election in 2016.
While its structure remains intact, the role of the United Nations is limited, the capacity of the WTO has been diminished, the resources of the IMF and the World Bank are stretched thin, the authority of the WHO is inadequate, the global arms control regime is on the verge of collapse, international standards are frequently ignored, American leadership and will have declined together, the mechanisms facilitating great power cooperation are in disorder, and the international order is hanging by a thread.
The outbreak and spread of the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the entire world into mourning, as countries locked down and borders closed, economies ground to a halt, stock markets plunged, oil prices collapsed, exchanges were broken off, insults were traded and rumors proliferated. The shock of the impact has been in no way less than a World War, which is yet another attack on the existing international order. The old order is perhaps unsustainable, but a new order has yet to be built, which is the basic feature of a once-in-a-century great change, and is also the root cause of the crisis roiling the contemporary international scene.
The world during and after the pandemic is like the world after WWI. At the time, the British Empire no longer had the means to fulfill its ambitions, and the sun which had once “never set” on the empire was in rapidly disappearing beyond the horizon 日薄西山. Yet Britain still had a certain power and influence and was unwilling to abandon its leadership position. America, the next great power, was at the beginning of its rise, flapping its wings and exploring its ambitions, but still lacked military power and international influence, and was in no position to replace England.
Europe was busy with post-war reconstruction and Japan and Russia were taking advantage of the chaos to plot future moves. China was facing internal conflict and external pressure, and the marginal regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America did not have the strength to make a difference. The international scene was bewilderingly complicated, as the great powers abandoned alliances and then reorganized themselves in a search for stability. A bit more than a decade later, the world fell into the Great Depression, which in fact was a slippery slope leading to WWII.
In the current pandemic, Trump’s America not only has not assumed its world leadership responsibility, selfishly hiding its head in the sand, but in addition, because of policy failures, it has become a major disaster center of the world pandemic, with nearly 2 million people infected and more than 100,000 dead. This is a tragedy that surpasses that of 9-11, and the number of deaths exceeds the total of all those who died in the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a blow to America’s soft and hard power, and America’s international influence has suffered a serious decline.
The 2020 election will be a fight between Trump’s “keeping America great” and Biden’s “let America lead again,” but even if Biden wins, internal political handicaps and changes in the external environment suggest that America will have a hard time reassuming its role as a world leader. But just like Britain in the post-WWI period, the United States still has enough power to prevent other countries from taking her place, and America’s China policy will only get increasingly hyper-sensitive, unyielding, and arrogant as they double down on containment and suppression. Strategic competition between China and the US will become all the more fierce.
At the end of the pandemic, the existing order of “one superpower and many great powers” will change. America may remain “the superpower” but will have a hard time maintaining its hegemonic domination. China is rising fast, but faces obstacles in its drive to surpass the US. Europe’s star is fading, its future development course unclear. Russia plots its future moves in the chaos, and its position has perhaps risen somewhat. India’s weaknesses and shortcomings have been exposed, blunting the momentum of its rise. After having to postpone the Tokyo Olympics, Japan seems lost.
After the pandemic, all countries will be preoccupied with repairing the damage and rethinking their plans. They will be expecting international cooperation, but also hesitating, looking over their shoulders, the mood complex. At the end of the American “unipolar era,” China will still lack the strength to take up its position as a second pole, and the changed trajectory of a multi-polar order will be all the more complex. The impact of China, the United States and Russia on international politics will be enhanced, and their interactions will be crucial to reshaping the future order. The strategic autonomy of Europe, Japan, and India may be somewhat strengthened in these new circumstances.
The momentum of the collective rise of emerging powers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America will be slowed. Faced with the triple crises of the pandemic, terrorism, and the collapse of oil prices, prospects in the Middle East are all the more gloomy, and the region could well sink into a “Dark Age.” Latin America did not manage to accelerate reform and development in the context of the great change of the past century, nor did it take advantage of the window of opportunity to respond to the pandemic, and the disorder that we see in terms of politics, economics, and society suggests that it will decline from its late 20th century status as victims of the “middle income trap,” becoming instead the region of the “myth of development.” Africa has long relied on global trade and investment, and given the sorry state of public health on the continent, once the virus reaches its stage of virulent proliferation, Africa may become a humanitarian disaster. The BRICS will fade, making their unity hard to maintain. India and Brazil will adopt a posture of fence-sitting, playing the US, China, and Russia against one another. China’s relations with developing countries will be due for a comprehensive re-evaluation.
The world economy will decline, bringing us one step away from depression
The economic base determines the superstructure, and economic security is the foundation for state security and international security. After the end of the Cold War, the generally peaceful and stable international environment, which had benefited from the interaction and exchanges made possible by globalization and informatization, created a broadly prosperous world economy, which also allowed China to rise. Yet the 2008 financial crisis revealed deep problems in the economies of the United States and Europe, and exposed the inequalities of development under globalization.
The American remedy for getting over the crisis was not painful structural reform, but instead makeshift measures that swept the problems under the rug, which meant that the “chronic illness” was not cured, and new problems recurred. The fact that unconventional figures like Obama and Trump jumped into politics was precisely the result of the polarization triggered by the dislocation of the relationship between the American economy and American politics. As for Europe, even before the end of the debt crisis came the crisis in Ukraine, the refugee crisis, the Brexit crisis. When it rains, it pours, and the European economy never got back on track.
In order to “make America great again,” Trump abandoned multilateralism, internationalism, and free trade, and supported populism, unilateralism, and protectionism. He sparked the US-China trade war, sought to reverse globalization, and put obstacles in the way of free trade. In the American economy, the stock market relies on bullying and strong-arm tactics to buck the trends and keep rising, but the foundation is not solid, and the good times will not last. The world economy has entered an overall slump, the European economy is puttering along at a low level, the Russian economy is not improving, and even the Indian economy, which was once looked basically positive, has suddenly stalled. The Chinese economy has begun to enter a “new normal.”
The outbreak of the coronavirus slammed the brakes on an already slowing economy. China, the “world’s factory,” East Asia, the most vibrant economic region, world finance, high tech, air travel, the world entertainment centers of America and Europe—everything was hit hard. All the important regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America have been pulverized. A decline of 10 to 30% in the GDPs of the world’s most important economies, with employment reaching 20%, is a bleak picture we have not seen in decades.
There is already an international consensus that the world economic decline is much worse than in the 2008 financial crisis, and whether or not we will fall into a Great Depression is anybody’s guess. My feeling is that we will stay somewhere between the two, worse than in 2008, but better than in 1929. The Great Depression of 1929-1933 lasted a long time, and finally even led to WWII, the economy remaining paralyzed or half paralyzed. The current crisis might not lead to a second Great Depression in the narrow sense of the term, but by conventional measures, we are very likely to fall into a general economic depression (an economic recession of more than two years and a negative real GDP growth of greater than 10%).
This will probably be decided by two important factors. The first is the development of the pandemic. As things look now, research into a virus remains uncertain, and once a virus enters the market it will require a year or two, which is plenty of time for the virus to ravage India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, one after the other. China, the United States, Europe and Japan are all at risk of a second wave, and the reintegration of global supply chains, industrial chains, and demand chains is far into the future. There is no hope for the economy as long as the pandemic continues.
The second factor is international cooperation. After the 2008 financial crisis, the G20 sprang into action [at the Washington Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy in November, 2008] and promoted broad and meaningful international cooperation. Similarly, the short-term recovery of the world economy at present is not impossible, because the American financial system is still solid, China’s economy is incredibly resilient, and most major players in the world economy face no major obstacle to such cooperation. Sadly, however, during the pandemic, great power cooperation has been replaced by competition and conflict, and trust, the most precious element in economic development, has taken a major hit.
If, at the end of the pandemic, countries continue keep to themselves, and especially if the United States continues to provoke trade wars, or goes so far as to force, for example, respirator manufacturers to return to the US, establishing a new model of “domestic production, domestic consumption,” or if unlimited claims against China and excessive litigation lead to new chaos in international politics, global trade will continue to decline, foreign investment will continue to shrink, and the world economy will continue to suffer. In that case, a Great Depression will be hard to avoid, although it may differ in terms of what form it takes, how disastrous it is, and how long it lasts.
In the age of globalization, all countries are in the same boat; we prosper and suffer together. All you can do is pray that your partner is good shape, because only then are you in good shape. Only by working together can we overcome difficulties in a spirit of unity. The video of the G20 Washington Summit was the beginning of major economies trying to cooperate, and in the future we will need similar efforts.
Great Power relations will remain fluid, and Sino-American relations will become increasingly adversarial, with an ever greater impact on the world[4]
There are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. That relationships between great powers break apart and come back together in new forms is an eternal topic in international relations. The current round of fluidity is driven by the relationship between China and the United States, which in turn propels the strategic interaction between the major forces of China, the United States, Russia, Europe, India and Japan, the results of which will profoundly impact the future shape of the international order.
Prior to the pandemic, Sino-American relations had already started to change, as the former American policy of engagement gave way to a policy of containment and suppression. A policy of strategic competition prevailed over a policy of strategic cooperation, giving rise to economic and trade frictions, regional rivalries, disputes over Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tibet, and ideological confrontation, all of which have become the new normal. Talk of a "new Cold War" is everywhere, and plans for "decoupling" are moving forward.
The coronavirus pandemic should have functioned as a relief valve for Sino-US relations, but with missteps and errors on both sides, it instead became a pressure cooker intensifying the competition between the two countries. Fortuitous reasons for this include the fact that the two powers were out of step in their treatment of the virus, as well emotional outbreaks on both sides, but the core factor remains the basic change in US policy toward China that has occurred over the past few years, in which the United States has very clearly defined China as America’s major strategic competitor, and has mobilized the strength of the “entire government” to contain China. In addition, internal political factors in the United States also fanned the flames, as the Trump administration rushed to “scapegoat” China to assure Trump’s reelection, shifting responsibility from the United States to China and wasting no time in engaging in extreme attacks on and slander of China.
In the run-up to the election, Biden and the Democrats have also been forced to mount a “let’s get tough on China” show. Predictably, Sino-US relations will only further deteriorate under the combined pressures of the pandemic and the election. The hostile state of Sino-American relations that anti-China hardliners have been hoping for is gradually taking form.
But the Sino-US antagonism will not evolve into a Cold War-like bipolar opposition or an opposition between rival camps. One reason is that China and America’s interests are deeply interwoven, and neither can pay the price of an extended confrontation. A second reason is that the American alliance system and the Western world are no longer what they once were. European and American policies on China are not in step, rifts in the West continue to increase due to the epidemic, and China-EU relations are at their best point in history. A third reason is that relations between China and Russia are basically solid, and American dreams of roping in Russia to harm China are going nowhere. A fourth reason is that Japan and India basically want to remain on the fence, taking advantage where they can.
In this sense, China and the US cannot head toward a “new Cold War,” nor can they become “two poles.” A more likely scenario is that America will step up efforts to build a “club” from which China is excluded. In areas like finance, trade, high tech, supply chains, and international organizations, Americans will urge others to “leave the old club” and “join the new club,” the actual point being to leave China out. China will then turn its hand to “One Belt One Road” and the community of common destiny with increased focus, opening new paths, finding new solutions. All of this may well produce a world of two economic groups, one with the United States at its core and one revolving around China. The basic difference between this scenario and the two camps and “two antagonims” of the Cold War is that there is no way for China and the US to completely “decouple,” because there is cooperation within competition. Nor can other countries completely rely either on China or the US.
In this scenario, Sino-American competition and rivalry will harden, and no basic change will occur due to the election. The United States, Europe and Japan have common interests in curbing China 制华, but China, Europe and Japan also have much to gain in tapping the potential of their relations. Policy needs might propel a rapprochement between the United States and Russia, but Sino-Russian cooperation is strategically driven. The basic pattern of relations in the US-European alliance will not change in the short term, but fissures between them will widen further. Sino-Japanese relations have gradually eased, and Sino-Indian relations are stable with wrinkles of concern. America has destroyed its image, and the world does not count on its continuing leadership.
China is big but not yet powerful, and at the moment cannot and does not want to replace America. Powers like Russia, Europe, India have neither the capacity nor the desire to assert global leadership. In the next three to five years, the international scene will be a jumble of “non-polarity 无极,” ”warring states,”[5] and “transitions,” and the difficulty of great power cooperation will clearly increase. Small and middle-sized countries may be forced to huddle together for warmth 抱团取暖, and regions’ attempting to find their own way forward may become a trend.
Broadly speaking, China is in a relatively favorable position in terms of its strategic relations with great powers. This is in part due to China’s continuous efforts in recent years to promote a great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, but it is also a position earned by serving as the great “rear base area” in the war against the pandemic, and assuming the responsibility of supplying the world with public health goods. But a favorable position is not the same thing as a strategic advantage, and there are many variables at play: the evolution of the pandemic, strategic and tactical planning, the use of diplomatic contacts, and changes in domestic politics in various countries.
Once the pandemic surpasses the psychological tolerance level in the United States and Europe, the wave of China-blaming, demand for reparations, and pressures of all sorts that has been brewing for some time will only get worse, and a group of long-term China hawks will rise to the top and use the pretext of the pandemic to make a lot of noise. China has performed well, and led the way in getting past the pandemic at a moment of great difficulty, yet the risk of being besieged and hounded for reparations is considerable. Especially urgent is that certain countries in Africa and Latin America are angry because of the pandemic and have adopted a very arrogant attitude toward China. Outside forces will use these grievances, and demands for debt relief or reparations may well grow. This a trend in relations between China and the world that we have not seen in several decades.
There will be further changes in the global geo-strategic landscape, and the central position of the Asia-Pacific region will stand out all the more clearly
With the establishment of the modern international system and the spread of globalization, the global geo-strategic center has alternated between Eurasia and the Atlantic and Pacific regions. In the period between the end of WWII and the end of the Cold War, the Atlantic region occupied the central position and the United States and Europe enjoyed economic, military and political superiority, calling for “the end of history,” promoting “NATO’s eastward expansion,” stirring up trouble 呼风唤雨 while leading the world order.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, and particularly after the Iraq war, relations between the United States and Europe became increasingly distant as “the Atlantic Ocean got wider,” and China’s rise opened the curtain on the eastward movement of power in the world. This propelled the revival of Northeast Asia, the revitalization of Southeast Asia, and the rise of India, as the Asia-Pacific became the world’s most vibrant economic region. At the same time, the ups and downs of the security situation in the Korean Peninsula, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and the Taiwan Straits has also made Asia-Pacific a high-risk area for potential military conflicts in world terms.
From Obama's Asia-Pacific "rebalancing" to Trump's "Indo-Pacific strategy," the eastward shift of the strategic focus has become the consensus and basic national policy of both parties in the United States. Driven by this, Russia has "moved south," India is "trending east,” Australia is "expanding north", and Japan is "looking west", and even Europe has joined in. The result is that the huge Pacific not only suddenly got crowded, it also got a lot less peaceful. The geo-political and geo-economic stakes in the Asia-Pacific region are far different from those of other regions.
The first large-scale outbreaks of the coronavirus were in China and East Asia, which meant that the Asia-Pacific region once again became the world’s focal point. Yet China, Japan, and South Korean led the way in controlling the virus, and China’s and South Korea’s preventive measures proved particularly successful, setting a global standard. This display of the uniqueness and relative superiority of East Asian culture, values, collective spirit, and model of social governance highlighted the rise of Asia-Pacific in a sense that goes beyond ordinary economics and suggests the revival of Asian civilization. Against this backdrop, the move toward East Asian cooperation involving China, Japan, and South Korea has become even stronger, the "ASEAN+3" mechanism has been revived, and the overall advantages of the Asia-Pacific region have become more obvious.
Looking at other regions, by contrast, there is little to celebrate. Europe, which once boasted it was entering the “postmodern era,” has in recent years suffered through the financial crisis, the refugee crisis, the Ukraine crisis, and the Brexit crisis, and its flaws were revealed yet again in the crisis of the pandemic, to the point that serious discussions have been launched about the continued feasibility of the European Union, and the “failure of the West” has become a topic for historians.
In the Middle East region, due to the strategic vacuum left by the US withdrawal and the weakness of the Russian-European Control Authority 俄欧控局,[6] the major forces in the region are unconstrained and eager to move. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey all have great power ambitions but also experience difficulties in rising above their rivals. Moreover, the plunge in international oil prices, and the freak occurrence of the "negative oil price phenomenon"[7] may be pushing the Middle East into a "Dark Age." As for the regions of Latin America and Africa, already far from the global geo-center, their influence in the post-pandemic world is unlikely to rise.
It is foreseeable that the post-pandemic economic recovery will be all the more dependent on the economic and the supply and production chains of the Indo-Pacific region, and international security concerns will also focus here because of the concrete implementation of the US Indo-Pacific strategy, of which the conflicts in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits are omens. Against the backdrop of an intensifying Sino-American rivalry, how to better manage the Asia-Pacific region and China’s peripheries—how, for example, to prioritize deepening One Belt-One Road in the Asia-Pacific region, or how to handle the latent risks of military and security conflicts—are strategic questions that China must face in formulating a diplomatic strategy for the post-pandemic world.
Globalization suffers a backlash, and global governance faces an unprecedented crisis
The movement from a dispersed state to a concentrated state is both a law describing the movement of the history of the modern world, as well as a necessary result of developments in economics and technology. The great discoveries of the early modern period opened the curtain on the shift from a regional to a globalized world, and the industrial and technological revolutions sped the process of globalization. The capitalist revolution used capital and markets to destroy national boundaries, turning the entire world into a single economic body with linked interests.
The socialist revolution called for the “proletariat of the world to unite,” infinitely expanding the power of ideology. With the end of the Cold War, the arrival of the information age finally created a genuinely interactive world, as human resources, finance, and trade all became mobile, and the idea of the «global village” came into being. In sum, the trend toward globalization is already a great torrent, possessing an ever-changing objective existence independent of human will, and which no force can or will stop.
Yet the deepening of globalization has also given rise to a series of new problems, contradictions, and challenges. This is an indisputable fact, another side of globalization. For example, where will the great flow of globalization ultimately stop? Should countries simply follow the progress of globalization? Or should they worry about globalization’s outcomes? Does the fact that the economy is becoming a global whole mean that politics should follow suit (as in Fukuyama’s “End of History”)?
With the exposure of the chronic illnesses of the Western democratic capitalist system, and the simultaneous demonstration of the effectiveness and dynamism of China’s system of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, the free market economy no longer necessarily has to follow Western democratic capitalism. This idea [that free markets and democratic systems are necessary complements] is increasingly becoming a sad delusion of thinkers of the bygone Western era, and if the idea is not valid, this in turn means that economic globalization will not occur in sync with the political globalization imagined in Western strategic circles.
Moreover, if the process of economic globalization is not coordinated with the internal politics of participating countries, this will inevitably lead to imbalances in domestic development and imbalances in global development. If these imbalances are not taken seriously, or if structural reforms are not brought to bear, the imbalances will lead to an increase in internal social contradictions, as well as external protectionism, populism, isolationism, and adventurism. The emergence of the “Trump phenomenon” is precisely the result of the American inability over the past 20 years to carry out national strategic transformation in response to globalization and the evolution of a multi-polar world.
The policies chosen by Trump after coming to power are not internal and external strategic adjustments that take into account the direction of global development, but are instead anti-globalization moves based on anti-globalization thinking, examples of which include trade protectionism, Sino-American decoupling, repatriating manufacturing, etc. The result is not only that these measures have been unable to effect a fundamental change of America’s deep structural issues, but they have also created new international tensions.
From a global perspective, the globalization of finance, information, and resources should at the same time generate a corresponding global governance, but in fact, global governance is often a story of big talk and little action, and the world is far from where it needs to be in terms of pooling capital, human talent, and institutions. The economic base clearly does not correspond to the superstructure, or the two are perhaps out of sync. In responding to financial or economic crises, the function of the IMF and World Bank is limited, and the central banks of various countries have become the dominant force or the advance troops. The result is that countries compete by using measures like fiscal stimulus or tax cuts. This is like drinking poison to quench your thirst and it will eventually lead to bad outcomes.
The sudden outbreak and the disastrous spread of the coronavirus, this “formless enemy,” throughout the planet, should have served as a wake-up call for the people of the world. It should have forced countries to revisit to the logic and developmental path of globalization, to grasp yet again the extreme importance of global governance, yet so far the results have fallen short of people’s expectations, or have even gone in the opposite direction. Certain great powers, led by the United States, have blamed globalization for going too far and penetrating too deeply, instead of actively promoting “globalization 2.0” and strengthening global governance capacity.
Rather than seeing the global spread of the epidemic as a reason to strengthen leadership responsibilities and increase global governance, they interpret the pandemic as the erroneous result of globalization and call for measures to reverse globalization. They do not seek great power cooperation or international cooperation to solve problems of shortages of medical supplies, but instead narrowly define the issues in terms of the “localization” or “regionalization” of production, and push for the repatriation of manufacturing. They do not painstakingly strengthen the capacity of international organizations, but instead attack the WHO when it’s down and withdraw from the organization. They defame the effectiveness and contribution of the World Trade Organization, forcing global governance into unprecedented dilemmas.
At present, it is still too early to make a definitive judgement concerning the future prospects of globalization. Ultimately, globalization is a historical trend, having developed over centuries. Those who follow it prosper and those who don’t perish. This is understood by insightful people of all nations, and the few politicians attempting to thwart it are wasting their time. Our thoughts about the post-pandemic reconstruction are only beginning, and ideas like “decoupling” and repatriation are easier said than done, and will ultimately be pushed aside by history. In the wake of a major disaster it is fitting to revisit and reevaluate globalization so as to better launch it again.
China champions a “community of destiny for all mankind,” promotes One Belt-One Road, and upholds free trade and multilateralism, correct choices that respect history and accord with the era, and which we will ever uphold. As for global governance, this subject once dear to the West but which it now ignores or feels to be beyond its capacity, China can “put new wine in old bottles,” offering improvements at both theoretical and practical levels, increasing the discursive power and influence of internationalism.
Conflicts over systems, models, and high tech are increasingly becoming the core disputes in international politics
One of the most obvious changes in international politics in the period since the end of the Cold War has been China’s rise, and the increasing maturity and self-confidence of China’s system of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, which accompanied that rise. Corresponding to this, we note the decline of the West, the increasing flaws in the capitalist system, and the destruction of the guiding system of liberal internationalism. The ideological and systemic rivalries between the US and the USSR during the Cold War have morphed into the current competition over the Chinese and American development paths or models.
The fundamental change of US strategy towards China aims not only to cope with the power shift occasioned by China’s rise, but instead hopes to contain the great challenge of China’s development model to Western-style liberal democracy. That Pompeo, Navarro, Bannon, Gingrich and other American anti-China figures are all sounding off is precisely due to the profound challenge that the Chinese system poses to the American system. The trade war that America provoked with China from the outset targeted the “China 2025” program, state subsidies, structural reforms, etc., and it is obvious that hidden behind the “trade” problem lie the true targets, which are China’s system and China’s politics. The signing of the first-phase trade agreement between China and the United States should have led to a temporary truce, a strategic buffer allowing the two countries to rationally review their respective national conditions. Unexpectedly, the coronavirus intervened.
Faced with the virus, China quickly controlled the epidemic through centralized leadership, unified command, coordinated action, central-local integration, mutual assistance, public medical care, community management, and taking the people as the base 以人为本. China took the lead in restoring work and production, displaying unique institutional advantages, in stark contrast to the institutional shortcomings we saw in the United States and Europe—party antagonism, the abuse of ideas of “freedom,” and political polarization. Not wanting to admit system failures and policy errors, the West indulged in denouncing and slandering China to cover up its own inadequacies, for instance blaming China for having “covered up the virus,” or for using pandemic diplomacy to “carry out their regional strategic ambitions,” claiming “ideological victories,” etc.
It is just as some Western media outlets put it: the coronavirus has become a “strategic test of strength between the Chinese model and the Western model.” If so, this is a sad fact for international politics. In reality, all systems have their advantages, and while China will resist having the Western system imposed on it, it will not blindly sell its own institutional model to others. What China proposes is that the civilizations of all countries learn from one another, because the world is rich and varied.[8]
The pandemic once again revealed the power of science and technology. One of the reasons that China was able to stabilize and control the situation relatively quickly was that she drew on innovations and developments in science and technology over recent years, including Big Data, health codes, express delivery practices, various tracing technologies, electronic payment systems, grid management, etc.
China is relatively ahead on this front, which should stimulate the West to review the state of their systems. Yet given the limitations imposed in the West by popular will and electoral politics, as well as the absolute priority accorded to what they call freedom and human rights, this review may well prove rather difficult. On the other hand, as already explained, the United States may well accelerate the decoupling of science and technology to prevent the development of these sectors in China, while increasing its accusations of China’s so-called “science and technology ethics” and “digital surveillance.”
Further reflections on relations between China and the world
In the 40 years of reform and opening, or the 70 years since the establishment of the New China, or even the 160 years since the Opium War, a perpetual question facing China has been how to handle relations with the world. Over the past century and more, China has both been cheated and exploited, and has fought back, resisted, and earned respect, and only Chinese people can truly appreciate the range of flavors that characterize the relationship between China and the world. The 40 years of reform and opening marked a recasting of China’s relations with the world, the central theme of which was China’s “integration into the world,” and China’s rise was understood, in the words of Zheng Bijian[9] 郑必坚 (b. 1932), as “independently building socialism with Chinese characteristics through a process of engaging with economic globalization rather than standing apart from it.”
Following China's sustained high-speed rise, and the resulting economic prosperity, political self-confidence, and strategic initiative, China's relationship with the world is undergoing rapid changes. To put it simply, the world is not the world it was, and is experiencing “a once-in-a-century great change;” nor is China the China of old, and is transitioning from a status of “great power” to a status of “superpower.” China’s relations with the world are already thoroughly integrated, deeply linked; in the past China sought unilaterally to “integrate the world,” now China and the world shape one another. China is no longer integrating the world but instead providing “creative intervention" and "constructive guidance,” while at the same time accepting and embracing the world’s integration of China.
Since the 18th National Congress of the CCP [in November 2012], China has chosen cooperation and a win-win posture as its ideological foundation, and peaceful development as its strategic priority. It has adopted One Belt-One Road as its primary policy stance, and the construction of a new type of international relations as its immediate objective. Its ultimate goal is the creation of a community of mankind’s shared destiny, through the “five in one” general framework[10] and the “close links between peoples of the world 环环相扣,” forming a set of new international strategic frameworks that both respect the past and innovate for the future, so that the relationship between China and the world enters a new historical phase.
Yet just as China increases its participation in the world, just as China assumes world leadership, America chooses “strategic contraction” and “America first,” and the trend in Sino-American relations, which is going against the trend of development in relations throughout the world, will earn the contempt of history. The result is that the United States is not looking at China’s relations with the world from a progressive historical perspective, but instead is scrutinizing Chinese intentions through a lens of strategic caution, and using high-pressure tactics to carry out blockage and containment.
Bannon and his ilk even wildly imagine that One Belt-One Road combines three great Western theories of regional tactics with an eye toward realizing China’s territorial ambitions of “ruling the world.”[11] Not uncoincidentally, since the pandemic, China’s generous approach of distributing aid throughout the world has also been slandered as using the pandemic to “realize strategic territorial goals.” This has put the relationship between China and the world in a new, unfavorable light, and we need to hit restart once again.
The coronavirus pandemic has not changed the fact that the world is experiencing a once-in-a-century change, but has simply made that change a bit quicker and a bit more abrupt. It has not changed the basic shape of China’s relations with the world, but instead has made these relations more complex and multi-faceted. Nor has it changed the basic judgment that China is currently in a period of strategic opportunities, a posture that will continue. After all, China led the way out of the most difficult moment of the pandemic, and began planning to return to work and production; marked by the convening of the "Two Sessions,"[12] the strategic deployment China established is still proceeding in an orderly manner.
However, it will become increasingly difficult for China to seize the opportunity, and the risk challenge will surely multiply. In this extraordinary moment when countries face the disaster of the pandemic and the entire world fights the virus, the crux of the issue is whether China be able manage its own affairs well at the same time that it assumes it role as a great power and does its utmost to supply public health goods to the world. This is both a prerequisite for restarting China’s relationship with the world as well as the foundation for the great revival of the Chinese nation.
To ensure that the restart will proceed smoothly and extend into the future, we must begin by looking back on the path we have travelled, and must unwaveringly push forward the new age of reform and opening. On this front, we must bravely advance, and cannot be satisfied with half-measures. Next, we must settle our minds and proceed calmly with the task at hand. As the goal of the “first one hundred years” approaches conclusion, we should pause for a moment, sum up our experiences and lessons learned, and look for laws and patterns that will create the conditions as we take up the sprint toward the “second hundred years.”
Then we will need to liberate our thought and seek truth from facts, and in a timely manner address the chaotic conditions of social thought in the new media age, sorting it out, providing guidance, because in the absence of common ideological understanding, launching the “second hundred years” will be exceptionally difficult. Finally, we must correctly lay out the relationship between development and security. The issues of biosecurity exposed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as various questions of national security included in the concept of total national security, all illustrate that development requires security. Without security, externally there is always the risk of an attack in the night, and internally, all of our economic accomplishments could disappear in the blink of an eye. Development is indeed the only path to follow, but after 40 years of development under reform and opening, we need to add a prefix: “secure development” is the only correct path.
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