Changing role of China and US

• Source: The Global Times
• [23:28 May 30 2009]
• Comments

Editor’s Note:

In what way can the rise of China be considered a success? Will the current financial crisis offer an opportunity for China to surpass the US? Will the US, the sole superpower in the world, and China, the fastest growing regional power, cooperate with each other? The Global Times and the Tsinghua University invited Thomas P. M. Barnett, the author of widely discussed work, The Pentagon’s New Map:Blueprint for Action, and Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University, to address these crucial questions. The following are the excerpts of the discussion. 

How will the rise of China come to an end?

Yan Xuetong: My recent study of the ancient writings of the Qin Dynasty (221-207BC) revealed one discovery: strategy is not designed by scholars and then carried out according to that blueprint. As for China’s strategy, I don’t think we have one. Chinese politicians are looking to resume China’s historical position. The question is what position should be assumed to achieve this goal.

Today, the dominant idea is that of Deng Xiaoping, which asserts that we need to build up a strong economy first and only then discuss China’s resurgence. But any country or superpower in the world bases such concerns on comprehensive power.

If there is a huge gap between the military and the economy, then there is no way to become a leading power. And even if we have the equal military and economic power, but lack the will to take a risk in leading the world, we still cannot become the leading power because our political power is very weak. So it is necessary to maintain and grow in parallel the elements of political, economic, military and cultural power.

Yan Xuetong

Thomas Barnett: My sense is the perceived crisis and the actual crisis in the global economy and the accompanying sense of a leadership crisis in terms of world affairs come about 10 years too early for China. If this crisis happened in the year 2020, as opposed to 2009, China would be further along in its development and would have leadership in place that would be well into its tenure.

China has not been completely transparent in its ambitions. China is not presenting a strong definition of where it wants the world to go and is saying simply that it wants to return to its rightful place. China is having such a huge impact on the world in its demand for resources, that answer isn’t enough of one to make the rest of the world comfortable.

China has a huge opportunity to present to the world a definition of development and middle-class existence that does not use the same resource pattern that the West used over the past two centuries. If this is not the case, the sheer demand used by China in achieving a middle-class lifestyle may ultimately be so destabilizing environmentally for the planet that the future is likely to be decided by resource wars between the US and China.