Author: Ecaterina Cojuhari – 02/12/2024
Apéro Géopolitique : “China – a hegemonic power of a new peacemaker?”
The world’s leading economic power in terms of real GDP, China is no longer limited to the economic sphere: it touches on strategic, military, cultural, and scientific areas. China competes with the United States, while positioning itself as the defender of a new vision of international relations, based on cooperation and stability. At the same time last year Xi Jinping cautioned citizens to be prepared to “eat bitterness” a Chinese phrase signaling hard times ahead regarding the economic situation in China, which can be worse because of the Trump policy against China.
During Apéro Géopotique discussion on November 21 at Château d’Aire in Geneva, organized in cooperation with SWISS UMEF University of Applied Sciences Institute, experts discussed this hot topic: Brunson McKinley – Diplomat at the State Department, Former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Former Director General of the International Organisation for Migration at the UN in Geneva, Dr. Zhang Yuheng, International Business Development Manager and Independent Analyst on Sino-European Culture and Politics, and Hicheme Lehmici – a geopolitical analyst, secretary of GIPRI, a lecturer at the SWISS UMEF University of Applied Sciences Institute.
US strategy towards China
-China’s rapid economic growth, and technological advancements have raised concerns about whether it seeks to dominate the global order, challenging the U.S. and Western-led systems. You were among the first diplomats who started American-Chinese relations in 1973. Do you see China as a new Hegemonic Power? What could be Trump’s strategy toward China and BRICS?
Brunson McKinley: I would like to emphasize the period of engagement and globalization when the U. S. helped China join the World Trade Organization and American money.G8 money, G20 money poured into China, a lot of it from Taiwan, actually. It was the period of hope. One of the hopes, a strong hope, which fueled the American position was that prosperity in China would lead to democracy in China. In other words, as the Chinese economy grew closer, more closely integrated into the world capitalist economy, it would bring about a harmonization also on the cultural and political side of things, which didn’t really happen. Big problem with China was – it was much too successful. It was just enormously successful. Year after year of 10% growth, it grew very, very rich. And projected into the future looked to be an enormous threat to the United States’ position as number one global power. And that is essentially where we are right now. In Beijing, Washington and the Western capitals, people have got to think hard about this and decide what they want to do.
The economic integration of China in globalization is a fact. But a series of countries, if not hostile to China, areat least worried about China. On China’s periphery and under the influence of the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, going all the way over to India, are open to the idea of containment. You know, China is the Middle Kingdom, right? China is in its own head the hegemonic power in Asia. I mean, not because political leaders say so, just because it’s so big and it’s so central and it has exercised so much influence through all of East Asia, through all of history.
So China is the regional power. The U. S. is a recent arrival but hopes to contain it. Mr. Trump has named his foreign policy team. They’re all hardliners and they’re all anti-China hawks. But are they going to be able to contain China? Will they contain the economic growth of China? Well, it’s not up to them. That’s up to the Chinese. And they’ve shown that they can overcome great, great difficulties to continue growing and I think they will. In fact, I would go so far as to say that China now has the upper hand. The momentum is on the side of China. Will the countries around China join the U. S. in an attempt to squeeze them? Maybe they will. If they really think that the Chinese rearmament and the Blue Water Navy and nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles are the kind of threat that only close ties to the United States can protect them from, maybe they will choose security over economic engagement. But maybe they won’t. I think it’s going to be a hard sell. All of those countries are highly dependent on China economically. And when asked by the United States to join an alliance opposing the growth of China, they may do so. But they may have their fingers crossed behind their backs, because China is very, very important to them.
Regarding BRICS, one strategy could be to separate out the different parts of the BRICS, to treat China differently, to treat Russia differently, to treat India differently, to treat Brazil differently. I think the different elements of BRICS can be separated. This is a little bit like the strategy that Nixon and Kissinger tried to put in place back when I first went to China 50 years ago. You know, try to address the concerns of China through a form of détente, try to address the concerns of the Soviet Union through a form of détente, and split up the bloc into its constituent parts which are more easily controlled. I think that’s perhaps the way Trump’s hawks will go at it.
Way of hegemony or way of king?
-China now is positioning itself as a diplomatic counterbalance, proposing peace initiatives like with Ukraine. Is it a generous attempt for global stability or it’s a strategy to enlarge its influence? So it’s basically a question of the discussion.
Dr. Zhang Yuheng: First of all, I am not representing China. I’m more in a transcendent perspective to look at these issues. China is a country of culture. The Chinese mentality is also culturally very much looking back to look for legitimacy. I want to say that there was a long-lasting discussion in the Chinese intellectual atmosphere about how a government or an emperor, or a king should govern its people. At that time, it was mainly domestic. This is the discussion revolved at the end into two concepts. One is the so-called way of hegemony. It’s called Ba Dao in Chinese. The other one is so-called the way of the king. It’s so-called Wang Dao. What does that mean?
The so-called way of hegemony emphasizes rule by strength and power. It typically applied in the situation of chaos, of a competitive situation. But on the other hand, the way of the king emphasized the rule by virtue, by justice, and aiming for a long-lasting peace. These two concepts have been discussed so deeply and for so long in the Chinese political thoughts till today, all the way till today. There are still a lot of discussions and they start to apply, really bringing this pair of concepts to the discussion of international relationships.
The Chinese intellectuals are busy with this-how should we understand this world, which way we should use, in what situation? But when they are so busy with this discussion, that means they are still lacking this fixed thing there, right? So they don’t have a fixed idea of what should be.
If we look at the real politics or real history, it’s always a mixture of these two things. For me, of course, the economic influence or economic power will definitely bring political influence, sometimes even maybe military influence, for sure. This is history. So, China’s action in the Middle East, according to my perspective and my observation, China’s effort in the Russian-Ukrainian war, I think is still an optimistic and a strategic maneuver rather than sincerely trying to build up a stable or peaceful world order.
If I observe what the Chinese position is, I see they are hesitating whether the way of the king or the way of hegemon will take the upper hand. If I may answer the question in a very simple way, I think neither. But of course, it depends on many things. It depends on the internal problems. There are economic challenges and social tensions. There are a lot of things they have to handle. But of course, it also depends how the outside world is reacting, how the USA is reacting. More provoking or more, putting fuel in the fire, or facilitating in this.
Taiwan scenarios
-Common US-Taiwan military exercises, selling weapons, visiting American senators and deputies to Taiwan, all this looks like they are provoking China. How should China react? Developing its military defense, China is alarming the U. S. A. why they are doing this. What prognoses do you have for Taiwan and China?
Burnson McKinley: China should wait. China should exercise the long-term view that it is famous for. China should be patient. One day, one China will be a fact, and Taiwan will be a part of the big China again, just as Hong Kong is part of the big China again. It would be a mistake for the Chinese to go to war over Taiwan now. I don’t think they are going to make that mistake. Relations between Taiwan and the mainland in business, technology, and human concerns are fairly good already. The situation is not fraught.
The only thing that might upset that prognosis is if Taiwanese nationalists came to the fore in Taiwan and decided they would try to declare independence. That could provoke the Chinese into some kind of action, which would probably not be an invasion – it is very difficult to invade an island across water. But it might be a blockade or something of that sort. I don’t think it is going to happen. If the U. S. government has made a lot of silly moves by sending high-level delegations to Taiwan to give the idea that somehow Taiwan might break away from China and exist independently without any influence from Beijing, this is a dream. It is a myth. It is not really going to happen.
The Chinese are irritated. I mean, Beijing is irritated when a congressional delegation shows up in Taipei, but Beijing knows that Washington doesn’t want a war with China over Taiwan either. Taiwan is very important to the U. S. in terms of a containment strategy. If it’s going to have any kind of a containment strategy, it has to have Taiwan in it. But we’re talking short-term now and China is thinking long-term. I think our grandchildren will probably still see two different governments in Beijing and Taipei both claiming to be the, you know, parts of one China. And one day it will come true, but nobody is going to push it on the Chinese side. That’s what I think.
China as “continental oceans” power
-What is the economical situation in China, what are future scenarios? Silk Road Initiative – is it a way for development and cooperation or its creation of debt dependence of some countries, especially in Africa? Are diplomatic initiatives part of this strategy?
Hicheme Lehmici: People’s Republic of China, in terms of real global economy and GDP, is the world’s first economic power. This does not negate the fact that the first strategic power of the world in terms of global power is the United States. China today has a foreign exchange reserve of $3,200 billion. These are the figures for 2024. The United States and the European Union are in a hyper-debt situation, which means there is very limited room for maneuver in foreign economic deployment. While China still has peripheral costs to be able to invest. Today the number one investor in Africa is China. The number one economic partner in South America is China, and China is now a major challenger in the Middle East. If you talk about China’s economic power, it is growing and it is much greater than the growth rate in Europe. The United States is in a different dynamic, definitely with strong growth in the coming years.
An important element that emphasizes China’s economic power is its participation in global industry. Today Chinese industry represents about 30% of global industry. The US is 16%, the EU is 15%, where half of it is Germany. Until the 18th, 19th century, China produced 50% of the manufacturing industry in the world. That is, China was the factory of the world. So we have absolutely nothing new today.
The United States continues to be dominant in a number of elements of innovation. Their exceptional ability, the human wealth that the United States has, this ability to invest that is unique to the world, the attractiveness of the United States is a reality. If you take the case of China, we always tend to say that China is trying to emulate Americans and trying to copy others. We have this idea that China is just an industrial copy. But if we look at the facts and figures – China today produces almost 5 million graduates every year in science, technology, engineering and math. These are UNESCO figures for 2021. Of course, this is also China’s demographic strength, but today China is the country that innovates the most. Every year – about 1.5 million patent applications come out of China. Those are UNDP figures. By comparison, the United States registers 600,000 patents a year.
Regarding the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, which is a kind of reunification in its modern dimension of what were the Silk Roads that connected China, the Middle East and Europe in the past. Today we have an absolutely exceptional project that was put forward in 2013 by China, which is actually part of a kind of investment global strategy to connect the whole continent to make sure that China can export and have direct access to all markets. It’s a small part of a very global geopolitical logic where geopolitics always pits maritime power against continental powers, emphasizing the fact that it’s maritime power that has dominated the last centuries. The UK and the US were able to intervene everywhere because of sea power.
The Chinese, with the New Silk Road project, have invented a kind of counterpoint to this maritime dominance. It is actually the creation of “continental seas or oceans”, a continental hinterland through the interconnection between different continents. But today things go even further if we look at China’s maritime power with an ultra-modern navy, much more modern than the Western navy, and this is an innovation that we don’t take into account enough, thinking that everything is like yesterday. Whereas everything has changed.
To understand what’s going on with the New Silk Road project: the new corridor connects China and the Middle East and the Indian Ocean through Pakistan in particular, with a port of great importance to China, which is the port of Gwadar. Which explains why China is trying to work on the relationship between India and Pakistan to try to break all these situations of tension that may exist. Which also explains the importance of the relationship between China and Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. There are also extremely important projects in Africa, especially in Kenya, the railroad line between Mombasa and Nairobi.
With quantum computers, China is number one in the world – nobody can do better today. If we take the nuclear industry, China is a leader in a Taurium technology that is likely to be the future of the nuclear industry and that will produce electricity almost for free. Finally, if we take the military, China is a leader in weapons, so-called directed energy, hypersonic missiles. China is a leader along with the Russians in hypersonic technology. And these are elements that I think should be considered and that reflect the level of real power that China has today.
At the same time to understand the Chinese “hegemony”, we should be interested in deep history and the concept of Chinese political philosophy, that is, the Qin way. This is an imperial Chinese idea, which means that the emperor in China is considered the “son of heaven” and that he has a mission to ensure harmony between heaven and earth. That is, that the mission of politics is a peacekeeping mission. That is, this is not a logic, which is part of the classical European philosophy, especially in international relations and always being in search of a hegemon. And it is basically about how to dominate others, how to ensure that we are in absolute power. I think that in Chinese political philosophy we are in a different tradition. If you take, first of all, the name of China, the Middle Kingdom, we find ourselves in a logic, which is the logic of equilibrium. If we take the way China has built its borders, we have a unique case of a great empire that has set itself borders – the Great Wall. The Great Wall was, in a way, the limit of its expansion.
China today has a vision that is original, and which, in my opinion, suggests a new kind of leadership. China works in its own interests; it does not act as a Good Samaritan. There is an obvious economic interest, but it has been theorized. It is the theory of a win-win partnership. To be a winner in historical Chinese logic means to base on three pillars of what constitutes China’s identity: Taoist thought and the idea of harmony, Confucian thought, that is, order, and Buddhist thought, that is, openness. I think that this is a very important building block, and that China is able to offer leadership that is a little bit new. We see how China has brilliantly managed to restore diplomatic relations between two countries that were on the brink of war, Iran and Saudi Arabia, how the Chinese are trying to find a solution in Palestine today, how they have managed to bring Hamas representatives to Beijing to give them an international dimension to advance the Palestinian cause, when we see in Sudan the way China is trying to intervene as a mediator, how it is trying to pacify relations between India and Pakistan, etc. I think we have an interesting model of leadership and a real challenge in fact for Western states. Probably, behind Chinese leadership in the future we have a form of hegemony, but which will be more of a form of intelligent hegemony in the sense that China protects its interests, but in a peaceful process. So we are approaching Chinese hegemony, but perhaps of a different nature.