China: the keys to its future world hegemony

The projection of the Asian giant throughout this last decade leaves no room for doubt: China will be the first world power. And although there are still many unknowns in this regard, the truth is that a certain upheaval can already be observed in the global panorama. The center of gravity of international relations is moving and the constant, palpable tension between Washington and Beijing seems to bring it closer to the latter enclave, putting in check the entire architecture resulting from the Second World War. For the first time, a developing country (an Eastern country, too) seems to have real leadership options, and the project that is on the table continues to worry intellectuals.

My intention is not to encourage debate; Enough rivers of ink have already flowed! However, I do believe it is necessary to systematize the reasons that lead to thinking such a thing. Because everything seems to indicate that China will eventually prevail, and it will do so thanks to a meticulously designed strategy that encompasses the political, economic and social. These three axes will be the ones that set the pace of the speech.

So let's go there.

From a political point of view, the truth is that there is a lot of ambivalence: some authors are pessimistic about China's progress, and others, on the contrary, are quite optimistic. Among the first would be Graham Allison, American analyst and author of the now famous "Thucydides Trap", which focuses on a very specific fragment of the History of the Peloponnesian War, a classic work if there ever was one. The fragment says the following:

It was the development of Athens, and the fear this instilled in Sparta, that made this war inevitable.

From these few words, Allison draws two types of powers, established and emerging, and launches a rather disturbing hypothesis: When a rising emerging power threatens to displace an established power, war, in historical terms, is inevitable. The fact is that a study by Harvard University has recently corroborated this premise: in the last five hundred years, twelve of the sixteen clashes between emerging and established powers have led to hostilities... and the The trade war currently being waged between China and the United States seems to be invoking a kind of prolegomena. Some are already predicting a new Cold War which, on this occasion, would confront East and West. And the truth is that there seems to be no willingness to reformulate international balances. Allison clings to this path as the only one capable of stopping the escalation of tensionHowever, the position adopted by the Trump administration since 2016 hinders any attempt; and of course, the participation of the United States would, in any case, be fundamental.

At the other end of the debate, and among the most optimistic authors, we would curiously find the Bulgarian Ivan Krastev, author, along with Stephen Holmes, of the essay The light that goes out (2019). The work revolves around a key date: the June 4th, 1989, the year in which the famous Tiananmen Square protests took place. Deng Xiaoping, president of the People's Republic of China at the time, decided to send the tanks to suppress the pro-democratic revolt that was beginning to take shape at that time, and the justification he gave days later deserves to be transcribed literally: “His "The objective was to establish a bourgeois republic totally dependent on the West." This phrase sums up China's sentiment perfectly; So much so, that Xi Jinping's policy today is deeply nourished by what this maxim was able to establish then in the collective ideology. But it must also be considered that this event did not occur in isolation. 1989 was a year of attempts: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the rise to the presidency of Bush senior…all of them participated in the end of one era (The End of History, in the words of Francis Fukuyama), and the beginning of another. Krastev and Holmes have named it the “Age of imitation”: a period characterized by the gradual erosion of Western values ​​due to the very shielding with which they were provided.

This shielding, precisely, has greatly hindered accountability; It has also entailed a rather protective attitude towards the East and Latin America, in particular; and, finally, it has been the breeding ground for a series of sensibilities called populist or demagogic that have undermined and stripped of certain content from the liberal democratic project of the 20th century. It is precisely in this context that China rises. But Unlike the United States, Krastev and Holmes appreciate a key distinction, which is that China has no claim to exportability of your paradigm. That is, it does not wish to instill its culture in the West, but rather to defend itself from global Westernization through its own means.

Trade and investment, growth and development... All of them are pillars of Western culture, and China assumes them as such, polishes their defects and uses them in its own interest. But he does it in a very different way than United States. The Americanization of the globe underlies a large number of current problems: the crises in Korea and Iran, the obstacles to reforming the United Nations System, interference in Latin America. In one way or another, with greater or lesser success, the hand of the Uncle Sam ends up emerging, and what China would propose is to end this variable at its roots. Krastev and Holmes conclude their argument as follows:

That is why the rise of China marks the end of the Age of Imitation, because, unlike what the West does, the Chinese State expands its international influence without trying to transform the societies on which it tries to impose its dominance.

This political element makes the economic its best instrument. Even at the national level, the important reforms undertaken in China must be highlighted. Those aimed at increasing the middle class, correcting labor costs or revalue the Yuan They are perhaps the most relevant. But none of them could be understood without analyzing his consolidation as an international investor. And China's action, given its political project, already extends throughout the planet.

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Let's start with Asia, either because of its proximity. I have previously pointed out that the center of gravity of international relations is shifting, and that the very inertia of the tensions between Washington and Beijing seems to be bringing it closer to the latter capital. Well, this is largely due to the important initiative that China is championing in Central Asia: the Belt and Road Initiative. Xi Jinping seeks to open a new Silk Road that connects East Asia with Europe; a pharaonic project through which roads, railways, oil pipelines and other infrastructure would transit in order to constitute the largest commercial area in the world.

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So much so that it is planned to implement up to fifty special economic zones called to control the enormous traffic that would structure the region. It happens, however, that Central Asia is a first-order geostrategic space. Russia and the United States have been fighting for hegemony in the area for years. Consider that the region is one of the main conflict zones on the planet. Therefore, distrust towards China increases. Where the Asian giant says it sees great opportunities for investment and growth, others see signs of military expansionism and regional dirigisme, which would not fail to generate added friction to the pulse already maintained by the United States and Russia.

But this would by no means be China's only bet. Its presence in Africa is even more consolidated. The Bandung Conference, already around 1955, began to lay the foundations for what is today a very convenient relationship. The meeting was called to vindicate the existence of and demand cooperation between third world countries, and China took advantage of the opportunity. The establishment of diplomatic relations throughout the sixties with many African countries not only allowed Beijing to consolidate its capital status, discussed by Taiwan, but also catapulted China to the status of the region's first trading partner.

Thus arises what in the field of international negotiation is called a win-win; both parties win. Africa, on the one hand, in infrastructure, thanks to the significant investment of the Asian giant. But China… China would win a lot more. To the interests that the investment already entails, we must add the warranty clauses, small stipulations that would allow the country, in the event of non-payment, to supply itself with the raw materials from the African continent or, failing that, take possession of the infrastructure erected for its exploitation. The level of debt on the East Coast, especially, makes this potential benefit very tangible, and what beforehand It is articulated as a mere safeguard clause, could eventually extend the New Silk Road along the African coast, with the consequent impact that this would have at a geostrategic level.

The situation in America diverges slightly from the previous one. If Africa supported Beijing's capital status from the beginning and practically unanimously, Latin America would be somewhat more reticent and favorable to Taiwan.. This, at first, led to a certain misunderstanding between the two. However, the failure of the neoliberal recipes that were applied in the Southern Cone during the 2000s would cause a change of attitude among the interlocutors. China is beginning to gain interest in Latin America. Since XNUMX, investments in the region (particularly in Venezuela) have grown exponentially. However, it has been the measures approved by the Trump administration, of a markedly protectionist nature, that have ended up strengthening the relationship. But China's presence in America is not limited exclusively to Latin America; The United States, despite everything, also has the Asian factor well intertwined in its economy.

At the outset, it should be noted that 17% of the total North American foreign debt is held by China; 1,13 trillion dollars, approximately, which makes the famous commercial war a real double-edged sword. The origins of the conflict arise on an eminently political level: Donald Trump, with the slogan Make America Great Again, begins a protectionist drift that seeks to combat, in the field of intellectual property, unfair competition from China. To this end, the president uses the provisions of Article 301 of the Trade Law of 1974, a practically obsolete rule whose invocation barely allows retaliation to be sustained. That is why the hostilities denigrate the customs area, producing, here, the tariff escalation that was echoed in the news and that would lead to the destruction of exchange rates, especially after the devaluation of the Yuan. Exports have suffered since then, still affected by the spiral of retaliation that trapped both powers.

If this experience shows anything, it is that inoculation, neutralization of the competitor is not the correct way. We live in a time that compels us to understand, to multilateralization of efforts, as can be seen from the last of the Goals for Sustainable Development (SDG), and for these purposes, move from a paradigm of tolerance, that is, stratification; to another of respect, or equality, becomes fundamental. For this reason, it is imperative to understand the social reality of the interlocutor; the culture and vision, in this case, of China. Following Martin jacques, a correct understanding of this country pivots on three basic precisions. The first, and perhaps most important, is that China is not a nation-state, but a civilization-state. Founded on the worship of ancestors, a peculiar notion of family and, in short, the confucian values, China is characterized by its unity in diversity. A clear example would be the legal status of Hong Kong, which since 1997 follows the maxim “one country, two systems".

But this diversity, mainly noticeable on the margins of the country, is in turn combined with a majority identity, the second element to consider. 90% of the population identifies with a single dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the result of more than two thousand years of conquest and assimilation that, currently, have come to crystallize in a certain racial superiority. The treatment that minority groups such as the Uyghurs and Tibetans have received are good proof of this; Spain, without going any further, has heard of several universal jurisdiction files in this regard. However, diplomatic arrangements have ended up prevailing to the detriment of a vigorous defense of human rights. This is, perhaps, one of the great pending issues of the Asian giant.

Finally, reference should be made to the social perception of authoritarianism and to the legitimization, in short, of the Chinese system itself. Which basically connect with the solidity and omnipresence inherent to the state structure. Solidity, because, in its more than a thousand years of life, there has not been any significant challenge to legitimate coercion in a monopoly regime, that is, the ability to exercise or make use of the force that assists the State. And this is due, fundamentally, to its omnipresence. Acting as guardian of civilization and its values, he inserts himself into the family logic itself, even exercising the role of its head; a reality founded on the customs of the elderly that comes to perfect the political apparatus.

A correct implementation of these three factors when interacting with China is imperative. In fact, it allows us to overcome the paradigm of tolerance that was already pointed out, and move towards a dialogue based on respect, on the equality of parties. That a developing country, a BRICS, is called to serve as the leading world power, evidences a substantive change in the international arena, and the challenge is none other than the creation of a new balance of powers for an increasingly liquid and changing reality. Pragmatism and resilience, then, are the keys of our time. And they are, especially, to converse with the East.