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China’s Emerging Power: Cooperation, Competition, or Conflict?
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Table of Contents
Report by Anthony H. Cordesman
Published June 12, 2017
Available Downloads
- Download PDF file of "China’s Emerging Power: Cooperation, Competition, or Conflict?" 5156kb
By Anthony H. Cordesman
The U.S. faces at least four critical challenges in shaping its strategy and military force posture for the next decades of the 21 st century:
- Coping with the emergence of at China as a peer power in Asia and the Pacific, and in dealing with an increasingly multipolar world.
- Dealing with the reemergence of Russia as a competing great power.
- Defeating violent Islamic extremism, and working the moderate Islamic regimes to defeat terrorism and insurgency and bring stability to threatened countries.
- Finding the right balance between each of the previous challenges while maintaining the capability to deal with lessor problems and threats.
China is the most critical of all these four challenges. Finding a way to cooperate, while limiting competition to peaceful means and avoiding the escalation of any incident or clash, now presents the greatest risk of a serious conflict and of some new form of arms race and competition in the Pacific that could take on the character of a new “Cold War.”
In an ideal world, the answer would be to focus almost exclusively on the cooperation. In the real world, some level of competition between two very different great powers is inevitable, and the risk of some form of low level clash or “incident” is high. This makes it critical for both sides to understand each other’s goals, strategy, and military forces as well as possible, and to maintain the kind of strategic and military-to-military dialogue and exchanges that will build up understanding and the willingness to compromise, limit the impact of any given area of competition, and avoid escalation when incidents do occur.
Building such understanding at a broad level that considers all of the key variables and trends is anything but easy. It is far too easy to focus on a given area of today’s competition, to highlight differences, and ignore the complex mix of longer-term trends that impact on China, the U.S. and other powers. The end result is to highlight risks in narrow short-term areas, and to fail to see the broader risks of escalation and steadily increasing long-term competition and rivalry.
There are many good detailed studies of the emergence of China’s military forces and its impact on U.S. policy that address these issues. They include a number of Chinese defense white papers -- the summary of the 2015 paper is excerpted in brief.
At an official level, they also include the U.S. Department of Defense Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2016%20China%20Military%20Power%20Report.pdf ; a wide range of work by Congressional Committees, reporting and analysis by the Congressional Research Service, and as well as the White Papers of Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
At another level, they include the work of many think tanks and research centers in the United States, China, and other countries. The CSIS has addressed these issues in depth in many of the activities of its China program and other parts of CSIS. The Burke Chair at CSIS has written several detailed net assessments of U.S. and Chinese competition:
- Chinese Strategy and Military Modernization in 2017 , and is available on the CSIS web site at https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/170112_Chinese_Strategy_and_Military_Modernization.pdf?Ikd72h18mXYw.mcTydjM5ljuu7cjk2AL .
- The Military Balance in the Koreas and Northeast Asia , and is available on the CSIS web site at https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/170131_Northeast_Asia_Korea_Book.pdf?IH5xTmaHrldeYRY7U6oqllps9XkTiCH9 .
There is, however, a need for summary overviews of China’s emergence, of its impact on the different military balances in the region, and of the direction China is now taking. Such an overview must examine hard trends and numbers, and put them in the context of official U.S. assessments and those of other regional powers like Japan and Korea.
Such analysis was developed as a part of U.S. Asia’s continuing effort to increase the understanding of members of Congress and their staffs in its China 101 program. It is entitled China’s Emerging Power: Cooperation, Competition, or Conflict, and is available on the CSIS web site at https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/170613_China_Military_101_opt.pdf?mVkzOPDCukq8lfYxIMgDXFEW6eUBY_yH , and the U.S. Asia web site at www.usasiainstitute.org .
The various sections of the analysis include charts, tables, and maps addressing:
- Setting the Stage: The Chinese Perspective, U.S. Forces in Asia, and China’s Growing Strategic Role and Dependence Outside East Asia,
- Views of China’s Role in the Regional Military Balance,
- Military Spending: The “Universal Metric” of China’s Emerging Power,
- Conventional Forces and Build-Up,
- Nuclear Forces and the Future of “Parity”
- Space, Anti-Space, and Cyber
- Northeast Asia and the Koreas
- Dashed Lines, Outer Island Chains and Possible Direct Confrontation
- The South China Sea
- Chinese-U.S. Mil-to-Mil Engagements and Exercises
This analysis is not intended to be a policy document, or to comprehensively assess all of the many trends in China’s emerging military forces in depth. It focuses on seeking to summarize the aspects of China’s forces that impact most directly on its relations with the U.S. and its allies. It also focuses on the use of summary maps, graphics, and assessments using as much official data as possible to provide as much information as possible in compact form.
This focus does create an unintended bias. Most of these graphic and quantitative data come from outside China. China’s white papers do provide great insight into many aspect of China’s development, but rarely include detailed military charts, maps, and trend analyses – areas where the U.S., Japanese, and South Korean governments do provide such material.
The reader should also be aware that in spite of its length and complexity, this analysis is only an introduction to the issues involved. Any study that focuses on metrics inevitably has critical gaps that can only be dealt with through provide far more extensive narrative analysis. Cyber warfare is a key case in point but so are the nuances in Chinese strategy set forth in China’s White Papers and strategic and military studies – which can only be touched upon in this analysis. Photo credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Anthony H. Cordesman
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The Business Environment of China: Challenges of an Emerging Economic Superpower
China is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, with organized society existing for more than 10,000 years. While the country had a complex and dynamic past, the scope and pace of change in China since the reform era of the 1980s was unprecedented in the nation’s long history. The country reduced the number of its citizens living in poverty by over 200 million people and achieved a sevenfold increase in per capita income from 1979 to 2006. In 2008, China’s GDP accounted for 6 percent of the global total, making it the third-largest economy in the world. It was also a leading recipient of foreign direct investment, attracting $82.7 billion in 2007 and approximately $92.4 billion in 2008. Although these results were impressive, as the most populous nation in the world, China was facing the need to create 100 million new jobs by 2013 and to quadruple its GDP by 2020 in order to achieve and sustain a reasonable standard of living for its people. Moreover, in the midst of the 2009 global economic crisis, the country had experienced a steep slowdown in its economic growth, from 13 percent in 2007 to a projected 7-8 percent in 2009. To help accomplish its objectives in the face of these challenges, China had opened itself to foreign investment, trade, and the market-oriented ideas that would stimulate domestic productivity and build its global competitiveness. Although the country had experienced its share of hardship, it was faring better than most developing and many developed nations. As governments in advanced market-oriented economies were driven to intervene in the management of their domestic financial institutions, all eyes were on China and speculation ran high regarding how the country’s global role would change in the new market economy. This note provides a brief history of the country and explores China’s current status in the global business environment.
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China’s economic growth mostly welcomed in emerging markets, but neighbors wary of its influence, u.s. still seen as world’s leading economic power.
China has emerged as a global economic superpower in recent decades. It is not only the world’s second largest economy and the largest exporter by value , but it has also been investing in overseas infrastructure and development at a rapid clip as part of its Belt and Road Initiative . A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, particularly in emerging markets, publics largely have a positive view of China’s economic stature. People generally see China’s growing economy as a good thing for their country and believe China is having a predominantly positive influence on their country’s economic affairs.
When it comes to comparisons with the United States, generally speaking, China’s economic influence is seen in similar or even slightly more positive terms. Most publics are about equally sanguine about the state of their country’s bilateral economic relations with China and the U.S. Majorities in most nations also say both the U.S. and China have a great deal or a fair amount of influence on their country’s economic conditions. But, when rating that influence, more people say China’s is positive than say the same of the U.S.
Throughout this report, there are times when we will report 34-country medians and times when we will report 16-, 17- or 18-country medians. This year’s annual survey focused heavily on European public opinion three decades after the fall of communism . Because European respondents were already being asked so many region-specific questions, we did not ask them the entire suite of questions about China and the global balance of power that were asked in other regions.
Throughout the report, data is reported for all countries where the question was asked, so any differences in the number of countries presented in a given section stems from some publics not being asked certain questions.
More still name the U.S. as the foremost economic power than say the same of China. For example, across every country surveyed in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as many in the Asia-Pacific, people name the U.S. as the top economy. In the U.S., by a 50%-32% margin, Americans name their own country as the leading economic power, though there are stark partisan differences in these evaluations, with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents being more likely to name the U.S. than Democrats.
These are among the major findings from a Pew Research Center survey conducted among 38,426 people in 34 countries from May 13 to Oct. 2, 2019.
More countries see U.S. as a top ally than China
In many countries surveyed, the United States is viewed as an important ally. In Israel, 82% name the U.S. as the country they can most rely on as a dependable ally in the future. Across the Asia-Pacific region, around two-thirds or more cite the U.S. as a top ally in Japan (63%), the Philippines (64%) and South Korea (71%). In fact, in every country surveyed, more name the U.S. than China – though opinion is relatively divided in several countries.
When it comes to which countries are most threatening, though, both the U.S. and China emerge as top concerns across the publics surveyed – though largely in different regions. Across many of the Latin American as well as Middle East and North African countries surveyed, more name the U.S. as a top threat than say the same of China. The opposite is largely true in the Asia-Pacific countries, where many more name China as a top threat, including 40% of Australians, 50% of Japanese and 62% of Filipinos. These countries are also among those that are most likely to say China’s growing military is a bad thing for their country – though a median of 58% across the 18 countries polled generally see downsides to a strengthening Chinese military. (For more on this, see “ U.S. is seen as a top ally in many countries – but others view it as a threat. ”)
Most say economic relations with the U.S. and with China are positive
In several countries people are likely to evaluate current economic relations with one superpower positively, while seeing the other in more negative terms. One such country, Canada, is currently embroiled in trade tensions with China ; people there evaluate current economic relations with China 20 percentage points less positively than those with the U.S. (even as trade negotiations over the USMCA continue on). Countries on China’s periphery – including the Philippines, South Korea and Japan – also view current economic relations with the U.S. much more positively than relations with China. In some of the Middle East and North African countries surveyed, the opposite is true. For example, only 42% of Lebanese say current economic relations with the U.S. are good, compared with 82% who say the same of China.
When it comes to whether the U.S. or China is having a positive or negative influence on each country’s economic conditions, though, publics on balance are somewhat more approving of China’s impact. A median of 48% say China is having a positive impact on economic conditions in their country, compared with 42% who say the same of the U.S.
In Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, more tend to rate China’s influence positively than say the same of the U.S. – even in countries where both countries’ roles are seen positively overall. One such example is Nigeria, where 69% say China’s economic influence is positive and 49% say the same of the U.S. Most Asia-Pacific countries, however, tend to say American economic influence is more positive than China’s.
International views of China vary greatly, colored by economic attitudes
Global views of China are, on balance, mixed. A median of 40% across 34 countries surveyed have a favorable view of China, while a median of 41% have an unfavorable view. But opinion varies considerably across the nations surveyed, from a high of 71% in Russia to a low of 14% in Japan.
Among a subset of 15 countries that were asked questions about global economic engagement in general and Chinese investment in particular, statistical modeling results indicate that views of China are related to these economic attitudes (for a more detailed explanation, see Appendix ).
Views of China’s economic strength play a role in overall evaluations of China. Generally speaking, saying that China is the world’s leading economic power, that China’s growing economy is good for one’s own country, that current bilateral economic relations with the superpower are in good shape or that China’s economic influence is good for one’s country is associated with more positive views toward China, holding other factors constant. But having a higher percentage of imports coming from China is related to more negative views of China.
Greater economic satisfaction and openness to international investment are also related to more favorable views of China. Those who are more satisfied with their own domestic economy tend to have more positive opinions of China. Additionally, those who see it as a good thing when foreign companies buy domestic companies in their country or when foreign companies build domestic companies in their country tend to be more positively disposed toward China.
Few express confidence in President Xi
In the six Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, most have little confidence in Xi Jinping when it comes to world affairs. Just 29% have confidence in him to do what is right, which falls far short of the ratings for Japan’s Shinzo or India’s Narendra Modi. And in the Philippines, Indonesia, India and South Korea, nearly equal numbers have confidence in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as in Xi.
Still, positive opinions of Xi have increased in many countries over recent years. Just since 2018, for example, confidence in him has increased markedly in Italy (up 10 percentage points), Mexico (up 13 points), Spain (+13) and Argentina (+14). Only in South Korea has confidence in him fallen by double digits since 2018, decreasing 12 points.
Regional spotlight: Asia-Pacific stands out for more negative attitudes toward China, its role
People in the Asia-Pacific region are generally negative in their views of China, and attitudes in many surveyed countries there have grown more negative in recent years. These countries are more critical of investment from China. Roughly half or more in each Asia-Pacific nation surveyed say Chinese investment is a bad thing because it gives China too much influence, ranging from 48% of Indonesians to 75% of Japanese. South Korea and Indonesia stand out as two countries in which fewer today see benefits from China’s growing economy than said the same five years ago.
China’s neighbors are especially wary of its military growth. A median of 79% across the region say China’s growing military strength is bad for their country, including nine-in-ten in Japan and South Korea. This depth of concern with China’s growth is mirrored in the relative primacy these countries place on their relations with the United States. In each country in the region, more name the U.S. as their most dependable ally than any other country in an open-ended question, including around two-thirds or more in Japan (63%), the Philippines (64%) and South Korea (71%). Each country in the region also prefers strong economic ties with the U.S. (a median of 64%) rather than China (26%) – and often by a wide margin. In Australia and South Korea, this is a reversal of 2015 opinion, when more preferred close economic relations with China.
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Table of contents, many in western europe and u.s. want economic changes as pandemic continues, in the pandemic, india’s middle class shrinks and poverty spreads while china sees smaller changes, the pandemic stalls growth in the global middle class, pushes poverty up sharply, in taiwan and across the region, many support closer economic ties with both u.s. and mainland china, u.s. is seen as a top ally in many countries u2013 but others view it as a threat, most popular.
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Emerging Resources of China’s Soft Power: A Case Study of Cambodian Participants from Chinese Higher Education Programs
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- Published: 08 July 2022
- Volume 36 , pages 633–655, ( 2023 )
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- Rui Yang 1
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Along with its unprecedented economic rise over the past several decades, debates about China’s soft power push have become heated. Yet, consensus on what exactly constitutes China’s soft power has not been reached. Findings of how resources of Chinese soft power play their roles in the national strategy for global rise are conflicting and lacking empirical rigor. In a much-altered context of China’s recent grand initiatives, the prism of higher education and the region of Southeast Asia both are uniquely significant for interpreting soft power agenda of China. This article aims to capture the recent changes in China’s soft power through a case study analysing the experiences and perceptions of Cambodian participants from China’s higher education programs covering language training, educational development aid, student mobility, and institution/program partnerships. The evidence identifies four emerging resources of Chinese soft power: contemporary life appeal, advancement in science and technology, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education reputation, and economic development model. It further highlights the Belt and Road Initiative as a stimulus for amplifying the influence of the Chinese development model in Southeast Asia, whereas China’s domestic coordination of different players and an ideal mix of soft power resources still have not been formulated.
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Acknowledgements
Huge thanks are due to the Editor in Chief (Professor Jeroen Huisman) and two anonymous reviewers whose valuable comments have tremendously improved the article. We are also very grateful to all Cambodian and Chinese participants of the study. The viewpoints indicated in this article are our own and should not be attributed to our affiliated institutions.
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Zhu, K., Yang, R. Emerging Resources of China’s Soft Power: A Case Study of Cambodian Participants from Chinese Higher Education Programs. High Educ Policy 36 , 633–655 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-022-00278-w
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Historicizing the Emergence of China as a World Economic Power: Strategies, Challenges and Prospects
- Alexander C. Ugwukah
- Daniel Kelly Kasili
- Jun 3, 2023
Alexander C. Ugwukah, Ph.D. and Daniel Kelly Kasili Department of History & International Studies, Babcock University, Nigeria.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2023.70545
Received: 11 April 2023; Accepted: 04 May 2023; Published: 03 June 2023
Although many scholarly works have endeavored to delve into the emergence of China as an economic power in the world, yet not many has taken an in-depth study of the forces that over the years crystalized into the reality of its emergence as a key player of the World’s Political Economy. This work therefore attempts a detailed discussion on the formative processes of China’s emergence to the economic world stage using the historical methodology. The work covers the underlying factors of the emergent economic competition between China and United States or America and its implications for the world economic scene as a whole. The problem which therefore confronts this study is to give an authentic assessment of the growth and development of the China’s economy. In fulfilment of this objective, the study adopted a Mixed Method Research (MMR) design involving elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Although the work is qualitative dominant in historical research methodology, elements of quantitative droves were derived from the data which corroborated findings from the oral interviews and secondary sources from journals, library search, books and other literature.
Findings of the work revealed that factors such as diplomatic consistency with other countries, toleration of other parties’ expectations and trade demands and astute trades’ relations and fulfilment of transactional trade collaborative treaties promoted the emergence of China as an economic world power contrary to wide margin exploitations which characterized some Western power economies which often undermined third world capabilities to economic development. The study concluded that China must continue to strengthen its strategies for greater heights, not only by addressing challenges from other great powers such as the United States and other Western economies but maintain a balanced trade relation with other developing economies of the world.
Keywords : Historicizing China, Economic power, Strategies, Challenges, Prospects
INTRODUCTION
China’s rise from a poor developing country to a major economic power in about four decades has been spectacular. From 1979 (when economic reforms began) to 2017, China’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of nearly 10%. According to the World Bank, China has “experienced the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history-and has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty.” China has emerged as a major global economic power. For example, it ranks first in terms of economic size on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, value-added manufacturing, merchandise trade, and holder of foreign exchange reserves (WorldBank, 2017).China’s rising economic weight in the global economy is not only affecting its economic and political relations with the rest of the world, but is also changing the global and regional economic and political landscapes in fundamental ways (Song & Golley, 2011). China’s dramatic expansion has a powerful effect on the rest of the world. One of the major implications of the rise of China is the European Union-China comprehensive Agreement on investment negotiated in December 2020 to encourage more trade links with Europe as against the United States market. More importantly, China’s penetration into Africa, South America and other Asian countries for the purpose of egalitarian trade and economic partnership.
CHINA’S ECONOMY BEFORE THE FREE MARKET REFORMS
The nation of China is one renowned for its extremely rich history and culture. Imperial China rose through the ranks for centuries to dominate those around it. It is today the world’s most populous country with a total population of 1.4 billion people. In the early centuries A.D. China was considered one of the very first civilizations and one of the world’s foremost economic powers up until the 19th century. Its political systems back then were based on absolute monarchy and/or dynasties which were hereditary.
However, the Chinese monarchy collapsed in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, when the Republic of China (ROC) replaced the Qing dynasty. China was invaded by the Empire of Japan during World War II. The Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the People’s Republic of China on the mainland while the Kuomintang-led ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan. Both claimed to be the sole legitimate government of China, although the United Nations has recognized the PRC as the sole representation since 1971.
THE RISE OF CHINESE ECONOMY UNDER CHAIRMAN MAO ZEDONG
MAO Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in the small village of Shaoshan in the province of Hunan (Southeast China). He became one of the first members of the new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921. He began working in his home province of Hunan to organize labor unions and activist groups and became an important figure in local politics. In 1926, Mao became involved in peasant mobilization in his work as a propagandist for the United Front and as an instructor for the United Front’s Peasant Training Institute. When the United Front was preparing to undertake a large military campaign to retake the provinces from local military leaders, Mao was charged with preparing peasant forces. Under the leadership of Guomingdang (GMD) general CHIANG Kai-shek, United Front forces, in a campaign known as the Northern Expedition, overthrew many of the provincial warlords. By the end of the campaign, the United Front had succeeded in uniting more than half of China under a Nationalist government. In 1943, Mao received the title of “Chairman” of the Communist Central Committee — a title that here to fore had not existed-and Chairman of the Politburo, making him the unchallenged leader of the CCP.
Mao increased his credibility in the early 1950s due to his upright method of leadership. Since 1949, the Chinese revolutionary movement entered a new phase of social reconstruction while Mao struggled to build socialism in China. His declaration of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, raised his reputation to the utmost. The People’s Republic is a translated Western concept of “republic,” which literally means “people’s country” (renmingonghe guo) in the Chinese language, and which was a very revolutionary idea at the time (Zhang, 2018).
Chinese Economy between 1943 and 1976
In Mao’s era, Chinese economy was under duress and highly instable. This weak economic condition of China was actually an outcome of variety of factors. The most important of them was an unjust distribution of economic resources among people. Mao, a communist himself, believed that the solution to all the Chinese problems was in Marxism, which is centered on the equal distribution of economic resources in a state. For this purpose, Mao established a centralized economic system, and all efforts were directed towards the development of agriculture sector which was the life line of the Chinese economy – agrarian in those days (Manzoor & Sajid, 2018).
The Chinese economy during the first three decades of rule by the Chinese Communist Party was organized in a fundamentally different way from that of market economies in much of the rest of the world and from what the Chinese economy became in the 21st century after three decades of market-oriented economic reform. Beginning in the mid-1950s, China introduced a centrally planned command economy patterned on that of the Soviet Union. This economic system involved the abolition of household agriculture in favor of collectives, first called “agricultural producer cooperatives” and, later, “Rural People’s Communes.” Industrial inputs and outputs were allocated by administrative means in accordance with a plan developed by the State Planning Commission, and market forces were largely eliminated in industry and large-scale commerce. Wages were set, and skilled workers were allocated to jobs by the government rather than by a labor market. Even many consumer goods were rationed, although some were allocated to households through the market; prices paid to farmers also played a limited role in government procurement of agricultural products (Perkins, 1983).
This highly centralized nonmarket, Soviet-type system, however, was introduced into the very different context of a developing country that was extremely poor. From the beginning, China’s leadership and that of Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, in particular, explored alternatives to these rigid central controls. The result of these explorations more often than not was economic disaster, leading to the 1959–1961 famine in which roughly thirty million people are believed to have died. The government and the leadership also pursued political goals, notably during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) that disrupted the economy and slowed economic growth (skinner, 1973).
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CHINESE ECONOMY
In January 1958, Mao launched the second Five-Year Plan, known as “the Great Leap Forward”, a plan intended to turn China from an agrarian nation to an industrialized one and as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives that had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people’s communes, and many of the peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and on the production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned, and livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership (King, 2019).
Some researchers believe that the Great Leap Forward ruined the economy by shattering its overall balance. Some hold that the serious consequences of the Great Leap Forward should not be confined to the direct economic losses of up to RMB 120 billion. After the Great Leap Forward, it took five years to adjust the national economy before it was restored to the 1957 level. In the middle of and after the Great Leap Forward, Mao remained reluctant to fully acknowledge the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward and took the attitude towards the Great Leap Forward as a criterion to tell whether people were revolutionary or not. Thus, in the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the CPC, he proposed the Party’s fundamental approach in the socialist stage, followed by a left-wing socialist educational campaign aimed at cracking down on the capitalist roaders. This campaign resulted in the undue repression on a large number of grass-roots officials and the subsequent Cultural Revolution (Hseih, 1995).
At the Lushan Conference in July/August 1959, several ministers expressed concern that the Great Leap Forward had not proved as successful as planned. The most direct of these was Minister of Defence and Korean War veteran General Peng Dehuai. Following Peng’s criticism of the Great Leap Forward, Mao orchestrated a purge of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap policies. Senior officials who reported the truth of the famine to Mao were branded as “right opportunists” (Becker, 1998)
State Chairman Liu Shaoqi and General Secretary Deng Xiaoping favored the idea that Mao be removed from actual power as China’s head of state and government but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic role as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, with the party upholding all of his positive contributions to the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as well. Many claim that Mao responded to Liu and Deng’s movements by launching the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966 (Goa, 2008).
After the Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966, the management system was ruined, labor discipline was absent, planning and statistics system collapsed, and the rampant Red Guards and armed conflict by the worker class paralyzed production and traffic. As a result, the total losses of national income in that decade amounted to approximately RMB 500 billion (Chu, 1985). In addition to the substantial economic losses, the Cultural Revolution had a great impact on the human resources in the upcoming years. For example, the average length of education of the population over 15 years old in 1982 was 4.8 years. Eliminating some of the effects caused by the Cultural Revolution, this figure was estimated to be 5.6 years, meaning that the Cultural Revolution cut the potential human resources stock by 14.3% (Tsai & Du, 2003). Estimates of the death toll during the Cultural Revolution, including civilians and Red Guards, vary greatly. An estimate of around 400,000 deaths is a widely accepted minimum figure (Maurice, 1999). In rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured (Mac Farqhuhar & Schoenhals, 2006).
STRATEGIES UTILIZED FOR ATTAINING WORLD ECONOMIC POWER
China’s leaders past and present relied on powerful strategies formulated by the ruling party and its top officials in order to achieve and maintain China’s status as a global economic powerhouse. The National Congress of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC), or the CPC National Congress is the highest authority of the Communist Party of China. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) sets its mandate, along with its leadership selection based on the decisions from the Party Congress (Backgrounder, National Congress of the Communist Party, 2017). The 19th national party congress held between 18th and 24th of October, 2017 with 2,280 delegates represented (Joshi, 2017).
The congress highlighted a number of political, economic and socio-cultural changes that was to serve for the greater good of the Chinese people. During the congress, a new guiding ideology, labeled Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, was written into the party’s constitution. It marked the first time since Mao Zedong Thought that a living party leader has enshrined into the party constitution an ideology named after him. The Congress also emphasized strengthening socialism with Chinese characteristics, party-building, socialist rule of law, and setting concrete timelines for achieving development goals, such as building a moderately prosperous society and achieving “socialist modernization.” It was also noted for rallying China to play a more substantial role internationally. The congress was also notable for the consolidation of power under Xi Jinping, marked by the removal of term limits from the Chinese constitution.
The Congress ratified changes to the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, including the incorporation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Xi thus became the first leader since Deng Xiaoping to append his name into party ideology; the change also led to many international media outlets calling Xi the “most powerful leader since Mao (Phillips, 2017).One of the most important strategies enacted by China to attain its economic development is “The China 2025 Policy”, also referred to as “Made in China (MIC) 2025”.This a policy plan that proposes a “three-step” strategy of transforming China into a leading manufacturing power by the year 2049 in line with the basic guideline of “innovation driven, quality first, green development, structurally optimizes and human-oriented” and the basic principle of “market orientation, government guidance, focus on the present, look into the future, overall promotion, key breakthroughs, independent development, opening and cooperation”. The first step is to develop from a manufacturing giant into a manufacturing power by 2025. The second step is to reach the medium level of the world manufacturing powers by 2035. The third step is to further consolidate China’s position as a manufacturing power and list China’s comprehensive manufacturing strengthen into the world’s top list by 2049(Xiang, Huang, Jie, & Jinlong, 2018).
The initiative was initially conceived by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and was launched in 2015. The idea was strictly set to modernize China’s industrial capability. The initial 10-year comprehensive strategy focuses heavily on intelligent manufacturing in 10 strategic sectors and has the aim of securing China’s position as a global powerhouse in high-tech industries such as robotics, aviation, and new energy vehicles such as electric and biogas. This research and development driven plan is seen as a critical element in China’s sustained growth and competitiveness for the coming decades as it transitions into a developed economy. It also seeks to ensure Chinese manufacturers remain competitive with emerging low-cost producers such as Vietnam. The plan involves replacing China’s reliance on foreign technology imports with its own innovations and creating Chinese companies that can compete both domestically and globally. Therefore, there is a strong emphasis on its domestic manufacturing process where it wishes to increase production, not only on the essential components, but on the final product as well (Backgrounder, Made in China 2025, 2018).
THE 19TH COMMUNIST PARTY CONGRESS AND THE CHINESE ECONOMY
In his inaugural address to the 19th Party Congress, President Xi Jinping drew attention to China’s economic performance as the basis for China’s emergence as a great power. Despite a sluggish global economy, China fared well and entered what Xi called a “new normal in economic development” with medium-paced growth, if not the frenetic growth rates that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had experienced in the past. Xi expects to see China eliminate poverty by 2020. Indeed, economic performance has been a legitimating cornerstone of the CPC’s capacity to maintain uncontested power (Bommakanti, 2018).
In highlighting some of its economic growths during the congress, China seeks to end its reliance on international technology and upgrade its industrial capability and smart manufacturing by ensuring that innovation, product quality, efficiency, and integration drive manufacturing across 10 key industries. Those industries include advanced information technology; automated machine tools and robotics; aerospace and aeronautical equipment; ocean engineering equipment and high-tech shipping; modern rail transport equipment; energy saving and new energy vehicles; power equipment; new materials; medicine and medical devices; and agricultural equipment (Backgrounder, Made in China 2025, 2018).
Beijing is implementing regulatory changes and introducing standards for key industries while setting a policy direction to pursue innovation and development. These standards potentially restrict foreign competition in China and provide access to technology from abroad by, for example, requiring banks to reveal their source code and use domestic IP and encryption to meet Beijing’s “secure and controllable” standards. Standardizing practices across entire industries is a priority, with the National Cyber Security Strategy and Cyber Security Law creating a legal framework for the future implementation and update of information technology products and services. Testing and certificate systems will be introduced to raise the quality of products to meet international benchmarks in all key industries, from medical patents to fuel consumption.
The government has also instructed businesses to develop their international brand awareness and become “more familiar with overseas cultures and markets” and “strengthen investment operation risk management”, with the aim of encouraging international investments and acquisitions. Between 2005 and 2016, Chinese companies invested $13.6 billion in Germany and $135 billion in the U.S., giving them access to IP and joint ventures with businesses that have already achieved the desired automation and innovation. This, however, involves direct state funding of private equity, which is used to facilitate the investments. In the information technology industry, takeover offers surpassed $35 billion in 2015. International partnerships and acquisitions, with significant public funding, are the primary tool for accessing foreign intellectual property, which is then used to further enhance the capabilities of Chinese companies (Backgrounder, Made in China 2025, 2018).
CHALLENGES OF THE EMERGENCE OF CHINA AS A GREAT POWER
While many of the global and national benefits of China’s economic rise have remained guaranteed, clear for all to see, so too are many of the costs. China’s integration into the global economy has forced a worldwide reallocation of economic activities. This has increased various kinds of friction in China’s trading and political relations, as well as generating several globally significant externalities (Song & Golley, 2011). China’s challenge to the existing norms, rules, and institutions of a growing number of components of the global economic order could be enormously disruptive to world stability. That challenges could escalate further as China’s economic power, military capabilities, and self- confidence continue to grow rapidly (Bergsten, Freeman, Nicholas, & Derek, 2008).
According to Golley and Song (2011), some of the highlighted challenges include:
- China’s role in global economic imbalances – China’s rising economic weight in the global economy is not only affecting its economic and political relations with the rest of the world, but is also changing the global and regional economic and political landscapes in fundamental ways (Song & Golley, 2011). The emergence of major trade and financial imbalances between regions has been the key characteristic of the global economy in recent years. In the real economy, the ever-increasing trade imbalance between the United States and China has been the main contributing factor. China poses a major challenge to the United States (who are also a super power in this context), and the rest of the world simply by virtue of its status as a new global economic superpower. Such rising powers can disturb the existing international order and trigger security as well as economic conflicts (Bergsten, Freeman, Nicholas, & Derek, 2008).
- Increased competition from China’s low-cost production and the accompanying rising share of Chinese-made products provided to the world market.
- Rising greenhouse emissions, resulting from the rapid pace of industrialization and increasing standards of living in China – Greenhouse emissions are a great environmental challenge that scales on a global level. According to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data in the World Population Review, by the United States Environmental Protection Agency(USEPA) (February, 2022), China has the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the world. In 2017, China emitted 9.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide. China faces wide spread criticism from the international community about its carbon footprint and is pressured to control its growing emission levels. The country’s economic growth hasprimarily been powered by coal, which produces up to twice the amount of carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels. China’s industrial sector is the primary coal consumer.
Manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction make up about 62.5% of China’s energy use and 49% of its coal use (USEPA, 2022). This is a major challenge faced by China in its rise to global economic supremacy. Over 300 million people in China have no access to clean water. Pollution is said to be responsible for 710,000 to 760,000 deaths a year, and official Chinese estimates peg the economic cost of pollution at 8 to 12 percent of China’s annual GDP. Environment- and pollution related protests have increased nearly 30 percent per year since 2000 (Adam, 2006). China’s nascent environmental movement has the potential to galvanize nationwide support, cutting across regional and socioeconomic boundaries, and presenting the organized opposition the Chinese Communist Party so fears. Clearly, environmental degradation is upping the ante on China’s economic development and social stability considerations.
- China’s Incomplete Transition to a Market Economy – Despite China’s three-decade history of widespread economic reforms, Chinese officials contend that China is a “socialist-market economy.” This appears to indicate that the government accepts and allows the use of free market forces in a number of areas to help grow the economy, but the government still plays a major role in the country’s economic development (China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States,2019). This lack of freehand to the market is considered a long-term challenge facing China’s economy and its rise to global dominance.
- China is experiencing considerable negative domestic reaction to its cooperation with other countries and international institutions on economic issues. The nearly universal backlash against globalization, responding mainly to the uneven distributional effects of that phenomenon, is clearly present in China and explains at least part of its current attitude toward the world economy. Such a systemic challenge represents a worrisome evolution in China’s behavior over time. China has been accused of stealing foreign intellectual property, especially technology, but after accounting for the size of China’s foreign transactions and research activities, such accusations may have been blown out of proportion or possibly exaggerated.
- Another weakening challenge is also China’s Protectionist tendencies that foreign firms form joint ventures with domestic Chinese forms as a condition for market entry in some economic sectors. This stipulation has been widely cited as a means of promoting so-called Forced technology transfer, where foreign firms pass new technology onto their Chinese partners as a condition for being able to invest and produce in China. This factor has equally been defended by the existence of companies liked BASF, Auto manufacturing Tesla, and Finance (Black Rock) have been allowed to enter and operate in key sectors without a Chinese partner.
Perhaps, the most challenging issue that has erupted from the emergence of China as world economic power is its stiff competition with America which has led to the phenomenal US-China trade Wars. This issue is considered as a case study of the challenges faced by China as a great power.
OVERVIEW OF THE U.S-CHINA TRADE WARS
In contemporary times, it could be argued that the United States – China trade relations is the biggest and largest trading partnership in the world. This is because of the large economies both countries boast of, making them some of the most powerful and strongest economies in the world, and also their vast level of industrialization and global exchange with other nations. Both the United States and China have been trading partners for a very long time. However, in July of 2018, under the leadership of President Donald Trump of the United States, one of the greatest trade wars of the century was initiated. President Donald Trump assumed power in 2016 to serve as President of the United States. During his first couple years in office, he was branded as an aggressive leader and negotiator. During his presidential campaign, his theme was ‘America First’. America First refers to a policy stance in the United States that generally emphasizes nationalism and non-interventionism (Olson, 2013).
This was President Trump’s official foreign policy, a policy that pushes first and foremost, the interests of the United States of America. This included withdrawing from any agreement, treaty, or relationship that seeks to undermine its nationality, economic and political development in America and overseas. U.S.-China bilateral relations took a nosedive in July 2018 when then U.S. president Donald Trump’s obsession with trade deficits led him to impose punitive tariffs on China. The tariffs were followed by restrictions on both China’s access to high-tech U.S. products and foreign investments involving security concerns and by allegations of unfair Chinese commercial practices (Huang, 2021). President Trump complained that China’s unfair trading practices including ‘dumping’, which he considered was against his America first policy. Dumping here entails that China imports products from the United States at a certain price and sells them in China at a significantly lower price, inducing government subsidy on the products in order to gain market share and cripple the trading partner’s industry on that particular product.
This led to the slapping of high tariffs on Chinese goods, making Chinese products very expensive in order to encourage consumers to purchase American products. The first imposed tariffs were worth $34 billion. The tariffs were followed by restrictions on China’s access to foreign investments and United States’ high technological products. The Chinese government under the leadership of Xi Jinping also retaliated by doing the exact same thing the United States did to them. Another factor was that China also slapped tariffs on United States imported products. These exchanges of high tariffs kept for several months. By January 2020, the US-China trade war eventually led to tariffs on some US$550 billion of Chinese goods and US$185 billion of US goods. Following the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Trump agreed to leave tariffs on U.S. products at a 10 percent rate after January 1, 2019, while China agreed to buy a substantial number of products from the United States. The White House also said that China has agreed to start purchasing substantial U.S. agricultural, energy, industrial and other products from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance, and that both countries agreed to try to reach an agreement on several trade issues “within the next 90 days.” (Steinbock, 2018).
After a few years of disagreements and actions that has hurt both nations’ economies over time, negotiations commenced in order to ease tensions and improve relations between both countries. In early 2021, The Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement that both sides held “candid, pragmatic and constructive exchanges with an attitude of equality and mutual respect”, according to a report by state media outlet the Global Times, covered by the British Broadcasting Corporation. President Trump’s successor, Joe Biden assumed office in 2020 and chose to continue with the trade arrangements his predecessor had with China. Joe Biden tells The New York Times he will not make any “immediate moves” to lift trade war tariffs. However, certain phases of negotiations have been going on to ease the tensions and return to normal trading partnership in order to avoid a global trade war.
Source: Azimzhan Khitakhunov, 2020.https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication
Consumers in the U.S and China are unequivocally the losers from the trade wars. The effects of tariffs on producers is more mixed, with some winners such as U.S and Chinese producers of goods competing in their domestic markets with imports affected by the tariffs. It can be argued that the effect was felt more by the U.S producers who suffered, while those in Brazil and other European countries benefitted from this trade diversion and market segmentation.
IMPACT OF THE U.S-CHINA TRADE WARS
As two of the biggest economies in the world, it is hard to overlook the fact that the trade war going on between both countries affected other parts of the world.
Firstly, the evolving global scenarios of U.S.-China trade and technology conflicts are the outcome of an ever more anxious America forsaking its multilateral cooperative stances for primacy doctrines. In the worst case, these conflicts may escalate into a “decoupling” of both economies and cause lasting global recession and new geopolitical confrontation (Steinbock, 2018). If the United States continues to press with its ‘America First’ policy, which it is poised to carry on, there is a tendency that it will be willing to abandon ties with not just China but anyone who supports them in a bid to protect the interests of the nation. This could be devastating to global economy as it may ruin certain economic ties it has with other countries.
Secondly, there has been global inflation over the prices of goods produced and manufactured by the two countries. This has been a source of worry for other nations. For example, the Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei suffered a major setback as it was placed on the United States’ entity list. The entity list is a trade restriction list that bars the United States from trading with certain individuals or organizations. This made the prices of Huawei products to soar during that period. This largely affected the global tech market. On the other hand, this trade war proved to be beneficial to some countries. While China loses out on the benefits of trade partnership with the United States, it gives room for other low-profile competitors to emerge.
U.S. tariffs on China have made other players more competitive in the US market and led to a trade diversion effect. Of the $35 billion Chinese export losses in the US market, about $21 billion (or 63%) was diverted to other countries, while the remainder of $14 billion was either lost or captured by US producers. According to the report, US tariffs on China resulted in Taiwan (province of China) gaining $4.2 billion in additional exports to the US in the first half of 2019 by selling more office machinery and communication equipment. Mexico increased its exports to the US by $3.5 billion, mostly in the agro-food, transport equipment and electrical machinery sectors. Even the European Union gained about $2.7 billion due to increased exports, largely in the machineries sectors (UNCTAD, 2019). In all of these, there have been minimal effects reported as to how countries on the African continent either benefitted or lost from the entire situation.
The United States-China trade war has led to an increase in global trade, a diversified supply chain for the products targeted by the tariffs, and significant implications for the future of globalization. The study showed that the aggregate responses raised global trade by 3.0%, suggesting that the trade war created new trade opportunities, rather than simply reshuffle trade flows. Until now, most of the conversation on the US-China trade war has focused on the two superpowers, but its important to examine how it has impacted trade in other countries; said Prof. Amit Khandelwal, Prof of Global Business at Columbia Business School. “There was a vast difference in response across countries some benefitted, others didn’t global trade”. (Khandelwal 2020). The Research team considered four sets of tariff changes as part of the U.S-China trade war and analyzed trade patterns of products in nine sectors, agriculture, apparel, chemicals. Machinery, materials, metals, minerals, transport and miscellaneous
The key findings include:
- The United States and China reduced trade with each other, but many countries reallocated tariff targeted exports to the rest of the world.
- The tariffs from the trade appear to have uncreated global trade, rather than reduced it, as many initially feared.
- The study proved that globalization, at least measured by global exports, is not slowing with countries outside the U.S and China during growth.
The trade war rather stimulated trade amongst other countries, increasing globalization, rather than ending it as many people feared it would. The spillover effect of the deterioration of economic and political relations of those two superpowers has proven to be an opportunity for other nations
PROSPECTS OF CHINA’S EMERGENCE AS A GREAT POWER
There is no doubt that China’s economic growth will continue for a long time and shows no sign of stopping or slowing down based on the current global economic form. China has reached a level of reliance by other countries and this has become paramount in its growth.
Among its very key and important growth potentials are listed below:
Rapidly Expanding International Trade – The expansion of China’s international trade has been a particularly noteworthy aspect of China’s rising prominence in the world economy. China’s exports and imports have grown at an average rate of 15 percent each year since1979, compared with a 7 percent annual expansion of world trade over the same period. This process has been facilitated by trade reforms and the general opening of the economy that have led to a surge in foreign direct investment (FDI) and increased integration with the global trading system (Eswar, 2004).
Banking System Reform – Financial intermediation in China occurs mainly through the banking system. Bank lending has supported the high level of investment growth, which has made an important contribution to China’s growth performance in recent years. Stability of the banking system is therefore crucial for promoting sustained growth (Eswar,2004).In addition to the banking reforms in China, there has been massive surge in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) – China’s trade and investment reforms and incentives led to a surge in FDI beginning in the early 1990s. Such flows have been a major source of China’s productivity gains and rapid economic and trade growth. There were reportedly 445,244 foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) registered in China in 2010, employing 55.2 million workers or 15.9% of the urban workforce. FIEs account for a significant share of China’s industrial output. That level rose from 2.3% in 1990 to a high of 35.9% in 2003, but fell to 25.9% in 2011. In addition, FIEs are responsible for a significant level of China’s foreign trade. At their peak, FIEs accounted for 58.3% of Chinese exports in 2005 and 59.7% of imports, but these levels have subsequently fallen, reaching 41.7% and 43.7%, respectively, in 2018 (China Statistical Yearbook, 2012).However, the potential for significant rise cannot be overlooked.
Major Chinese Manufactured and Trade Commodities – China’s abundance of low-cost labor has made it internationally competitive in many low-cost, labor-intensive manufactures. As a result, manufactured products constitute a significant share of China’s trade. A substantial amount of China’s imports is comprised of parts and components that are assembled into finished products, such as consumer electronic products and computers, and then exported. Often, the value-added to such products in China by Chinese workers is relatively small compared to the total value of the product when it is shipped abroad.
Chinese exports such as Electrical machinery, nuclear reactors, vehicle parts, organic chemicals, textile, computer chips and accessories, and a host of other commodities accrue significant trade all over the world.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This work has examined the emergence of China as a world economic power highlighting the major strategies that brought her into limelight, challenges that accompanied its leadership role as a world player and the prospects of its continued economic development in the years ahead. No doubt, China’s growing global economic influence and the economic and trade policies it maintains so far, will continue to have significant implications for the entire world. While China is a large and growing market for U.S. firms and others around the globe, its incomplete transition to a free-market economy has resulted in economic policies deemed harmful to global economic interests, such as industrial policies. This however, in no way hinders the rapid rise of China’s economy. With the different highlighted prospects that basically overweigh the challenges it faces, China’s growth and dominance will continue for a very long period of time and the global economies will keep a close watch on this.
As regards the trade war between China and U.S which is not over yet, phases of negotiations should still continue with a bid to normalizing trade relations by both parties. This could be supported by interventions and reconciliatory actions being carried out by other world governing bodies and powerful nations. It is up to both warring parties to decide how they choose to deal with the situation. Both parties claim to have the interests of their nation at heart and bearing in mind that they will do everything to protect the interests of their nations, the global community should remain vigilant and are wary of what the outcome and results of the actions of both China and the U.S. will be. This should serve as an avenue to spur global competitiveness.
Further, Azimzhan Khitakhunov (2020) has noted that trade partners of China from developing world need to consider various conditions. The first issue which he highlights isthat when developing countries deal with China’s state-owned enterprises or corporations (SOE), they should clearly understand that they will do business with the state. It should be noted that in advanced countries merger and acquisitions with China’s SOE or selling strategic resources to Chinese companies are prohibited due to national security concerns. The sensitive sectors include technology, robotics, mineral resources and others. Industrial policy of China can also significantly affect the industrialization process of other developing countries. He argues further that China’s subsidies to its SOE may decrease the prices for its products, which put China’s trade partners at disadvantage. Moreover, this will distort investment decisions of the developing industrializing country. Therefore, he is of the opinion that it is important to conduct appropriate economic assessment of the potential benefits and costs of dealing with China. Any kind of economic policy towards China should be assessed using both qualitative and quantitative methodology.
In the overall analysis, it is crucial to understand what economic forces make China’s products cheaper or more competitive on the regional and global markets. If developing countries are going to open their markets to China (via preferential trade agreements), they should assess how China is open for those countries. There is no need in unilateral concessions, and countries should negotiate mutual market liberalization. Moreover, dispute settlement should be based on the WTO norms taking into account China’s economic weight. Thus, the US-China trade war was caused not only by politics, but also by important and sensitive economic issues. Learning the lessons of this conflict can help developing countries to form appropriate economic policy towards China. The key to more harmonious relations is recognizing that a more developed China need not threaten the well-being of the West. The United States, Europe and China have different comparative advantages, which are reflected in the composition of their exports. Europe specializes in high-end consumer goods and machinery; the United States in agricultural products, high tech components and services; and China in basic manufactured consumer goods and inputs while the economic South (African, Asian, Caribbean, Pacific countries)too have their supply specialist values. Therefore, all sides can continue to prosper by operating under a rules-based international trading system.
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Has China always been the world’s greatest superpower?
The economic and political reach of the world’s most populous country is expanding at a breathtaking rate – but has China experienced such global influence in the past? Six experts discuss how war, trade and diplomacy won (and lost) power for the east Asian giant throughout history
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Six experts discuss how war, trade and diplomacy won (and lost) power for the east Asian giant throughout history
Zheng Yangwen
Trade made China rich, particularly from the 17th century as it absorbed much of the world’s silver
In 1600, China was “the largest and most sophisticated of all unified realms on earth”. So wrote Sinologist Jonathan Spence, reflecting the achievements of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when China wielded huge influence internationally, in part because of the boom in global trade. But do cultural influence, trade and wealth equate to ‘superpower’? Historians have used the term ‘dynastic cycle’ to characterise the waxing and waning of China’s fortunes. This framework may help us probe whether China has always (or ever) been the greatest global superpower.
Various dynasties have been lauded by different historians. Mark Edward Lewis labelled the Tang (618–907) a “cosmopolitan empire”, while John Fairbank called the Song (960–1279) “China’s greatest age”. The epic voyages of Admiral Zheng He (sailing 1405–33) suggested to some that the early Ming was “when China ruled the seas”, whereas Charles Hucker concluded that the reign of three great Qing emperors during the late 17th and the 18th centuries constituted “China’s last golden age”.
- Trading blows: Rana Mitter on the US-China Trade War
One source of power was trade, in three commodities in particular. Silk spread the gospel of early imperial China during the Han–Tang era, through central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Porcelain defined China’s relationship with the world from the Tang–Song to the Ming–Qing dynastic eras; international thirst for ‘china’ was boosted in the 17th and 18th centuries when tea was added to the menu of goods traded globally, and Chinoiserie [a style of art, furniture and architecture] swept through western Europe.
Trade, then, made China rich, particularly from the 17th century as it absorbed much of the world’s silver supply. But it was also trade – particularly the growing shortage of silver – that led to the Opium Wars and the decline of the Qing dynasty in the 19th century. That marked the end of China’s last ‘golden age’, and was followed by the so-called ‘century of unequal treaties’ that led to the concession of autonomy and territories such as Hong Kong.
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Each dynasty, then, rises and amasses power, but ultimately wanes. The post-Mao ‘peaceful rise’ may have impressed many around the world, but the communist regime is unlikely to escape the inevitable dynastic decline.
Zheng Yangwen is professor of Chinese history at the University of Manchester, and author of Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History (Manchester University Press, 2018)
Rana Mitter
China dominated minds in Asia for much of two millennia because of its ability to shape the way people lived and thought
Was China ever a superpower? If you asked many Chinese people, they might say that the Tang dynasty (618–907) would qualify. That dynasty united large swathes of territory, and also saw China influenced by, and influencing, the central Asian states around it, with emperors taking the title ‘Khan’ to show their dominance over the wider region. Nearby societies such as Japan that were not part of China’s political system were also shaped by language, religion and ideas from the mainland.
More controversial, but perhaps the most worthy of the title ‘superpower’, was the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). Founded by Kublai Khan, its rulers were not ethnic Chinese but Mongol. His empire’s control over the states to the west of China was somewhat nominal, but did show how far Beijing’s influence could extend. Even though Kublai Khan was not Chinese, he drew on China’s traditions of Confucian thinking to shape his government – a sign of the power of that culture, even in the thinking of a conqueror.
- Read more: Why are Marco Polo's travels so famous?
The definition of China has changed hugely over the years. The small group of states centred around the Yellow river has expanded over the years to become today’s territorial behemoth that dominates the map of east Asia. Yet, for much of that time, China was divided politically. It was culture that united it, and culture that gave it its greatest power.
The territorial reach of China has rarely been its most important quality as an aspirant to superpower status. Just as the United States remains a superpower in large part because the world’s default language is English, so China dominated minds in east and central Asia for much of two millennia because of its ability to shape the way that people lived and thought, even when it had little direct political control over them.
It may be that in the 21st century, as China seeks to create a ‘new Silk Road’ through international investment in Africa and Asia, that it creates a new influential role for itself.
Rana Mitter is professor of the history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford. His books include China’s War with Japan, 1937–1945: The Struggle for Survival (Allen Lane, 2013).
James Millward
Chinese civilisation has comprised a great soft superpower in its value to diverse peoples
We shouldn’t talk about ‘China’ as a continuous, monolithic polity that was ‘always’ where it is today. In the nationalistic official version, ‘China’ has thousands of years of history. But of course the diverse lands and peoples of the People’s Republic of China aren’t the same as the lands of the Zhou dynasty (c1046–256 BC), any more than Egypt today under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is the same as the Egypt of the pharaohs. There have been many monarchies ruling different parts of the east Asian mainland, just as there have been in Europe. Though we tend to call them all ‘Chinese dynasties’, they weren’t any more politically, territorially or ethnically continuous or uniform than polities in Europe following the Roman empire.
Culturally, there are great Chinese continuities. Not only have Chinese dynasties been influenced by the linguistic, legal, literary and religio-philosophical traditions of societies in first-millennium-BC northern China, so were Vietnam and Korea (conquered off and on by empires based in China) and even Japan (which was never conquered by a China-based state). Moreover, Chinese cultural influence lasted and spread even after the soldiers withdrew – thus one might say that Chinese civilisation, like that of the west or the Islamic sphere, has comprised a great soft superpower in its value to diverse peoples.
As for hard power, since the fall of the Han empire (202 BC– 220 AD) the most expansive China-based empires were those deeply influenced or ruled by non-Chinese-speaking peoples. The Tang (618–907) enrolled Turks and central Asians as soldiers and officials. Tang Turkic armies briefly conquered parts of central Asia under command of a Korean general. The Mongols assembled fragmented regions north and south of the Yangtze into the Great Yuan khanate (1271–1368) which, after the fall of the Mongol empire, became the Ming (1368–1644).
Besides the Ming lands, the Manchu Qing empire (1636– 1912) annexed Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and the Uyghur region. The Chinese Communist Party took over most of these new Qing conquests, but now struggles to fit them within its increasingly Han-centric idea of ‘China’. A true superpower today would recognise that the greatness of the Chinese tradition lies in its potential for inclusiveness, not its narrow chauvinism.
James Millward is professor of inter-societal history at Georgetown University, Washington DC. His books include The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Anne Gerritsen
When we look at production and manufacturing, we see that China is, and has been for a long time, the greatest superpower
What makes any nation a global superpower? Military might? Political authority? Territorial expansion? In various forms and at different times, China boasted all of these, and therefore should be considered among the great international powers. When we look at production and manufacturing, though, we probably have to agree that China is, and has been for a long time, the greatest global superpower.
Think of tea. The consumption of tea (steeped leaves from the shrub Camellia sinensis ) has a long history in China. Biomolecular mass spectrometry analyses of plant remains, presented in a recent article in Nature , demonstrate that tea was drunk by emperors of the Han dynasty in the first century BC, and was also traded along the Silk Roads to western Tibet by the second to third century AD. Its popularity steadily rose, spreading throughout Asia and to other regions, and in time tea produced in China came to be traded in vast quantities all over the world. This production to supply international demand certainly suggests a global superpower.
Another China-made product had, if possible, an even bigger impact on global trade. China, as the name suggests, is the birthplace of the type of ceramics known in the west as china. Though low-fired earthenwares and stonewares were made all over the world, only China had the kind of clays that could withstand firing temperatures over 1,300°C, creating a hard, vitreous product called porcelain.
As early as the ninth century, Chinese potters produced porcelains for domestic and overseas markets. From the 13th century, white-bodied ceramics with cobalt-blue underglaze decorations were manufactured in workshops using methods that resembled assembly-line production. Many millions of blue-and-white ceramics were manufactured and exported to Europe alone. This production of goods for global export on an industrial scale has a history that goes back at least to the 16th century. On that basis, we might say that china – rather than military might or territorial expansion – is what made China the greatest global superpower.
Anne Gerritsen is professor of history at the University of Warwick. Her new book The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World will be published by Cambridge University Press
Chi-kwan Mark
The acceleration of globalisation since the 1990s facilitated China’s integration into the world economy
China under current president Xi Jinping is a global superpower. With the world’s second-largest economy, a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, a modernised armed force and an ambitious space programme, China has the potential to replace the United States as the greatest superpower in the future.
China’s quest for great power status had its origins in Mao Zedong ’s era, from the 1950s. By fighting the US to a standstill during the Korean War (1950–53) and helping the Vietnamese communists to defeat the French in 1954 and then the Americans, China became a regional power to be reckoned with. Recognising China’s strategic signifi-cance, the United States pursued rapprochement with its former adversary from 1969 onwards, culminating in the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979.
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao as China’s paramount leader, adopted a policy of reform and opening up. Embracing market forces, Deng opened China to foreign trade and investment. Notwithstanding the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests, which were forcibly suppressed, and the collapse of communism in the Soviet bloc in 1989–91, which created a siege mentality in Deng, China’s economic opening continued unabated. The acceleration of globalisation since the 1990s facilitated China’s integration into the world economy, particularly after its admission to the World Trade Organisation in late 2001.
If Deng’s China was an economic superpower in the making, China under Xi Jinping possesses the attributes of a global superpower. China is more confident, more ambitious and more proactive than ever. Xi thinks and acts globally by seeking to build a “community of shared destiny for mankind”. The Belt and Road Initiative is an ambitious infrastructure and investment project that aims to establish trading links across Eurasia, effectively reviving the old Silk Roads. Though some western critics see the initiative as China’s ‘debt trap’ – part of plans to dominate the world – Xi regards it as win-win cooperation that should become the norm of a new world order. How the reigning superpower, the United States, responds to the rising China will shape the future of world history.
Chi-kwan Mark is senior lecturer in international history at Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of The Everyday Cold War: Britain and China 1950–1972 (Bloomsbury, 2017)
Pamela Kyle Crossley
Imperial China never prioritised a state large enough to effect social or industrial transformation
China has returned to its historical status as the world’s most influential economy, but it has never before been anything like a superpower. Until the 18th century, China and south Asia accounted for about half of global GDP, having developed large-scale unmechanised manufactures that were exported overland across Eurasia and by sea throughout the Indian Ocean. China’s exports of silk, porcelain and tea brought it foreign silver and also shaped global patterns of transport on land and sea, along with the new European industries of shipping, insurance and finance.
In the Qing era (1636–1912), China was also one of the largest land empires of the early modern period, established through military conquest of Manchuria, Taiwan, Mongolia, Tibet and eastern Turkestan (now the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). However, many of these territories were under indirect rule, as was much of south-west China. This period is sometimes seen as the height of the ‘Chinese World Order’ or the ‘tributary system’, believed by many to have given China central and superior status in a voluntary transnational system of harmony and prosperity. Yet this was a mirage: for the most part, China did not insist upon hegemony over these regions, and purported emissary states often did not fulfil that role.
Qing preferences for indirect rule of its own territories and a complete lack of regularity in its relationships with ostensible tributaries were related to the fact that, while Chinese rulers were content to collect the profits from international trade based on their goods, they never attempted to construct or control networks for the transport of those goods. Instead, European charter companies – especially the British East India Company – built and profited from the shipping and finance networks generated by Chinese manufactures and wealth. Unlike Britain after 1815, imperial China never achieved superpower status because it never – not in Qing times, nor before – put a priority on a state large and expensive enough to take the initiative in social, cultural or industrial transformation.
Only since 1949 has China pursued a scale of government of society that permits it to compete seriously with Europe, Japan and the United States, and only in the 21st century will it credibly claim superpower status. Nothing in Chinese history indicates how China will conduct itself in such a role.
Pamela Kyle Crossley is professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
This article was taken from issue 17 of BBC World Histories magazine , published in September 2019
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A solar thermal plant under construction in Jiuquan, China, in January 2024. VCG / AP Photo
How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy
China has achieved stunning growth in its installed renewable capacity over the last two decades, far outpacing the rest of the world. But to end its continued dependence on fossil fuels, it must now move ahead with planned reforms to its national electricity system.
By Isabel Hilton • March 13, 2024
Last November, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry shook hands on a pledge to triple renewable energy globally by 2030. It was hailed as a welcome revival of climate cooperation between the world’s biggest and second-biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and offered hope that the two veteran climate negotiators had found a way through a blizzard of negative diplomatic exchanges to keep alive the prospects for greater global ambition on tackling climate change.
In one key sector essential to that ambition, however, the Chinese government can argue, with some justification, that it is China, not the United States, that is in the lead. In a world in which national climate targets are being missed, the speed and scale of expansion in China’s installed renewable capacity is unmatched.
In 2020, for example, China pledged to reach 1,200 gigawatts of renewables capacity by 2030, more than double its capacity at that time. At its present pace, it will meet that target by 2025, and could boast as much as 1,000 gigawatts of solar power alone by the end of 2026, an achievement that would make a substantial contribution to the 11,000 gigawatts of installed renewable capacity that the world needs to meet the 2030 targets of the Paris Agreement. Fossil fuels now make up less than half of China’s total installed generation capacity, a dramatic reduction from a decade ago when fossil fuels accounted for two-thirds of its power capacity.
In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, then doubled additional solar in 2023.
When the International Energy Authority issued its assessment of the pledge to triple renewables globally by 2030, it pointed out that the 50 percent increase in global renewable installations in 2023 was largely driven by China. In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar photovoltaic capacity as the rest of the world combined, then went on in 2023 to double new solar installations, increase new wind capacity by 66 percent, and almost quadruple additions of energy storage.
For the past two decades, China has been notorious as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, a country that also uses as much heavily polluting coal as the rest of the world combined. How did it also become the world’s renewable powerhouse?
Part of the answer goes back to investment decisions made in the mid-2000s when China’s decades-long phase of rapid GDP growth was coming to an end. Labor costs were rising, and China’s development model, with its overwhelming dependence on coal, had plunged China into multiple crises of air, soil, and water pollution. In the first decade of this century, China’s emissions more than doubled, and by 2006 it had overtaken the U.S. to earn the unwelcome title of the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by volume.
A wind farm in Yichang. Costfoto / NurPhoto / AP Photo
China’s leadership was alert to the negative diplomatic impacts of being the world’s worst polluter, especially in those countries most vulnerable to climate impacts. At the same time, China’s own exposure to climate change effects, on top of its escalating pollution crisis and the public unrest it was generating, was becoming a significant topic in Beijing’s top-level policy discussions. China’s planners were looking for investments that would create an opportunity for a more advanced technological future, and this coincided with the need to clean up China’s environment and the global effort to cut emissions. All this pointed to supporting the development of the renewable technologies the world would need if it was to avoid climate catastrophe.
In the next and every subsequent five-year plan , China made strategic investments in all aspects of renewable technologies, from solar and wind capacity, green hydrogen, and geothermal projects to research and investment in battery storage and its supply chains. In the first phase of its rapid industrial development starting in the 1990s, China had been obliged to license technologies owned by others. Now the strategic ambition was to dominate the field, positioning China as the global supplier of goods to an increasingly carbon-constrained world.
If China has been clear about the opportunity side of climate change, it has been less enthusiastic about cutting its own emissions.
Within a decade, China had largely achieved its goal of dominating not only the production of solar and wind technologies, but it had developed a near monopoly on every aspect of the supply chains, including the mining and processing of the rare-earths and strategic minerals essential for the clean energy revolution. Today, China has more than 80 percent of the world’s solar manufacturing capacity. The extraordinary scale of China’s renewables sector output has driven down prices worldwide, and this is a key factor in reducing the cost barrier to renewable systems for poorer countries. Today China not only holds important positions in wind and battery technologies, but a Chinese company, BYD, has become the world’s biggest EV manufacturer, and China is poised to pose a formidable global challenge in all aspects of electric transportation to established vehicle brands.
But if China has been clear about the opportunity side of climate change, it has been less enthusiastic about cutting its own emissions: In the first two decades of the century, the economy remained overwhelmingly dependent on coal, and China argued that committing to major cuts in emissions would be an unfair constraint on its right to develop. That began to change with President Xi Jinping’s surprise announcement at the 2020 U.N. General Assembly that China would peak its emissions “well before” 2030, as it had promised in Paris in 2015, and in an important new offer, that it would aim for carbon neutrality by 2060. A radical renewables program would be essential to meeting those goals.
Xi Jinping’s announcement attracted global attention, but its most galvanizing effect was at home. It sent a powerful political signal in favor of renewable investments across China, and the nation’s giant state-owned enterprises, including its traditional energy companies, were compelled to take notice, both of Xi’s unequivocal message and the policy initiatives it triggered. The National Energy Administration (NEA), the body that regulates China’s energy sector, also recognized that new policies and mechanisms would be needed if China was to implement Xi’s targets.
Massive wind farms were already operating in northern China, and now a series of utility-scale clean energy bases involving many of China’s massive state-owned utility companies were planned for the relatively empty western desert regions. These bases, a combination of vast solar arrays and wind farms, are to be connected to markets in eastern China through high-speed transmission lines. The projects take advantage both of high solar radiation in the desert and large amounts of cheap, available land. China aims to build more than 200 such bases to help to raise its renewables capacity to about 3.9 terawatts by 2030, more than three times its 2022 total.
China still generates about 70 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels, as renewable energy use lags behind installed capacity.
In addition to these desert projects, the NEA promised in 2021 to improve rural grid transmission and allow village collectives to invest in distributed renewable power and share the benefits. To promote the adoption of distributed rooftop solar, the NEA launched the Whole County PV program , a national pilot scheme that aimed to install photovoltaics in roughly half of China’s county-level rural administrations, comprising about a quarter of China’s population. The program set targets of providing solar to 20 percent of residential properties, with separate targets for commercial buildings.
The utility-scale developments had left out China’s more scattered rural populations, so showing interest in a rural model in which customers both draw energy down and sell energy back to the grid was a radical departure for China’s traditional central planners and grid operators. The NEA now aimed to include China’s neglected rural population in the renewable revolution. By the end of 2022, 676 counties had signed up for the scheme, and more than 51 gigawatts of new distributed solar photovoltaic was installed, nearly half of it on from rural rooftops. In total, by the end of 2022, China had built roughly 157 gigawatts of distributed photovoltaic capacity, more than double that of the U.S.
Workers inspect a rooftop solar array in Fuzhou, China. Costfoto / NurPhoto via AP
The NEA also announced plans to expand the financing channels for renewables and improve incentives and market mechanisms, aiming to shift the state-owned banks from favoring state-owned enterprises and from undervaluing both the private sector and new policy initiatives.
Today the renewables sector is one of the relatively few bright spots in the Chinese economy, having benefited from a surge in government stimulus as Beijing tried to restore growth hit hard by Covid-19. The massive real estate market, which boosted China’s GDP figures for more than three decades, is teetering on the edge of collapse. The pandemic and the downturn in global economies that followed has hit China’s exports, and nervous Chinese consumers are sitting on their wallets in case things get worse. Renewable energy, however, seems to have a bright future , but fully realizing that potential will demand further radical reforms.
Renewables now account for half of China’s installed capacity, but there has also been a surge in permits for new coal-fired power plants, and China still generates about 70 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels. This means actual renewable energy use is lagging behind installed capacity.
The government has announced plans to create a unified electricity system, merging regional grids into one national market.
This is largely due to problems with China’s giant grid, which prefers high-speed transmission from reliable sources to the challenge of integrating variable renewable power and the associated challenge of matching intermittent supply to demand. For the grid companies , China’s coal-fired power plants are steady and predictable, and they are allowed many more hours of grid access than renewables. In addition, anxieties about energy security are now high on the policy agenda, reinforced by geopolitical tensions and recent droughts that affected hydropower output and resulted in power cuts. In China, energy security still means coal.
China’s current climate and energy ambitions are embedded in a series of policy statements, including its current five-year plan. Although China’s political culture places a heavy premium on meeting its declared goals, a number of energy and climate commitments are currently off target, largely because of the energy sector’s continuing dependence on coal.
In 2021, in the Paris Agreement commitments that China submitted to the U.N., Beijing pledged to “strictly limit” coal growth, strictly control new coal power, reduce energy and carbon intensity by 2025, increase the share of non-fossil energy sources to 20 percent by 2025 and to 25 percent by 2030, and to generate 50 percent of the increase in energy use from 2020 to 2025 from renewable sources. Far from limiting coal growth, however, according to analysis by Carbon Brief, a new coal rush is underway as operators seize what they see as possibly the last opportunity for new plants.
An EV battery factory in Nanjing. Feature China / Future Publishing via Getty Images
The figures confirm the trend: The average growth rate of coal consumption increased eightfold in the last two years, from 0.5 percent per year between 2016 and 2020 to 3.8 percent per year between 2021 and 2023, and new coal power approvals quadrupled between 2022 and 2023 as compared with the five years before the government pledged its strict controls.
This has contributed to a 12 percent rise in emissions in the energy sector between 2020 and 2023. To meet the government’s 2025 carbon intensity targets, emissions would have to peak this year and decline by 4 to 6 percent by 2025. Some analysts consider these targets already out of reach, but if China is to stay on track with its long- and short-term goals, the government must honor its pledge to control new coal capacity and continue its rapid buildup of renewables.
To use its renewables capacity efficiently however, China has recognized that power system reforms are long overdue. The National Development and Reform Commission recently announced plans to create a unified national power market by 2030, merging its six regional grids into one nationwide electricity market to better manage fluctuations in supply and demand. If that can be achieved, China could not only enhance its position as the global leader in installed capacity for renewable but might also make better use of the clean energy it produces.
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Xi Sticks to His Vision for China’s Rise Even as Growth Slows
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, believes his vision for technological dominance will keep powering the country’s ascent while the West recedes.
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By Chris Buckley
Even with growth faltering in China, Xi Jinping appears imperiously assured that he possesses the right road map to surpass Western rivals.
China’s economy has lurched into a slower gear . Its population is shrinking and aging. Its rival, the United States, has built up a lead in artificial intelligence . Mr. Xi’s pronouncement several years ago that “ the East is rising and the West is declining ” — that his country was on the way up while American power shrank — now seems premature, if not outright hubristic.
The problems have brought growing talk abroad that China could peak before it fully arrives as a superpower. But Mr. Xi seems unbowed in insisting that his policies, featuring extensive party control and state-led industrial investment in new sectors like electric vehicles and semiconductors, can secure China’s rise.
In a mark of that confidence, his government announced last week that China’s economy was likely to grow about 5 percent this year , much the same pace as last year , according to official statistics. And Mr. Xi emphasized his ambitions for a new phase of industrial growth driven by innovation, acting as if the past year or two of setbacks were an aberration.
“Faced with a technological revolution and industrial transformation, we must seize the opportunity,” he told delegates at China’s annual legislative meeting in Beijing, who were shown on television ardently applauding him.
He later told another group at the legislative session that China had to “win the battle for key core technologies,” and he told People’s Liberation Army officers to build up “strategic capabilities in emerging areas,” which, the officers indicated, included artificial intelligence, cyberoperations and space technology.
Mr. Xi’s bullishness may partly be for show: Chinese leaders are, like politicians anywhere, loath to admit mistakes. And some officials have privately conceded that the economic malaise is tamping down China’s ambitions and swagger, for now at least.
Ryan Hass , the director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution who visited China late last year , said he came away with a sense that “the Chinese are a bit chastened even compared to where they were a year ago. The trajectory of China’s economy overtaking America’s in coming years — that’s been pushed further out on the horizon.”
Even so, Mr. Xi’s determination to stick to his long-term ambitions seems more than a show. “Xi and his team still believe that time and momentum remain on China’s side,” said Mr. Hass, a former director for China at the U.S. National Security Council. “With Xi in power,” he added, it’s hard to envision “any significant re-calibration in the overall trajectory that China’s on.”
Since taking office in 2012, Mr. Xi has tightened the hold of the Communist Party on Chinese society. He has extended state management of the economy, expanded the security apparatus to extinguish potential challenges to party rule, and confronted Washington over technology, Taiwan and other disputes.
To Mr. Xi’s critics, his centralizing, hard-line tendencies are part of China’s problems. He did not cause China’s risky dependence on the property market for growth, and he has worked to end it. But many economists argue he has been too heavy-handed, stifling business and innovation. Critics argue that Mr. Xi has also needlessly antagonized Western governments, prompting them to restrict access to technology and deepen security ties with Washington.
Since last year, the Chinese government moved to ease those strains. It has taken steps aiming to revive confidence among private businesses. Mr. Xi has also sought to dial down tensions with the United States and other countries.
Such moderating gestures point to what Mr. Xi has described as the “ tactical flexibility ” he expects of Chinese officials in difficult times. But in Mr. Xi’s telling, even as officials make easing steps, they must stick to his long-term objectives. He and his loyal subordinates have been defending his policies i n speeches and editorials , suggesting that the doubters are shortsighted. Chinese officials and scholars have also stepped up denunciations of Western analysts who have forecast that China faces an era of decline.
Mr. Xi has stressed that economic and security priorities must work hand in hand even as China grapples with slower growth. Mr. Xi is also betting that investing in manufacturing and technology can deliver new “high quality” growth by expanding industries such as new clean energy and electric vehicles.
The Chinese leadership’s “mantra seems to be that ‘We’re not going to grow as fast as we used to, but we’re going to gain more leverage over trade partners by controlling critical parts of the global economy,’” said Michael Beckley, an associate professor at Tufts University, who has argued that China is a “peaking power,” meaning a country whose economic ascent has slowed but not yet stopped.
Some economists argue that China’s advances in these select industries will not be enough to make up for the drag caused by a fall in consumer confidence, and by developers and local governments straining under debt. China’s broader fortunes will heavily rest on whether Mr. Xi’s wager on technology can pay off.
“They see technology as the solution to every problem they’re facing — economic, environmental, demographic, social,” said Nadège Rolland , a researcher at the National Bureau of Asian Research who studies China’s strategic thinking. “If they cannot make sufficient advances in this domain, it’s going to be very difficult for them.”
Scholars in China and abroad who hope the country might take a more liberal path sometimes look to history for examples of when party leaders made bold changes to defuse domestic and international tensions.
The last time that China was caught in such a painful confluence was after the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. The bloodshed prompted Western countries to impose sanctions on China, which deepened the economic shock. Within several years, however, Deng Xiaoping, then China’s leader, sought to repair relations with Washington and other capitals and unleashed market changes that revived growth and lured back Western investors.
Now, though, China faces much more entrenched antagonism from other major powers, Zhu Feng , a prominent foreign policy scholar at Nanjing University in east China, said in an interview. For example, China’s surging exports of electric cars — which have benefited from extensive government subsidies — could revive trade tensions, as the United States, Japan and Europe fear losing jobs and industrial muscle.
The economic and diplomatic strains are “posing the gravest challenge to China” in decades, Professor Zhu said.
Still, Chinese leaders seem to believe that, whatever their problems, their Western rivals face worsening ones that will ultimately humble and fracture them.
Recent reports from institutes under China’s ruling party , military and state security ministry point to the rancorous polarization in the United States ahead of the next election. Regardless of who wins, Chinese analysts argue , American power is likely to remain troubled by political dysfunction.
Chinese scholars have also focused on fault lines in the Western bloc over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing’s relations with the United States and European governments were badly strained over Mr. Xi’s partnership with President Vladimir V. Putin. But as the war stretches into its third year, the burden of supporting Ukraine is deepening rifts and “fatigue” in the United States and Europe .
“U.S. foreign intervention cannot handle everything it is trying to juggle,” Chen Xiangyang, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, which is under the state security ministry, wrote last year. “China can exploit the contradictions and leverage them to its own advantage.”
Chris Buckley , the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues. More about Chris Buckley
China: as an Emerging Superpower
- Sophia Chanukvadze*
The research paper aims to answer the main research question whether China can really become the next superpower towards the middle of 21st century through its economic performance, energy policy, population, nuclear capacity and ideology. The hypothesis of the research paper is that in 21st century international system will become a bipolar with hegemony of the United States and China. With regard to the research methods, the following methods have been used: Case Study and Con- tent Analysis. Case Studies are perhabs the most widely used research approach in international relations (IR). In addition, to assert the main research question the Content Analysis is used. That method involves analyzing large amounts of text-based data. During research it was exercised books, analytical arti- cles, and different research papers of international research institutes: like Carnegie Center, Center Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Belfer Center of International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School etc. Other method is the statistical method, related to the presenting the concrete statistics, for instance, concerning GDP of China, statistics of foreign trade, energy import etc.
Theoretical context in this research is theory of international relations Realism. Particularly Hans Morgenthau’s Realist Theory (6 principle) second principle – National Interest defined in terms of National Power. According to this principle nations always define and act for securing their national interests by means of power. History tells us that nations have always acted on the basis of power.
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To Be More Precise: BeiDou, GPS, and the Emerging Competition in Satellite-Based PNT
The United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are in an emerging competition over satellite-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). In 2020, the PRC completed BeiDou 3, a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) similar to the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). The PRC now intends to “gain a competitive edge” in satellite-based PNT by making BeiDou more accurate, integrating it into global infrastructures, and expanding its use into new domains.
This paper examines the importance of BeiDou to PRC national power. It argues that the PRC is using BeiDou as instrument of national power to enhance its global power projection capabilities, international influence, and global commercial competitiveness. In sum, BeiDou assists the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in achieving its goals of increasing the country’s national power and ushering in a multipolar world and extends the competition between the United States and the PRC to the field of satellite PNT. If PRC plans are successful, BeiDou will enable China’s military to conduct precision strikes against adversaries and could lead to the loss of international influence for the United States and expand market opportunities for PRC commerce.
BeiDou closing the gap with GPS
BeiDou is closing the gap with GPS in terms of technology and acceptance. BeiDou has more than 2 billion users and can provide navigation and positioning accuracies better than 9 meters and in some cases better than 5 meters, depending on location. The BeiDou program has benefited from a latecomer advantage that has allowed it to benchmark the performance of GPS and add functionality beyond that on GPS satellites (See Table 1).
GPS remains the leading GNSS
GPS modernization is not standing still, however. In 2018, the Air Force signed a contract for 22 third-generation GPS satellites that are 3 times more accurate and 8 times more resistant to jamming than GPS II satellites. GPS IIIF satellites will be even more capable with new payloads, such as a redesigned Nuclear Detonation Detection System, Laser Retroreflector Arrays, a Cospas-Sarsat Search and Rescue payload, and an Energetic Charged Particles sensor. GPS IIIF also provides Precise Positioning Service to military operations and force enhancement. GPS IIIF satellites’ L1C signal will be compatible with the European Union’s Galileo and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, allowing a common signal to be broadcast by up to 60 satellites, further enhancing accuracy and availability. The full complement of GPS IIIF satellites will not be available until 2033, however.
BeiDou as an instrument of PRC national power
Despite GPS's technological lead, the PRC is positioning BeiDou to become the GNSS of choice through a multifaceted program intended to promote BeiDou's dual-use capabilities across the four instruments of national power: diplomatic, information, military, and economic (DIME).
Diplomatic and information
The beidou program improves the reputation of the ccp domestically and the prc internationally..
BeiDou likely improves the reputation of the CCP domestically and the PRC internationally by demonstrating that under CCP leadership, China can match the world in technological achievements. The CCP can claim that the successful completion of BeiDou demonstrates the superiority of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and helps legitimize the CCP’s authoritarian governance model.
BeiDou’s international cooperative activities build the PRC’s reputation as a reliable and attractive space partner that can assist countries to develop economically, technologically, and scientifically.
BeiDou’s international cooperative activities in areas such as training and education on satellite-based PNT and assistance with building infrastructure to support BeiDou help the PRC bolster its international influence, especially with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. PRC activities appear to be most extensive in the Middle East. PRC cooperation with Saudi Arabia appears to be particularly strong and seems tied to the economic and military agendas of the country.
Military and security
Beidou’s pnt and communications functions provide part of the fundamental architecture for carrying out the pla’s core operational concept of multidomain precision warfare..
According to the Defense Department, multidomain precision warfare is intended to leverage a command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance network that incorporates artificial intelligence and big data to conduct joint strikes against key adversary vulnerabilities. BeiDou plays an indispensable role in multidomain precision warfare by enabling precision strike, the movement of forces, communications, and situational awareness. In this respect, BeiDou’s short messaging service (SMS) function is a critical, albeit secondary, capability whose importance should not be discounted. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is also researching the application of BeiDou across the full range of military activities, including warfighting, border defense, logistics, and mobilization.
BeiDou will provide the PRC more freedom of action to use force or threaten the use of force.
The use of BeiDou in precision strike, to guide uncrewed vehicles, and to support enabling functions such as logistics will enhance PLA efforts to deter the actions of potential adversaries and to effectively carry out strike operations if deterrence fails. BeiDou’s global coverage will better enable the PLA to operate and conduct strikes globally, especially in the Western Pacific, South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Conversely, the increased capabilities that BeiDou provides to the PLA could mean that efforts to deter PRC military actions will be less effective. The ability to conduct precision strikes is likely one major aspect that could increase CCP leadership’s confidence in the effectiveness of military action.
Advancements in satellite-based PNT will allow the PLA to better exploit the benefits of autonomous technologies.
Not only will BeiDou’s PNT functions allow autonomous systems to guide themselves more securely and independently, its SMS function will also allow humans to issue commands to autonomous vehicles and enable autonomous vehicles to communicate among each other in self-organizing swarm operations.
Countries’ use of BeiDou in critical infrastructure could increase their dependency on the PRC.
Although it is unlikely that any country will rely solely on BeiDou for its satellite-based PNT needs, path dependencies created by countries adopting BeiDou as their primary GNSS for finance, electrical power generation, and communications infrastructure and for use with “smart cities” technologies could expose countries to PRC leverage if the PRC were to deny or degrade the BeiDou signal.
BeiDou increases PRC surveillance concerns.
The PRC’s ability to monitor the movement and communications of those using BeiDou’s SMS function increases PRC surveillance concerns. BeiDou’s operation by the PLA suggests that the opportunities for espionage are much greater than for those systems operated by private corporations.
PRC aspires for BeiDou to replace GPS as the dominant GNSS.
Economic forces will not bring about the demise of the U.S. government-operated GPS. PRC mercantilist policies, however, can affect downstream actors that develop satellite navigation devices and applications. Although satellite navigation products and services can use signals from multiple systems, PRC mercantilist policies could help expand the popularity of devices and services manufactured and provided by PRC companies. This issue could be especially prominent in cell phone applications that use satellite navigation. An expansion of PRC companies providing satellite navigation products and services will likely mean a drop in market share for non-PRC companies, many of which are U.S. companies.
BeiDou could be more integrated with countries’ national infrastructure.
Highly accurate positioning and navigation information achieved through the expansion of ground-based augmentation systems across the PRC and other countries is intended to promote the development of smart cities technologies and the use of self-driving cars and other autonomous vehicles. The more aggressive testing and adoption of autonomous vehicles of all types using BeiDou could lead the PRC to become a leader in this sector. The use of high-accuracy services may also help improve traffic management, a major element of smart cities technologies, which in turn is a major component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which envisions the ability to redistribute transportation flows around bottlenecks.
PRC mercantilist policies may increase the use of BeiDou in the developing world.
BeiDou’s biggest economic effect will likely be greater in countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, in which PRC outreach is intended to take advantage of the markets of 147 countries making up two-thirds of the world’s population and 40 percent of the global gross domestic product. On the other hand, the use of BeiDou in the United States will likely be limited by the dominance of U.S. companies, efforts to restrict the sale of PRC brands such as Huawei, and a ban on BeiDou ground augmentation stations being set up in the United States.
PRC-sponsored training and education is intended to increase PRC global market share.
PRC government–sponsored education and training programs contain a marketing component that is intended to advance PRC commercial interests. Training conducted by employees of PRC companies can expose potential customers to PRC products and promote the perception that PRC companies are the provider of choice for satellite PNT solutions.
Recommendations for the U.S.
Add functionality to gps to maintain u.s. technological lead in satellite navigation..
Although not all BeiDou capabilities may need to be incorporated into GPS, the push by China to add functionality to BeiDou may create opportunities to surpass GPS. To maintain GPS’s competitiveness, potential technological improvements to GPS could include the following:
- Software-upgradable satellite architectures to allow software improvements rather than hardware improvements to drive improvements in GPS.
- The addition of a high-accuracy services, such as internet-based high-accuracy services.
- Intersatellite links to allow more frequent updates.
- Expanding the constellation to geosynchronous orbit to mitigate the degradation of the GPS signal in mountainous areas and large built-up urban areas.
- Expanding the constellation to low Earth orbit to provide more accurate and reliable signals with less interference.
Develop diverse PNT solutions to provide mission assurance in the event GPS is degraded or denied.
The Defense Department is developing technologies to complement GPS in the event that it is degraded or denied. These include improved inertial sensors, chip-scale atomic clocks, celestial navigation, terrestrial image analysis, and magnetic navigation. None of these methods is as accurate as GPS, but when used in combination, they may provide sufficiently precise accuracies. However, according to a May 2021 Government Accountability Office report, alternate PNT sources are not prioritized within the Defense Department.
Promote GPS as an instrument of national power.
The PNT competition between the United States and China means that the United States must consider not only how to best maintain its technological lead in PNT for military advantage but also how to compete with the PRC’s efforts to promote BeiDou across the DIME. Strengthening the National Coordinating Office for Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing or establishing a new organization at the White House to better promote GPS as an instrument of national power —militarily, diplomatically, and commercially—could better help the United States meet the challenges of the satellite PNT competition that span across the DIME.
Conduct international GPS outreach.
Establishing an office to conduct international training and education on satellite PNT with a subsidiary mission of promoting U.S. commercial interests could be one instrument for increasing U.S. influence and challenging the PRC narrative of providing a more advanced system and being a more reliable GNSS partner. An alternative to a government-run approach would be to outsource the effort to U.S. companies, possibly using the Agency for International Development, the U.S. Telecom Training Institute or the International Development Finance Corporation.
Approved for public release: distribution unlimited.
- Document Number: DRM-2023-U-036477-1Rev
- Publication Date: 3/13/2024
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China: as an Emerging Superpower. With regard to the research methods, the following methods have been used: Case Study and Con- tent Analysis. Case Studies are perhabs the most widely used research approach in international relations (IR). Other method is the statistical method, related to the presenting the concrete statistics, for instance ...
China uses BeiDou as an instrument of national and military power as it competes with American GPS in satellite-based positioning, navigation, and timing ... The United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are in an emerging competition over satellite-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). In 2020, the PRC completed ...
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