9

Indeed, the IMF has revisited its past practice of emergency lending and adopted new institutional views on regulating international capital flows. For instance, “Capital Flows: Review of Experience with the Institutional View,” IMF Policy Paper (November 2016). www.imf.org/en/publications/policy-papers/issues/2017/01/13/pp5081capital-flows-review-of-experience-with-the-institutional-view

Oliver Stuenkel, “The BRICS Leaders Xiamen Declaration: An Analysis,” postwesternworld.com (Sept. 7, 2017).

for international laws, promoting democracy and rule of law in international relations.” BRICS leaders also pledged that “valuing the G20’s continued role as the premier forum for international economic co-operation, we reiterate our commitments to the implementation of the outcomes of G20 summits, including the Hamburg summit and the Hangzhou summit.”

the CHINESE Model of DEVELOPMENT

What also makes most Western leaders anxious is the fact that china is becoming more confident about its own development model and has shown a stronger desire to share its experiences with other developing countries. Indeed, the growing popularity of the chinese model is challenging the universalism of many Western values and institutional fixtures, which have been enshrined by the West as the only game in town for establishing a legitimate political order or pursuing economic modernization. the chinese model contests the superiority of Western liberal democracy or the free-market system over delivering responsive government and socio-economic modernization. Its political system prioritizes social empowerment and economic development over political rights, and gives priority to effective governance and social stability before individual freedom.

In addition, china favors an alternative path to deepening economic partnership and regional integration. It gives the state, multilateral policy co-ordination mechanisms, multilateral lending institutions and state-owned enterprises a much bigger role in fostering economic development and regional co-operation than us-led donor organizations are willing to endorse under their neo-liberal policy guidelines. unlike the Eu model or the trans-atlantic partnership, the chinese approach to regionalism and economic partnership does not take security alliances and democratic solidarity as prerequisites for deepening economic integration. this formula, however, was not invented by china. the Association of southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other non-western regions have practiced it for decades.

It is unlikely, however, that china will persuade the developing world to adopt its model of development uncritically or on a wholesale basis because this predisposition runs counter to its own longstanding policy mottos and accumulated experiences. Out of its own experience, china opposes the one-size-fits-all approach under the so-called Washington consensus and does not believe in the teleological convergence under the End-of-history thesis. chinese leaders have consistently emphasized that an important lesson of the chinese model is that there is no standard textbook that can provide the complete answer to addressing an individual country’s socio-economic challenges. chinese leaders also often emphasize that “the socialist market economy with chinese characteristics” might not be readily transportable to other socio-cultural contexts. After all, china’s trajectory has been rather unique, moving through an anti-imperialist struggle into nation-state building, not to mention its massive size, distinctive historical memory and cultural heritage. Also, there is little evidence to suggest that china’s foreign assistance programs are tied to specific ideological requirements, although the allocation of china’s soft loans and assistance might well be motivated by geopolitical considerations and other foreignpolicy priorities.

A large majority of developing countries welcome china’s willingness to shoulder greater responsibility within the existing multilateral framework. Given its weight, china will inevitably play a bigger role in co-managing the global economy through the G20 and other multilateral institutions and policy-co-ordination plat

forms. china has already significantly increased its fiscal and in-kind contributions to the un, the security council’s peace-keeping missions and a wide range of specialized un agencies, just as the us is reducing its annual contributions to the un budget and has pulled itself out of unesco (and, most lately, the WHO).

china was also an indispensable player during the treacherous and protracted multilateral bargaining leading to the un climate change Agreement. At the 21st conference of the Parties (COP 21), china gingerly used its doubleedged leverage — that is, being the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet and putting on the table the single most significant and credible pledge to fulfill its 2030 Nationally determined contribution (Ndc) — and emerged as one of the key interlocutors that helped seal the Paris Agreement in 2015.11

filling the ‘real’ Void

the growing apprehension toward china’s emerging global role is hardly justifiable. to a great extent, it reflects a parochial way of making sense of the complex and multi-faceted implications of china’s growing influence over the global agenda and its ever more ambitious global strategy.

Many realist-minded analysts in the West raise the concern that china is eager to fill the strategic vacuum left behind by the us retreat. this is a typical pseudo issue, because it does not resonate with the way chinese leaders perceive the world and their country’s proper role in it. first of all, china has little desire or predisposition to create another hegemony by exerting its military, political, economic and ideological predominance around the globe, stretching its security needs to the farthest reach conceivable, and fending off any potential challenger over the horizon. In a post-hegemonic world, much of the so-called strategic vacuum may not be a “vacuum” at all. As America’s hegemonic presence recedes, it is simply a return to “normalcy” — which is to say the prevailing historical conditions with diminishing influence from American military, political, economic and ideological hegemony.

On the other hand, there remain some serious “real vacuums” across a wide range of global issues as the us retreats. first, there is an urgent need to refurbish the domestic social foundations for sustaining economic openness and multilateralism.12 Meanwhile, the functional demands for global rules and norms have kept expanding in new and ever more complex domains, such as financial accountability, genetic engineering, cyber security, artificial intelligence and crypto currencies. It has also become clear that the LIO must go beyond trade and economics and needs to generate solutions to market failures such as the concentration of monopolistic power in a few rent-seeking high-tech titans and market externalities such as financial crises, climate change, global pandemics, enduring pockets of poverty, and the over-exploitation of outer space and maritime resources.

Chu yun-han is distinguished research fellow at institute of Political science of academia sinica and Professor of Political science, National taiwan university.