It’s Time to See China for the Emerging Reformist Power It Is

the us and other Western nations must now acknowledge Beijing’s place at the table.

The economic rise of China has unleashed a growing chorus of anxiety in some circles in the West, especially in the United States, about the likelihood that China will one day claim a right to greater leadership in world affairs. That day has come. Beijing has already taken numerous steps to imprint its views on global governance, and more will follow. It remains to be seen how China’s ambitions will play out, but it’s time for the US and other Western nations to acknowledge

Beijing’s place at the table, writes Chu Yun-han.

SINCE THE GREAT RECESSION of 2008-09, the political elite in the West has been wrestling with the profound implications of china’s rise and the relative decline of the united states in the existing world order. to the dismay of many observers, us President donald trump has abdicated America’s international leadership and attacked existing multilateral arrangements, while many mainstream political forces in Western Europe are being washed away by the tidal wave of radical anti-globalization movements on the left and anti-eu populist uprisings on the right. Into that leadership void, china has emerged paradoxically as a beacon of stability and predictability as well as a major source of impetus propelling the world economy and regional integration forward. the calamity brought about by the covid-19 pandemic only heightened anxiety as the world witnessed how the trump administration fumbled its task to mitigate the virus while china emerged as the supposed savior of the world, sending needed medical equipment and doctors to heavily impacted countries.

With the day when china will overtake the us as the world’s largest economy on the horizon, many Western observers have experienced a deepening of their worries. first of all, they fear a corresponding disorder as the strategic competition between china and the us escalates. this has heightened ideological competition on the one hand, and an increasing resort to power politics on the other. A looming us-china economic cold War might trigger deglobalization and a decoupling of the global economy. some Western political leaders have also raised the concern

that china has not only openly defied the game rules set by the erstwhile hegemon with greater frequency, but also begun to outline an alternative set of rules.1 they have been annoyed by the fact that china is initiating visionary policy initiatives to reconfigure the paths and rules of economic integration and globalization, advocating an ever more ambitious agenda through such platforms as BRICS and the G20 to reform the mechanisms of global governance, and building up new multilateral institutions that complement, supplement and could partially replace today’s international institutions and rules of economic exchange and co-operation. they have been struck by china’s strategic vision to accelerate economic integration of the vast Eurasian continent, establish new multilateral lending institutions (such as the BRICS Investment Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB), and supply ever more regional and global public goods in the form of new policy co-ordination mechanisms, investment funds, digital infrastructure for cross-border e-commerce and mega infrastructure projects that could vastly improve intra-regional or cross-regional connectivity via trade, personnel exchanges, financial transactions, knowledge sharing, energy transmission and digital communication.

Many mainstream international relations scholars have warned that the relative decline of the us and the rise of china (and other countries) will accelerate the erosion of the post-second World War liberal international order (LIO) and bring more conflict, disorder and chaos to the world. under the most dramatic scenario, the LIO might fall into one of the following two traps: first, it is in danger because china is poised to topple the existing order with its ambitious and aggressive global agenda. A strategic showdown between the us and china, which will tear apart globalization and bring down multilateralism, seems inevitable. second, the LIO is in danger because the us is abdicating its hegemonic responsibility while china is not ready or willing to bear the burden of international leadership. the chaos and disorder that come with a leadership vacuum could become inevitable.2

China as a reformist, revisionist, global Power

Is china a revisionist power attempting to establish a comprehensive system as an antithesis to the Western-led world order? It depends on how one defines the essence of the post-second World War order and whether you look at the multi-faceted implications of the rise of china from a “Western-centric” view or the view of the global community.

Western opinion leaders who feel threatened by china’s rise usually trap themselves in one of the two Western-centric conceptions about the post-war liberal world order. first, they tend to conflate three liberal elements together: political liberalism (in opposition to authoritarianism), economic liberalism (in opposition to economic nationalism or mercantilism) and liberalism in the sense that international relations theorists use it (in opposition to realism and other theories of international relations).3 they assume that the three elements should always come together and thus fail to recognize the inherent tension and contradiction among the three. In reality, the neo-liberal turn of economic liberalism since the 1980s has brought about what dani Rodrik termed “hyperglobalization,” and as a consequence, it is undermining democracy, eroding national sovereignty and destroying social solidarity.4 such theorists also fail to recognize that the neo-liberalism of the last three decades has created an unprecedented concentration of economic power in a handful of giant firms that are able to capture huge economic rents by wielding