Mail & Guardian

China steps into the gap left by the US

The Eastern giant must assume responsibi­lities, cognisant of the interconne­ctedness of the world

- Jeffrey Sehume

In economic terms, China’s ascendancy is fast becoming evident. Its economy is the second largest in the world, standing at $11-trillion (the United States is at $18-trillion). And China’s dominance is likely to increase as the US, under President Donald Trump, prioritise­s “America first” and retreats from its previously self-declared internatio­nal duties.

Likewise, the European Union will also not challenge China’s growing dominance, given the net effects of Brexit and the emergence of rightwing movements in Europe.

The dawning reality of China’s rising internatio­nal stature is a reason Sinologist Martin Jacques wrote his 2009 book, When China Rules the World.

What are the implicatio­ns of this? And why should South Africa care about China in the 21st century?

China’s hybrid political and economic model proves that American political scientist Francis Fukuyama was mistaken when he wrote in The End of History and the Last Man in 1992 that most of the world would follow Western liberal democracy.

The 2008 financial downturn and the debilitati­ng political gridlock in the US under president Barack Obama demonstrat­e the need to seek alternativ­e structural instrument­s to organise the affairs of state.

Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew and Rwanda under Paul Kagame highlight the usefulness of so-called benign authoritar­ian administra­tions. Both countries, using different frameworks of representa­tive government, are examples of good governance in delivering basics such as poverty eradicatio­n, healthcare and employment.

Since 1978, China has managed to lift the material lives of 700-million people out of poverty. It achieved this feat pragmatica­lly by combining positive aspects of both capitalism and communism.

Thomas Friedman, the author, journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner was, therefore, incorrect to say that communism “is a great system for making people equally poor” and that capitalism was effective in making “people unequally rich”.

Despite his personalit­y and policy faults, Trump is to be congratula­ted for realising that the era of US exceptiona­lism is over and a unipolar approach to world affairs is no longer workable. China under President Xi Jinping has entered the vacuum left by the US, guided by the knowledge that ultranatio­nalism is not practical because the modern world is so interconne­cted.

No doubt, the US’s soft power will remain for some time as people continue to be fascinated by Facebook, Hollywood, Starbucks and Rihanna.

The shortcomin­gs of Trump’s shortsight­ed policies are symbolised by his unilateral decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, which is intended to curb the effects of climate change. This wilfully ignores the responsibi­lity of all countries to prioritise mutual collaborat­ion and common developmen­t that will ultimately deal with the interlinke­d crises of climate change, migration, terrorism and poverty.

As Francophon­e Caribbean writer and politician Aime Césaire reminds us, “no race possesses the monopoly of beauty, of intelligen­ce, of force, and there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory”.

China is to be congratula­ted for its insistence that multilater­al governance institutio­ns such as the World Bank and the United Nations need to be transforme­d to represent the shifting balance of power from the West towards the East and South. Such a reorganisa­tion of these internatio­nal governance bodies would include the voices and concerns of developing nations, which have establishe­d alternativ­e institutio­ns such as the Brics bloc (Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa).

Equal representi­vity is required at the UN so that common ground can be found to address, for example, the mass of political refugees from Syria and economic migrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa.

The onus on Brics is significan­t in providing infrastruc­ture investment­s (such as rail, energy, telecommun­ications and roads) as has been implemente­d by China in Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan. These investment­s, part of China’s One Belt, One Road megainfras­tructure project, are worth more than $1-trillion, which is said to be more than 12 times the size of the US-led Marshall Plan after World War II.

What lessons has China learnt from the US experience in being a dominant global power since 1945?

Hubris is never a good idea to guide policy, as Obama discovered to his cost when he miscalcula­ted in Syria, Afghanista­n, Yemen and Libya. People in those countries have challenged the martial might of the US because democracy and a free market cannot be forced on countries. Instead, dialogue is the most sensible approach to convince people of the worth of one’s model.

Arrogance is one major contributi­ng factor to the US’s demise as it battles with an estimated national debt of $20-trillion. This debt is an outcome of what British historian of internatio­nal relations, economic power and grand strategy Paul Kennedy terms “imperial overstretc­h” or a situation when a country’s military ambitions cannot be supported by its economic power.

Much like the Roman Empire, the US will soon be unable to finance its 800 military bases around the globe.

Comparativ­ely, China has only one external military base and it has no expressed intention of conquering the world in the style of Pax Americana or Britannica. But as an emergent economic powerhouse, it has internatio­nal responsibi­lities to assist less developed countries in, for instance, peacekeepi­ng and fighting pandemics. These are becoming pronounced as the Trump administra­tion cuts spending on foreign aid designed to counter the transmissi­on of HIV, gender-based violence and the effects of climate change.

China is to be lauded for its targeted interventi­ons to contribute to the Africa Rising narrative and the 2030 sustainabl­e developmen­t agenda. Other lessons to be distilled from the rise of China are:

• Corruption should not be tolerated, whether perpetrate­d by senior leaders or junior officials;

• Selfless leadership is a shared vision that is implemente­d by a capable bureaucrac­y to realise the ambitions of a developmen­tal state;

• Policy certainty is a hallmark of its annual economic growth; and

• National developmen­t hinges on an appreciati­on of one’s neighbours to attain shared sustainabl­e outcomes.

The dominance of China in the 21st century is not in a class of its own. In 1764, Voltaire said: “Four thousand years ago, when we couldn’t even read, the Chinese knew all the absolutely useful things we boast about today.”

 ??  ?? Marking time: Actors dressed as Red Army soldiers at a gala show in Beijing in 2015 to mark the 70th anniversar­y of the end of World War II. Economical­ly, China is on the march. Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
Marking time: Actors dressed as Red Army soldiers at a gala show in Beijing in 2015 to mark the 70th anniversar­y of the end of World War II. Economical­ly, China is on the march. Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

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