Major Power Competition and China-US Relations in Perspective of Profound Changes Unseen for a Century

Feng Weijiang

Senior Research Fellow, Institute of World Economics and Politics,?

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

DOI: 10.19422/j.cnki.cn10-1398/d.2019.04.006

In recent years, China-US economic and trade frictions are on the rise as the American side continues to raise the stakes, attracting great attention of all parties. At present, there are several estimates of the consequences of these frictions all indicating that in general, their immediate effects on economic growth of both countries are controllable. It is more worrying for all parties that they may evolve into break of global industrial chain, and even into sanctions and counter-sanctions in monetary and financial and other fields. To take them into a broader perspective, that is, to see them in the angle of profound changes unseen in a century the world is undergoing, China-US economic and trade frictions may be nothing but a small episode of a long process of evolution of “the Easts rise and the Wests decline” in the global pattern, the real risks resting with other than a direct conflict between China and the United States.

Changes in Relative Forces and Interactions between China and the US against Profound Changes Unseen in a Century

In early 2017, President Xi Jinping in his speech at the United Nations Office in Geneva raised the question “What has happened to the world and how should we respond?” By the end of the year, when meeting Chinese diplomatic envoys attending the 2017 work conference for overseas envoys, President Xi Jinping pointed out, “Our world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century: Rapid rise of a large number of emerging markets and developing countries since the 21st century began, a surging trend toward multi-polarity, and greater balance in global power configuration all make the momentum of international trends irreversible.” Such “profound changes unseen in a century” are President Xi Jinpings answer in nutshell to the question of “what has happened to the world”.

On the plane of international relations, profound changes unseen in a century are in the main accelerated development toward multi-polarity, increasingly balanced international pattern, division and reorganization of various strategic forces, and the international situation being at a new turning point. Major country relations, especially between major emerging markets and major traditional developed countries undergo profound readjustment, whereas some of the traditional powers are still in the mindset of hegemony and power politics, “One cannot live in the 21st century with the outdated thinking from the age of Cold War and zero-sum game”.

On the economic plane, profound changes unseen in a century are in the main that a large number of emerging markets and developing countries as represented by China grow fast, economic globalization surges forward, and the world economic pattern evolves in a profound way. At the same time, the US has become more inward-looking, affected by rising protectionism and unilateralism. A visual of profound changes in economic terms is Chinese economy catching up with and surpassing the US in size “unseen for a century”. Of course, by other norms the process of catching up with and surpassing the US is slower and more complicated. Though the gap remains sizable in term of per capita income, as China has a huge population, the process of it moving toward a developed country in terms of per capita income will in fact reflect a big increase in the countrys overall strength. A fallacy goes that the rapid increase of economic strength of emerging markets represented by China is a result of taking advantage of open global system led by the US and profiting at the expenses of the US in economic globalization.? Affected by the fallacy, the Trump Administration has placed tariffs on a number of countries, stirred up economic and trade frictions in a large scale, and threatened to or directly withdrawn from multilateral economic cooperative mechanisms. What the US has done impacts the world economy with de-globalization.

On the security plane, the international environment under the profound changes is as a whole stable, but challenges to international security are complex, wars, terrorist attacks, famine and plague come one after another, and traditional security issues intermingle with non-traditional ones. Though global security stability is under threat with US actions like pulling out of the INF Treaty, the probability of major powers or more specific China and the US falling into a serious conflict is less than significant. In terms of military might, the US possesses 7000 nuclear warheads, occupying the second place in the world, way ahead of China. However, Chinas nuclear force poses an asymmetrical deterrence that cannot be neglected. Either for China or the US, it is not possible that the most destructive anticipated loss will result from a serious direct conflict between both countries.

On the cultural plane, the profound changes mean that various civilizations learn from one another and various ideologies and cultures mutually clash. But at the same time, the theory of “clash of civilizations” resurges and takes the direction of self-fulfilling prophecy. In April 2019, Kiron Skinner, Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department, remarked at a security forum in Washington, DC that conditions of the current competition between the US and China are different from the Cold War, where the competition between the US and the Soviet Union “was a fight within the Western family”, the latter believing in Marxism indebted to Western political ideas. What the US is having with China “is a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology”, “the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.” Skinner also revealed that the US is developing a strategy for China based on the idea of “a fight with a really different civilization”. Although this theory is severely criticized by a number of American policy and strategy experts, the forces backing it and possible coordinated actions are worth alerting.

On the plane of science and technology, the era of profound changes is that of upsurge of IT application in society, that of an approaching new industrial revolution. The race to seize the commanding height of the science and technological field is extremely fierce, directly affecting initiatives and say of various countries in the profound changes. In support of a deep readjustment of the pattern of economic strength, there are the three pillars of science and technology, institutions and population, and among them the structure of population is a slow variable that can only make marginal readjustments by measures like immigration policy, which tends to cause division within a country; institutional competition is rather costly, and it is hardly possible to demand the competitor or countries in its “camp” to change their way of doing things; and the field of science and technology is most likely to become one of the main battle field defining profound changes unseen in a century. China has made full blown progress in basic scientific research and become an unneglectable force in the era of new industrial revolution and at the same time a main target for the US in launching a science and technological competition.

Risks and Destructive Mechanisms against the Backdrop of Profound Changes Unseen in a Century

At present, there is a view among the learned circle that when the strength of the rising power reaches the critical line of a certain proportion of that of the hegemon power, a qualitative change will happen to the relations between the two, that is, the side of competition will prevail over that of cooperation and risks of moving toward destructive antagonism will increase rapidly. For instance, Professor Jacek Kugler, political scientist of Claremont Graduate University, took it for the critical line for the challenger that its strength reaches or surpasses 80 percent of that of the hegemon power; Professor Jin Canrong at School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, observed that there has existed in American history a kind of collective unconsciousness that whenever any other countrys size of manufacturing industry reaches 70 percent of that of the US, America will take the country as a rival and will mobilize all forces to keep it down; Zhang Yuyan, Senior Research Fellow of Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, held that China-US relations has entered a period of qualitative change, an important indicator is that the outputs of both countries get close fast, reaching the critical line that China takes a proportion of two third of that of the US.

From a prolonged historical dimension, profound changes unseen in a century are in fact a natural historical process of relative rise and decline of major powers in various aspects at various stages in the cycle of rise and fall. Such a process will not necessarily lead to destructive antagonism, and at contemporary times, the risks are on the decrease for the rising power crossing a certain critical line in relative forces to trigger off seriously destructive war with the hegemon power. On the one hand, as the speed for the emerging powers to increase their size of economy and improve its quality is faster than before, shortening the window for the hegemon power to keep them down, of which the tendency of bullying will not increase in an unlimited way but will decrease after the critical line is crossed (see Figure 1). On the other hand, the cost of a seriously antagonistic conflict between nuclear weapon countries is formidable. As US RAND Corporation remarked in its report War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable, “It is unlikely that nuclear weapons would be used: Even in an intensely violent conventional conflict, neither side would regard its losses as so serious, its prospects so dire, or the stakes so vital that it would run the risk of nuclear retaliation by using nuclear weapons first.”

Professor James Jackson at Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, Britain demonstrated in his studies of the Mediterranean- Middle East-Asia seismic zone that along the crumpling caused by tectonic movement of the South Asian subcontinent northward squeezing the boundary of the Eurasian continent, the frequency of earthquakes at significant magnitude and casualties they cause are remarkably less than what happens within the boundary of the side of Eurasian continent. This indicates that direct destruction of the seismic phenomena is caused less by lasting squeezing pressures between tectonic plates than by stresses produced by internal forces within the structure of a tectonic plate in response to such squeezing. Such stresses in various (normally more fragile) positions of the tectonic plate form a fault line that produces an earthquake. Somewhat like such a seismological theory, to meet the profound changes unseen in a century is a long process of responding to pressures and stresses. This process may take one of the two routes for causing severe destruction: first, “the Easts rise and the Wests decline” leading to pressures that cause hypertension in China-US relations, the economic and trade frictions between both spiraling into directly destructive antagonism and taking the form of destruction between tectonic plates (countries and regions); second, “the Easts rise and the Wests decline” produces lasting squeezing pressures that through bilateral relations result in stresses, functioning in internal areas of varying fragility such as polarization, environmental pollution, corruption, ethnic and religious contradictions, creating a fault line in one or more most fragile areas, likely producing destruction within a tectonic plate (within a country and even at regional level).

As aforesaid, the first route has limited anticipated destruction. Since gigantic, catastrophic consequence of a major power conflict will make both sides more prudent, and other countries wishing to avoid collateral damage will dissuade them from doing so. As a result, the probability of a direct, severe conflict is relatively low. The second route that leads to destruction lacks such third party restraining mechanisms, and at the same time there are accumulating and magnifying effects of internal stresses. Social groups being affected in fragile internal areas tend to be vulnerable groups of a given country without adequate “exit” capacity. The more it is difficult for them to exit, the stronger they tend to cry out and appeal in order to pressure on the government of the land. To ameliorate the above problems temporarily, governments of various countries, particularly governments of major powers are inclined to shift contradictions to the outside world, resulting in global political and economic turbulences or security crises against a high tech background. It further increases the strives various countries have been already locked in and the internal stresses arising therefrom, which in turn gives rise to a turbo-type charging cycle of “major power squeezing- increased stresses within the plate – internal fragile belt under pressure –contradiction shift to the outside world –increased squeezing” (see Figure 2), and eventually leading to major social cleavages of multi-party linking response within internal areas of fragility. Of course, it does not exclude direct serious conflicts between major powers owing to failure of management under increasing pressure. Such turbo charging effects form feeding and feeding back of external pressures and internal stresses and the linked internal and external collapse it may cause, where may lie true risks of international security under profound changes unseen for a century.

Options for a Route to National Security under Profound Changes Unseen for a Century

In view of the above mechanisms, there may be three areas to manage national security risks arising from major power competition against the background of profound changes unseen in a century as follows, first, sustained release of the pressure of “the Easts rise and the Wests decline” in profound changes unseen for a century; second, limiting the interaction between external pressures and internal stresses so as to avert negative effects on national security and development; and third, checking and repairing the fragile side and weak links of internal economic, social development and security so as to enhance tenacity of national security against external pressures and internal stresses.

In the first area, there are two directions for sustained release of pressure on macro plane of profound changes unseen in a century. First, to remove the subjective intent of the rising power and hegemon power to be enemies of one another and engaged in mutual antagonism, and between countries that are heterogeneous or greatly different in ideology, social system, cultural concepts, be it the rising power or the hegemon one, it is very difficult to make credible non-hostile signals to one another at a low cost. For instance, China has avowed time and again never to “seek hegemony” and announced that the country has no intention to replace the position of the US or create a parallel order or system to the current world order and international system, which does not effectively release doubts and anxieties of the US. Unless both the hegemon power and the rising one are in face of pressing, dire, lasting major threats and both have mutually made sizable special investment that affects their relationship in meeting such threats, it is very difficult for both sides to truly reject prejudices, forgo antagonism and cooperate sincerely. For one, climate change can be taken for a lasting major common threat (here President Trump has different thoughts), but for the Trump presidency it is less than pressing. Second, a new widening of the gap of power or strength between the rising power and the hegemon one, a state of affairs that may happen when the strength of the former rapidly surpasses that of the latter all of a sudden in a short period of time, or when the former fails to surpass the latter in the process of rising (including both sides directly resorting to war and one side being defeated, or defeat through self-collapse owing to cleavage caused by a fault line of internal fragility), or when the latter suddenly surges up with technological and institutional innovation and achieves a “to be great again” development. Among the above forms, those of the rising power rapidly surpassing the hegemon one or the latter rapidly leaving the former behind through improving efficiency belong to progressive re-safecurity, whereas those of widening the gap of power or strength between the two by limiting or disrupting the efficiency of one another belong to regressive re-safecurity. As such, it is necessary for the international community to come to consensus to encourage progressive re-safecurity and discourage regressive one.

In the second area, as full and sustained release of pressure on macro plane of profound changes unseen in a century is extremely difficult, it is crucial to avoid external pressures and internal stresses mutually stimulating and intensifying one another, the key of which rests with limiting the will and capacity of major powers to shift their internal contradiction to the outside world.? To limit the will requires first to solve issues of immediate interest of domestic issues that threaten quality of life and opportunity of development for disadvantaged social groups so as to reduce pressure from the source for shifting internal contradictions to the outside world, and second to avoid being bound together by extreme nationalism, populism and other groups of narrow interest (like anti-immigrant groups and military-industrial complex) in irresponsibly producing and shifting risks to the outside world. To limit the capacity, it is imperative to restrain the capacity of major powers of weaponizing international financial infrastructure. For instance, if the hegemon power is given a free hand to, by its ability to issue global currency and its position to monopolize international payment and settlement system, force its will, principles and rules upon the whole system by arbitrarily sanction and blockade, and by threatening public and private sectors of other countries, the international financial market will face extremely great turbulence and disability. To this end, besides limiting the power of concerned major countries to control current international financial infrastructure, it is also necessary to promote pluralization and de-weaponization of key international financial infrastructure according to the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration.

In the third area, to repair fragile side and weak links of internal socioeconomic development and security is the internal guarantee for national security, the key of which varies from country to country. For China, it is first essential to bolster areas of weakness like innovation and deepen reform and open-up. Problems like polarization, fixation of social strata, and degradation of environment need to be resolved in a dynamic process of making the cake bigger in an open world, accelerating optimization and upgrading of economic structure, enhancing capacity of science and technological innovation, deepening reform and open-up, facilitating green development, turning pressure into a driving force for rapid and quality economic development, creating favorable environment for development, releasing to the maximum dynamics of the whole society in innovation, and continuing to strengthen Chinas influence and competitiveness in a world at profound change. Second, it is necessary to rationalize incentive mechanism regarding to mechanisms and institutions, and truly modernize the countrys system and capacity for governance. To this end, it is necessary to encourage people to make a difference and make things happen. Finally, it is necessary to guide the whole society at conceptual level to accurately realize advantages and weakness, objectively assess progress made and gap remaining, and keep strategic resolve, self-confidence and patience.

To sum, since China-US economic and trade frictions broke out, global attention and diplomatic resources have been focused on the conflict itself, which to a degree has “squeezed out” attention and internal political and diplomatic inputs in domestic issues and important regional cooperation, raising the risks of misplacing resources. In fact, it is necessary to give importance to checking and repairing fragile side and weak links of domestic socioeconomic development and security, building a huge open space at the same time by uniting partner countries along the Belt and Road and taking part in “third party cooperation” with developed partner countries, and protecting against all “grey rhinos” by deepening reform and open-up. Its importance is at least equal to that of preventing China-US economic and trade frictions from slipping into a “black swan” beyond control.