There is a lot of thinking and talking about the new world order, and the multipolar versus the G-2 global model. Every global actor is trying to find its place in the 21st century world order and to redefine its identity accordingly. Samuel Huntington speaks about the geopolitics of civilizations, Dominique Moisi of the geopolitics of emotions; I’ll try to take a closer look at the geopolitics of regional “identities” and perceptions of others.
As professor André Sapir puts it in the foreword he wrote for my previous book (Europe’s Destiny): “The EU is at a crossroads, it must make political choices and unless it can rise to the challenges of global change, the world will soon again be dominated by two superpowers, China and the United States.” The EU must choose if it wants to be a big power or a non-power – huge Switzerland, a calm, well-off but irrelevant place – as Jeremy Shapiro coined it at a conference in Brussels.
At the same time, Minna Proctor, the editor of the American Literary Review, writes in the Summer 2009 edition: ”And then what, America?’ asks one of our poets, Bob Evans. For here we are, well into the twenty-first century. American imperialism creeps and staggers. It is no longer fierce, directed and ideological, but rather ambivalent, apologetic, deadly and political. It does not seem that we want more America (anymore); we simply want a more comfortable one. We ’want’ easier claims – on oil, technology, mobility, influence. We want greater access and less mystery. Less God, more gold. As for glory, that most unquantifiable, third face of imperialism? Well, modern glory lies somewhere between Barack Obama and Michael Jackson. Exquisitely American phenomena, both; global in their reach, astonishing in their ascension – large bait for our collective dreams and desires.” The American dream’s core is hope, and hope seems to be fading away now in America. ”This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion (in 2009 China holds 13% of U.S. government bonds and notes in public hands). It ends with an inexorable reduction in the army, navy and air force” – says Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard. In parallel to this, Gore Vidal, the American writer says in The Times, that the rotten America will soon end up as a military dictatorship, etc… No matter the new president, the new style, America does not want a multipolar world, says Zaki Laidi – and he is right. Although it will be much more cooperative, America still wants to keep as much of its global dominance as it can. And it has still a lot. The US is the wealthiest nation with by far the greatest army and, contrary to the views of some European thinkers, is the biggest provider of soft power, by the attraction of its ideas and popular culture. 22% of the world’s GDP is produced in the USA, 4.5% in China and only 1% in Russia. Moreover, the US is the only superpower which really wants to be a superpower; China and Europe, not to mention Japan, shy away from that status for different reasons.
China seems to have the most trouble in defining itself and its future role. The gravest problem of the West is that it does not know what China wants; the gravest problem of the whole world is that China itself does not know either. China’s rapid growth has been due to productivity (its productivity gain has been the biggest in the world during the last few years) not just heavy investment, which shows how healthy and sustainable its economic growth is. Nevertheless, the Chinese economy has also suffered from the crisis, particularly the export sector, and millions of workers have reportedly been laid off. The value of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index lost nearly two-thirds of its value from end 2007 to end 2008. Growth has decelerated to around 6.5% in 2009 and, according to some analysts, annual growth of less than 8% could lead to social unrest in the modern Middle Kingdom. On the other hand, the crisis proved to be a great opportunity for China to modernize the structure of its economy and start a series of reforms in the social field, including badly needed rural development programs and pension reforms. It seems that China is not the winner of the crisis because of the fall of the West or the fall of capitalism (it would be lethal to the Middle Kingdom in fact) but because it gained time and money to deal with its huge internal problems.
Niall Ferguson talks about the end of Chimerica - a marriage between the US and China in a completely intertwined economy where America consumes and China produces, China lends, America borrows, China exports, America imports. This marriage is in deep trouble: it is too burdensome for the couple and has destabilized the whole world. The question is whether China goes its own way building on its own huge market and geopolitical might, and what the US will say about it. I think China will do that and I do not think America will like it. Nor will Europe in the long run.
One thing is certain: the era of G7/G8 – in other words: of the Western domination with US hegemony - is over, we are living in an era of G20 which seems to be an interim solution. The question is what world order, then? I already mentioned Robert Haass’s vision of a non-polar world order, more precisely a non-polar disorder, which is inevitably unstable in the long run. G3 is more of a Chinese idea. It is a multiple variable geometry in which different G3 setups can be envisaged (China, USA, Russia; China, EU, USA; China, Japan, USA) according to the needs of and relevance to the issue in question. G2 (a Sino-American tandem) seems for the time-being to be a weird animal to the Chinese, to be run away from as far as possible. The Chinese have not been struck by the Obama-effect either: they were quite happy with the Bush-era, and do not see too much value-added in the new president. The US nevertheless tries its best to draw China towards the center of geopolitics and make it live up to the responsibilities of a global power, especially in economic and monetary affairs. China has at least two problems with the G2 setup: for the time-being, it does not want to expose itself as a real global power or be drawn too close to the Americans. Russia in its special way is also an advocate of multipolarity: it joins up with anyone in the second and third world from whom it can squeeze a good deal. India is still a mystery on the global scene: its Gandhian boycott of almost everything international is still in its political culture, which will not serve its interests when the geopolitical merry-go-round starts to turn.
What is really happening is the decrease in the ability of the West to shape the world through its economic and military dominance and, most importantly, its values and institutions. These western values and institutions were universal and could influence the behavior of almost the entire world. Not any more. The American century passed away within a decade. The fall of the Berlin Wall which seemed to herald the end of history was the starting point of the 21st century for Westerners. Just a few years later in 2001, with the attack on the twin towers, the myth of America being untouchable evaporated, and a few years on, with the Iraq fiasco, the US’s military might suffered a blow. And again only a few years later came the economic crisis which seriously questioned the capitalist model’s viability all across the planet. The 21st century therefore began a decade later for many of the non-Westerners. And America had to come to terms with the end of its hegemonic moment.
We face a seismic shift in global politics: first the realignment of the global order, and rearrangement of the global value set. This latter is much more important in my view. In the long run, certainly. We are witnessing not only the competition of economies and military capabilities but of values as well. And what we experience is a new phenomenon: the rise of alternative values and institutions in the world and a democracy fatigue even in the West. The good old recipe of the “white men in suits” of democracy and free market economy walking hand in hand has a powerful alternative. Although the recipe of China (which does not care too much what the rest of the world looks like – unlike the West, which wants to show its good example to the whole world) is not disseminated consciously, the sheer fact that autocracy and state capitalism (which I do not consider genuine capitalism) seem to prevail and flourish in the biggest country in the world is bait for many. The global system might soon have a viable Third Way (as opposed to the Western and the clear cut third world dictatorship models) which could be a desirable option for many Asian and African countries in the 21st century. It is not a certainty: the Chinese political elite hopes it is, the West fears it is. Let us have no false hopes. If democracy is challenged by a strong and vivid alternative model on the global scale, remilitarization and old-school power politics could come back into fashion. China does not even know yet what an immense responsibility will be placed on its shoulders in the 21st century.
The West, especially America, relies more and more on non-democratic governments for lending. Financial power is shifting to the East and geopolitical power with it. Niall Ferguson compares America’s situation to that of the Ottoman Empire in 1870, when the over-extended empire sold off revenue streams to foreign investors. And soon the empire fell. I nevertheless would remind everyone that there is a huge difference now: America is capitalist, while the Ottoman Empire was a faltering medieval feudal entity.
I agree with Robert Kagan: ideology still matters in geopolitics, and I would add perception to this. China’s strength comes partly from the fact that the world sees it as strong, the future great power. At the same time, part of America’s weakness stems from the fact that it sees itself as a declining power. A change in these perceptions could cause significant shifts in times of uncertainty and global transition. Is China even bigger a power than we think or - as Ari Van Assche puts it - the West only makes a dragon out of a dragonfly? I tend to believe him.
In 1820, China and India combined accounted for about half of world output, while Europe only accounted for 24% and the US only 2% (!). China only exported, the West (mainly Britain, the hegemonic power of the 19th century) imported. A huge global trade imbalance was accumulated to China’s advantage and China held an incredible amount of British silver. Today’s situation is freakishly similar. In the 19th century this lead to the opium wars and to the end of the once mighty Chinese empire. In 1978 China accounted for less than 1% of global GDP. What the West sees now is indeed the re-emergence of China and we perceive it as incredible, or at least incredibly fast and alarming.
For Europe there is a set of questions to be addressed. First of all, does it have the stamina and proper leadership to help create a multipolar order? How will it make a relevant or maybe an indispensable actor on the global scene? It has also to rethink the basis of its geopolitical relations with the US by putting and answering questions like: is European security still dependant on the US, do Europe and America share the same fundamental interests, is preserving the transatlantic harmony more important than securing European interests on any specific issue? - To all these questions the answer suggested by Shapiro and Witney is negative. Should they be right, then comes the next question: is Europe ever going to be united and strong enough to go its own way? Thinking through these questions, it is my conviction that cooperation with the US is inevitable. The problem is that Europe is often seen as irrelevant and unimportant in Washington; the “Obama affair” also looks more like a one-sided love affair. I started the book describing the complexes of Europe vis-à-vis the US. Now, somewhat bizarrely Europe must team up with a companion – the US – that has only just started to deal with an inferiority complex – vis-à-vis China.
China in the meantime started to raise its head, and national sentiment is getting stronger. The authors of the 1996 “China can say no” published another bestseller in 2009, with the title of “Unhappy China – The Great Time, Grand Vision and our Challenges” The book states that the West intends to undermine China, which is already a great power and should behave accordingly. It is therefore necessary to break away from Western influence and China should incorporate retribution and punishment into its diplomatic strategy. Professor Song Sinning gives a more relaxed account: according to him there is no new world order ahead of us, since there is no new challenger to the US. China is not in a position to challenge the US: it is still a poor, underdeveloped country suffocating in widespread corruption, moreover it does not even want to try it, since it is perfectly suitable for it to remain a regional power and to remain a global free-rider. China will not even be a hegemonic power in Asia (it will have to find a modus vivendi with India which is often called a ‘bubble’ in China). The most important reason for this is that all its energies will be consumed in handling the immense internal problems of Chinese society, at least for the next 10-15 years. It is the conviction of the current political elite that the biggest contribution China can make to world affairs is to remain stable. This is a minimalistic, but certainly wise approach.
Francis Fukuyama asks in 2010 whether liberal democratic principles are really universal or they have been revealed not to be. His answer is yes but not as sure as it was a decade ago. He asks what the democratic world can do with Putin’s transformation of Russia into an ‘electoral authoritarian’ state, the undermining of democratic institutions by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and the rise of China as a successful authoritarian modernizer. Are these systems true and viable alternatives of old-fashioned democracy? I agree with him that they are not in the long run, but liberal democracy is not the only star in the global theater of politics anymore. As he puts it: “The next phase of global history will be a challenging one, as America and Europe stumble to get back their economic balance. It seems doubtful that either the US or Britain will achieve the degree of growth in the next generation that they did in the previous one. But one of the great advantages of democracy is that it does not depend for its legitimacy on continuing high levels of economic growth, as the Chinese system does.
As we move forward, it is important to keep in mind the simple power of the idea of a government by, for, and of the people. We need to match those high ideals with unglamorous but steady investments in institution-building if liberal democracy is to deliver on its promises.” One can put this question in a different way: Is China going to change geopolitics? Sure it will! Is China going to change the rules of the game? I doubt. But as I said it is still a puzzle to the Chinese themselves. China might as well be much less powerful as it seems, based on a shaky "Leninist corporatism" whose development is completely based on stealing know-how and institutions from the West as Will Hutton points out. China will be a tough challenge anyway. Not only China is rising fast but it rejects many western values while it keeps on free-riding in the global order in several key domains. Europe should not daydream about showing the good example to the world together with China on multipolarity and global responsibility. This does not mean that it should not work on good relations with China. It should work on it hard. China was already getting more assertive in 2010 on different fronts which resulted in a significant deterioration in its relations with the West, especially with the US which is by far the most important relationship of the next decades. China is getting more and more self-assured and cares less and less about the West and about the West’s perception about it. China became certain that Europe and America needs China more than the other way round. This can be prove to be a serious mistake in the long run, and growing assertiveness will certainly trigger a tougher western stance vis-à-vis China and the West’s currently Sino-centric focus will weaken.
The Asian century is a narrative which is à la mode these days; it goes hand in hand with paranoia about the fall of the West. The truth is that this narrative is driven mainly by a Western inferiority complex. China has immense troubles ahead, and it knows this. To sum up: it is not the power of China that will alter the world, on the contrary it is its weakness that could have a huge and certainly negative global impact. A successful and peaceful China’s impact on the global order would be much less significant than that of a failing and aggressive one.
But this is much easier said than done. The problem of the world now is that all the three global powers are suffering from identity-crisis. Am I a global power, do I want to be? Am I a capitalist or a communist country – asks China. Am I still the hegemonic power, if not what will happen to my global role – ask the Americans. What am I supposed to be – a super-state or just a free market – put the Europeans themselves the question. None of the great powers can define themselves precisely how could the other too judge them then precisely? Geopolitical perceptions are as vague as they can be in times of change.
