Rise Of US A Lesson For China – OpEd

By

The rise of new powers usually follows a massive global or economic shock engulfing a certain region or the world as a whole.

China’s ascendance in the last several decades in the economic and military realms brings to mind various theories that a definitive change in the balance of power is or will be taking place in the near future.

In fact, China has often been compared to pre-World War I Germany. The latter had an ambition to attain a dominant position in eastern Europe, including large portions of the Russian Empire. The Germans were expanding their economic reach to the Middle East and, most importantly, it was not long before they came to pose a serious challenge to Great Britain’s naval dominance.

China, like Germany a century ago, also aspires to build a larger military navy and increase its economic potential abroad. However, rather than comparing China to Germany, which was defeated in both world wars, it would be in some sense expedient to compare the modern China to its current geopolitical competitor, the United States of late 19th-early 20th century.

There are many similarities between the two. China nowadays in some ways is facing a new world and new opportunities which had been closed to her for centuries. Surrounded by an arc of almost impregnable geographic barriers, China’s heartland produced enough to sustain a self-sufficient economy. The 19th century amounted to a national catastrophe as European powers assailed China for economic gains, while in the early 20th century, Japan’s hegemony undermined any Chinese attempts to revive the state.

Thus, China has never been a global power and does not clearly see what kind of world order it wants to build. Everything about modern Chinese foreign policy moves shows the country is still developing its “world order ideas”.

Like the US in the early 20th century, China nowadays feels that it has to assume a more powerful internationalist stance as her economic appetite makes it inexpedient to rely on the benevolence of other powers. At the same time, again like the US before, China is also reluctant as it fears that a more “global China” could ignite suspicions around the world of nascent Chinese dominance.

China today portrays her actions as a policy which benefits not only her, but the entire world. At the same time, China sees that there is a certain necessity to increase her military potential both at sea and on land.

The US too, 100 years ago, cast her policies as peaceful and non-interventionist in other countries’ internal affairs. However, it was the young United States which had a “manifest destiny” to expand its influence into North America and the waters around the continent.

Like modern China, the US a hundred years ago did not openly aspire, nor really plan, to acquire global dominance. The then-US statesmen only gradually started to see that the country needed to take a more active geopolitical role by influencing political developments in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Modern China also resembles the younger US as they both have a view that the world can benefit from them economically and through the way they plan to (re-) create the world order.

How the US was catapulted from a domination over North America in the early 20th century to global pre-eminence after 1945 serves as a good explanatory case on the rise and fall of great powers. China could learn a lot from the American rise, a story of the gradual build-up of military and economic power coupled with attractive cultural features.

The rise of new powers does not happen quickly: it takes decades of meticulous work. That could explain why China’s comparison with Germany of the early 20th century is a flawed one. Kaisers’ Germany was powerful, but its human and economic potential could not match that of the allied powers.

China, on the contrary, possesses a large population as well as enough economic potential to try to challenge the existing balance of power.

Though similarities exist, this does not lead to a clear-cut conclusion that, like the US’ rise to global pre-eminence, China will do the same.

The US began to dominate the oceans and parts of Eurasia only after its major geopolitical contenders in Europe fought two deadly wars and destroyed the European world order. The US also acted from a safe geographic position: oceans essentially precluded the then powers from reaching North America.

China’s geographic position, on the other hand, is a continental one, surrounded from the east by the US-led Asian countries nestled on a chain of islands.

That said, historical comparisons show that the rise of new powers is always followed by conflicts, and often one conflict alone does not suffice to alter the balance of power. Carthage lost its power after two long wars with Rome, and Europe lost its grandeur after two world conflicts. Perhaps the same will go for China’s rise too, as it has yet to be seen that a dominant state willingly gives up its position.

This article was published by Georgia Today

Dr. Emil Avdaliani

Emil Avdaliani has worked for various international consulting companies and currently publishes articles focused on military and political developments across the former Soviet sphere.

2 thoughts on “Rise Of US A Lesson For China – OpEd

  • September 26, 2018 at 2:54 pm
    Permalink

    Being a keen student of Chinese and world history, there are some fundamental differences between China and USA. China a country with over 4000 years of continuous history, had gone through many ups and downs in the continuous power shift and has always come out on top in all these past power shifts. China because of its geographic isolation in the past, huge desert in the North, severe cold in the Northesat, high mountain ranges in the north West and south west had being a civilization developed to a very high degree and had been able to assimilate all the Northern Mongolian warrior tribes, be they Hunnic, Turkic, Tungusic, Mongol and Manchu (also Tungusic) into the Chinese Civilization. The over one hundred years of European, American and Japanese invasions, occupations had totally modified the traditional Chinese Mindset from being an inward looking, less agressive, peaceful, self contained civilization to an outward lookking, expansive, combative, aggressive, innovative and ready to learn from all the other advanced nations in our world. China had come to the realization that to continue to survive and grow in its civilization, she msut look outward and seek out resources, land, space on a global basis. China will need to map out her future moves like in a Go chese board, which is limitless and by occupying more spaces, being a civilization which had produced Sun Tze, Lao Tze, Kung Tze and the highly advanced science and other discoveries in the past, China will be growing in all directions and advance forward. One can only hope that the coming conflicts with the established dominant power, which is the USA will be in a more constructive way than in the past.

    Reply
    • September 26, 2018 at 3:42 pm
      Permalink

      Just adding one additional comment, because history is interlinked throughou Eurasia, the collapse of The Roman Empire was due to many internal problems but also toppled by the continuous attacks by the Germanic Tribes, who were defeated by the Warring Hunnic tribes who migrated from Mongolia after their Empire was defeated by the powerful Han Dynasty in China. Later on the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople was toppled by the Turkic tribes, who were descendants from the Hunnic tribes of Mongolia. Most people who look at history only from the European stand point, however, when combining the Chinese history, one can truly perceive how our world is interconncected from the past to present.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Siao Liu Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *