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The (Un)peaceful Rise of China DISCUSSION PAPER Week 8

Coursework for a module: East Asian International Relations Professor Lee Hochul () Simon Fiala Graduate School of International Studies Exchange student; spring 2013 Student number: g20130664

My discussion paper on the issue of rising China will be freely conceived as a response to John Mearsheimers claim that the onset of Chinese regional hegemony will be fundamentally unpeaceful. While generally I agree with the point of view of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mearsheimers literary contender, I believe that the response has to be refined further and as long as we are talking about IR, where today is already yesterday also substantially updated. In response to the somewhat fuzzy and ideologically coloured argument of Zheng Bijian, Mearsheimer posited that Chinas rise can never be peaceful as long as the international relations theory deeds that once a certain faction reaches the status of a regional hegemon, it will do what it takes to prevent any other faction from doing the same in another region. Regional hegemons do not want peers [Mearsheimer 2005a: 160]. And so even though the rise of China seems to be largely peaceful so far, the steel logic of behaviour of aspiring hegemons will bring it at odds with the other contemporary regional (yet not global) hegemon The United States. Brzezinski perhaps unfairly contested Mearsheimers argument by attacking his reliance on theory. Indeed, in predicting future events at the global stage, we have nothing else than theory to guide us. I believe, however, that Mearsheimers theory is somewhat simplistic, and that it belongs to the 20th century, which so infamously went down with the faith in the inexorable progression of history. I will try to make a case for rather a more flexible reading of historical precedents and I will advocate the appreciation of changes in the way international relations are being done in the context of the globalized, postmodern and responsible world.

I would like to begin with reiterating Mearsheimers argument. In his article, He argues that the rise of China cannot be peaceful, because as the capabilities of China grow, it will inevitably come at odds with the United States. Mearsheimers argument is rooted in the logic of global politics. According to 1

simon.fiala@seznam.cz his theory, the first and foremost interest of any given state is survival. To ensure survival, states seek to maximize their power and therefore minimize their vulnerability. The mightiest of states seek to become hegemons and to dominate the system. Currently, to become a global hegemon seems to be quite impossible as the costs of imposing ones agenda globally are too high for any single faction. The best that a great power can therefore hope to be is a regional hegemon. As a certain faction reaches the status of a hegemon, it is concerned about two things: 1) to sustain its position as the rule setter and 2) to prevent any other hegemon from rising in any other region. While the picture he paints is somewhat pessimistic, Mearsheimer insists on that it is grounded in empirical facts; all the known hegemons in history behaved that way1, and no other state illustrates the behaviour better than the United States itself in its inception. The United States performed territorially expansive growth and established itself as the first regional hegemon in the modern history [Mearsheimer 2006: 161]. Then the US began to etch its primacy into the course of history. The US invariably reacted to rise of any potential regional hegemon of the 20th century by force and ensured dissolution of mighty factions into lesser powers to keep them busy balancing each other. According to Mearsheimer, China is likely to try to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western hemisphere [Ibid.]. China will seek to maximize the power gap between itself and other states in the region to be able to dictate the boundaries of acceptable behaviour [Ibid.]. Ultimately, it will try to push the US out of the region. How could it tolerate the US forces to operate in its backyard? As the capabilities of China increase, it will increasingly emerge as a bully in the region and it will seek confrontation. After all, in the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi [Ibid.]. The US will clearly be reluctant to give up its position in Asia and it will seek to contain Chinas rise by rallying other Asian states to balance against China. The US and China will engage in fierce competition (over military capabilities and energy security among other things) and will balance on a brink of conflict that is the pessimistic yet realistic picture of the future development of China and the US according to John Mearsheimer. There are many issues with the Mearsheimers argument. To address them comprehensibly, I will attend to theoretical, practical and empirical problems one at the time. First of all, what kind of a peculiar theory it is that we are being presented with? Is it really directly and unmistakeably derived from the history? For example: Do states indeed invariably seek to become hegemons whenever the opportunity arises? Can we really derive such a pattern from the observation of history of factions rising and declining? Wang Jisi [2011], for example, says that China has been literally caught off guard by its own rise in power within the international system. While it is not something that the CCP would renounce, it can be argued that it is also not the primary driver of their efforts. That explains why China was found unprepared in terms of policy and is yet to unveil its grand strategy. Whether it is the primary driver of states to become hegemons remains uncertain. But lets return to the core of the problem, which has much to do with what makes science science. What I expect from the realist theory of IR just like from any other theory regarding social phenomena is to define factors which contribute to whether things will embark on a certain course once a certain situation arises. A scientist is then to assess the problem at hand and decide whether it fits those previously defined characteristics. Realists, for example, are well known to prioritise systemic factors and to focus on security, and they are respected for that. Mearsheimer, however, doesnt seem to analyse any single
e.g. Imperial Germany, (1900-1918), Imperial Japan (1931-1945), Nazi Germany (1933-1935), and the Soviet Union during the Cold War [Mearsheimer 2006: 161]
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simon.fiala@seznam.cz factor in the interaction of states. Instead, he simply posits that once a hegemon is challenged2, things will invariably go nasty. That is not realism, because it is not science in the first place. Mearsheimer claims to be presenting his theory of international relations. The mere wording my theory should alert us to the fact that what we are really being presented with is more of a conviction. If we still decide to take Mearsheimers theory at face value, we should proceed to attend to it on the practical level. It should be noted that no other pair of (potential) hegemons could be more different than the US and China. While the US established itself just recently and through an extremely aggressive politics of conquest and domination, China has been there more or less in the identical shape for millennia. That makes the comparison rather unhelpful. Mearsheimer is right that no other faction can rise the way the US did without attracting a hostile response from the United States, a hegemon of today. The way the US rose is unacceptable today and it would be renounced by the US citizens and policymakers themselves as well as the rest of the international community if the process was to happen again elsewhere in the same fashion. Realists may be right that the world hasnt changed that much with the nascent of the 21st century, but even they acknowledge the validity of the contemporary norm that territories may not be annexed following wars [Karns & Mingst 2007: 456]. Indeed, that kind of expansion is nowadays off-limits and will rightfully invite forceful reaction. Brzezinski is therefore right to argue that the world we live in is indeed very different, not just because nukes change everything [Brzezinski & Mearsheimer 2005], but also for other reasons, such as new norms of legitimate behaviour of states with regard to other states and their own people. No faction can rise the way the US did anymore, and for precisely that reason the rise of China will be peaceful instead if it is to succeed at least in the remotely foreseeable future. As long as we can find Mearsheimers pronouncements faulty on both practical and theoretical level, it is perhaps no surprise that even the realities do not seem to match. Mearsheimers confession that he regards contemporary political realities as irrelevant is more than illustrative of his attitude towards the international relations that is privileging rickety theory-slash-conviction over facts. His plea to look twenty years into the future is compelling, but not persuasive enough. First, some of his assertions proved to be untrue already. Other Asian countries do not seem to seek the protective wings of the US to balance against the rising China. Instead, they seem to embrace the new important role of China in the regional IR [Ross 2010: 526-531]. Second, United States does not seem to be taking direct measures to weaken China either; quite on the contrary, it seeks to forge strategic partnerships with China, not only in terms of trade [Ibid.]. Authors such as Thomas Christensen [2011] present a persuasive theory of why the US would appreciate China to be more assertive in doing international politics. Christensen illustrates that the interests of China and the US often converge and that the US seeks cooperation of China in strategic issues3. Third, even though some assertions that Mearsheimer makes have not been quite disproved yet, they look increasingly unlikely. Such one is the claim that in thirty years China will be challenging the US economically and militarily. As Lee Hochul [2012] shows, the portrait of the economic rise of China is largely exaggerated by the focus on GDP, which is skewed by the sheer population of the country-slashcivilization. If we look on GDP per capita instead, we arrive at much more modest a picture of Chinas

i.e. once a second faction grows too strong relatively to the one which achieved might first. Six party talks would be the clearest example. Christensen also mentions energy security in the Middle East and measures against sea piracy.
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simon.fiala@seznam.cz economic rise. In terms of military capacities, China is getting nowhere close to the US for the time being. If Mearsheimer anticipation is to fulfil, we would have to wait much longer than 25 years from now. Considering that the amount of uncertainty in predicting international relations grows exponentially as we extend the timescale, the credibility such a prediction is questionable. Even though I have refused Mearsheimers argument, the question persists: Will the rise of China be peaceful? Zheng Bijian [2005] originally suggested it would. He argues that China will embark on a journey of peaceful cultivation of its economic potential and coping with its internal challenges. Bijian suggests that China will have to transcend the traditional way for great powers to emerge; it will transcend the Cold War mentality and avoid following the path of the 20th century empires [2005: 22]. It will champion peaceful cooperation instead. The plan to achieve that seems to be rather vague, though. It goes as follows: In the next 50 years China will grow considerably first, then it will grow some more, and the, finally, it will consolidate the growth. That doesnt sounds very compelling. The claim that China will seek inclusive community-building and world peace is assuring though. Another argument supporting the thesis that the rise of China will be peaceful comes from Lee Hochul [2012], who proposes to analyse the situation through construction of a peace equation. A peace equation is designed to bring together segments of knowledge of major schools of thought in the IR theory liberals, realists and constructivists. Following neorealist expertize, we should pay attention to structure level of the current and future position of China in the international system. Structure level exposes issues such as relative distribution of powers, power transition or power preponderance [Ibid. 28]. While realists and liberals would argue whether economic interdependence constitutes a source of friction or a guarantee of peaceful cooperation, we can readily state that as the world economy gets globalized, the costs of conflict rise. Chinese policymakers have already demonstrated their commitment to opening and synchronizing the economy with the current economic order, and manifested that they understand their newly acquired position of a stakeholder. Chinas continued success in modernizing its economy and lifting its peoples standards of living depends heavily on global stability [Wang 2011: 77]. Brzezinski also rightfully argues that we live in a very different world than the one where in which hegemonic powers could go to war without erasing each other as societies [Brzezinski & Mearsheimer 2005: 48]. The costs of conflict are rising and the Chinese leaders seem to understand that. The process level, often emphasized by liberals, guides our attention to the functioning of the contemporary system of global governance. Even though the ideal of peace through multilateralism and mutual security assurances spans back into the foundations of the League of Nations, the historical conditions caused that the system of global governance embodied significantly in the United Nations and the WTO was not given the opportunity to unfold fully until the end of the Cold War. The durability and effectiveness of the network of multilateral ties in avoiding a large scale conflict remains yet to be tested. Its existence does, however, provide us with reasons to think that the global civil society is nowadays better predisposed to manage tensions successfully through negotiations than ever before. In other words, the international system of the twenty-first century has evolved substantially and the level of regional or global governance has been increased [Lee 2012: 33]. Governability of international affairs through international institutions is further enhanced by the advances in communication technologies, which significantly reduce transaction costs in

simon.fiala@seznam.cz cooperation and therefore reduce uncertainty. To sum up, while costs of conflict have increased beyond affordable levels, the costs of cooperation mitigated. Actor-level, so much favoured by constructivists, is the most fickle of all. Actor-level variables include the nature of political leadership, values of policy-makers and their perception of their own and of other countries, the historical legacies and the identities of states [Ibid. 29]. Actor-level variables have far-reaching consequences as they constitute core national interests from below. Those are also subject to change due to unfolding of the domestic political scene and their prediction as Mearsheimer correctly observes is depressingly unreliable. It is all the more troubling in the case of China, where the narrow group of political elites in charge now will sooner or later cede a considerable share of power to the wider civil society. As the living standards and affluence of the Chinese public rise, it will gradually demand larger share of power. There are two major perils embedded in the process of democratization and liberalization of power in China. The first one is that any process of power transition is a complicated, messy and potentially threatening to internal stability (which translates into outward behaviour). The Second one is that in order to consolidate the transition, the CCP will have to carefully dismantle manifold ideological pronouncements, misappropriations of history, and even outright lies, which currently circulate in the public discourses of the Peoples Republic of China (at this moment still unquestionably a totalitarian state). Sentiments of Chinese masses unsophisticated in terms of understanding the real world politics and brainwashed by their daily dose of ideology will prove easy to be hijacked by nationalistic hawks and other ideologues. In other words, civil society is something that has to be carefully nurtured in order to play positive role in the creation of political consensus. Communist regimes are infamous for undermining the civic qualities that constitute functional roots of democratic governance. The lack of emancipated and sophisticated citizens will prove to be a major handicap. Chinese leaders are therefore rightfully alarmed by the public discontent and critique as it poses an inextricable conundrum. Christensen [2011: 61], for example, observes that China has created a dangerously stunted version of free press, which accommodates biased and acrimonious critique better than the moderate one. If the ill-informed Chinese public calls for muscular international policies, the establishment may have to conform if it is to keep in power. Evolution of the domestic climate will have direct consequences for policies regarding sensitive issues such as the disputed territories, North Korea, and the fact that the US forces are indeed overrepresented in the region. In that respect Mearsheimer is certainly right. The US operating in the backyard of the rising power will indeed cause considerable friction. Just like in the case of the territorial disputes, nationalist sentiments of the Chinese constituencies will prove crucial in determining the future stance of China [Crisis Group 2005]. We have to wait to see what kind of hegemon China will become as that only follows from its internal development.

In my discussion paper I attempted to consider arguments regarding whether the expected rise of China into the position of a regional hegemon will be peaceful a process or not. I have departed from responding to the argument of John Mearsheimer, who is convinced that the rise of China will be fundamentally unpeaceful. I found Mearsheimers argument to be faulty on several lines and I have questioned its implications. The question persists, though: Will the rise of china be peaceful then? To be able to tackle the question, I ventured to examine arguments of those who believe the rise will be 5

simon.fiala@seznam.cz peaceful indeed. Following the argument of Lee Hochul [2012] I have asserted that there are numerous facts indicating that China will attempt to rise peacefully. Such a claim finds grounds on multiple levels. On the actor-level we can state that Chinese policy-makers have demonstrated the understanding of the responsibility towards its citizen and the international community, and began to act in line with the responsible great power (fuzeren daguo) strategy. On the process-level, I concluded that the processes of global governance have developed and that they provide substantial support and means for peaceful settlement of conflicting interests. Examining the structure-level, I argue that the costs of conflict have skyrocketed, among other reasons due to the evolution of global markets and the redefinition of security through the emergence of nuclear deterrence. Analogously, the costs of cooperation declined. While I acknowledge that the value of the prediction based on generalities and aiming into the distant future is limited, I conclude that the current state of international affairs indicates that the rise of China will take place along peaceful lines. Unless something goes wrong then all bets are off. The successful accommodation of the rise of China depends on the ingenuity, skill and ability of all major players. To use a metaphor, we could imagine the process as a dance. Both dancing partners will have to demonstrate ability to perform right and if possible to avoid stomping each others feet. That may prove to be a delicate feat, with the pariah state of North Korea bumping into the dancing pair as they shuffle the way down through the ballroom. Yet if the rise of China proves to be un-peaceful after all, it will certainly constitute a deviation from the current course, not its completion, as offensive realists may suggest.

References:
Crisis Group (2005). North East Asias Undercurrents of Conflict. International Crisis Group Asia report 108. Seoul/Brussels, December 2005. John J. Mearsheimer (2006). Chinas Unpeaceful Rise. Current History. Vol. 105:690 (April), pp. 160162. Robert S. Ross (2010) The Rise of Chinese Power and the Implications for the Regional Security Order. Orbis. Vol. 54, no. 4 (Sep 2010), 525-545. Thomas J. Christensen (2011). The Advantages of an Assertive China: Responding to Beijings Abrasive Diplomacy. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 90, no. 2 (March/April), pp. 54-67. Wang Jisi (2011). Chinas Search for a Grand Strategy: A Rising Great Power Finds Its Way. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 90 no. 2 (March/April), pp. 68-79. Zbigniew Brzezinski and John J. Mearsheimer (2005). Clash of the Titans. Foreign Policy. Vol. 146 (Jan/Feb), 46-51. Zheng Bijian (2005). Chinas Peaceful Rise to Great-Power Status. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 84:5 (September/October), 18-24. Lee, Hochul (2012). Chinas rise and East Asian security. In Zhiqun Zhu (ed.). New Dynamics in East Asian Politics. Bloomsberry publishing : London.