Globally, opinion polls show that fear and mistrust of China has reached a post—Cold War high. All of which raises a troubling question: If Beijing sees that its possibilities for easy expansion are narrowing, might it begin resorting to more violent methods?
China is already moving in that direction. Beijing certainly has the means to go much further. It also has the motive: In addition to slowing growth and creeping encirclement, China faces closing windows of opportunity in its most important territorial disputes. Xi, like his predecessors, desires to make China the preponderant power in Asia and, eventually, the world. The Western Pacific flash points are particularly vital. Taiwan is the site of a rival, democratic Chinese government in the heart of Asia with strong connections to Washington.
The CCP has staked its legitimacy on reabsorbing these areas and has cultivated an intense, revanchist form of nationalism among the Chinese people.
Schoolchildren study the century of humiliation. National holidays commemorate foreign theft of Chinese lands. For many citizens, making China whole again is as much an emotional as a strategic imperative. Compromise is out of the question. But Taiwan and the U. President Biden recently stated that America would fight to defend Taiwan from an unprovoked Chinese attack.
Washington is planning to harden, disperse, and expand its forces in the Asia-Pacific by the early s. Taiwan is pursuing, on a similar timeline, a defense strategy that would use cheap, plentiful capabilities such as anti-ship missiles and mobile air defenses to make the island an incredibly hard nut to crack. This means that China will have its best chance from now to the end of the decade. If China does attack, Washington could face a choice between escalation or seeing Taiwan conquered.
More such dilemmas are emerging in the East China Sea. China has spent years building an armada, and the balance of naval tonnage currently favors Beijing.
But Tokyo has plans to regain the strategic advantage by turning amphibious ships into aircraft carriers for stealth fighters armed with long-range anti-ship missiles. It is also using geography to its advantage by stringing missile launchers and submarines along the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch the length of the East China Sea. Meanwhile, the U. He likes to tell a story about how quickly the Chinese economy has expanded over the last few decades.
Ten years ago - that changed to everyday. Now: they can buy a car. But so far Mr Lynch says, common prosperity hasn't resulted in anything concrete, besides the sorts of corporate social responsibility efforts that Alibaba and Tencent have adopted. If they are turning more inward - then do they really need the rest of the world?
At its heart common prosperity is about making Chinese society more equitable, at least according to the Communist Party. And this has the potential to transform what socialism means in the global context.
But long time China-observers say that if transforming socialism - with Chinese characteristics - into an alternative model for the rest of us is really what the Party wants, then common prosperity is not the way. Mr Magnus adds that common prosperity does not mean replicating a European style social welfare model.
It is clear that common prosperity is a major part of how the Chinese state and society will be governed under Xi Jinping. In China, meanwhile, Japanese influence was being challenged by the Soviet Union and a rising nationalist movement under then-Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek. Tokyo had antagonized an overwhelming coalition of enemies. It then risked everything rather than accepting humiliation and decline. The precipitating cause, again, was a closing window of opportunity. By , the United States was building an unbeatable military.
In July, then-U. But Japan still had a temporary military edge in the Pacific Ocean, thanks to its early rearmament. So it used that advantage in a lightning attack—seizing the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and other possessions from Singapore to Wake Island as well as bombing the U. Relatives pause as they place the ashes of a loved one in a metal chute on a ferry in the East China Sea off Shanghai on March 22, A number of Chinese cities promote sea burials as an attempt to offset a shortage of land for cemeteries due to a rapidly ageing population.
This is the real trap the United States should worry about regarding China today—the trap in which an aspiring superpower peaks and then refuses to bear the painful consequences of descent. Major investments in key technologies and communications infrastructure have yielded a strong position in the struggle for geoeconomic influence; China is using a multi-continent Belt and Road Initiative to bring other states into its orbit.
Most alarming, think tank assessments and U. From the s to the s, China was nearly self-sufficient in food, water, and energy resources. It enjoyed the greatest demographic dividend in history, with 10 working-age adults for every senior citizen aged 65 or older.
For most major economies, the average is closer to 5 working-age adults for every senior citizen. China had a secure geopolitical environment and easy access to foreign markets and technology, all underpinned by friendly relations with the United States. China had it all from the s to the early s—just the mix of endowments, environment, people, and policies needed to thrive. For example, China is running out of resources: Water has become scarce, and the country is importing more energy and food than any other nation, having ravaged its own natural resources.
Economic growth is therefore becoming costlier: According to data from DBS Bank, it takes three times as many inputs to produce a unit of growth today as it did in the early s. China is also approaching a demographic precipice: From to , it will lose an astounding million working-age adults —a population the size of Nigeria—and gain million senior citizens. To make matters worse, China is turning away from the package of policies that promoted rapid growth.
Under Xi, Beijing has slid back toward totalitarianism. And he has relentlessly pursued the centralization of power at the expense of economic prosperity. State zombie firms are being propped up while private firms are starved of capital. Objective economic analysis is being replaced by government propaganda.
Innovation is becoming more difficult in a climate of stultifying ideological conformity. The economic damage these trends are causing is starting to accumulate—and it is compounding the slowdown that would have occurred anyway as a fast-growing economy matures. Worse, most of that growth stems from government stimulus spending. According to data from the Conference Board , total factor productivity declined 1. All of this is happening, moreover, as China confronts an increasingly hostile external environment.
The combination of COVID, persistent human rights abuses, and aggressive policies have caused negative views of China to reach levels not seen since the Tiananmen Square massacre in Countries worried about Chinese competition have slapped thousands of new trade barriers on its goods since Case in point is U.
Over the past five years, two U. Indeed, the United States has also committed to orchestrating greater global resistance to Chinese power, a campaign that is starting to show results as more and more countries respond to the threat from Beijing. In maritime Asia, resistance to Chinese power is stiffening.
Beijing is taking advantage of its assets and its financial clout in particular to better position its chess pieces, but this remains an experimental strategy, with an end goal that is ultimately vague or perhaps has been deliberately allowed to appear vague. By means of these projects, China could succeed gradually in becoming a central figure of global economic governance. Fred Bergsten , who accused Beijing of manipulating its currency and keeping it consistently undervalued in order to keep exports competitive.
Europe accounts for most of the losses, even if certain countries such as Poland and Spain won a few extra votes. Meanwhile, the United States lost nothing, because despite its significant influence on the global economy, it still remains under-represented within the IMF.
Site map — Contacts — Credits — Syndication. Privacy Policy — About Cookies. Skip to navigation — Site map. Perspectives chinoises. Contents - Next document. Special feature. Translated by David Buchanan. Abstract Having long remained a passive presence within multilateral economic organisations, China recently changed its stance when the United States was faced with a major financial crisis.
Outline Introduction. China and the international economic order of Bretton Woods: From collaboration to contestation. China, beneficiary of the Bretton Woods Agreement. Reforming the international monetary system. Initiatives taken through necessity, not choice. Conclusion: Chinese pragmatism is alive and well.
Full text PDF k Send by e-mail. For more Europe accounts
0コメント