China As A Great Power With Cyclical History, With Ups And Downs
By Phar Kim Beng
Founder/Chair
Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena
Strategicpipa.com
Twitter: @indo_pan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Strategicpipa
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There is no doubt that China is a great power, given its long civilization of more than 5000 years. No country has managed to retain its civilization, while concurrently becoming a modern Westphalian state in the international community; which is complete with its territory, large population that can feed itself, and a system of government that can claim more territories either at sea, or on land, based on questionable or adamant historical attitude from the past.
But China has a problem too. It cannot escape what Ibnu Khaldun, an ancient Tunisian, called the cyclical pattern of history, where it rises up, and down. This is confirmed by a basic reading of Chinese history.
Indeed, over the last four decades, China has contributed to nearly 25 percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); which is one quarter. Back in 1979, China’s contribution to the global GDP was barely 2 per cent excluding Hong Kong.
That being said, China is a country that has a tendency to go through cycles of decays and rejuvenation, at different periods of its history according to eminent Sinologist Professor Wang Gung Wu. China’s history is always cyclical too.
Yet, Wang believes this time China’s rise is different.
However, there is a problem with this analysis. The prediction was made before the arrival of SARS Cov II which has now become a pandemic. But the argument China can wax and wane remains valid.
Thus, China’s “peaceful rise,” “resurgence,” or what one may call it in the future, operates against a historical backdrop and a future trajectory, that remains uncertain especially given the specter of climate change.
At best, China can be a “model”. But it cannot break its cyclical nature and increasingly odd weather pattern.
To be sure, China will bounce back from the pandemic. But in more ways than one, Beijing has also got itself ensnared in a geopolitical twist by insisting on a China dream to be a fully developed power by 2049.
But there is a long way to go before one can become a great power that is freed of any existential worries. Which China does have a few.
Aside from Covid-19, for example, Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan has warned of another dangerous “pneumonia”, now starting in its neighboring country, Kazakhstan.
The United States is now wondering if China can be a “responsible stakeholder” in the region and the world, a term used by former President of World Bank, Robert Zoellick, if parts of South China Sea had already been militarized with air-strips and the works that can have military applications that run counter to the interest of the United States and other powers. These worries will lead to the United States and other allies exerting their fullest might to block the rise of China.
Every year close to USD 5 trillion worth of global trade, according to William Pesek of Bloomberg, traverses across the South China Sea. The stakes are high, and it will determine the rise and fall of the entire world. China’s huge presence in the South China Sea cannot be glibly ignored. The US and other powers are standing up.
To be sure, even if power is reduced to two metrics — hard and soft power — China already has both. While China does not have military bases all over the world, with the exception of a military base in Djibouti, China’s four modernizations, as proposed by the late Deng Xiao Ping, has always included military modernization too. And, China is fast catching up with the United States and other powers in the Indo-Pacific too.
Given all the glossy profile of China, including it’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” why do some Asian countries still fear it ?
Here there is a need for a strategic pause. This question should be posed to the Chinese in mainland first: in spite of all that China has achieved, since it’s Open Door Policy in 1979, which has helped to raise nearly 800 million people out of poverty, why do hundreds of mainland Chinese still want to leave China? Things are not always rosy in China for the lack of better phrase.
In fact, even well to do Chinese are not allowed to transfer more than USD 50,000 out of the country each year, a policy that started in 2017. The situation remains the same in 2020.
In more ways than one, China itself is financially rich but financially unstable at the lower stratum of society. To date, no one knows the extent of its bad debts in the Chinese economic or financial system.
Is it USD 3 trillion or more? The shadow banking system in China is a threat to the major banking system in China if not the world.
Malaysia would relish at nothing else but to be a friend of China. But if one were to look objectively at contemporary China, it is a huge power, indeed a rich one, yet one not devoid of systemic risks both within China and abroad as yet.
