China's Rising Power and the Hope for a Multi-Polar World

Recently David Pilling of the Financial Times published a thought-provoking article under the title: “Asia Pays Tribute to Its New Superpower,” which discusses how the rise of China during the time of economic crisis has been perceived within the region and beyond. I found the true nature of this article troubling. David Pilling said it right: there is a sense of “trepidation at the rise of China’s power.” Such idea fuels much of my thoughts the past couple of days. Pilling opened his article by a contemplation of a potential multi-polar world.

There has been much chatter about the “G2” lately. But the idea that the US and China can together, and semi-exclusively, take on the world’s biggest problems is overdone. That day may come. For the moment, though, there are limits to how much an authoritarian government presiding over a relatively poor country can contribute to global problem-solving. For now, the rise of China and the relative decline of the US are more likely to mean a multi-polar than a bipolar world.

The article lists some indicative examples to demonstrate how the world has changed its grasp diplomatically toward China. By owning roughly $1,400bn of the U.S. asset, Chinese government had quieted Hillary Clinton on issue related to human rights, Taiwan and Tibet during her visit early this year. During the G20 gathering in London, France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, expressed his withdrawal from supporting Tibetan independence. Smaller countries have provided greater service. Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung recently spent one week touring China in anxious mode to close the $11 billion trade gap between the two countries. The South Korean warning of the “Beijing Consensus” reported to leave its Korean diplomats in Beijing apprehensive. What’s more? Taiwan is likely to allow China’s Mobile to purchase 12 percent of the Far East Tone, a Taiwanese mobile operator. Such commitment arguably was arranged to earn Beijing’s agreement toward the Taiwanese’s presence at the WHO’s annual meeting. In just a few days, the news was sufficient to boost Taiwanese stock market up nearly 15%  after Beijing announced its consent. 

I sometimes wonder how the political and economic landscape of the world be transformed if China grows to be the second largest economy in the world taking over Japan and the European Union. That day may not be postponed that much further. Nonetheless, despite an impressive rapid growth in the past two decades, at $7,600 per capita, China’s per capita GDP still ranks 107th in the world. The country itself is also facing various internal problems namely food and resource shortage, raising unemployment, social and regional marginalization, as well as a degrading environment that together raise serious question of Chinese economic sustainability. There are much awaiting this nation in the post-crisis period to resolve its internal issue. For now, the idea of a multi-polar world offers me much greater comfort.

 

*Nations with highest GDP (in 2006, trillions of U.S. dollars), figure taken from the Hoover Institue.

Comments

[Joe]

How is it that Chinese people as a group remain so poor, yet their government is getting rich enough to buy things in the rest of the world? That doesn't seem right at all.

[Christine]

Hi Joe,

I'm sorry for the delay of this response. I think there many be more than one answer for this phenomenon ranging from politics and the urge to take over more shares of global power to the difficulty of correcting issue of unequal distribution of income in a country with the size like China. That is not to take into account the long historical bias for which economic development and growth almost always start from the Eastern coastal region and major river deltas. To confirm your statement, China now holds one of the largest income gaps in the world with urban households earn roughly 3.3 times more than rural household (2006 statistic).

One can easily argues that gaining more global power through accumulating massive foreign reserves, mostly in US dollars, is possibly easier that correcting domestic internal problems. It’s appeared that the $585bn was meant to bridge some of the gap through improving infrastructure and correcting environmental problems; although I doubt if it’s sufficient.

Best,

Christine