The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Studies

Chris Shei, Weixiao Wei, Chris Shei, Weixiao Wei

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429594922
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This Handbook approaches Chinese Studies from an interdisciplinary perspective while attempting to establish a fundamental set of core values and tenets for the subject, in relation to the further development of Chinese Studies as an academic discipline. It aims to consolidate the current findings in Chinese Studies, extract the essence from each affiliated discipline, formulate a concrete set of ideas to represent the 'Chineseness' of the subject, establish a clear identity for the discipline and provide clear guidelines for further research and practice.

Topics included in this Handbook cover a wide spectrum of traditional and newly added concerns in Chinese Studies, ranging from the Chinese political system and domestic governance to international relations, Chinese culture, literature and history, Chinese sociology (gender, middle class, nationalism, home ownership, dating) and Chinese opposition and activism. The Handbook also looks at widening the scope of Chinese Studies (Chinese psychology, postcolonialism and China, Chinese science and climate change), and some illustrations of innovative Chinese Studies research methods.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Studies is an essential reference for researchers and scholars in Chinese Studies, as well as students in the discipline.

Part I

China’s global interests and foreign policy

1

Great chaos under heaven

Strategies and challenges for consolidating China’s global hegemony in the 21st century

Mariano Treacy

DOI: 10.4324/9780429059704-1

Introduction

The 21st century will be marked by the struggle for global hegemony between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. China’s rise has led to a heated debate in the world of international politics about how this struggle will unfold. Will the rise of China be peaceful, or will it imply an increase in conflict, leading to a new ‘Cold War’ characterized by a race for technological supremacy? Will this technological race lead to separate and politically divided technological spheres of influence? Will Beijing seek to export its development model?

After the 2008 economic crisis, trends of globalization came to a halt. This led to numerous attempts to understand how China’s rise was affecting globalization. Some authors argue that globalization is unstoppable and that the integration of national economies makes it harder to escalate bilateral or multilateral conflicts. Meanwhile, other authors talk about ‘decoupling trends’ in national economies, pointing to the decline of international trade of goods, the slowdown in international capital flows, and the reappearance of protectionist measures.

The trade war that started in March 2018 is only a superficial aspect of the deep geopolitical tensions that exist between the United States and China. The United States argued that China had a history of unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft to justify imposing tariffs on imports of Chinese products, but the underlying conflict is the dispute over global hegemony in the 21st century. China’s ability to weather a long-term trade conflict with the United States is a key factor shaping this dispute.

I have previously explored how China went from a closed and centralized economy to a more open, decentralized, and diversified economy, without the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) losing political power or control of strategic state-owned enterprises (Treacy 2020). The policies of structural reform carried out since 1978 allowed the CCP to regain its legitimacy after significant catastrophes, such as the Great Leap Forward, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, and the Cultural Revolution. The modernization program and the CCP’s central role in this process led to the so-called ‘Chinese miracle’.

In this chapter, I explore the strategic actions that the Chinese government is taking to consolidate itself as a global leader in the 21st century. I analyze the economic, financial, technological, productive, and geopolitical aspects of these actions and the challenges that China will face in the pursuit of its objective. First, I describe why the United States is concerned about the rise of China. Next, I discuss the idea of the great decoupling and the Thucydides trap in the framework of hegemonic transitions and systemic cycles of accumulation. Then I explain the Chinese development model and the foreign policy strategy known as Tao Guang Yang Hui. After that, I characterize the launch of the new Silk Road as part of China’s strategy of a peaceful rise and the United States’ geostrategic responses in its ‘America First’ policy. Finally, I describe the economic and technological race between the two global superpowers and some challenges and tensions regarding the rise of China.

America’s concerns over China’s growth

After World War II, the United States became a superpower, consolidating its global hegemony. To this day, the United States has maintained military, economic, financial, technological, cultural, and ideological supremacy. This power is extended by US control of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and major multilateral organizations, including the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since Bretton Woods, but especially after the crisis of the 1970s, American supremacy has been threatened by emerging powers such as the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan. However, in recent years there have been signs that this power is waning because of the rise of China.

In this new era of power competition between states, China and Russia have been designated as the main ‘strategic competitors’ and the objective of US foreign policy is to ensure its hegemony by containing their economic, military, and ideological rise (Woodward 2017).

In 2017–2018, the United States issued official documents assessing the international situation and challenges to national security posed by the relocation of global hegemony to the East. In the 2018 National Defense Strategy, former US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stated that the United States was entering a new era where ‘inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is the primary concern in US national security’. The document also described ‘the central challenge to US prosperity and security [as] the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers’. According to the Secretary of Defense, China and Russia are willing to ‘shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model – gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions’ (NDS 2018).

According to one of the Pentagon’s top military officers, Gen. Joseph Dunford, China will likely pose the greatest threat to the United States by 2025 (Mahbubani 2019). Donald Trump’s vice president Mike Pence characterized China as a major competitor and imminent threat to American democracy, its geopolitical power, and global economic supremacy. With the same sentiment, US Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger stated, ‘We at the administration have updated our China policy to bring the concept of competition to the forefront’ (Zhao 2019).

Concern among US officials is largely driven by Chinese economic growth, the amount of US debt that China holds in its banks, and the invasion of cheap goods into the North American market. The threat to American national security is twofold. First, China and the United States are competing over natural and mineral resources, as well as to control trade flows through the management of and access to trade routes and ports. Second, they are competing over the development of crucial assets such as knowledge and innovation, and associated infrastructure such as communication networks and computing capacities.

Although the United States still maintains its supremacy, China’s rise considerably reduced the gap between the two countries (Zhao 2019). China is already the world’s top economy if measured according to GDP with Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Its share of global GDP increased from 2.3% in 1980 to 18.7% in 2018. The average yearly growth of the Chinese economy between 1980 and 2018 was 12.36% and its GDP per capita increased at an average annual rate of 11% for almost 40 years (IMF Database, 2019). With this performance, China has been doubling real living standards at a rate of every 13 years. Because of this, it has raised 620 million people out of poverty and increased life expectancy from 32 to 65 years between 1949 and 1976, with life expectancy currently standing at 76 years (WB World Development Indicators, 2019). China is also the world’s principle export economy (12.8% of world exports) and second largest importer (with 10.8% of world imports) (WTO World Trade Statistical Review 2019). Additionally, it is one of the main emitters and receivers of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and the United States’ main creditor.

Table 1.1 Main Economic Indicators, United States and China 1980 and 2018

	1980^1			2018
	United States	China	China % US	United States	China	China % US
GDP (billion US$)	2,857	305.3	11%	20,580 (1st)	13,368 (2nd)	65%
GDP (PPP) (billion US$)	2,857	305.6	11%	20,580 (2nd)	25,279 (1st)	123%
Per Capita GDP (PPP)	12,553	310	2%	62,869 (12th)	18,116 (88th)	29%
% World Exports	11.2	1.2	11%	8.8 (2nd)	13.1 (1st)	149%
% World Imports	14.3	1.1	8%	13.5 (1st)	10.8 (2nd)	80%
Int. Reserves (mill. US$)	171,413	10,091	6%	449,907 (7th)	3,168,216 (1st)	704%
Military Exp. (mill. US$)	304,085	11,403	4%	648,798 (1st)	249,997 (2nd)	39%
R&D Exp. (2010 mill. US$)	235,642	13,414	6%	483,676 (1st)	444,755 (2nd)	92%
Patent applications (residents and nonresidents)	115,235	8,558	7%	597,141 (2nd)	1,542,002 (1st)	258%
Source: Own elaboration with data from IMF World Economic Outlook Database, WB World Development Indicators Database, National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS), WTO World Trade Statistical Review 2019, SIPRI Database & OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators
^1 For the military expenditure set, we use the year 1989; for the R&D expenditure set, we use 1991, and for the patent application set, we use the year 1985 because they are the first available data in the respective databases,

Fortune’s 2019 Global list of top 500 companies by revenue included 119 Chinese firms. These firms are global leaders in finance, energy and materials, of which 15 of the top 24 firms are Chinese, including massive entities such as China Minmetels, Amer International Group, and China Baowu Steel Group (China Power Team). The high profitability of Chinese companies is linked to their investment in research and development and their leap forward in the most dynamic emerging sectors.

China is already a global leader in consumer-oriented digital technologies and electronic payments. It has the largest e-commerce market in the world and invests venture capital in autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, robotics, and drones. It also has the largest data market in the world, which gives it an unmatched comparative advantage in the development of artificial intelligence. Currently, more than 20% of the world’s R&D investment is made in China. Between 1996 and 2017, China steadily increased its share of R&D expenditure on GDP from 0.56% to 2.13% and plans to continue doing so within the framework of its plan ‘Made in China 2025’. Additionally, China incorporates 30% of total robots produced worldwide, filed more than 1.5 million patent applications in 2018, and recently surpassed the United States in the number of nationally manufactured machines to appear on the list of the 500 fastest computers in the world (Hernández 2018).

In terms of military competition, the United States continues to be dominant but China has become the second world power. The United States had the highest military spending in 2018 with $649 billion. This figure represents 36.4% of total global spending. The United States maintains more than 800 military bases outside its territory, has ongoing military conflicts in at least eight countries, and deploys over 240,000 military personnel in 172 countries (Arceo 2018). China followed the United States as the country with the second highest military expenditure in 2018 with $250 billion, 14% of global spending and 38.5% of US military spending (SIPRI 2019). Leaving aside conflicts in some Chinese regions such as Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang and in a disputed region like Taiwan, China has not been at war and has not made military interventions in other countries for decades.¹

China took advantage of the protection cost the United States had to pay in order to maintain its global hegemony and invested its surplus in gross formation of fixed capital and R&D. Between 2000 and 2007, gross fixed capital formation in China averaged 39.4% and, between 2008 and 2018, more than 45% of GDP, doubling the figures of the United States, which invested around 22% (WEO).² Similarly, Chinese economic productivity has increased by 9.9% annually between 2008 and 2018, while US productivity grew 1.2% in the same period (Arceo 2018). China currently only has one overseas military base, in Djibouti, although it is believed to be planning others.

The World Power Index (WPI) calculates the accumulation of a stat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART I China’s global interests and foreign policy
• PART II China’s political system and governance
• PART III Chinese culture and history
• PART IV Chinese people and society
• PART V Oppression and opposition
• PART VI Chinese studies: Scope and methodology
• Index