China and Eurasia

Rethinking Cooperation and Contradictions in the Era of Changing World Order

Mher D Sahakyan, Heinz Gärtner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000433128
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book facilitates exchanges between scholars and researchers from around the world on China-Eurasia relations.

Comparing perspectives and methodologies, it promotes interdisciplinary dialogue on China's pivot towards Eurasia, the Belt and Road initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing's cooperation and arguments with India, the EU, Western Balkans and South Caucasus states and the Sino-Russian struggle for multipolarity and multilateralism in Eurasia. It also researches digitalization processes in Eurasia, notably it focuses on China's Silk Road and Digital Agenda of Eurasian Economic Union. Multipolarity without multilateralism is a dangerous mix. Great power competitions will remain. In the Asian regional system more multilateral cushions have to be developed. Scholars from different nations including China, India, Russia, Austria, Armenia, Georgia, United Arab Emirates and Montenegro introduce their own, independent research, making recommendations on the developments in China-Eurasia relations, and demonstrating that through joint discussions it is possible to find ways for cooperation and for ensuring peaceful coexistence.

The book will appeal to policymakers and scholars and students in Chinese, Eurasian, International and Oriental Studies.

Part I

China, Eurasia, and the new world order

1Eurasia between multipolarity and multilateralism

Heinz Gärtner

1.1 Introduction

New actors are emerging in the world after Cold War bipolarity and US unipolarity. The world is becoming more multipolar. More competing poles may lead to more polarization and (nuclear) arms races unless accompanied by a strong multilateralism. However, multilateralism is in decline. Europe and Asia have to find their roles in this new world. The US debate tends to ignore Europe’s importance in the world while China’s threat is often exaggerated. There are no clear political and geographical borders between Europe and Asia, however. Therefore, some observers are re-discovering the expression Eurasia. Eurasia itself is heterogeneous and consists of multiple political, economic, and cultural centers. China is the most powerful state, but Asia is not China led. However, multilateral structures in Asia will not be sufficient to prevent potential conflicts. Multipolarity with no or little multilateralism is a dangerous mix for both the world and Eurasia. Europe’s history offers some analogies for possible scenarios for the future.

Just as in the second half of the 19th century, the world today is witnessing a breakdown of multilateralism, the emergence of nationalistic and ethnic xenophobia, the demonization of adversaries, the depreciation of international institutions, withdrawals from international agreements and treaties, and an expanding arms race. It is a breakdown of values in slow motion of what Europe holds dear: effective multilateralism, working international institutions, interdependence, and interconnectedness, military restraint but support for peace, engagement of adversaries, common and cooperative security. Simultaneously the world moves to a great power conflict. The conflict of the United States and China is not new but US President Donald Trump increased tensions with China.

The chapter consists of the following sections:

1.2The geopolitical meaning of Eurasia

1.3The US perspective on Europa and Asia

1.4Eurasia between Multipolarity and Multilateralism

1.5The Asian mirror

1.6Great power conflict

1.7The influence of nuclear weapons on Europa and Asia

1.8Biden’s presidency: multilateralism and great power conflict

1.9Suggestions for the future

1.2 Eurasia: the term

Eurasia historically has been a geopolitical concept. Two representative geopolitical studies by John Mackinder and Karl Haushofer saw the control of the area between Europe and Asia as central for the big powers in the first half of the 20th century. It was all about Germany’s and Russia’s influence. There is a different interpretation regarding the geographical extension of Eurasia, especially on whether it includes China. After the end of the Cold War the term re-entered the political and academic discussion. The debate shifted from great power control to a more comprehensive concept that recognizes that multiple political and cultural centers not only in Europe but also in Asia exist. After all, 5 billion people live in Asia and 1.4 billion in China. Asia is heterogeneous but not China dominated. The debate in the United States focuses on what this all means for the United States.

1.3 Europe and Asia in the American academic debate

Since the end of the Cold War and especially since the end of the Bush administration in 2009 there has been a debate among American academics on what kind of world will emerge next. Where is Europe and where is Asia in this debate? Europe plays only a marginal role; China’s threat is often exaggerated. The main concerns of American academics are the decline of America and the rise of China. Europe is not considered to be a major power factor in the new world. In the best case, Europe is seen as a natural ally because it consists of market economies and liberal democracies. In the worst case, it is seen as irrelevant because it lacks military capacity with global reach.

Since 2016 a debate has been going on whether the liberal order has come to an end. Some scholars¹ would argue that the world never has been liberal, but it always was polarized, whether it was before the World War I, during the Cold War, or under conditions of multiple poles. President Donald Trump has put America before all other states, including China and Europe.

1.3.1 The “unipolar moment” ahead of China and without Europe

The “bipolarity” of the Cold War era has gone. Representatives of both the realist and liberal schools of international relations theories are providing concepts on what the future world would look like. For Charles Krauthammer² “the immediate post-Cold War world is not multipolar. It is unipolar.” The United States comes ahead of Asia and the Europeans play a subordinate role: “The center of world power is the unchallenged superpower, the United States, attended by its Western allies.” During the Bush administration some scholars initiated talk about an American Empire where Europe appeared as dependent countries and China will be contained.³

1.3.2 “Bound to lead” – without Europe and China!

Even before Krauthammer wrote his essay, the liberal Joseph Nye wrote his book Bound to Lead⁴ as a response to Paul Kennedy’s book Rise and Fall of Great Powers.⁵ He argues that although the United States is not in decline, Europeans and Japan, which had been destroyed during World War II, are now catching up with the United States, getting a larger share of the World Gross Social Product and the world export rates than in the immediate post-war period. Since then, Nye⁶ has reiterated time and time again that the United States is the only power in the world which can provide all the dimensions of the liberal order: security, economy, global commons, human rights, and liberal values.

It is only the middle chessboard – in the economic realm – where Europe, Japan and China have a role to play. On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar, and the United States is likely to remain the only superpower for some time. However, on the middle chessboard, economic power has already been multipolar for more than a decade, with the United States, Europe, Japan, and China as the major players, and others gaining in importance. The bottom chessboard is the realm of cross-border transactions that occur outside of government control. Nye⁷ rejects the notion of a “post-American world”;⁸ he recognizes that the “America of the late twentieth century is over.” However, American primacy remains. This means that the United States will be the “first” but not the “sole” world power. The United States will most likely remain “primus inter pares” among the other great powers. The preferred outcomes will, according to Nye, require “power with others as much as power over others.”

1.3.3 Parochial Europe – Asia–Pacific center of gravity

Similarly, to Joseph Nye, Richard Haass⁹ does not support the thesis of America’s decline. Globalization has created a “non-polar world” of American primacy, but not domination. The United States must restore its economic foundations and foreign policy at home. He argues that the United States is underperforming at home and overreaching abroad. For Haass, American primacy still means superiority: the US economy is the largest, American higher education the best, American society the most innovative and adaptive in the world. Europe, in contrast, performs far below its collective economic weight around the globe. This is the result of Europe’s “parochialism, its pronounced antimilitary culture, and the unresolved tensions between nationalism and its commitment to a collective union.” Europe will, according to Haass, be less significant in the half-century ahead than it was in the past half-century. For him, “we are living in a post-European world.” He separates Europe from Asia. For Haass in the 21st century it is probably the Asia-Pacific region that will be the center of gravity of the world’s economy than Europe if it can be managed peacefully.

1.3.4 The 19th century belonged to Europe, but the future is Asian

Parag Khanna¹⁰ makes a similar observation with regard to emerging powers as Fareed Zakaria’s “post-American world.” Zakaria sees the “rise of the rest,” while Khanna observes the “rise of the second world,” i.e. almost of all others except the United States and Europe. Their analyses are not necessarily as declinist as Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of Great Powers from 1987. For both of them, the United States will remain the dominant power (especially in military terms), but their argument is that the United States will not be able to act alone. In his book The Future is Asian¹¹ Parag Khanna sees the “Asiatitation of Asia” as a first step towards the “Asiatitation of the World.” Europe’s heyday is a matter of the past, the 19th century. The 20th century belonged to America and the 21st century will be Asian. Europe is now supposedly passé, and the world is entering the “Asian century.”

1.3.5 Europe as a consumer of American liberal values, Asian values do not count

Liberal internationalists argue that a liberal international order emerged under US leadership after World War II. The order is rule-based, organized around international institutions and market economies. According to John Ikenberry,¹² in the new world order the United States will find itself in the position of sharing its power and relying in part on others. The contested and unstable US-led hegemonic order will not destroy the American built liberal international order, but rather will make it more inclusive. The strategic relationships that Americans formed in Europe and Asia became pillars of the liberal world order during the Cold War. Ikenberry does not talk of an American-European built order. Europe is a consumer of American values. Asian values will not count. The new world would be built around rules, norms of non-discrimination and market openness, creating opportunities for countries – including rising countries on the periphery of this order. Such a liberal international order would create a foundation on which states could engage in reciprocity and institutionalized cooperation. This order can be contrasted with closed and non-rule-based relations like geopolitical blocs, exclusive regional spheres, or closed imperial systems. The order would survive even without US hegemony.

1.3.6 Europe might be absorbed by China because it is from Venus

In contrast to Ikenberry, Robert Kagan¹³ believes that it would make a huge difference to the future world order if the United States eventually had to share global power with a richer and more powerful but also autocratic China. “The United States and Europe must not give up on each other.” If America declined, defenseless Europe would be absorbed by autocratic China, because the Europeans are from Venus whereas Americans are from Mars. Kagan uses the metaphor of ancient Rome. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Roman culture disappeared, too.

1.3.7 A more benign view on Europe and Asia

Charles Kupchan¹⁴ is more benign with Europe and Asia. He sees time running out for the West’s global dominance. Power will become more widely distributed around the globe. The next world will belong to no one. Rather, the world of the future will be both multipolar and politically diverse. The diffusion of global power ultimately means the diffusion of international responsibility from the Atlantic community of democracies to a broad array of states in all quarters of the globe. For Kupchan the goal would be to forge a consensus among major states about the foundational principles of the next world. The rules must be acceptable to all powers. This concept evokes of the Concert of Europe of the 19th century that was discriminatory towards smaller states, however.

1.3.8 European “vassals” and Eurasian chaos

For Zbigniew Brzezinski,¹⁵ the American system’s capacity to compete globally depends increasingly on its ability to confront problems at home. If America falte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Preface in Chinese
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I China, Eurasia, and the new world order
• Part II Transportation infrastructure connectivity between China and Eurasia – a case study
• Part III Sino–Russian cooperation in the era of the changing world order
• Part IV The European Union, the Western Balkans, the South Caucasus, and the Belt and Road Initiative
• Part V China and the rising economic powerhouses: the BRI and the Gulf Cooperation Council states: The ASEAN–China–India triangle
• Conclusion
• Index