"Asian Century"? I Think Not

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Claims of China's rise are overblown and overrated.

I recently read an article by an author who is positive that the world had entered an "Asian century" and that the West is just bitterly hanging on to its old clout. The article's abstract goes like this:

"There is a fundamental flaw in the West's strategic thinking. In all its analyses of global challenges, the West assumes that it is the source of the solutions to the world's key problems. In fact, however, the West is also a major source of these problems. Unless key Western policymakers learn to understand and deal with this reality, the world is headed for an even more troubled phase. The West is understandably reluctant to accept that the era of its domination is ending and that the Asian century has come. No civilization cedes power easily, and the West's resistance to giving up control of key global institutions and processes is natural. Yet the West is engaging in an extraordinary act of self-deception by believing that it is open to change. In fact, the West has become the most powerful force preventing the emergence of a new wave of history, clinging to its privileged position in key global forums, such as the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G-8 (the groupof highly industrialized states), and refusing to contemplate how the West will have to adjust to the Asian century. Partly as a result of its growing insecurity, the West has also become increasingly incompetent in its handling of key global problems. Many Western commentators can readily identify specific failures, such as the Bush administration's botched invasion and occupation of Iraq. But few can see that this reflects a deeper structural problem: the West's inability to see that the world has entered a new era."

The author of the article quoted above is far too optimistic and is speaking far too soon. It is not the West that needs a reality check but China. In Foreign Policy article "Think Again: Asia's Rise" Minxin Pei explodes myth after oft-quoted myth that Western declinists use to generate alarmist hysteria over the "rise of the rest."

"Power Is Shifting from West to East.

Dine on a steady diet of books like The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East or When China Rules the World, and it's easy to think that the future belongs to Asia...

Asia is nowhere near closing its economic and military gap with the West. The region produces roughly 30 percent of global economic output, but because of its huge population, its per capita gdp is only $5,800, compared with $48,000 in the United States. Asian countries are furiously upgrading their militaries, but their combined military spending in 2008 was still only a third that of the United States. Even at current torrid rates of growth, it will take the average Asian 77 years to reach the income of the average American. The Chinese need 47 years. For Indians, the figure is 123 years. And Asia's combined military budget won't equal that of the United States for 72 years.

Pax Americana was made possible not only by the overwhelming economic and military might of the United States but also by a set of visionary ideas: free trade, Wilsonian liberalism, and multilateral institutions. Although Asia today may have the world's most dynamic economies, it does not seem to play an equally inspiring role as a thought leader. The big idea animating Asians now is empowerment; Asians rightly feel proud that they are making a new industrial revolution. But self-confidence is not an ideology, and the much-touted Asian model of development does not seem to be an exportable product.

"Asia's Rise Is Unstoppable."

...Pollution is worsening Asia's shortage of fresh water while air pollution exacts a terrible toll on health (it kills almost 400,000 people each year in China alone). Without revolutionary advances in alternative energy, Asia could face a severe energy crunch. Climate change could devastate the region's agriculture.

Political instability could also throw Asia's economic locomotive off course. State collapse in Pakistan or a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula could wreak havoc. Rising inequality and endemic corruption in China could fuel social unrest and cause its economic growth to sputter. And if a democratic breakthrough somehow forces the Communist Party from power, China is most likely to enter a lengthy period of unstable transition, with a weak central government and mediocre economic performance....

"Asia Will Lead the World in Innovation."

Reports of the death of America's technological leadership are, to paraphrase Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated. Although Asia's advanced economies, such as Japan and South Korea, are closing the gap, the United States' lead remains huge. In 2008, American inventors were awarded 92,000 U.S. patents, twice the combined total given to South Korean and Japanese inventors. Asia's two giants, China and India, still lag far behind.

Asia is pouring money into higher education. But Asian universities will not become the world's leading centers of learning and research anytime soon. None of the world's top 10 universities is located in Asia, and only the University of Tokyo ranks among the world's top 20. In the last 30 years, only eight Asians, seven of them Japanese, have won a Nobel Prize in the sciences. The region's hierarchical culture, centralized bureaucracy, weak private universities, and emphasis on rote learning and test-taking will continue to hobble its efforts to clone the United States' finest research institutions.

Even Asia's much-touted numerical advantage is less than it seems. China supposedly graduates 600,000 engineering majors each year, India another 350,000. The United States trails with only 70,000 engineering graduates annually. Although these numbers suggest an Asian edge in generating brainpower, they are thoroughly misleading. Half of China's engineering graduates and two thirds of India's have associate degrees. Once quality is factored in, Asia's lead disappears altogether. A much-cited 2005 McKinsey Global Institute study reports that human resource managers in multinational companies consider only 10 percent of Chinese engineers and 25 percent of Indian engineers as even "employable," compared with 81 percent of American engineers.

"China Will Dominate Asia."

Although it is true that China will become Asia's strongest country by any measure, its rise has inherent limits. China is unlikely to dominate Asia in the sense that it replaces the United States as the region's peacekeeper and decisively influences other countries' foreign policies...The ruling Chinese Communist Party, which views perpetuating its one-party state as more important than overseas expansionism, is not likely to be seduced by delusions of imperial grandeur.

China has formidable neighbors in Russia, India, and Japan that will fiercely resist any Chinese attempts to become the regional hegemon. Even Southeast Asia, where China appears to have reaped the most geopolitical gains in recent years, has been reluctant to fall into China's orbit completely. Nor would the United States simply capitulate in the face of a Chinese juggernaut.

For complex reasons, China's rise has inspired fear and unease, not enthusiasm, among Asians. Only 10 percent of Japanese, 21 percent of South Koreans, and 27 percent of Indonesians surveyed by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said they would be comfortable with China being the future leader of Asia.

So much for China's charm offensive...

"America Is Losing Influence in Asia."

Bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and mired in a deep recession, the United

States certainly looks like a superpower in decline...

Although some view the United States' declining influence in Asia as a fact, many Asians think otherwise. Sixty-nine percent of Chinese, 75 percent of Indonesians, 76 percent of South Koreans, and 79 percent of Japanese in the Chicago Council's surveys said that U.S. influence in Asia had risen over the past decade.

Another, perhaps more important, reason for the enduring American preeminence in Asia is that most countries in the region welcome Washington as the guarantor of Asia's peace. Asian elites from New Delhi to Tokyo continue to count on Uncle Sam to keep a watchful eye on Beijing.

Asia is unlikely to achieve any degree of regional political unity and evolve into an EU-like entity in our lifetime. Henry Kissinger once famously asked, "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" We can ask the same question about Asia.

All told, Asia's rise should present more opportunities than threats. The region's growth not only has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but also will increase demand for Western products. Its internal fissures will allow the United States to check the geopolitical influence of potential rivals such as China and Russia with manageable costs and risks."

"Want to Know More?"

"Not everyone thinks that Asia’s rise implies an inexorable decline in American influence. Anne-Marie Slaughter argues in “America’s Edge: Power in the Networked Century” (Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009) that the 21st century will, in fact, be an American one because the United States enjoys unrivaled 'connectedness.'"

Although little else can be said after Pei's extensive, blunt, no-nonsense analysis Joseph S. Nye Jr's "American and Chinese Power After the Financial Crisis" in October 2010's Washington Quarterly manages to add just a little bit more, explaining why even, after Iraq and the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S. is still on top:

"Thus it is not surprising that a poll taken in Asia late in 2008 found China’s

soft power less than that of the United States, and concluded that China’s

‘‘charm offensive’’ has not been that effective. This was confirmed by a BBC

poll of 28 countries in 2010 that showed a positive Chinese image only in Africa

and some parts of Asia, such as Pakistan, while in most of the Americas, Asia,

and Europe it was neutral to poor.

Despite being blamed for the financial crisis, U.S. soft power remained greater

than that of China as measured by both The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

and BBC polls. Great powers try to use culture and narrative to create soft power

that promotes their advantage, but much of it is created by civil society rather

than government. American soft power rests on a variety of resources that range

from Hollywood to Harvard; from Madonna to the Gates Foundation; from

Martin Luther King’s speeches to Barack Obama’s election. It is not easy for

governments to sell their country’s charm if their narrative is inconsistent with

domestic realities. In that dimension, except for its economic success, China still

has a long way to go."

On U.S. debt to the Chinese:

"The United States accepts Chinese imports, pays China in dollars, and China holds the U.S. dollars and bonds, in effect making a loan to the United States. China has amassed $2.5 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, much of it held in U.S. Treasury securities. Some observers have described this as a great shift in the global balance of power because China could bring the United States to its knees by threatening to sell its dollars. But in doing so, China would not only reduce the value of its reserves as the price of the dollar fell, but it would also jeopardize U.S. willingness to continue to import cheap Chinese goods, which would mean job loss and instability in China. If it dumped its dollars, China would bring the United States to its knees, but might also bring itself to its ankles."

If China isn't rising, it's basically helpless and toothless. This perceived helplessness and sense of indignation may drive China to lash out as a revisionist power. Since China has actually failed to surpass the United States when it comes to soft power or economic influence, while its jump from third world poverty to burgeoning free market is highly overrated and over-exaggerated by the media and academia, a likely scenario is that China, with its nationalistic bloggers and protest-leery leaders, will believe that it should be getting more than it deserves. China will then make the foolish decision of trying to challenge and best its rival, the United States. Relations can only sour, if China seriously and erroneously believes the world has indeed come to an "Asian century" and that it should be getting its "rightful share" of world power.

A recent article entitled"Brushwood and Gall" by Edward Carr in December 2010's The Economist looks at the likelihood of the U.S. going to war with China. As a revisionist power, will China use its newfound power to take revenge and threaten the status quo, or will it come to terms with Western dominance?:

"N 492BC, at the end of the “Spring and Autumn” period in Chinese history, Goujian, the king of Yue in modern Zhejiang, was taken prisoner after a disastrous campaign against King Fuchai, his neighbour to the north. Goujian was put to work in the royal stables where he bore his captivity with such dignity that he gradually won Fuchai’s respect. After a few years Fuchai let him return home as his vassal.

Goujian never forgot his humiliation. He slept on brushwood and hung a gall bladder in his room, licking it daily to feed his appetite for revenge. Yue appeared loyal, but its gifts of craftsmen and timber tempted Fuchai to build palaces and towers even though the extravagance ensnared him in debt. Goujian distracted him with Yue’s most beautiful women, bribed his officials and bought enough grain to empty his granaries. Meanwhile, as Fuchai’s kingdom declined, Yue grew rich and raised a new army.

Goujian bided his time for eight long years. By 482BC, confident of his superiority, he set off north with almost 50,000 warriors. Over several campaigns they put Fuchai and his kingdom to the sword.

The king who slept on brushwood and tasted gall is as familiar to Chinese as King Alfred and his cakes are to Britons, or George Washington and the cherry tree are to Americans. In the early 20th century he became a symbol of resistance against the treaty ports, foreign concessions and the years of colonial humiliation.

Taken like that, the parable of Goujian sums up what some people find alarming about China’s rise as a superpower today. Ever since Deng Xiaoping set about reforming the economy in 1978, China has talked peace. Still militarily and economically too weak to challenge America, it has concentrated on getting richer. Even as China has grown in power and rebuilt its armed forces, the West and Japan have run up debts and sold it their technology. China has been patient, but the day when it can once again start to impose its will is drawing near."

China could possibly threaten the U.S. or hamper U.S. global initiatives but China is not on par with the U.S. In a nutshell, claiming that the United States or the West is going down the tubes is obviously simply unrealistic. The U.S. is light years ahead of China in almost every regard. Excitement over China making gains on the U.S. are as empty as late-1980s alarm over Japan someday challenging the U.S. Time would be better devoted to speculating on how the U.S. can maintain this trend. Many, including realists, believed the U.S. would enjoy limited dominance after the fall of the Soviet Union. But today, two decades later, the U.S. is still the world's only regional hegemon, the world's only superpower. Instead of constructing mountains out of molehills when it comes to China, the U.S. should work on extending it's unipolar moment.

-Ryu