China and New World Order

Based on what you have learnt in this course, what kind of world order do you think we have now and to what extent a new world order is shaped by the rise of China? In what aspects is the rising China changing the existing world order?

World order has a variety of definitions. In general, it refers the pattern of relations between states, behaved according to a set of institutional rules and principles. It changes over time when great powers rise and fall. Suggested by George Modelski, the Long Cycle Theory believes a war will emerge after the rising power threatens the original hegemony and might replace the existing world order. The challenge posed by the rise of China to the western dominance is felt worldwide as her second largest economic status. A question has been asked by an American scholar John Ikenberry – “Will China overthrow the existing order or become part of it?” This essay aims at introducing the current world order and investigating how it has been changed with the inclusion of China. One of the two major types of world order is the Westphalia order which is based on the modern state system. It is the concept of authority on the territory that the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of politics is self-determined without any intervention from other states in internal affairs. This system highly respects the territorial integrity of states and the legal equality between states that is no matter the size of a country, its national boundary and rights are fully guaranteed. The other one is the liberal order which is built on the evolving system of Westphalia relations when great powers are stabilize. This liberal international order is a suggested system to construct a global collective-security body that states would trade and interact in a multilateral system of principles and laws based on the establishment of multinational institutions and alliances, however, with a shared sovereignty for collective trouble-shooting responsibilities shouldered by all participants. In 2012, Xi Jinping first raised the prospect of a new model of great power relations. He called for a mutually respectful and beneficial cooperation between states and tried to define a new term to set up a multipolar hegemony and break the curse of conflicting balance-of-power and zero-sum game. The world has been suspecting a new world order would be shaped by the rising political and economic power of China. Nevertheless, China is less likely to deviate from the existing order too much because it has been insist on the primacy of national sovereignty according to Westphalian norm. Numerous humanitarian crises happened in the last two decades which has raised the liberal world’s attention and triggered them to intervene with the use of force in some countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan (Etzioni, 2011). Even the United Nation (UN) formulated and promoted, in 2004, the right for other states to intervene when some fails to govern their internal affairs in ways that meet international standards. In contrary, China has expressed opposition to UN’s favoring humanitarian resolutions with the reason of respecting sovereignty. For instance, China and Russia have vetoed a number of UN Security Council resolutions proposed to impose military sanctions against Burmese, Zimbabwe and Syrian regimes since 2007 (The Guardian, 2011). Despite western criticism as China being

Name: Wong Zi Yan Helen

UID: 3035105110

illiberal and indifferent to its responsibility to protect, China’s behavior has shown its defense of the Westphalian core. Yet, China has presented an increasing incentive to associate with the Security Council in civilian protection as it didn’t veto the resolution to suppress Libya regime. China is still in a searching period to weigh interventionism and sovereignty, but it is driven in the existing world order in either way. Second, China has already discovered a significant economic gain under the current order that it might lose its economic survival with the absence of open and free trade opportunities. Across history, international orders have been replaced in a large extent because material benefits were dominated by the leading state, thus to cause outraged unfairness. However, in liberal international system, potential trade benefits are high that China has earn its considerable status from it. It has also gradually integrated into market economy and joined the World Trade Organization WTO to secure its multilateral trade principles and ensure a negotiable dispute settlement mechanism against any forms of discrimination. Still, changes to the existing world order can be seen with China’s increasing power. The most apparent and significant one is the global economic and financial restructure. As the current order has been driven by the western for centuries, most international institutions are dominated by western states, especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Now, with the growing financial capability, China has become their largest creditor and third highest voter and controls over some of the western countries with underlying debt crisis. Institutional policies and practices are more likely to depend and adjust regarding to China’s preferences. On the other hand, China has been consistently declaring its developing country status and asked for more stake of the developing and emerging countries. Thus, a plan of establishing first joint financial enterprise by five major emerging countries, the BRICS bank, will certainly replace the existence of the World Bank and IMF. China also proposed to create a new international reserve currency to combat U.S. dollar and Euro, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the Western world. From the above, the world is less cooperative after higher degree of world integration. A weakening indistinct border could be seen to separate developed countries and developing countries that both parties seem to have their own way in world order. To conclude, China is in a small extent to start a whole new world order which would deflect a lot from liberal international order and the Westphalia order because it insists on its sovereignty issue and is unable to maximize its state survival without an open and free trade system. However, a possible financial restructure might be brought to change the existing world order as the rise of emerging countries demands a comparable decision-making power.

References Etzioni, A. (2011). Point of Order: Is China More Westphalian Than the West?. Council of Foreign Relations. Ikenberry, G. J. (2011). Is a “One World” Order Possible? The Rise of China, the West, and the Future of Liberal Internationalism. LKY School of Public Policy.

Name: Wong Zi Yan Helen

UID: 3035105110

Robinson, J. (2013). China: It’s Time for a New World Order. FMT Daily. Retrived from http://ftmdaily.com/daily-briefing/china-calls-for-new-world-order/ The Guardian. (2011). Russia and China veto UN resolution against Syrian regime: Anger from Europe and US as two security council powers argue implied threat of sanctions will not bring peace. The Guardian.