China is not ready for a showdown with the US

The basic architecture of the current international order was established after World War II with the US at the helm. It is only natural that the US has been playing the central role in the protection of this order and in the provision of international public goods.

Now, almost 80 years after WWII, the global situation and power differentials are very much unlike the way they used to be. The US is facing more and more challenges. The superpower is feeling increasingly overstrained, so much so that it has to scale back on the fronts it holds, adjust its policies in accordance with the "America First" principle, and reconfigure its deployment of forces and resources. Such adjustments are having a huge impact on the international order, creating uncertainties for the world.

With its status being threatened, it is only natural that the numero uno panics, gets resentful, and appears impulsive and belligerent. Its still-dominating strength and the habits and mindset formed through prolonged supremacy are being applied to the pursuit of narrow national interests. This leads to acts of self-degradation.

A case in point is Donald Trump's all-guns-blazing foreign policy. It obtained results almost immediately and clearly demonstrated America's incomparable national strength, but it also used up America's soft power rapidly, turning Uncle Sam from a great nation into an ordinary one. That was why former Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi made this remark in the Alaska talks of 2021: "We thought too well of the United States".

The Biden administration goes to extreme lengths to put a lid on Chinese high technology in a completely ungentlemanly manner. At the same time, it moves away from the Trumpian line, and strives to restore America's global leadership and retake the moral high ground. However, these efforts can hardly be sustained for long since they cannot change the realities of the power differential.

The hegemon in the midst of this process is not only most unpredictable, but also most difficult to deal with, especially for the ascending number two. The aberrancy cannot be blamed fully on Trump's perverse style of doing things. It will keep showing itself in America's foreign policy for a long time, until the US settles into a role and pattern of behaviour appropriate for the new situation.

America's abnormal behaviour is perceived by many as a sign of the country's decline as a superpower. The truth is: the times are different now. The relative "decline" of the US is due not only to the rise of China, but also, more importantly, to a general shift in the balance of the world as a good number of countries are getting stronger - that is to say, the so-called "rise of the rest".

The rise of these countries should be attributed to a great extent to the diffusion of new technologies. There is a lot of uncertainty about the impact of the new technological revolution on the world. Its trajectory is unpredictable, constantly providing opportunities for reshuffling the deck.

America's tremendous capacity for innovation in scientific research places it in a robust position, so it will hardly be surprising if it has once again widened its lead over the rest of the world. As long as there is no innovative system that outdoes America's, no country can substantiate any claim that it surpassed Uncle Sam, for the new economy is, to an ever-increasing extent, an innovation economy.

The idea that the US is in decline is cast into doubt by another fact: that the liberalist values represented by the US are still the mainstream of the world. If China fails to gain the approval of the majority of countries, a drop in America's status or a change in its role would draw other countries to rise up and fill the void. Players like Germany, France, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Nigeria etc. are all working hard to adjust their own roles, hoping to exercise more clout in regional and global affairs.

These up-and-coming players are still not strong enough, so America's global functions are still needed. Other countries would be more inclined to gather around them if China does not rise to become a benchmark in matters of values. That is because there is a sense of mutual identification among the countries that adhere to liberalist values. They are less likely to see one another as a lethal threat.

As we can see, whenever China is in conflict with other countries, the world tends towards sympathy or support for the latter. This was evident, for example, with the 2020 Sino-Indian clash in the Galwan Valley and the 2017 Sino-Indian standoff at Doklam, where China was very obviously the passive party. Given that China was being subjected to enormous strategic pressure imposed by the West, it would have been highly unfavourable for it to start a border incident with an emerging power like India.

And yet as it turned out, most countries showed sympathy for India, including some that were on fairly good terms with China. We find the same trend when it comes to the issues of the South China Sea and Taiwan. In the countries and territories surrounding mainland China, such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the values and systems are closer to liberalism rather than Marxism. The younger generation of almost the whole world is more liberal, and that's inclusive of China's own young people. China still lacks the soft power to reorient their identification.

Notably, one of the marks of the rise of a major power is its clout to set global trends and lead the herd. There can be no such clout without winning the approval of most countries. Another mark is being on good terms with most countries - or at least not being perceived by them as a threat, a threat so great that they band together to exercise containment. The latter is now a real and pressing issue for China.

Undoubtedly, China can dangle economic gains to win over some of the countries that are lagging behind in development, especially those in Africa, to form something of a loose bloc. Together, they can push back against the West in international organisations, but there is no deeper foundation to build on. This is true even for China's relations with friendly nations like Russia and Pakistan.

Under such circumstances, boosting China's international approval is essential for China's rise. Enhanced international approval would decrease the sense of an alien threat, tone down the intensity of identity politics and better induce parties in dispute to arrive at peaceful solutions, not to mention reduce the likelihood of threatening each other with military force or actually going to war. The most fundamental way to get more nods globally is just this: level up in every aspect in accordance with the common values of the human race.

Undoubtedly, after more than 40 years since its economic reform and opening up began, China has improved tremendously in various aspects, including the de-facto realisation of many liberalist values. However, the standards it has attained remain problematically low, especially in areas that are newsworthy in the West, such as control over thought and expression, information blocking, human rights violations like extrajudicial arrests and detentions, the promotion of snitching, excessive surveillance, the lack of transparency in decision-making processes, the lack of democratic participation, personality cult, dictatorship and so on.

None of these is really a big deal as compared to much worse governmental atrocities historically practised in China, and the Chinese people have more or less gotten used to them.

When China was just an ordinary country, occurrences of these sorts - all means to some end - would not attract the attention of the international community very much. But now that China is number two and the spotlight is cast on it as such, these actions get blown out of proportion beyond all limits and become landmark incidents for defining China, which would seriously impair China's soft power.

While many of the problems mentioned above will gradually and naturally disappear with China's further development, some are bound to persist because they are tied to ideology or traditional statecraft. For these, alternatives will have to be seriously considered.

For China to raise the standards of things it does, it must stop relying on the litany of undesirable means mentioned earlier, and still win the support of its people, maintain political and social stability, and keep the economy running well. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is entirely capable of achieving all that. What it lacks is a revolutionary way of thinking and what it needs to change are long-ingrained habits that have seeped into the culture.

The CCP has yet to produce any adequate theory that may go head-to-head against liberal capitalism and democracy. Marxism is simply too perverse on class struggle and too emphatic on the spirit of struggle. It trumpets self-fulfilling prophecies - whatever it thinks of as an enemy will become an enemy. The CCP's Cold War mentality is truly in no way weaker than that of the Western countries that seek to contain it.

There is nothing fantastical or naive about finding common ground in the complex international environment. That is because, as far as values are concerned, the difference between China and the West is not as great as people imagine. For example, the "socialist core values" as promoted by the CCP are not at odds with the values of Western liberalism.

To build the "community of shared destiny for mankind", it is necessary to hold hands with liberalism, for it is still the international mainstream. However, finding points of agreement does not entail Westernisation. What it means is to do better than the Western countries in the realisation of values that are identical or comparable.

Although China is poorly regarded by liberalists, it is already doing better than most countries in realising values that are very important to everyone. China has, for example, long-term political stability and a safer society. America's shootings, violence, drug problem, homelessness and other deep-rooted ills are seldom seen there. The economic construction under the CCP has long been the envy of the world. The Chinese lifestyle of convenient online payments, the deeply grounded culture and traditions, the vibrant lives of the people, the impressive figures of housing area per capita (on par with or even surpassing those of some developed countries), as well as the effective poverty alleviation, and policies related to the people's livelihoods - these are all desirable to most countries and stories China can tell the world to good effect.

Opportunities for China also arise from the crisis faced by Western-style electoral democracy and capitalist economy. Even though the values of liberalism are widespread and deeply embraced, Western countries themselves fail to live up to what they preach. There are many problems in the practice of such values - governments are paralysed by partisan infighting, relentless capital accumulation opens up a huge chasm between the rich and the poor, and the people lose their trust in the government and their confidence in the political processes.

The younger generations of the West no longer blindly believe in general elections and multi-party competition. They are tired of the politicians' hypocrisy and their shameless double standards in international affairs. As long as there is constant improvement in the actualisation of humanity's basic values, possibly even surpassing the West, they do not care through what means or system it comes about.

The opportunity for China to establish its own soft power comes from a revelation for the disillusioned, showing them that the same goals or values can be realised by a different and more effective means. That is how the blind sense of superiority on the part of the West may be crushed, so that China may be freed from the predicament of being constantly demonised.

The Western cliches of democracy, liberty, human rights, rule of law and so on are actually institutions of secondary order. The effective way to improve on them and go beyond them is to return to the first principles of humanity, on the basis thereof, effective communication can be established between China and the West, who have been talking over each other.

Constantly improving one's system and raising the bar for all they accomplish in accordance with humanity will surely gain the respect and acceptance of the world. People are more likely to listen and be convinced if China explains the benefits of their system in terms of humanity; China may then be freed from its present ideological predicament.

In the ongoing momentous upheavals unseen in a century, the failure to be humble and keep adjusting oneself, coupled with blind self-confidence and disregard for the commonality with other countries, will only lead to self-isolation.

China has been very successful so far. While it does not want to change itself to pander to other countries - and that is the right stance to take - there are certain urgent issues to address. Besides elevating its own standards, it needs to gain approval and acceptance by the majority of the world's countries and people, and not be seen as an "alien".

From this perspective, wolf warrior diplomacy should probably be replaced by "thought emancipation diplomacy", that is, to explain to the world the virtues of China's system, policies and practices in actualising a system of human values that is identical (or similar) to and even more encompassing than their own, while demonstrating a willingness to continue to improve. Better this, than perpetually rebutting and taunting the West.

Narrow nationalistic self-inflation knows no bounds. It is a persistent feeling that one's country is not receiving the status and respect it deserves, that other people are acting in a "disrespectful" manner, and that one should be taking stronger stances against foreign "unfriendlies". As such, it is easy to lose control and take a confrontational or oppositional road that leads nowhere.

There could hardly be good relations, and war would not be far off, with the numero uno on the decline and in a vile mood, and the number two on the rise and hot-tempered.

The number two should avoid showing off. To the numero uno, eliminating the number two while it is still weak is the best course of action. It will necessarily pick a fight with the rising power at every turn, and the latter must avoid giving it any opportunity or excuse to do so.

Indeed, China and the rest of the world are still in need of the US in many aspects. Over the last century, there have been many instances of number twos being beaten to the ground when they went for a showdown too soon, thereby bringing their national rejuvenation to a premature end - think Germany, the USSR and Japan.

China should avoid making the same mistake. China must learn to live with the numero uno that has become a little thuggish due to self-degradation.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as "求同以避战".

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