Xue Li,professor at IWEP/CASS

Cheng Zhangxi post-doctor at IWEP/CASS

The previous article suggested that China may be committed to building a Chinese Order Governed by Li(礼), which it regards Li as the key means to conducting relationships; it is based on a concentric zone structure; and it is open. Whilst this order is compatible with the current international system, the majority of the members of this order will be China’s neighbouring countries, as well as a small number of countries from other continents.

By which time, will China replace the global leadership currently held by the United States? This depends on two factors. First, does China have such a desire? Second, does China have such capacity?

Chinese leaders including Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping have all clearly stated that “China will never seek hegemony”. Xi Jinping also further mentioned that China “is not willing to become the so-called ‘world police’, nor to replace anyone”. This can approximately be seen as China does not have the desire to replace the United States’ role. Some may argue that country’s will is volatile, and that capacity matters, and that China will change its will when its capacity is enough. Is China’s capacity likely to exceed that of the United States then?

One country’s capacity could be divided into ‘hard power’ and ‘soft power’. Hard power, particularly economic capacity and military strength, is the foundation of the United States’ global leading role after the WWII. But only when hard power and soft power come together can a necessary and sufficient condition rise for a global leader. The soft power of the United States is mainly embodied in the construction and leadership of the international system, the attributes of Christianity, the development of science and technology and higher education, and the relatively loose immigration policy.

At the end of the WWII, the United States accounted for 60% of the global GDP and its industrial production capacity was half of that of the world. Amongst which, oil and steel production accounted for 70% and 64% of the world’s total respectively, plus 73.4% of the gold reserves of the entire capitalist world at the time. With these hard power forming the foundation, in addition to the United States’ advanced production capacity and technology development, the United States’ military strength at the end of the WWII was sufficient to beat allies formed by the rest of world.

The United States has always been the largest economy in the world after the WWII and built a global alliance system and a network of global military bases at the same time.

Unlike the Great Britain, France and other countries that exert international influence through colonies, the United States prefers to govern the world by establishing a series of international system: the United Nations and its affiliates in the political and security aspect, the alliance system and military bases network in the military aspect, the Bretton Woods system in the finance aspect, and the GATT in the trade aspect.

Associated with the Great Geographical Discovery is the global expansion of the European countries. However, the Europe itself , as global dominant power, dashed to world war twice. Not only did these remove the European capability to lead the world, also declared the the European failure in world governance. It is a nightmare for European powers that the global leadership  was taken by the Soviet Union or a non-Christian country (the EU’s attitude towards Turkey’s EU membership is an iron-clad evidence). Hence, the Christian identity, superior capacity, and its role in the WWII made the United States an ideal option for the European countries. Furthermore, the outbreak of the WWII also freed the United States from isolationism, while the wide distribution of Christians in the world significantly lowered the world governance cost for the United States.

In a nation-state system, the cost of cross-civilization governance is extremely high, and the United States handled this issue preferably by other means.

The United States was already ranking first in the world in terms of industrial output in 1894. However, it was not until after the WWII did it surpass European countries in terms of technology and higher education development. During this period, the “American spirit”which differed from the “European spirit” started to take shape. Given the rapid development of the United States in humanities and social sciences, as well as the flow of European intellectuals during the WWII, the United States, by this stage, had replaced the European countries as the global centre for scientific research and higher education, thereby attracted talents from all over the world.

The relatively loose immigration policy also promoted this trend. As a result of “gathering global talents”, the United States gained unrivalled innovation capacity and became a universal “new home town”for capable peoples from different countries and civilizations. After the WWII, the United States consequently contributed more than 50% of the Nobel Prize winners. This greatly reduced the cost of the US’s world governance. The US will keep its advantage in attracting high quality immigrants in the foreseeable future.

The WWII provided the US an exceptional opportunity to become a world leader.To reconstruct the world order through world wars is hard to image in the era of nuclear weapons. Given that a peaceful rise is the only realistic choice for China at present, China can only surpass the United States in some aspects such as GDP, national defence expenditures, the number of international students, etc. In terms of the number of alliance, global military bases, the influences to the United Nations and its affiliates, the influences to the global finance sectors and so forth, it is very difficult for China to  be the rival of the United States.

Cross-civilization governance costs dearly. In contrast to Christian and Islamic civilizations which are relatively close to universal civilization, Chinese civilization is a typical regional civilization – this significantly raises the cost of China’s global governance and limits China’s global appeal. Further, considering that it is difficult for China to attract global talents like the United States and become their “new hometown”, China is highly unlikely to outperform the United States in the aspects of higher education, scientific research and innovation.

In the process of its rise, China is likely to concentrate on building its own order or system. However, this will be at large regional influential, and mainly reflected in the non-military aspects. China is expected to establish international mechanisms that confined to certain areas (such as the AIIB), but again, dominant international organizations like the United Nations will be impossible for China.

All in all, China is unlikely to replace the United States’ global role after its rise.