Martin Jacques - When China Rules the World

The idea that East Asia in future will owe as much to the tributary system as the Westphalian system will inevitably influence how China views the wider international system. Moreover if East Asia, as the most important region in the world, operates according to different criteria to other parts of the global system, then this is bound to colour behaviour and norms elsewhere. In other words, the tributary state system will not only shape China ’s outlook but, in the context of its global hegemony, also serve to influence the international system more widely. As the writer David Kang suggests, the modalities of East Asia in terms of interstate relations, from being ignored or marginalized until the end of the Cold War, will increasingly assume the role of one of the world’s major templates. [1247] [1247] Ibid., pp. 57–85.

Two key characteristics of the tributary system were the overwhelming size of China in comparison with its neighbours and a mutual acceptance of and acquiescence in Chinese superiority. In the era of globalization, these characteristics, certainly the first, might be transferred on to a wider canvas. Such will be the relative economic size and power of China that it is likely to find itself in relationships of profound inequality with many countries outside, as well as within, East Asia; as a result, they are likely to find themselves highly dependent on China. The most obvious example of this is Africa and to a lesser extent various Latin American countries like Peru and Bolivia; in other words, developing countries which are predominantly commodity-producers. [1248] [1248] It is noteworthy that in 2006 the Chinese government committed to establish special economic enclaves in five African countries where Chinese businesses are to enjoy privileged treatment as well as preferential access to Chinese capital and African markets; Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, eds, China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace (London: Hurst, 2008), pp. 357-8. As China ’s voracious appetite for raw materials grows apace, more and more such countries are likely to enter into its orbit. It has even been mooted that China might lease, or even buy, overseas farmland in Latin America and Australia in order to boost its supply of food. [1249] [1249] ‘ China “May Lease Foreign Fields”’, 29 April 2008, posted on www.bbc. co.uk/news. There is an understandable tendency to see China ’s emergent relationship with these countries in the same terms as those of the West, past and present. This, however, is to underestimate the difference between China and the West, and therefore the novelty of the situation. Given the huge disparity in size, rather than seeing it in basically colonial or neocolo nial terms, perhaps it would be more appropriate to think of this relationship in neo-tributary terms. To what extent the other characteristic of the tributary system — an acceptance of China ’s cultural superiority — might also become a factor is more difficult to judge, although, in light of the Chinese mentality, there will certainly be powerful elements of this. It is important, however, to place these points in a broader context. China ’s rise will be accompanied by that of other major developing countries, such as India and Brazil, and these are likely to act in some degree as a constraint on China ’s power and behaviour.

At the height of the British Empire in 1913, Britain accounted for only 2.5 per cent of the world’s population, while Western Europe represented 14.6 per cent. By 2001 Western Europe ’s share had fallen to 6.4 per cent. In 2001, when the United States was the world’s sole superpower, it comprised a mere 4.6 per cent of the world’s population. The proportion accounted for by the West as a whole — including Eastern Europe and countries like Australia but excluding the former USSR — was 13.9 per cent in 2001. China, in contrast, comprised 20.7 per cent of the world’s population in 2001. [1250] [1250] Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics (Paris: OECD, 2003), p. 258. Moreover, whatever the obvious commonalities — historical, cultural and ethnic — that serve to link and cohere the Western world, this is very different from the unity and cohesion that China enjoys as a single nation. The true comparison is China ’s 20.7 per cent against the US ’s 4.6 per cent. In other words China, as the world’s leading country, will enjoy a demographic weight that is qualitatively different from that of any previous hegemonic power in the modern era.

The basis of democracy is that numbers count. Hitherto this proposition has been confined within the boundaries of each individual nation-state. It has never found any form of expression at a supranational, let alone global, level, with the possible exception of the United Nations General Assembly — which, predictably, enjoys virtually no power. Institutions like the IMF and the World Bank have never sought to be democratic but instead reflect the economic and political clout of those countries that founded them, hence the dominance of the United States and to a lesser extent Europe, with the US enjoying in effect the power of veto. The Western world order has — in its post-1945 idiom — placed a high premium on democracy within nation-states while attaching zero importance to democracy at the global level. As a global order, it has been anti-democratic and highly authoritarian. The emergence of China as the globally dominant nation is very unlikely to usher in a new kind of democratic global governance, but the rise of developing nations like India, Brazil and Russia, along with China, should herald, in a rough and ready way, a more democratic global economy. The huge mismatch between national wealth on the one hand and size of population on the other that has characterized the last two centuries will be significantly reduced. For the developing world, including the most populous countries, poverty has meant marginalization or effective exclusion from global decision-making; economic power, in contrast, is a passport to global enfranchisement. Or, to put it another way, a global economic regime based on the BRICS (namely Brazil, Russia, India and China), together with other developing countries, will be inherently more democratic than the Western regime that has previously prevailed. Furthermore, the fact that China, as the top dog, is so numerous will in itself introduce a more democratic element, albeit in the crudest sense, to the global polity. One-fifth of the world, after all, is rather more representative than the US ’s 4.6 per cent. [1251] [1251] For a very interesting article on the decline of the United States, and the West, in this context, see Niall Ferguson, ‘ Empire Falls ’, October 2006, posted on www.vanityfair.com.

That China, as a global power, will be so numerous will have many consequences. China will exercise a gravitational pull and also have a centrifugal impact on the rest of the world. There will be many aspects to this push-pull phenomenon. The size of the Chinese market means that, in time, it will inevitably become by far the world’s largest. As a result, it will also assume the role of de facto yardstick for most global standards and regulations. The size of its domestic market will also have the consequence that Chinese companies will be the biggest in the world, as will the Chinese stock exchanges. In the 1950s Europeans were astounded by the scale of all things American; in the future, these will be dwarfed by the magnitude of all things Chinese. Even the position of Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world is under threat, with the gaming revenues of Macao on the verge of overtaking those of the former by 2007. An example of China ’s centrifugal impact is offered by Chinese migration. China will be a net exporter of people, as Europe was until the mid twentieth century, but unlike the United States, which remains a net importer. [1252] [1252] Angus Maddison, The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective (Paris: OECD,2006), p. 128. A small insight into what this might mean is provided by the rapid migration of hundreds of thousands of Chinese to Africa in the first few years of the twenty-first century. If the economic relationship between China and Africa continues to develop along the same lines in the future, Chinese settlers in sub-Saharan Africa could come to represent a significant minority of its population. It is not inconceivable that large numbers of Chinese might eventually migrate to Japan to compensate for its falling population, though this would require a sea-change in Japan ’s attitude towards immigration. It is estimated that the Chinese minority there, legal and illegal, presently numbers up to 400,000. [1253] [1253] Howard W. French, ‘For Old Rivals, a Chance at a Grand New Bargain’, International Herald Tribune , 9 February 2007. The Chinese are already a rapidly growing minority in Russia, especially in the Russian Far East. In comparison with Americans, then, if not necessarily with the Europeans before them, the Chinese will be far more ubiquitous in the world.