This is the blog version of a series of posts I had done in a WhatsApp group, to answer a simple question someone asked: "What does China want?" after the latest round of India-China skirmishes in the Himalayas. To answer this, I used the concepts of "world order" and "regime change". A world order is a setup where one or a few nations or empires determine how the rest of the world will work (and play) with each other; be it trade or monetary relationships, social or cultural interactions, how wars and treaties will be conducted. A regime change is what happens when an old world order gives way to a new world order. The forces that trigger a regime change are set in motion many decades in advance; through philosophical (thinking) changes, that trigger science and technology changes, that in turn trigger military and social changes, and those in turn trigger political changes.
1648-1770: The Peace of Westphalia in Europe, Age of Empires in Asia. This was when Europe decided that it needed to stop fighting over religious causes, and create mechanisms for co-existence. This ended the bloodshed of the thirty years war (that started in 1618) and guaranteed state sovereignty and minority rights (to a large extent). Asia, on the other hand, was ruled by a set of centralized empires: Ottoman Turks, Safavid (Iran), Mughals (India), and Qing (China). India and China had the two largest economies in the world. The trade routes that Europe coveted were in the possession of the Ottomans. Vienna was almost lost to the Ottomans in 1683, if it wasn't for Jan Sobieski, the grand-duke of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.
1770-1815: Regime change: The Revolutions. This was a period of the three major revolutions: the Industrial revolution, American revolution, and the French revolution. In Africa and Asia, the Western powers were slowly carving up the land and started sucking wealth out of the decaying, unindustrialized regimes to serve the needs of the industrializing west. The combination of colonization and industrialization created new trade networks, primarily centered around London and Paris. It slowly started creating the European middle class that wanted more participation in national politics. In the British American colonies, demands for "no taxation without representation" eventually led to a full blown revolution, their independence, and the creation of a new republic based on the "self-evident truth that all men are created equal". A combination of factors resulted in the overthrow of the French monarchy, abolishing the feudal system, and the subsequent reign of terror; but not without the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen. The French First republic eventually gave way to the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte. Although short-lived (1804-1815), the empire ruled over large parts of western and central Europe, and introduced Napoleonic code throughout the continent, one of the earliest widely adopted civil code in Europe. All three revolutions were triggered by a combination of scientific and technological changes, as well as changes inspired by the philosopher's thinking about individual rights and freedom.
1815-1914: Congress of Vienna, a new European world order: After the defeat of Napoleon and the fall of First French Empire; the four great powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia) and (the restored) Bourbon France met at the Congress of Vienna to create a new order. The aim of the victorious powers was to preserve the imperial status-quo and the balance of power, and prevent the spread of radical liberal ideas that could threaten the foundation of the monarchies. The first part of this phase (1815-1848) is called the "Age of Metternich", after the Austrian foreign minister, Klemens von Metternich. In the Americas, almost all of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies had become independent, and the Monroe Doctrine was the defining order, although the US didn't develop an army or navy to actually enforce the doctrine. This order got its first shock in the revolutions of 1848 in Italy, France, Austria-Hungary, German states, and Denmark. The revolutions didn't succeed anywhere other than France: which brought Napoleon III to power. But they exposed enough cracks in the system.
The second shock was the German unification in 1871, following Prussia’s victory over France. This sowed the seeds for the building two parallel alliances that eventually led Europe into the madness of the First World War. The crumbling Turkish Empire was making the Balkans unstable, with the newly independent states (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro) fighting for territory, and the great powers picking sides. And, during this period, the European powers and Japan had carved up all of Asia for itself.
1914-1918: Regime change, the first world war. The unraveling of the previous world order started soon after 1871 when, instead of striving for a "balance of power", the European powers renewed jostling for more power both in the continent and in the colonies in Asia and Africa. This resulted in two very unstable blocks (the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente) where a spark in one corner lit the flames of war across the entire continent and brought down four imperial systems. The world in 1914 was more interconnected than before, and yet that interconnectedness and dependence on trade couldn't prevent a global war.
1918-1939: The third European World order: Empires fall, but the republics fail. This was a failed world order. The new world order was created through the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations, but resulted in a very unstable system. The new republics created out of the fallen empires were internally weak and unstable, the economic shocks (German and Austrian hyperinflation, Great Depression) generated enough impetus for fascism and communism. And soon enough, Japan had an empire big enough to threaten Britain and the US in the east, and Germany was rearmed enough to become the strongest military in Europe again. The new order to keep Germany down and to "end wars" crumbled in twenty years.
1939-1945: Regime change: the second world war. The attempts of the western powers (Britain and France) to keep Nazi Germany focused on the east (Munich pact) and that of the Soviets to keep them away from Russia (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) failed as all of Europe, Asia, and North Africa erupted in another world war. In the east, Imperial Japan's "co-prosperity sphere" was their attempt in securing the raw materials and labor needed for their continued industrialization. That push involved the taking of French Indo-China, (US) Philippines, British Malaysia and knocking on the doors of British India at one end, and Hawaii at the other end. The Nazi empire stretched from the Atlantic to the gates of Moscow. But eventually, the allies fought back. The highest casualties (military and civilian combined) from the second world war were in the Soviet Union and China.
One could argue that the whole period from 1912 (beginning of the first Balkan War) to 1945 (end of the second war) was an extended regime-change from an Imperial order run by the European Great Powers to a new world order run by the US and USSR.
1945-1991: The American-Soviet World Order. At the end of the second World War, Western Europe found itself occupied and divided. So, the victors took another shot at creating a new world order, through the United Nations. The UN now became the accepted forum to express international hatred (according to Yes, Prime Minister). As the Iron Curtain was falling, the Americans brought everyone they thought would be on their side together in the Bretton Woods system and NATO. Global trade and security, paid for by the US taxpayers, in return for being "on our side", united against communism. Everyone had to pick a side, and although there was this thing called the non-aligned movement, it was mostly a joke. In spite of miscalculations like the Cuban missile crisis, and misadventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan, both the superpowers acted relatively responsibly.
1991-now: American order, on auto-pilot. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states made the US the sole superpower. The one highlight of this post-Soviet regime change has been the (relatively) low loss of blood, compared to the previous regime changes. The second highlight has been the ideological triumph of free market capitalism and its role in bringing over a billion people out of poverty in Asia. The first 15 years saw the expansion of democracy, creation of new countries, and the hope that democracy and liberalism will prevail all over the world. The institutions of the old world order expanded to include the former Soviet states (that were once part of the former Czarist Russian empire) to a point where many of them now have US troops protecting them from Russia. The post 9/11 War on Terror dragged on, with many forgetting why the US was there in the first place. And, after the economic crisis of 2008-2009 the voters in the western countries are expressing their dissatisfaction with the current system: through Brexit, Trumpism, the popularity of right-wing and left-wing populist movements in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Voters in many countries are opting for an "illiberal democracy" and trending towards authoritarianism. The triumphant march towards global liberal democracy and a free-trade system running under the benevolent and watchful eyes of the US security umbrella seems to have stalled. It is unclear if the current period will go down in history as another extended regime change, and if a new order will emerge peacefully. Or, if the old order has the capability of bouncing back?
Wait, what does this long history lesson have to do with what does China want?
Well, what a nation wants has to be evaluated in the context of who is in charge. Right now, like it or not, the United States is still in charge. And China is acutely aware that there maybe a window of opportunity for it to shape a new world order, with a diminished role for the United States and an enhanced role for itself, at least in the Asia-Pacific.
I believe China wants to go back to its historical position of being at the "center of the world", the Middle Kingdom, at least as far as East Asia and the Pacific is concerned, but using the framework of the current order. The state driven capitalism of the last 40 years have given China a surplus that it is using to rebuild their country: economically, militarily, and diplomatically; to get back to a position so that the "century of humiliation" is never repeated again. But, first and foremost, China wants stability, continuity, and territorial integrity before it can project its power as the Middle Kingdom. Next, it wants its masses to stay employed, mainly by manufacturing goods that get easy access to markets in the Western World, and keep delivering the hard cash it needs to keep repeating the cycle. It wants guaranteed access to the Middle East oil, and to raw materials all over the globe to maintain its position. And therefore, it needs One Belt, One Road (or BRI: Belt Road Initiative). And yes, China does not want the West telling them how to run their shop, at least not publicly.
China's growth and success in the current world order will ensure that it has no incentive to bring the current globalized economic system down. But, it is also clear that it is a bit uncomfortable to keep playing (and maybe winning) the game when the rules have been written by someone else. Because, the one who wrote the rules (the United States) may start changing it in response to domestic political pressures.
But China's regional situation isn't yet conducive to Middle Kingdom status. China has the largest number of neighbors of any country in the world: 20 (14 on land, 6 on the sea). There is a history of enmity, suspicion, and centuries of war with many of them. China's navy still has a long way to go before it can project the kind of power that the US projects now, or what Great Britain or Imperial Japan projected in the past. Again, China's one belt one road and its dual-use ports are examples of baby steps towards this power projection strategy. China's border skirmishes are also a way to project power externally and keep the masses nationalistic internally.
Whether China will be ready with an alternative order before the time runs out on the current order, only time will tell.
Post-script: The two books that helped me crystallize my thoughts on this topic are Henry Kissinger's World Order, and Peter Zeihan's Disunited Nations.
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