Is China trying to displace US as top global power? Two analysts differ
Two prominent China analysts debated on Tuesday whether Beijing is attempting to supplant Washington as the foremost global power.
Speaking during a South China Morning Post webinar about the state of multilateralism under US President Donald Trump, Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, countered an assertion by David Firestein, CEO of the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, that Beijing was primarily seeking "a place at the table that is commensurate with its heft".
The prevailing assumption "both in the executive and legislative branches that China seeks to displace the United States and supplant the United States as the world's only superpower ... is a misreading of China's strategic intentions", said Firestein, who spent 18 years as a foreign service officer in the US Department of State.
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"I think China wants to do a lot of things, and I think a lot of the things that China wants to do are very problematic for the United States, but I don't think that China aspires to be the United States 2.2, the so-called world's policeman, [with] boots on the ground in 100 countries," he said.
Economy pointed to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - a series of rail, road and sea infrastructure projects connecting more than 70 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa - as evidence of President Xi Jinping's "breathtaking" ambition for his country, the world's most populous.
The Chinese government is "looking for the rights without the responsibilities of global leadership", said Economy, who is also a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of the 2018 book The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State.
"Xi Jinping has 2,000 pages worth of his speeches collected in three volumes, and if you read through those speeches, the ambition is breathtaking.
"It deals with unification of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South China Sea, with transforming the geopolitical strategic landscape through the Belt and Road," she said. "This is training officials in Africa on how to model their internet governance laws after China, and this is ... the level of global governance norms where the ambition is no less than to say that authoritarian states and their values should hold equal weight with democratic states and their universal values."
Some BRI projects - funded primarily through loans provided by China's three government policy banks, the large state-owned banks, and sovereign wealth funds such as the Silk Road Fund - have attracted controversy, with accusations that they push developing nations into "debt traps" and give Beijing political leverage around the world.
Sri Lanka's Hambantota port, for example, is one of the most controversial BRI developments. Paid for with Chinese money, Colombo was forced to hand over the running of the facility to a Chinese firm in 2017 after it was unable to meet its debt repayments.
A Chinese company now runs the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. Photo: Handout alt=A Chinese company now runs the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. Photo: Handout
The webinar panel - which also included Jeremie Waterman, president of the US Chamber of Commerce's China Centre - found agreement on other points.
They were in unison in condemning the trade war Trump launched in 2018, pointing out that the US trade deficit with China is now larger than it was before Trump took office, and that there's little evidence that punitive tariffs have brought manufacturing jobs back to the US.
"What this administration has lacked is an overarching framework for engaging allies to include ... a coherent approach on trade policy or a consistent approach that brings allies together on the most important regulatory issues of concern ... that we have with China," Waterman said.
Economy and Waterman also agreed that despite the counterproductive aspects of Trump's unilateralism with regard to China, his administration has made progress in countering the influence of BRI. In particular, Economy lauded Trump's establishment of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which provides funding and other incentives for private companies to develop infrastructure projects worldwide.
Last year, Congress authorised US$60 billion in DFC funding, which is far short of the estimated US$126 billion that China provided for belt and road initiatives in 2018 alone. However, proponents of the US plan argue that supporting projects that private investors want ensures efficiency and stronger market rationale.
"There has been a subtle shift and focus on our Asian partners, strengthening relations with Vietnam, for example," Economy said. "I think not having the president lead on this type of activity sends a message to other leaders, it makes them unsure about the US commitment.
"With the Defence Department, State [Department], National Security Council, certainly the top Asia people, who are creating and helping to direct policy, they are all very committed to a multilateral internationalist policy around security and around competition with China," she added. "So I do think that that would continue" if Democratic challenger Joe Biden wins the upcoming presidential election.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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