China’s emergence as an economic force and lately as a broker of peace opens up an opportunity for the rest of the world. Indeed, nations need to work together, with China and the West perhaps shifting the paradigm that we knew from the narratives of the current leaders of the world order.
The China as we know today, often depicted as a deceptor and a threat to current world order, is ambitious and confident. It is steadfast in strides to secure its rightful place and demands to be reckoned with.
Working with the leaders of other nations, China has captivated their attention and embraced the realities with pragmatism. Since 1978, China, under Deng Xiaoping, had begun a program of economic reforms called “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” that embraced openness to trade and investment, including the foreign investment.
The United States in the 1970s and 1980s saw this as an opportunity for enhanced engagement with China as it offered a lucrative source for servicing its rising consumption appetite, exploiting the abundant cheap and disciplined labour the nation had to offer.
For China, it was a move towards acquiring technology, science, and management skills. American companies started moving their production base into China, and the widening US economic interaction and its investments served as a bellwether for China’s emergence as a hotspot for foreign investors, particularly from more advanced neighbours such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Japan.
Three decades on, China itself has become capable of mastering technology and business models that once were exclusively the realm of US and Western European countries.
While the United States, the current leader of the so-called free-world, remains guided by its “strategic interest” and goal to sustain “global leadership,” it has managed to play its hegemonic intentions, causing catastrophes and human disasters, often camouflaging them under the veil of establishing a moral order (recollect the avowed pretext and events leading up to the invasion and consequent disaster in Iraq).
The rest of the world, including those whom the US calls “like minded,” may aspire for a “just and sustainable international order where the rights and responsibilities of nations and peoples are upheld, especially the fundamental rights of every human being”(quoting from a White House Statement dated January 3, 2012 signed by President Barack Obama on “Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” Defense Technical Information Center, US Department of Defense).
One may have doubts about the likelihood of this outcome in our lifetime or whether this is at all achievable, however, one may rightly argue, gravitating the priorities and endeavours towards materializing a just and international order indeed should be the focus of strategies and principles behind actions taken by a nation.
The conundrum is figuring out what is “just” and converge to that goal -- an action may be just in the eyes of one, and unjust in the eyes of another -- as moral values, often shaped by religions, cultural norms, and history can lead to varied goals for varied nations.
It is easier to focus on one’s own needs, and the pursuit of strategic interest as defined by the needs of the present and future contexts faced by a particular nation, is an imperative force.
Strategic interest, arguably, is not a concept that leads to permanence of ideas or a set of actions applicable for all contexts and all time. What was once considered as a compulsive strategic interest, may not remain so, as time passes by.
Moreover, many adventurous or strategic interventions in worldly affairs are often proven fruitless or disastrous, benefitting neither the perpetrators nor the recipient. Would that lend credence to the strategic interest argument?
Consider the Iraq invasion: Iraq now is not free, and neither stable, nor prosperous. Moreover, the businesses mostly have gone to the Chinese, who remained as a bystander planning its next move to seize on the opportunity that brewed in the debris.
Pundits may argue how the US has gained from their illegal invasion in Iraq, a move that was spiced with a concoction of mass deception, or how it served its national interest.
In hindsight, the US is still bearing the heavy burden of fiscal pressures (the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commentary by Anthony H Cordesman in “America’s Failed Strategy in the Middle-East: Losing Iraq and the Gulf”) indicates that the US Department of Defense estimates showed it spent over $765 billion on the Iraq conflict and the fight against ISIS as of March 31, 2019.
This does not include the direct costs incurred by other departments or agencies, which may reach another $100 billion. Moreover, the other indirect costs are likely to be colossal too, not even counting the human tragedy and casualties.
Faced with this not-so-ideal world, where might often becomes the right and monopolization of world order by a unipolar hegemon poses existential threat, with all of the sophistry and sophistication, there remains a glimmer of hope that better days could come. If the emerging forces prioritize the pursuit of a just and sustainable world that benefits humanity across the nations, positive change becomes achievable.
The Chinese narrative therefore may appear as a compelling alternative to many. China’s emergence as a leading nation of the world should ensure that its path towards the rightful place in history is not plagued by the narratives of a Chinese virus or the Great Leap Forward -- but as a compassionate state with empathy and hope for all.
As Economics often tends to drive the power to influence, China appears to many as a partner that offers the most attractive pathway towards economic transformation.
Indeed, it makes it a principle to work with all nations and the Chinese people remain among the friendliest individuals in the world, representing the culture and ideas of an age-old revered civilization, spanning thousands of years in recorded history.
The world needs China and its emergence may well be an opportunity to shape the world order towards a more just and sustainable world. How the rest of the world gravitates towards taking China in their sphere may well be a chapter in recorded history that will likely be instrumental to the yet-to-come free-world of the newer generations.
Abdullah Al Masud is an economist, currently a Consultant Business Economist at Dohatec New Media, Bangladesh. Previously, he was the Registrar at the University of Asia Pacific in Dhaka.
