Global Power Structure Shifted and Transitional Multi-polarity Emerged
2010/07/17
abstract
Historic changes occurred in the first decade of the 21st century. Deepening globalization brings unprecedented peace and prosperity. The big development, big adjustment and big change create opportunity for peaceful transition of modern international system. The outbreak of the international financial crisis had shaken the global power structure all together. "We are now living through the third great power shift of the modern era. The first was the rise of the Western world around 15th century. The second shift was the rise of the United States in the 19th Century. It is now the third shift called 'the rise of the rest',” wrote Fareed Zakaria.[①] Neil Ferguson is one the concoctors of the word “Chimerica”. He thought that the past decade saw the world tilting from west to east. The international strategic posture in 2009 shifted swiftly. The major powers of the world sped up regrouping. Any shift of the balance of global powers will inevitably lead to the emergence of a new international configuration.
I. Significant Shift in the Global Balance of Power
Currently, there are six forces in the center of international arena: the United States, EU, Japan, Russia, China and the emerging power group, playing an important role at the global level. These six forces fall into two groups: the first three forces are the traditional power group while the latter three are emerging power group. As a basic trend of the six forces, the United States, EU, Japan and Russia are declining helplessly in status to varying degrees, while China and other emerging powers go up continuously, correspondingly, rapidly and unstoppably.
In general, the United States and Europe have to rely unprecedentedly on the emerging countries to overcome the crisis, which shows a trend that Pax America is over, U.S. has relatively declined, Europe and Japan watered down in respect of global affairs. West is shifting from the absolute predominance to a comparative predominance. But they still have a very strong vitality and control. They will not easily give up the dominant position. Emerging powers recovered quickly from the crisis as they were modestly hit by the crisis. Therefore, they are the beneficiary of the reform of the world economy and the international financial system. The two groups are working hard for change and innovation and compete with each other. The global balance of power is moving in the direction of equalization. Decentralization of power is the game of the day, though the balance of power of the two groups will remain unbalanced for the foreseeable future.
A brief preview of the six major forces in a span of decade is as follows.
1. The United States has been falling from the apex of its power since the Bush administration. A mood of “new declinism” emerged within the United States. The relative decline of the U.S. power can be illustrated mainly in the following aspects: the U.S. share of the world GDP has dropped by a half; the unemployment rate remains high; its global financial influence declines; U.S. dollar is unbearably vulnerable; the federal budget deficit will reach as high as $9.05 trillion in the next decade according to the U.S. Treasury Department; the bonds are now scaled at $12 trillion; U.S. is strategically over-stretched; it is extremely hard to get rid of the strategic predicament and to conduct strategic contraction and adjustment; the United States is severely entangled in the issues concerning the Muslim world; the Christmas bombing, though abortive, pulled back Obama administration to the task of anti-terrorism; Yemen has become a new terror nightmare or even the “third battleground” to U.S.; and the immediate consequence of globalization is the stronger interdependence. America's prosperity and security depend on whether or not the rest of the world and people will take action. However, U.S. foreign policy has yet to grasp this simple fact.[②]
The United States is unable to solve major issues of this era alone; the U.S. soft power, the international influence, such as values, model, culture, morality and so on have declined in general and its overseas moral image precipitates in particular, which leads to an insufficient legitimacy; changes at home ties up its attention and resources. Historical experience shows that hegemonic cycle will last for about 1 or 2 centuries. The peak of the American hegemony is over. U.S. now has fallen to the nadir of its strategic status, thanks to its economic mismanagement, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, continuing ascent of other countries, and globalization. Under the new historical conditions, the U.S. power is slow to meet the entirely new challenges worldwide, though it will take quite a long period before U.S. further moves from relative decline to absolute decline if peacefully.
America's relative decline is mainly caused by rapid rising of emerging powers. The absolute prowess and comprehensive national strength of the United States has little changed. The United States will remain the strongest power in the world over a fairly long period, far ahead of other powers. Its GDP is $1.4 trillion more than that of China, Japan and Germany put together.
The U.S. prowess derived from in 1990s when it took the lead in the overall transitioning to the new economy beyond the industrial civilization, which further stimulate innovation and competitiveness, advancing in civilization transition; the force of the new economy in turn translated into the new military power, enabling U.S to conduct a full-scale information warfare and with a military spending worth 40% of the world’s total military spending with no match in the world; U.S. has the will and ability to lead the world; it is able to make use of globalization and the international mechanization, and in possession of the systematic power, the power of setting international agenda and power of action.
The U.S. hegemony will end up in a fashion of gradual sliding, which will take place over a matter of half a century if in a peaceful condition. The U.S. prospect in the long term will depend on whether the United States can accomplish successful transformation to meet the historical trend. In the near term, it will depend on two factors: First, the pace of economic recovery; Second, out of the two wars as early as possible. The overall situation will depend on whether the changes home and abroad anticipated by Obama administration will work out and whether the smart power strategy will succeed. In view of the current situation, Obama seems to plunge into a “paradox of change”: change necessitates compromise, while compromise stems change”. That “Obama fever” has cooled down is an apparent case in point. Domestic politics stands in the way of Obama's foreign policy vision. The year one of Obama's diplomacy saw daunting difficulties and few bright points. Nevertheless, U.S. is most likely to return to its good old days to redraw its strategic atlas, once it has recovered from financial crisis. The U.S. global strategy is to substitute “multi-partnership” for “multipolarity”, establishing the U.S.-led “world of partnership”, a strategy that attach as much important to U.S., Europe, Japan alliance, quasi-alliances, ad hoc alliances or coalition of the willing as to U.S.-China partnership. In the "U.S.-China Joint Statement", the United States welcomes a strong, prosperous, successful China that plays a greater role in international affairs. On the opening ceremony of the China-US strategic economic dialogue held in July 2009, Obama said, “U.S.-China relations will shape the 21st century.” The U.S.-China match seems become the newest foreign policy option via which U.S. tries to control the world economic order and to implement global strategic management.
2. “China wave” comes along with the advent of new century. Zakaria, editor in chief of the Time magazine, viewed the rise of China as the most important events affecting the world in the first decade of the 21st century. On the opening ceremony of the first “U.S. China Economic and Strategic Dialogue” held in June 2009, President Obama said there is nothing in this world can be resolved by the United States and China alone, nor can it be solved without them. Obama is true to the fact that no issue, be it global climate change or the world finance, can be solved without the effective participation of China. Copenhagen Climate Summit is a good case in point. That the term “G2” enters into the international discourse also reflects the rising influence of China. The strengthening and rising of China, thanks to globalization, will be bound to exert a far-reaching impact on the international configuration and even on the course of the world history.
Thanks to its development model, comprehensive strength and Oriental culture, China rises in an all-dimensional manner and become one of the decisive forces in transforming the original international configuration, pulling the pendulum of history back to the East-West equilibrium. China’s GDP has increased half as much again in the previous decade and became the largest exporter of the world; China will be the second largest economy of the world for the next decade, though China remains in a long period of economic growing, with a focus on green economy and with a soaring attraction of its development model. China will greatly overpass the United States in the next decade in terms of economic growth rate, but the gap between them will remain large in terms of economic quality, sciences and technology, education, military, culture, social development and international leaderships.
Some Western countries maintain cold war mentality toward China. They are inadaptable to the rise of China, with unbalanced mentality and resistance. One thing is for sure, the U.S. had digested the rises of Europe, Japan and the "Four Dragons", but can hardly with China, as China develops faster and considerably different. At the same time, China faces a huge external pressure as it pursues an opening-up policy in its ascent. The pressure will get even greater China is regarded as economic, diplomatic and strategic challenges, which will expose China to an international environment more complicated than ever faced by a rising power. China should be fully aware of the challenges a rising power would face, before it can adopt an international strategy capable to eschew the external pressure disturbing China’s rise.
It will take time before China can alter the state of “a wealthy nation with weak populace”, despite China is turning strong. The next decade is key to China in solving the issues of institution reforms, economic and social transformation and wealth disparity as well as Taiwan problem. Therefore, China will be largely restrained by domestic issues. China should focus on the internal issues. Has China really solved the internal problems, can it truly rises and be able to make greater contribution to international affairs. In short, China's strategic opportunity is extending and the national ability to respond to risks and challenges is rapidly stepping up. China strives to turn challenges into opportunity, which helps maintain the momentum of rapid rising. China should and is in deed resort to soft strategy and combination of soft and hard power rather than the outright hard power to pursue energy, resources, market and influence. China should and is in deed make every effort to maintain the core national interests rather than seek hegemony and bear the responsibility beyond its means.
3. The emerging power group led by Brazil, South Africa, India and China, the BASIC four, and the middle-sized emerging power group, have maintained the momentum of economic growth, expanding their decision-making power and voice in international affairs and, with the shield of the Group of 77, gradually becoming the force of a pole. One of the most remarkable event of the world, brought about by the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is the emergence of a new organizational framework for developing countries, whose impact is far greater than the climate change negotiation per se. Ironically, Brazil, South Africa, India and Turkey, members of emerging powers, which the United States usually regards as the four most important "democracies", decline to take sides with U.S. on important international affairs, though they incline to take side with China instead. They often find themselves more in common with China than with the United States. In other words, they prove more of developing countries than "democracies".
The rise of emerging Asian countries is an epitome of the emerging countries on a global level. Asia's success will help build a balanced international order and a stable world order. In the absence of the U.S. participation, Asian countries have set up a series of regional mechanisms, institutions and organizations, accelerated regional strategic integration and speeded up the "10 3" cooperation process. As a symbol of the growing economic and political cooperation in Asia and the growing of its international status, China and ASEAN established a free trade zone on January 1, 2010, which is the most populous and made up exclusively of developing countries, and the third largest of the kind in the world. The free economic zone has a total GNP of about U.S.$6 trillion and U.S.4.5 trillion worth of foreign trade, which can compete with EU or NAFTA in total volume, enough to redraw the map of the world’s economy and trade.
However, the emerging countries themselves suffer from many internal problems and weakness. They are troubled with various discrepancies and even antagonism among themselves. They want effective mechanisms of communication and coordination, which often prevents the emerging countries from acting as a whole and effectively. Moreover, the gap within the developing countries are widening between the emerging countries, especially the emerging powers, and the sidelining countries. Thus, it is a new challenge to find ways for reconciling the interests and aspirations between the two and to explore new ideas and foundations to pursue cooperation.
4. The European countries have dropped out of the top three economies of the world. Financial crisis and declining prowess drags them backward in terms of comprehensive national strength and international influence. They are facing the threat of being marginalized in the world power structure. They harbor a sense of fear and resentment over the rise of emerging countries and worry about "the heart of the planet does not beat in the Christian West." Europeans "messed up" the Copenhagen conference. European leaders were sitting in a room, waiting for Obama to brief them on the result of its talk with the "BASIC four" leaders. Over time, under the auspices of the United States, the Europeans' extra seats in large international organizations and bodies will be transferred to the newly emerging powers. The EU adopted the "Lisbon Treaty" to elect a weak "president" and "foreign minister" and European leaders are confident to play a leading role in global governance. Meanwhile, European leaders are too self-confident of its comparative advantage lies in the power of values, trying to maintain moral superiority, continue to act as a human rights judge. In fact, in the next decade, the EU will invest great energy in addressing issues of internal integration, embarking a new round of political games, and performing continually as an endless arguing Hydra. The financial crisis highlights the cleavage in the European structure and the limit of integration. The European international influence depends largely on its ability to turn its green technology and funds into its advantage in the world economy and its leadership in global affairs, though Sino-US interaction will define the role of Europe.
5. Japan cannot get rid of recession, nor of domestic chaos. Its 10 years' development strategy contains only goals but measures. Japan will focus on domestic reforms for the foreseeable future. The ruling coalition must reconcile their internal divisions. The prospect of the bloodless Heisei Reformation is unpredictable. Externally, Japan has to adjust relations with U.S. and redefine Japanese-U.S. relations to build up an equitable and close Japanese-U.S. relations, while stepping up Japanese-Chinese relations, focusing on East Asian affairs, and promoting East Asian Community, though its influence in international affairs will certainly decline.
6. The Russian status of a mighty power is precarious, stagnant and unsustainable. To Russian people, strong to be regarded is more important than strong in fact. Russia relies mainly on Putin's personal prestige, energy and resources, which are fragile and prone to dropping out of a second-ranked power. Its development model is of no global significance. No global magnificence can speak of except strategic nuclear forces.
7. Great power relations over the next decade will be trended as follows: the U.S.-Japanese relations and the U.S.-European relations will be somewhat readjusted and turn downward; the Sino-U.S. relations, the Sino-Japanese relations, and China's relations with emerging powers will turn upward; Sino-EU relations will slopes downward; and traditional powers' relations with the emerging powers will head for the direction of relative balanced, coordinated competition and cooperated co-governance.
II. Transitional Multi-polar Configuration and Its Features
Modern structure of international system is a relatively stable, international core structure and a strategic posture constituted by the interaction among the world's major powers, group or groups of nations in a given historical period. The ongoing major redistribution of global powers is bound to bring about a transitional multi-polar configuration, which is substantially different from the balanced multi-polar configuration in European history. The two configurations are the products of transitional civilizations of the two different historical periods.
Transitional multi-polar configuration lies mainly in the following areas:
1. The international configuration in its modern sense has been controlled by the West from scratch. But now this tradition is going to be broken. The configuration will shift from the sole West's domination to the East-West co-domination or the co-domination by new and old powers. The international financial crisis has witnessed the shift of the world economic governance and the entire global governance from the "G7 era" to "G20 age". The new world order is in the offing, i.e., the future world affairs will increasingly be dominated by the co-domination. "G20" is undoubtedly playing the most important role, whose advent is the biggest bright spot of global governance in 2009. Copenhagen development in the last minute is a good case in point. Thanks to the common effort by the United States and the "BASIC four", the meeting finally reached the "Copenhagen Protocol." Although the agreement did not pass unanimously, it was "recognized" and become the basis and road map of future negotiations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out after the Copenhagen conference, that the world is under "transition." This transitional period is full of competition and conflict, but the mainstream will be selective cooperation, compromise and limited partnership on various issues rather than war and bloodshed. Therefore, the transitional multi-polar configuration is intrinsic, though it will manifest mainly in the process of its development and will take time for its final formation.
2. As the biggest change of this new configuration, China and U.S. outweigh the rest of forces. Since power means responsibility, China's responsibility will increase. The major points of the change of international configuration worth to be watched is that the narrowing gap of strengths between China and U.S. will lead to the increase of symmetry and equity between the two powers. They have upgraded their mutual relationship to a global level, and defined the relationship as "partnership to meet common challenges". China and U.S. will coordinate each other's core national interests through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms, and conduct comprehensive cooperation in a variety of global governance issues. However, the power shift is uncertain, sensitive and dangerous. Sino-U.S. relations is predictably risky if the United States fails to live up to its commitment to the fundamental principle of mutual respect of sovereignty and territory, and tramples on China's core interests such as the issue of arms sales to Taiwan, Tibet issues and economic and trade issues, and in addition, U.S. has bottomed out of financial crisis and the U.S. strategic needs on China relatively declines. It bode ill in the beginning of the year 2010 when the U.S. government announced arms sales to Taiwan and joined hands with Google in provoking China. The United States is not what it was, nor is China. Even in the military terms, the rapid progress of military modernization has equipped China with the defensive capability to "launch satellites, aircraft carriers, and missiles". In a sense, U.S. basically can no longer impose military blackmail on China. In the new international configuration, the United States cannot unilaterally shape the trends of Sino-U.S. Relations as it did before. China began to redefine the boundaries of its core interests and will not swallow bitter pill as it did before. In order to avoid big ups and downs of Sino-U.S. relations, it is most urgent to break the outdated framework, to address structural contradictions and formulate new rules of the game.
In addition, this configuration is different from the balanced multi-polar configuration in European history. It should be able to rally the forces of the large, middle, and small poles and especially the middle and small forces in a form of groups to play what only major powers could play in the past in global affairs. "G20" has become the major part and mechanism in the joint response of international community to the crisis. Furthermore, the new configuration has shifted from the model of unitary state actors to the model of binary state- and non-state actors.
3. The future changes of international situation will still be based on the world balance of power, though the balance of soft power, such as values, beliefs, norms, and systemic innovation, is looming large.
4. Since the future international configuration will involve global issues and the U.S. ability cannot match its wish to solve world issues in global governance alone, this will help strengthen cooperation of the configuration, collective consultation on global programs and global governance. The success of global co-governance will largely depend on the success of Sino-US co-governance. The real risk is that the West may turn from mainly the problem-shooter to a largest barrier of the world problems.
5. The original balanced multi-polar configuration in European history is homogeneous in its own right, i.e., all its actors were traditional major powers. Whereas the bipolar Cold War structure is heterogeneous, i.e., the two superpowers are totally different in ideology and political system. The transitional multi-polar pattern is combining homogeneous and heterogeneous, both developed and developing countries share commonalities within and differences without. In addition, the alliances, quasi-alliances, coalitions of the willing, ad hoc alliances, and partnerships coexist around specific topics will form the diversified relationships.
6. Transitional multipolar configuration is different from that in history in terms of the center of world power. The world’s power center is shifting from the historical Atlantic to the Pacific region, or from the West to Asia-Pacific region. That the Asia-Pacific region becomes the gravity of international relations is one of the biggest changes of the international system over the last four hundred years, which directly determines the importance of the poles and the roles they play. For instance, China, the United States, Japan and some emerging countries enjoy a more advantageous strategic position than Europe and Russia.
7. Transitional multi-polar configuration is about change in the first place. Traditional modes and mechanisms cannot meet the interests of emerging countries, nor solve global issues in front of the mankind, which will inevitably lead to the change of international system including international configuration as well as the changes on national level, such as the countries of China, the United States, Japan, Russia and so on. The changes on the two levels will help promote the sound development of international configuration, if they give priority to mankind, people's livelihood, democracy and fairness.
III. Conclusion
The year 2009 is a symbolic year for the world as well as for China. It is a year when the international configuration reached the turning point, regroupings are accelerating and “Gx” organizations are metamorphosing to fit the development and change of international political and economic situation and play a greater role. "G8 5" shifting to "G20" well demonstrates that the emerging forces are not quitting the existing order and governance mechanisms, but actively joining and reforming them and transforming them into fair, reasonable, transparent and legitimate. Beginning is the newly emerging forces to redraw the blueprint of international configuration. Evolving is the international mechanisms in respect of crisis and governance. The United States remains a superpower, but no longer claims global dominance. Pluralist centers of forces have occurred and are altering the distribution of global powers. The stunning changes occurred to the world economy, politics and cultures steer the trends of the world.
Zheng Yongnian pointed out that the international power is inevitably regrouping thanks to the post-Cold War frustration of U.S. unilateralism and the emergence of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other developing countries in the world economic arena. Regrouping is the main axis of the international political arena in 2009. “Gx”s, whatever their varieties, seems inseparable from China. He attributed this to China's political influence conforming to its economic influence, hence China began to play an actual leading role and reach a breakthrough in establishing an international voice. China's emergence as a new-typed power makes it possible for the transformation of the old international order and provides international cooperation with its unique way of guidance (though in a fashion of low-profile). Some Western media have begun to take off their colored glasses to reevaluate this oriental big, familiar as well as strange, power.
China is in the course of a rapidly growing power and it is the first time for China to approach the center of the world arena. China has its joy as well as concerns. China should keep normal and calm and correctly identify itself as a rising power of a developing country. This is a course of China’s self-evaluation and the course of the world’s adaptation to China.
[①] Newsweek, May 12, 2008.
[②] Bruce Jones, Carlos Pascual, and Stephen Stedman, Power and Responsibility, Brookings Institution Press, March 31, 2009.
YU Zhengliang