China's rise and Asia's renaissance

On October 1, China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic.  

It is widely believed that China's rapid rise to superpower status heralds the advent of a transition from one global hegemon (America) to another. But as I explain in The Future is Asian, not only will the global landscape remain multipolar for decades to come -- with the US and Europe holding equal or greater influence on the world stage -- but Asia itself is a multipolar region, featuring other major powers such as Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Russia, and Iran. It is both unwise and misleading to use European history as a guide to Asia's future, when thousands of years of history in Asia have almost universally been characterized as multipolar, with no civilization (whether Japan or China) able to dominate others for long, if at all. 

There is no question that China has become a global superpower. I devoted much of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008) to documenting China's influence in all corners of the world, and Connectography (2016) to demonstrating how China uses infrastructure (such as the Belt and Road Initiative), trade, and other linkages to extend its reach. However, the correct way to understand China's rise is as reinforcing the existing multipolarity of the world, not replacing it with a hegemony it cannot impose and none will accept. 

China's rise must first and foremost be viewed in the context of Asia's spectacular growth in the post-war decades. Japan represented the first modern Asian growth story, and its rapid modernization and industrialization inspired the "Tiger economies" of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Until the late 1970s, China was still reeling from the after effects of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Inspired by these first two waves of Asian growth, China began the economic opening that made it Asia's third wave of modern growth -- benefiting massively from the commercial models and investment represented by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, all of which have been China's most significant and steady investors over the past forty years. 

Asia's growth does not stop with China, for a fourth wave has already begun led by South and Southeast Asia, a collection of one dozen contiguous countries with a combined population of 2.5 billion people. These nations all have a younger median age than China and most are growing faster as well (from a lower economic base). Starting well before the US-China trade war -- but accelerated by it -- they now receive more new annual FDI than China as well.... due in large part to China itself, which is the largest or one of the largest investors in each of these countries from Pakistan to Indonesia. 

The more countries of the fourth Asian growth wave -- such as India, Indonesia, and Vietnam -- gain economic momentum and geopolitical confidence, the more they stand up to China and limit its ability to dictate Asian affairs. Witness how quickly Asians have responded to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) not by submitting to China but forcing it to write down debt and restructure agreements so that they benefit more than China does -- or the outcome of the India-China stand-off at the Doklam Plateau in 2017. Despite China's enormous power, it has backed down and accepted compromise. This behavior should not come as a surprise to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the contours of Asian geopolitical history. To put it bluntly, not only will China not rule the world, it will not even rule Asia.

China has much to be proud of on this 70th anniversary. It has become one of the world's largest economies and most innovative as well. But the world is not headed towards a new unipolar order under Chinese dominance. The history that has returned is that of a collective Asian system that together has become the world's economic center of gravity. Conflict and commerce will co-exist across the Asian landscape. Even as China builds many roads, all roads won't lead to China.