China Heg Fails

Zhao, 18 – Suisheng Zhao is professor and director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver (“A Revisionist Stakeholder: China and the Post-World War II World Order” Journal of Contemporary China, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2018.1458029

But China is not ready. First, as one Chinese scholar admitted, ‘China does not have the comprehensive national strength to change the current global order led by the US and other Western countries for more than 70 years’.41 A fragile rising power much weaker than most outsiders think, China is a middle-income country, facing immense internal hurdles, such as the environmental destruction, rampant corruption, inequality, and huge local government debt, all of which have the potential to derail its rise. Preoccupied by mounting challenges, Chinese leaders have to fight an uphill battle to mobilize resources and internal support for the global leadership role. China is far from achieving the donor status of many OECD countries. For one prominent Chinese scholar, the most dangerous challenge is the extreme-leftist policy-line and ‘the false-large-empty’ (假大空) slogans, making international promises and setting strategic objectives beyond the reach of China’s national strength.42 China’s international initiatives do not play a critical role in China’s rise but are the consequences of its rise.

Although some scholars have claimed that the US power was declining so that the post-World War II order was suffering from an acute case of Anno Domini, they may have to recant their predictions. With the world’s largest concentration of capital and technology, the US remains the most powerful nation. China has faster GDP growth than the US, but its net national wealth, i.e. the resources available to pursue national interests, is still not in America’s league. From 2000–2012, Chinese net wealth jumped from $4.66 trillion to $21.7 trillion. American net wealth over the same period rose from $42.3 trillion to $67.5 trillion. From 2012 to 2017, while Chinese net wealth climbed to $29 trillion, American net wealth reached to over $93 trillion. Claiming that China is about to eclipse the US is untenable in the face of $64 trillion less in net wealth. The resource advantage rests overwhelmingly with the US.43

China has pushed RMB internationalization. But the share of RMB in global payment is below 2% while US dollar share remains above 40%. RMB accounts for a scant 1% of global reserves while the US dollar accounts for over 60%. The drive to internationalize RMB has not gained momentum since its inclusion in the SDR basket in 2015.44 Shortly before inclusion, China’s Central Bank announced a ‘market-oriented’ mechanism for setting the daily benchmark of the exchange rate, accompanied by 2% devaluation, the first since 1994, leading the onshore RMB to tumble by 4% in the subsequent two days. The Central bank intervened massively to halt the slide in the weeks after. Less than two months after RMB’s inclusion in the IMF basket, the central bank imposed new controls over capital outflow.45 These difficulties have made the cost outweigh the benefits of RMB internationalization.

Remaining the ‘indispensable nation’ of the world, the US cannot avoid the responsibility to provide public goods and security protection for its allies. Although President Trump has distanced Washington from its traditional allies and stepped back from global leadership, the American economy and geopolitics encourage a global outlook, imposing compelling imperatives on the superpower. Woven thickly into global value chains, protectionism calls for other countries’ retaliation against American producers and shifts burdens to American consumers. With checks and balances in the US constitution and the dynamism of the open society, economic liberals and internationalists in the US Government and across the states have been powerful countervailing forces against protectionism and disengagement. In spite of President Trump’s isolationist position, ‘American national interests endure. They include preventing any hostile power from dominating Asia, Europe, or the energy resources of the Middle East; sustaining an open international economic and political order, not subverted by spheres of influence that exclude the United States; protecting free access to the global commons, especially the maritime sea lanes that carry 90 % of global trade; nurturing alliances that magnify American power and influence; and promoting democracy and human rights, because the ultimate source of global security is a world in which power is bounded by law and pluralistic institutions’.46

Second, China cannot provide shared values and other elements of soft power to commons willingness on the part of other countries to align, and in some cases subordinate, their own narrow interests to those of the larger international community. China has made significant investments in developing its soft power with the opening of more than 500 Confucius Institutes across the world and carrying out extensive international branding campaigns. But China is not successful in projecting its values and ideals that others identify with and aspire to share. The US leadership comes with willing followers and trust through a network of alliances and other ties. For all of their differences with Washington and periodic resentment of its policies, many countries invested more confidence in the US than in any other nation. China does not possess the attributes that underpin US leadership. It lacks allies and inspires little trust in its own neighborhood. Its efforts to project soft power often fail to resonate abroad partly because China displays little empathy with the sensitivities of those living beyond its borders.47

While US global influence has dropped due to President Trump’s policy, it still holds much more soft power than China. Against the background of seemingly retreating democracy, China’s authoritarianism appears to be more appealing to autocracies. But this has not been accompanied by serious and significant interest worldwide in China’s development model. Promoting globalization, the Chinese Government is doing the opposite by imposing controls on the inflow of information and outflow of capital, leading people to question the sincerity of its posited global leadership.

A Chinese scholar admits that China might one day overtake the US in the size of economy but may never overtake the US influence and leadership in the world.48 Another Chinese scholar finds that China is short of international discursive power (国际话语权缺失). China had never played a world leadership role in history. The traditional Chinese system (华夏体系) was only an East Asian system, not universal, and cannot automatically transform into modern discursive power.49 Until China develops values that appeal universally, it misses one of the core features of global leadership.

China’s overreliance on economic power prevents it from effectively exercising leadership

Zhao, 18 – Suisheng Zhao is professor and director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver (“A Revisionist Stakeholder: China and the Post-World War II World Order” Journal of Contemporary China, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2018.1458029

Beijing’s overreliance on its economic prowess as the key diplomatic instrument reveals the shortage of normative power. Despite its growing economic and military might, China’s efforts to use economic ties to influence other state’s behavior have only achieved limited success because money cannot buy loyalty. Influence does not simply derive from a country’s coffers. While closer economic ties are important, they are hardly sufficient to build strong trust between countries—especially those with conflicting security interests. This is clearly reflected in China’s relationship with Japan, characterized as hot economics and cold politics. it is reflected in China’s relations with North Korea, a country that is widely perceived as economically dependent on China for its own survival but has often taken actions against China’s strategic interests. To play a global leadership role, China has to build the ability to inspire other countries to share its vision. The leadership will not work itself out only through economic ties. Building common identity and value is equally, if not more, important.

Unable to construct shared values, China may change nothing of substance in the global order. While China’s insistence on the Westphalian principles looks attractive to some countries where intense interventionism by the US often ends in chaos and chronic instability, many of China’s neighbors view China’s great power aspiration with a wary eye, worrying that, as Chinese power rises, China’s imperial past can produce an undue pressure on its leaders to restore the old Chinese hierarchical order. One reporter took note that at the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference that gave birth to the Five-Principles, only two notable leaders turned up. One was President Xi, who used the occasion to portray China as the leader of the non-western world. The other was Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who suggested that the threat to the sovereignty of smaller countries no longer came from the West.50

China’s power aspirations in a diverse and crowded neighborhood are checked by the presence and influence of the US and other regional powers. The Twenty-first century has seen a multipolarity rather than a Chinese hegemony. While China is rising, many surrounding states are also on the rise. China’s shift from espousing a peaceful rise to assertive behavior has made its neighbors nervous, motivating them to realign with the US and with each other to balance China.51 A May 2017 ASEAN survey found that more than 73 % of correspondents had little or no confidence that Beijing would do the right thing in contributing to global peace, security, and governance.52 A regional Pax Sinica is not desirable for these countries. Historically, to bandwagon with a rising power is common practice due to potentially great relative gains. The most successful rising powers most often attracted the greatest number of bandwagoners.53 It does not serve China’s interests to have tension with many neighbors simultaneously. China cannot rise successfully without winning the support of its neighbors or at least preempt their balancing motives.

Chinese leadership fails and can’t replace the US

Beeson, 17 - Professor of International Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia (Mark, “Why Has Leadership in the Asia–Pacific Proved So Elusive?” Chin. Polit. Sci. Rev. (2017) 2:567–581 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-017-0074-y

Paradoxically enough, however, in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, China has emerged as an unexpected champion of ‘globalization’. In part, this reflects a recognition on the part of China’s leaders that the country has been one of the principal beneficiaries of an open international economic order. At the same time, however, Xi (2017) in particular clearly sees an opportunity for China to reposition itself as precisely the sort of ‘responsible stakeholder’ that some have long called for (Zoellick 2005). At a time when the Trump administration seems to be abandoning the traditional American role in favor of a more instrumental, nationalistic approach to trade and even security policy (Browne 2017; Hodge 2017), Chinese officials have been quick to seize the moment and the initiative.

There are, however, continuing constraints confronting China that raise real questions about its ability to offer a leadership at the regional, much less the global level. First, the extant international order will not be easily replaced, nor will America’s role within it. The fact remains that the US is still the world’s preeminent economic and military power, albeit one with diminished status and damaged authority. Second, China has shown little desire or capacity to articulate an alternative vision for the international system, thus far, and seems willing to work within existing institutional architecture and avoid the costs associated with leadership (Wang and French 2014). Third, leaders need followers, and at this stage—despite an apparently growing diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia—it has few allies and friends. Indeed, the fourth point to make is that China’s continuing pursuit of its own nationalistic goals, especially its claims in the South China Sea dispute, look certain to make its future relations and role divisive and contentious.

No other power can replace the US – retrenchment guarantees global conflict

Haass, 17 – president of the Council on Foreign Relations (Richard, “America and the Great Abdication” The Atlantic, 12/28, http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/images/pdfs/America%20and%20the%20Great%20Abdication%20-%20The%20Atlantic.pdf

An optimist would also hope that other countries would pick up where the United States left off in promoting international order. The fact is, though, that there is no alternative great power willing and able to step in and assume what has been the U.S. role. China is often suggested, but its leadership is focused mostly on consolidating domestic order and maintaining artificially high rates of economic growth, lest there be popular unrest. China’s interest in regional and global institutions (including both its regional trade mechanism and its “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative) seems more designed to bolster its economy and influence than to help set rules and arrangements that would be broadly beneficial. China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea (including its rejection of an international legal ruling challenging its claims) and its unwillingness to do all it could to rein in North Korea casts further doubts as to its readiness to fill the shoes of the United States.

There is no other candidate. Russia under Vladimir Putin is a country with a narrowly based economy that is focused on retaining power at home, reestablishing Russian influence in the Middle East and Europe, and interfering in the internal politics of Western democracies. It is mostly a spoiler prepared to use those instruments of power it possesses (military, energy, and cyber) to advance its aims. India is preoccupied with the challenge of economic development and is tied down by its problematic relationship with Pakistan. Japan is held back by its declining population, domestic constraints, and the suspicions of its neighbors. Europe is limited in what it can do by a lack of defense capability, and is distracted by questions revolving around the relationship between member states and the EU. The cold truth is that the alternative to a U.S.–led international order is less international order.

All this comes at a time challenges to order are many, including a China that is trying to extend its writ over the South China Sea and a North Korea that appears intent on developing the ability to place nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles capable of reaching not just its neighbors but across the world and an Iran with an imperial vision of its position in the Middle East. The Middle East is a region of multiple conflicts of every sort—civil, regional, proxy, and global—involving state and nonstate actors, as well as a mixture of strong, weak, and failed states. There is as well the continuing Russian occupation of Crimea and its destabilization of eastern Ukraine, the undermining of democracy and economic deterioration of Venezuela, and any number of governance failures in Africa, most starkly in South Sudan. There has been a marked deterioration in U.S. relations with Russia, the result not just of its military actions in Ukraine and Syria but also of its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And at the global level there is the continuing gap between challenges and collective responses, none more pronounced than in the domain of cyberspace.

Alternate factors mean China will never be the hegemon--- even if it becomes militarily and economically superior.

Ashok Swain 01-21-21 [Ashok Swain is a Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden, The Print, “China’s economy and military can overtake US, but it still won’t become global superpower,” https://theprint.in/opinion/chinas-can-overtake-us-but-it-still-wont-become-global-superpower/588718///ZW]

There is an ongoing discussion that China is emerging as a new superpower and replacing the US from the global power structure. China emerging strongly from the growing global economic crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Donald Trump’s ally-alienating policies within NATO for the last four years have pushed this narrative forward considerably. There is no doubt that China has already become the global powerhouse economically, and is expected to surpass the US as the world’s biggest economy by 2028. China is still behind but on its way to surpassing the US in military power with increased spending on weapons technology and developing several secretive weapons. There is no doubt over China acquiring economic and military strength superior to the US sooner than later, but the question is, can the Communist Party-led China be ever as formidable and complete a superpower as the US has been for the last eight decades? When the Soviet Union competed with the US to claim superpower status during the Cold War period, it somewhat matched America’s strength in leading alliances and military power. However, at the height of its power, the Soviet Union was never a match for US domination economically or culturally. Like the Soviet Union in the past, China now faces several geopolitical and cultural challenges before it can reach global superpower status similar to the US. China can’t aspire to get the same respect and acceptance worldwide, even if its economic and military power overtakes the US. A democratic US will always have ideological, political, and cultural superiority compared to a Communist China. One-party Communist country Although China has developed a hybrid system to grow spectacularly on the economic front, it is still a one-party Communist country. Politically, it has become further closed and centralised than ever before. The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. In 2011, when it was celebrating its 90th anniversary, I was fortunate to attend an invite-only meeting of the Chinese Political Science Association in Shanghai. Many top Chinese political scientists openly discussed the possibilities of China opening up to a multi-party electoral system. That sort of discussion is almost impossible to imagine in Xi Jinping-led China now. No doubt, China is a strong state with a powerful party bureaucracy, but its politics is potentially very fragile. Under a closed system, it is almost impossible to predict when that spark will arrive to ignite a political upheaval. This is a country where the Interpol chief or a globally famous billionaire can disappear without any official explanation. Hundreds of Chinese millionaires have been living abroad to protect their wealth from future uncertainties and to avail the opportunities of open societies. China has become rich, it is spending heavily on its university education, but 600,000 Chinese students go abroad for their higher studies every year. China’s economy might be booming for decades, but 10 million Chinese have traveled to other countries to find jobs while 51 million people from all over the world have moved to the US for better work and improved living. Tough neighbourhood Despite its ongoing political troubles, there is no doubt that the American political system is resilient to any attack from destabilising forces. But that sort of trust in the system continues to elude China. Though China has been enjoying political stability for long, the Chinese people don’t have similar trust and confidence in their political system as the Americans have in theirs. This will not help China command the respect of other countries in its competition to become the global superpower. Geopolitics also does not favour China as it has the US. Unlike the US, China is surrounded by several powerful and competing countries. Among them, at least two, Russia and India, see the dream of becoming superpowers. China has also fought wars against them and continues to have several border disputes. China is neither safe nor secure in its neighbourhood to freely engage in political and military projects in other parts of the world as the US does. Besides China’s location in a tough neighbourhood, it also lacks trusted, powerful allies. On the one hand, the democratic US has established strong political and military cooperation with many regionally powerful countries like the UK, Germany, Japan, and Australia from the Cold War days. It continues to keep those allies, while getting new ones like India. On the other hand, China’s only significant ally in the world is Russia, but that alliance suffers from many contradictions and has not passed the test of time. It will be hard to imagine China gaining the upper hand militarily, economically, and politically in the future, vis-à-vis the US and its allies’ combined forces. The US stands firm The US has been and will continue to be the global cultural superpower, and there is minimal possibility of China posing any serious challenge to that status. Not only does its democracy and freedom provide ideological superiority to the US, its cultural influence through movies, media, music, and literature also extends across the world. The US is a country of immigrants, and it represents and enriches the cultures and ideas of the world. But China has remained a closed country for long. While English remains the world’s language, it is almost impossible to imagine Mandarin taking up that place. China will always be struggling to catch up to the US and take the lead position in the global power race. Like the Soviet Union, its superpower status will be limited and confined to certain aspects of it. The US has everything to hold its own long in this competition if it doesn’t often engage in self-sabotaging acts like it has in the last four years.