China rise is peaceful

The rise of China has sparked fear in some American thinkers and policymakers who believe that power equals threat and changes in relative power result in conflict and war.69 I argue, however, that such fear is unwarranted unless China has a status economy; status powers have an interest in sowing chaos wherever they lack control, which is diametrically opposed to the contractualist preference for order and self-determination. China, however, has neither a status nor a contractualist economy, but an axial economy (see table 1). As the world's largest exporter with considerable public and private trading sectors, China possesses an economy not unlike those of ancient Athens, the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, and the European kingdoms of the Enlightenment. The elites of those societies, like China's today, embraced long-distance commerce.

Axial states can wage wars over global markets. Historical examples include the Venetian-Genoese wars of the early Italian Renaissance, the Anglo-Dutch wars of the second half of the seventeenth century, and the Anglo-French wars of the eighteenth century. These wars were fought for control of markets and maritime trade routes, not global leadership. As discussed above, elites in axial economies perceive little interest in the welfare of strangers and thus non-discriminatory trade.

The last time a leading contractualist power dealt with an axial-capitalist peer competitor was in the nineteenth century. In the decades before World War I, axial Britain was in the process of transitioning toward a contractualist economy (see table 1). In the first decade of this century, axial China was moving rapidly toward becoming a contractualist economy.70 The parallels are uncanny: both countries wildly embraced trade, but with a mix of normal and mercantilist arrangements. Although both China today and Britain then had normal trade relations with many countries, both had, or continue to have, discriminatory relations in other spheres: just as British merchants had privileged access to the markets of many of Britain's colonies and Dominions and used military force to collect debts, China today seeks privileges for its state-owned enterprises in its internal market and abroad and imposes harsh terms on states that fail to pay their debts.71

Similarly, just like Britain a century ago, China today appears to be increasingly acting as if it has an interest in the global market order. Late-nineteenth-century Britain provided the world a trading currency by backing the pound sterling with gold, and British bankers financed projects all over the globe. Recently, China ceased undervaluing the yuan, indicating that it has an interest in the health of economies beyond its borders, and is now providing as much financing to developing countries as the World Bank.72

Just as the United States and Britain managed to avoid serious militarized conflict, so too can the United States and China. Negotiated solutions are possible because, like Britain, China has an interest in the global market order. Despite its rise, China has become far friendlier to its neighbors and others than it was as a status power, when it fomented revolution abroad under the leadership of Mao Zedong. China has resolved most of its territorial disputes.73 Largely, only its maritime disputes are ongoing, and these are not new, having originated in the pre-communist period.74 In recent years, China has established diplomatic relations with many countries it once treated as enemies, including Indonesia, Singapore, and South Korea.75