China’s Uncertain Peaceful Rise

China's recent economic growth has been spectacular and has helped the country build its military muscle. Whether the Asian giant can continue rising peacefully is questionable, however. China's growth model will hardly be sustainable as Western demand declines. Adapting it without weakening domestic political cohesion will be difficult. With nationalist sentiments increasingly affecting China's foreign policy, concerns about its geopolitical ambitions are mounting across the Asia-Pacific region. In this context, the US is positioning itself as a long-term stakeholder in the regional balance of power, a stance Beijing interprets as hostile.

The notion that the global balance of power is shifting from West to East has been prevalent for some years now. What is new is the sharp focus that the discourse on this shift has acquired - the notion that one country, above all others, is fast becoming a global power. That country is the People's Republic of China. With sustained annual economic growth of nearly 10 per cent since 1978, China has lifted half a billion people out of poverty. It has become the world's second-largest economy in terms of nominal GDP (and the largest in terms of purchasing power parity). It has the world's largest army and is the world's largest exporter.

This Sino-centric assessment of global power redistribution dovetails with that of Chinese analysts themselves, albeit with a nuanced difference. To the latter, China is not so much 'rising' as it is regaining its natural importance in the world order - a position from which it was ousted by Western aggression in the 19th century. Thus, while the West sees China's rise as a 'gamechanger', Chinese interpretations view it as a benign resurgence. Both agree on one central point: After the United States, China is the most prominent power in the current international system and the one with the greatest potential to reshape world politics.

Strategic Trends 2012 argues that the rate of China's further rise is not as assured as experts sometimes assume. The country's transformation has thus far been achieved under unique politico-economic conditions, which might not continue to hold good in the future. The Chinese economy, being export-dependent, cannot escape the negative effects of the global economic downturn, even if these effects are somewhat delayed. Another crucial factor that has driven both Western and Chinese assessments of the redistribution of global power, namely, China's political cohesion, remains untested. Already, civil unrest against burgeoning state corruption and income disparity is posing an ever-present challenge to political stability. If such unrest were to gain more momentum, or even if fear of such an escalation were to permeate Chinese decisionmaking, the country's continued rise would be neither assured nor peaceful. Finally, China's ascent may also be partly stunted by its limited quantum of 'soft power'. Even if some developing countries admire the efficiency of the Chinese model, replicating it will probably prove to be beyond their capabilities.

Although China is likely to remain extremely important to the global power balance and will avoid a drastic downturn in its economic fortunes the country may now be nearing the zenith of its international trajectory. The danger is that growing domestic pressures resulting from structural impediments on China's continuing rise may further nourish nationalist and xenophobic sentiments in the country and translate into a more assertive foreign policy. Against the background of Beijing's expanding claims in the South China Sea and the growing capabilities and political influence of the Chinese military, a period of tension may well be in the offing in the Asia-Pacific region. Even as multilateral economic and security cooperation continues to accelerate in Asia, and even as Washington and Beijing emphasize the need for partnership, the US and other Asian powers seem to be gradually embarking on a balancing policy against China. What they are apprehensive of is not so much a rising China, but a China that first overestimates its own ability to continue ascending and then subsequently refuses to scale down its geopolitical ambitions.

To read the full report, please visit the Strategic Trends Analysis website.