[China & SEA][China]The international community enters a long cycle of competing civilizations
Xue Li, Researcher, Foreign Policy Research Office, Institute of World Economics and Politics/National Institute of Global Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
In the long cycle of civilizational competition, all major civilizations develop their own ideas of world order, and advocate and work to build regional and global orders with their own civilizational characteristics. For a rising China, it is important to promote and build a new system of ritual and governance based on Chinese civilisation. This system is open and compatible with the existing international system.
The world is entering a long period of coexistence and competition among civilisations. Competition and cooperation among different civilisations have become new features of the international landscape, and it is difficult for Western civilisation, represented by the US and Europe, to continue to dominate world affairs as it has done for the past five centuries. The promotion of the common values of Chinese civilisation and the building of a community of human destiny are the ideas of a rising China for a world order that takes into account the characteristics of its own civilisation.
After 1945 the United States replaced Europe as the world's leading power. The United States joined Europe and involved other civilisations to develop the post-World War II world order. After the end of the Cold War, competition between countries focused on economic and social development. In the new century, the competition between countries is characterised by a long cycle of economic development accompanied by an increasing strengthening of the identity of one's own civilisation, and the world moves into a period of alternating competition and cooperation between different civilisations.
The financial crisis created by Wall Street in 2008 has affected the whole world, and also the middle and lower classes in the United States. The new isolationism of the United States has accelerated, and the so-called Trump Doctrine is a typical manifestation of this: it emphasises the interests of the United States and local interests first, is unwilling to take on too many international obligations and responsibilities, selectively participates in some international affairs, and demands that allies and partner countries take on greater responsibilities and obligations. The US is increasingly acting like an ordinary power, at best a coordinator of international affairs rather than a world leader.
Since 2006, China has been ranked first in the world in terms of its contribution to the world's economic growth; in 2009, excluding China and the US, the total economic volume of emerging economies surpassed that of developed countries. In terms of average purchasing power parity, the total economic output of developing countries already exceeded that of developed countries in 2013; some studies suggest that the world's top three economies in 2050 will be China, India and the United States. This suggests that there is a general trend towards the rise of the non-Western world, and its impact on the international landscape is bound to rise accordingly.
In 1894 the United States surpassed Europe in industrial output to become the world's number one, and 50 years later the United States became the world leader. Being number one in the world in terms of economic power does not make you a world leader. A world leader requires a combination of things: education, science and technology, talent, military power, cultural influence, etc., all of which must be ranked among the most powerful countries in the world. It also requires a new set of ideas to be offered in diplomacy. For the United States, Wilson's Fourteen-Point Plan and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms in many ways overturned the ideas and practices of European powers and latecomer countries (typically Japan), and gained the United States international moral force. Some of these ideas, such as national self-determination, opposition to secret diplomacy, freedom of navigation on the high seas, equality of trade and freedom of speech, had to be gradually accepted by the European powers and Japan, despite their opposition or rejection. With Pearl Harbor as an opportunity, the US broke away from isolationism. After the World War II, the United States became the most powerful country in the world and the leading constructor of the post-war international system. In the new century, the rise of isolationism and the emergence of the Trump Doctrine in the United States marked a move towards cultural involution of the only superpower.
The EU is essentially a 'Protestant-Catholic club of countries', less willing to accept countries from other civilisations, and after 2015 has become increasingly conservative in its attitude towards foreign immigrants, with a growing emphasis on its own cultural identity, as is evident in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden This is generally evident in countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. The Modi government's efforts to promote Hindu nationalism and the Eldoan government's promotion of a union of Turkic states are also typical of its civilisational inwardness.
Huntington argues that the clash of civilisations is a prominent feature of the post-Cold War international landscape. This is clearly to see the tributaries as the mainstream. It is both competition and cooperation between civilisations that has dominated the post-Cold War international landscape, and this has become increasingly evident in the new century and has become the main feature and fundamental aspect of the international landscape in this century.
In the long cycle of civilizational competition, all major civilizations develop their own ideas of world order, and advocate and work to build regional and global orders with their own civilizational characteristics. For a rising China, it is important to promote and build a new system of ritual and governance based on Chinese civilisation. This system is open and compatible with the existing international system.
The new system of ritual and governance is culturally based on Chinese civilisation, where moral ethics and codes of conduct are
based on the principle of "rituals of benevolence", i.e. "establish in benevolence and practice in rituals". At the economic level, China's economic development has significantly narrowed the gap with the developed countries of the West and is expected to become the largest economy in the world. At the institutional level, a high degree of organisation of the people has been achieved, a division of labour has been completed in keeping with modernity, and a relatively complete legal system has been established. In the management of interpersonal relations and the governance of the country, the "rites of benevolence" are still powerful and have a profound influence on the moral and ethical behaviour of the people and the state. In dealing with foreign relations, China attaches importance to international rules, marked by international law, as well as to "treating each other with courtesy and friendship" between countries.
The existing international order was established under Western domination and the international rules mainly reflect Western values and interests, which obviously have unreasonable elements and should be adjusted as necessary to meet the needs of developing countries. Even so, China has repeatedly stated that its development is not to replace anyone, but to remain a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of the international order.
To be fair, China has no intention or difficulty in creating a new regional and global order that is incompatible with the current international system. Both history and reality provide a footnote to this. Historically, the world system preaches "harmony but difference", "rituals are not taught", and "if people from afar do not obey, they should cultivate civilization and virtue and come to them", and therefore does not seek global expansion. Realistically, China has long adhered to "non-aligned diplomacy". China's diplomacy in the new era has a community of human destiny as its overall goal, and its connotations are compatible with the existing international system. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS mechanism are open mechanisms that promote "open regionalism" in the Asian region.
The US and Europe have continued their historical tradition of creating and strengthening exclusive "clubs", both in the security sphere and in the economic sphere, hence the emergence of Oculus, the expansion of NATO to the east and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the conception of the TPP and the IPEF. These are clearly not advancing global cooperation and development, but dividing the world and creating confrontation, while packaging them as "maintaining peace and stability" and "protecting values and lifestyles".
Only by continuing to work towards an open regional order will it be possible to gain the support of neighbouring countries and thus build a regional order with its own civilisational identity. Only by promoting values that are beneficial to the world can we become a globally attractive country, can the Belt and Road project become a true project of the century and can the goal of "building a global partnership network" be achieved.