POWER STRUGGLE: First part
Nations seek for power and resources. Without the latter they cannot survive, their economical and social system would come to a halt. There used to be a time where these struggles were fought by armies and long wars. Today, things changed, there are still wars, but the struggle for power and resources is more subtle. States secure contracts allowing them to access certain resources of certain countries. Some help others to build up infrastructure with the ulterior motive to later use these infrastructures to extract and dispatch raw materials and finished goods. To open the newspaper means to read about the obvious power struggles. It is to see Iran seeking for nuclear weapons, China refusing to cut emissions to boost local economy and the US keeping interest rates low to help exports (what’s Europe doing??).
Bill Emmott, the former editor of The Economist, published a book in which he predicts that the power struggle between China, India and Japan will shape our next decade, more than an eventual conflict between China and the US. Most of the time, it is true, people tend to neglect the rivalry between those three countries and accordingly the potential geopolitical consequences. People talk of “Asia” and forget that the continent is far from being “united” in the way Europe is. We are talking about a continent where India, China and Japan seek for the first place in terms of economical and political power, but where Russia, Korea, Singapore and other states also wish to have a word…not to forget Australia and New Zealand that seek for greater influence in the region as well.
China won’t be able to keep growing without resistance from India and Japan. Neither of these countries will keep on watching without intervening. Ties to South-East Asian countries are in that logic especially important, because representing future markets and strategic positions, thus Japan finances, for instance, the construction of the Ho-Chi-Minh City subway (Vietnam). A defense agreement with Australia is also meant to strengthen Japan’s position within Asia. But is that really going to help? China is now crucial for the United States, who else would buy their government debt? In order to finance the recovery and two wars, the one in Afghanistan and the other on in Iraq, they need to raise funds. Without China that recovery would hardly be manageable. But of course, admitting that would be equal to political suicide.
The United States depend therefore to a certain degree on China. In case China would expand its political ties in a more violent manner, would the US intervene? Would they protect Taiwan for instance? Many would say “yes” and think “hopefully” but we can no longer be so sure. In order to intervene, they would need to raise more funds to pay for that defense. Tax payers would not like to see their money wasted in wars, thus raising taxes would be rather unpopular. If the US would still decide to intervene, China could sell of their foreign reserves thus creating oversupply of dollars on the markets which would eventually lead to a sharp decline of the dollar’s value. The USD would collapse and become worthless and no one would like to invest in USD denominated assets. Would the US risk such a thing? Investors would pure out of the country and invest their funds into more secure places, such as Europe. But Europe cannot stay neutral, probably…or can it? By staying neutral, Europe would encourage China to proceed with the aggressive extension. This cannot be in the interest of the European countries because next victim could easily be Europe itself. Thus, Europe needs to stand on the US side just to secure US support once China tries to tackle European territory.
The Japanese reliance on US help in case of a military conflict is declining which demonstrates the agreement with Australia. It is a move towards a more diversified defense pact and shows that Japan is aware of the fading American power. In 2005 and 06, the Bush administration also opened the door to a new partnership in Asia: with India. The new collaboration for civil nuclear energy with India proves that the US is aware of the threat that China might become too mighty and thus unpredictable.
China can, however, not afford to make an aggressive move because it does rely on the United States and Europe as a market for its own goods and it also needs the technology and know-how. Thus, a Chinese attack is not an issue. But the simple thought of the immense power it could potentially have might frighten and should lead us to consider whether our political system is prepared for those future conflicts. The Lisbon treaty is now enacted and Europe has a new political leadership with a permanent president and a person responsible for foreign relations. Europe, however, still speaks with 27 voices when it comes to foreign policy which is not suitable for the geopolitical conflicts of the 21st century where only a strong union with clear and unchallenged leadership can pose as a real opposition to an emerging, power seeking, China. The transformation, from a loose federal construct to a strong federal state, might be the only solution to keep a high profile during the next decades.
The hope that China might anyways collapse due to potential social conflicts is a dangerous thought. The idea that only democracy survives is naïve due to the fact that China has never been a democracy, as most of Asian states in their history, and it never seemed to bother its population. As soon as the Chinese peasants were unhappy with their leadership, they replaced it using a revolution but only to implement a new kingdom, to set up a new dynasty. Thus, even though the dictatorship in China might not last forever, it will probably be replaced by something similar.
The information policy of the country shows that its leaders are aware of this threat of “revolution” and it might lead to the conclusion that the leaders are not as much in control as they would wish to be. Official statistics can hardly be trusted, a UBS economist, tried to calculate the real GDP growth rates from 1980 till today and found a less attractive picture, corresponding more a rollercoaster ride. The so praised sharp GDP growth rate increase between 2005 and 2008 might, for instance, have been rather stable instead. Another interesting fact about the official GDP rate is the 2005 figure. Official growth rate was 10.4%. China is divided into 31 regions (22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions and 4 municipalities). Of these 31 regions, 29 reported higher growth rates than the national one, only two (Hainan and Yunnan) were below national average. Everyone above average?
This might make us laugh but can also be a serious threat. First of all these figures are not so much aimed at outsiders as they are aimed at their own population. Keeping good news in and bad news out of the newspapers is a measure to reduce the possibility of social unrest. The problem for outsiders is that we do not know for sure how big China really is. Probably smaller, probably bigger…
And while we hope that China will eventually fall over its own shoes, the Chinese are silently conquering Africa. They promise not to intervene in local conflicts and invest huge sums of money to secure natural resources. To a certain degree the African nations to benefit from such investments, some however don’t. But the leadership does most of the time benefit and what is more important to keep relations intact? Chinese leaders have understood that future geopolitical challenges cannot depend on moral and that those who insist too much on certain values will be the future losers. Some claim that China needs to be a more responsible player if it wishes to implement itself on a global basis. But that would mean that responsible means an alignment to western values or to a certain set of predefined values that might not be the ones China would defend. Certainly, it is important to safe human lives and to help poorer people, but the efforts of Western countries in Africa have been rather unsuccessful as well.
It is probably not the best solution to forget about those values and rush into Africa, as it happened during the colonization, to secure raw materials. But it is probably good to think about the future challenges and to determine where do we stand? How can we act and what should we do? There is no easy answer.
Where will Russia stand in the future? Having closer ties to Iran and neighbors it will probably expand its political influence in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Closer ties with China might provide it with a big client for its natural gas. But China does not need Russia as much as Russia needs China. Thus, turning it’s solely attention to China would be a mistake from Russia. Closer ties to Western Europe, a friendlier relationship would be of more benefit but that is not going to happen in the near future. The Russian president has even offered a defense plan where Russia would have a veto right for new NATO members in Easter Europe. That offer will most certainly be declined by the NATO states but demonstrates that Russia is not aware of the potential benefits of a European-Russian partnership. The most likely scenario is therefore that Russia becomes a second league player, having some influence on regional issues but not being able to talk on a worldwide basis.
