Thursday, October 24, 2013

China Power & Trade




 
Devin Savaskan
 

                China has all the makings of the next world power. It has an expanding economy, a growing middle class and the world’s largest population. Through understanding power, we know that these are the pieces a country needs to assemble their own dominant military. The possibility of China becoming a truly dominant regional hegemon is not one that escapes policy makers in the United States. History indicates that at some point, China will want more power on the international stage, the question becomes what is to be done about it. John Mearsheimer, a realist, argues that it is up to the United States to become military foes with China now before it is too late. Ikenberry argues that the United States can control China’s rise in a favorable way. Through understanding the importance of trade, we can see that Ikenberry has the best approach to the rise of Chinese power.

            To assess what should be done about the growing influence of China we must first determine how it will act as it grows in prominence on the world stage. When a country is on the rise and capable of changing the order of global politics, policy makers tend to classify them into four possible categories. They either want to accept risk or not, and they either want to revolutionize the current order or leave it mostly intact. Most historians compare modern day China to the rise of Germany before World War 1. While they are seemingly ever expanding and will risk a lot for power, the fact of the matter is they just want their deserved piece of the international pie. Mearsheimer argues a war between China and the United States is inevitable, however China is in the category it’s in due to the peaceful policy of trade implemented by the United States. This is exactly the idea of Ikenberry. We have the capability to incorporate China into the so called Western Order. Through trade, we have been able to stall China’s ambitions, since their continued economic wealth can only remain if the current political order remains intact. A hostile strike, a buck-passing to Japan, or constant trade wars as suggested by Measheimer has the capability of turning China into the global power we fear.

            There is however another significant advantage to trade. Most American’s see our trade deficit along with our loans and figure we will be forever in debt with the Chinese government. However, when examined more closely, one can completely turn this idea on its head. The fact is while we rely on Chinese manufacturing, they rely on us as customer even more. People fear China will weaken the United States, by calling on its debt. The reason this would never happen is because it would cause the United States to default, which would throw the US into recession, which in a chain reaction, would cause a recession in China. China relies on United States trade. Not only to continue to grow on the international stage, but to also keep domestic order. A recession, has different impacts on different countries. While here it forces people to have animosity toward the government, in China, it could start a revolution .With the growing middle class the Chinese people could use hard economic times as fuel to a revolutionary fire. They could quickly turn on their, free speech controlling, communist government, and could completely change the goals of China on the world stage. When examined closely we see that trade allows us to control China domestically giving the United States the upper hand.

            The United States has enjoyed a unipolar system since the end of the Cold War. However all things come to an end and this case is no exception. China will almost inevitably turn global politics back into a bipolar system. Until they fully achieve hegemony, the United States has the capability to dictate the path China takes along with its goals on world power. Through the use of trade and globalization, the United States can simply assimilate China into the Western Order and continue to reign supreme on the world stage.

 

CITATIONS

·         Mearsheimer: Tragedy of Great Power Politics

·         Ikenberry: Rise of China and the Future of the West

·         Lecture 11:21st Century Power Politics.

 

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