January 2025

THE POWER OF PLURALISM

The power of pluralism

To the central question of whether China’s influence diminishes in a multipolar world, the answers from a panel of experts were varied and nuanced

With previous events having focused on the great power competition between China and the United States, in its latest seminar The Democracy Forum invited participants to view this rivalry through the perspective of a multipolar world.

Chinese foreign policy is pursuing different goals from the US, said TDF President Lord Bruce in his introductory address, opening up an entirely different perspective of how to engage with a multipolar world.  While America has entered collective defence agreements with 56 countries – and provides military aid to other countries such as Israel and Ukraine –  China has only one such agreement, with North Korea.  Instead China has become the world’s most prolific trading partner, achieving higher volumes of trade than the US with over 120 countries. China has also become the world’s largest creditor nation, having invested more than one trillion dollars in the infrastructure of more than140 countries, although its gargantuan appetite for international development is now subject to increasing review and revision. Over 1,700 BRI initiatives worth around £450bn have been labelled as ‘problem projects’, and around 80% of China’s current overseas lending portfolio is actually supporting debtor countries in distress. A reputation built up as a credible and supportive development partner has taken a serious knock, as China’s public approval ratings in the developing world have plunged from 56% to less than 40% as a consequence of poor project implementation, the rising costs of debt and the unethical methods deployed to reduce its lending risks.

To allay the Global South’s fears of being swamped with cheap Chinese goods, President Xi used September’s China-Africa summit held in Beijing to pledge a zero tariff regime for the world’s least developed countries. But many seasoned observers are sceptical of China’s move to allow African LDCs to export tariff-free as simply a move to project its power in an alternative world order, China’s increasing reliance on an export-heavy economic model, concluded Lord Bruce, threatens the very trading relationships that underpin its multipolar ambitions, and crucially its attempt to compete with Washington for influence in Africa and Asia.

Pic of panellists at Dec.12th TDF webinar
Panellists at TDF’s Dec.12th webinar, ‘Does China’s influence diminish in a multipolar world?’

China could be said to have been an early supporter of multipolarity, suggested Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute, King’s College, London, with Deng Xiaoping, in the early 1970s, having supported a ‘three-world’ theory: the first world, America and its alliances; the second, the USSR and its alliances; and then the non-aligned world, including countries such as India and China, emerging from colonisation, without real alignments. Today, we see that becoming true, with China, through the BRI, subscribing to aid arrangements to a vast array of Global South countries, having multilateral fora with African and Latin American countries, and with the Middle East – relationships that are not alliance- or treaty-based but rather transactional, reciprocal strategic partnerships. This is happening more across the world’s nations in a multipolarity of self-interest, with common ground on issues such as environmentalism and nuclear proliferation, but also a more intensely competitive side. Does this multipolar world offer China opportunities which it will inevitably win? asked Brown. China is an opportunist power that seeks opportunities but also likes to avoid responsibilities. A China that wanted the rest of the world to adopt its values and system would be problematic, he argued, with a huge cultural clash between the US and China, and middle powers forced to choose.

Despite diplomatic support for Russia, China has sat on the wall regarding the war in Ukraine

Yet China is, rather, offering a looser architecture of multipolarity – which Brown called a form of pluralism – not necessarily through the UN but through different hierarchies of engagement. In that kind of world, whether China’s power diminishes or grows depends on a number of variables, most notably its economy, which is undergoing stress, like other global economies, leading to a rethink on multipolarity, Geopolitically and diplomatically, in theory, China might take a bigger role, but will it? Despite diplomatic support for Russia, it has sat on the wall re. the war in Ukraine; and despite not wanting instability in the Middle East, there, too it has been hesitant to get involved. China’s influence may grow as the world grows more complex, as GDPs grow, including that of important players such as India. But he believed that it is India that could grow ever more important, creating a tri-polar situation. In conclusion, Brown said that multipolarity is about a complex form of consensus, with unity on common existential issues such as climate and AI guiding multipolarity rather than what happens to Beijing or Washington.

‘India is the only country that believes in both a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world’

How other countries are grappling with China’s global role and influence was of interest to James Crabtree, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He spoke of a changed US strategy on China. Under Biden, there was a refocusing: greater engagement with a narrower group of high-impact allies such as India, Japan and Australia, and less with a larger number of wavering nations in, say, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands, who do not want to pick one side or the other but want beneficial relations with both. So the US has built deeper relations with countries most threated by China – eg the Quad countries – and we may see more doubling down on this under Trump. From a European perspective, added Crabtree, China’s approach to the world is less a function of ideological statecraft and more a reflection of what is going on in the Chinese economy at that time – for example, the BRI was a useful source of channelling spare capacity in Chinese infrastructure creation internationally in the 2010s. Now, though, as its economic model pivots away from investment in domestic infrastructure and more towards advanced manufacturing, this creates challenges re. tariffs etc re. China’s engagement with the US, Europe, but other nations.

Beijing has adopted a bilateral approach to resolve and manage disputes in the South China Sea

Regarding India’s role in this, India and China share similarities in that they both believe in a multipolar world, though Crabtree cited a comment that India is the only country that believes in both a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world. India is clearly competing with China to become a voice of the Global South, and has its own reasons for not allowing China to dominate old and newer international institutions, though China has used these institutions to craft a role for itself and wants to have a greater say within them, rather than tear them down. It has also sought to create new institutions and put more energy into them, eg BRICS, and the relationship China and India will have within institutions such as BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the G20 will be particularly interesting. In conclusion, Crabtree said China can no longer afford to splash cash on big projects but seeks more diplomatic influence, although it primarily sees the world through the lens of geopolitical competition with the US, and does not seek as large a role as we might expect in global crises such as the Middle East.

We have reached a consensus where we see the emergence of a multipolar world, but the real question, arguedDr Sophie Wushuang Yi, a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, is not simply whether China’s influence will diminish but how it will navigate its way within a new global landscape. She spoke of how recent events in Syria, South Korea, etc show the unpredictability of global politics, and many nations are now preoccupied with domestic priorities, which raises the questions of what role China can play in a world where nations have turned inwards to deal with their own challenges, and how it engages on the global stage.

Pic of CPEC
China has suggested the BRI should shift from an initiative to an institution

On the issue of the South China Sea, Yi said Beijing has adopted a bilateral approach to resolve and manage disputes there, as it wants to control its own narrative in the region. China’s influence there is significant, with a growing military presence and naval power projectioncapabilities, but its power is also contestedas the USstrengthens it alliances to assert its own presence in the region. She also touched on the cooperation between China and regional countries, with China having passed the USto become the prevailing choice of alignment forASEANcountries as the emergence of a multipolar world offers another choice to stick together and figure a way out of the dilemma. Ultimately, Yi concluded,China’s influence will be shaped by its ability to adapt to both internal and external pressures and how well it navigates a landscape of competing interests andevolving power dynamics.

For Assoc. Prof. Dr Mher Sahakyan, Fulbright Visiting Scholar at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research in Armenia, the focus was on ‘China and Eurasia in a multipolar world order 2:0’. The world must now be called a multipolar world order 2:0, a new state which started after the beginning of a non-direct war between Russia and NATO over Ukraine. Today, there are two superpowers in the area around Russia: the US and China; three great powers, Russia, the UK and EU; and one big power, India. Yet other middle or smaller powers such as Turkey, Iran and North Korea still play an important role in world events, and this competition will also spread to central and eastern Europe. Both Russia and the US are active in events in Georgia, as well as the Middle East, while Turkey and Iran are also taking a bigger role in events in Syria and Gaza. Sahakyan believed that international law will play a secondary role in world events, with economic, political and military power playing a more decisive role than rules and legality.

Great Powers will assert their spheres ofinfluence by, for example, excludingopponents from access to markets, restrictions on financial activities andbattles for influence in international organisations or even startingnew organisations– for instance, China has said that the BRI should shift from an initiative to an institution. Cyberspace is another area in which great and middle powers will start to compete, added Sahakyan – the US and China are leading in these technologies, but others such as India, South Korea and Russia are also playing crucial roles. This power struggle for high technology markets in different regions of the Russian continent is ongoing, with China and the US the main competitors in several spheres such as production of digital data, development of artificial intelligence, and the design and production of semiconductors and chips, technologies crucial in modern civilian and military production. While there is still some interdependence in this regard, Sahakyan added, we seethe US and China trying to cut thisinterdependence, which will bring about another big problem for theworld.

MJ Akbar is the author of several books, including Doolally Sahib and the Black Zamindar: Racism and Revenge in the British Raj, and Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns

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