Perspectives
A critical look at China as an emerging power
DURING the nineties, in the wake of the Cold War's demise a post-reform China had been in full focus of the West's powerful media, which seldom tired of projecting it as an economic "power house," "fast-growing nuclear military power," and "potentially a superpower" by the middle of the twenty first century. Even today, observers sometimes describe China as a "rising great power" or "a major power," and at other times as a "dominant regional power" or a "sleeping giant which has awakened."
All of these observations may simply be conjecture, and, thus, obfuscate China's exact position in global power configuration. It would be worthwhile to critically look at some elements of the observations; China's burgeoning economic and military power projected by none other than the Western media itself.
The Chinese government itself has referred to China's "peaceful rise to great power status" in characterising its emergence from economic poverty and political isolation to economic prosperity and political engagement. The world is already aware of China's post-reform miracles; its double-digit growth rate, quadrupling of its per capita GDP and an uninterrupted increase in the volume of its foreign trade since 1978, making China's prospect of becoming the world's second largest economy more realistic.
Not only that, China is moving fast to balance the economy with the military, another key dimension of national power. She is now engaged in one of the most-expensive and rapid military builds-up of the world. China has been the only Asian member of the internationally acknowledged nuclear club, with its large nuclear arsenal, and has deployed her nuclear weapons of intercontinental reach.
China is the biggest military spender after the US, and does not want to become just a second-rate military power. China's grand modernisation of the military, including her nuclear tests a few years back defying the test ban treaty, is a pointer to her great power ambition. Though limited, China already has an inventory of long-range USS-4 land based intercontinental missiles and ballistic missile submarines.
Although China's political power is yet to be clearly assessed, its economic potentials are phenomenal. China's GDP, variously measured as the second, third or fourth now, is predicted by all to become second largest in the world within a decade or so. In total exports, China, with $989 billion worth in 2005, ranked third only after the US and Germany. Its sizable trade surplus with respect to the US, the world's largest trading economy, is a source of genuine concern and consternation in that country.
China held an astonishing $ 1.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserve in 2007. Finally, China is currently the largest destination for foreign direct investments (FDI), attracting $60 billion in 2005 from the corporations worldwide.
At this crucial juncture for American power, when this world is fast approaching multi-polarity, China with her power potential and growing international prestige can be catapulted to the leadership of a network of states inimical to Western objectives and interests. It is not for nothing that she is today wooed alike by both the sole superpower as well as states in Central Asia or North Africa.
All these factors taken together put her at the centre of an informal group of the states which can, at some stage, challenge the prolonged domination of the Western civilization.
But then, the limits to China's emerging power also are glaring. In 1997, China accounted for only 3.5 percent of the world's GNP, ranking 7th in the world -- just ahead of Brazil but well behind Italy. As per the UN Human Development Index China was 107th bracketed with Albania and Namibia. In terms of international trade and investment the story in much the same. China made up a mere 3 percent of world trade in 1997, despite all the hype about its economy.
As regards investment, at its peak some of its $ 45 million in inflow came from ethnic Chinese of East Asia and very little from the developed world.
It is also true that in strategic terms the Chinese challenge is nothing like the Soviet one. China is less like the Soviet Union in the 1950s than like perhaps Iraq in the 1990s -- a regional threat to Western interests, not a global ideological rival. China's military clout can be gauged also from the quantum of Chinese arms transfers, which stand barely at 2.2 percent of total arms transfers in 1991.
The strategic partnership between China and the US -- first espoused by a former US president during his China visit and so often highlighted ever afterwards, hardly means anything. Because, on no one significant strategic issue are they on the same side; neither are their capabilities compatible for such partnership between them.
However, the point missing in the whole debate is perhaps the fact that in the revolving cycle of the rise and fall of the great powers China is on the ascendancy. What is significant here is the full potential of China as a swiftly rising power. But it would be a convoluted puzzle to fix where China stands in a comparative scale in contemporary global settings.
During the present period of historic transition and constant changes, national power can not be measured in term of arithmetical figures which are always in flux under the force of myriad dynamics at work.
In 1800, China itself accounted for 33 percent of world manufacturing output. By 1900 she was down to 6.2 percent. In the meantime, the United States, which was 0.8 percent in 1800 rose to 23.6 percent in 1900 and 25.6 percent in 1997.
The nation's rating as a power is hardly proportionate to any single factor. It lies in the maze of combinations and permutations of many equations of power play, which themselves keep changing. Then there are many abstract values which cannot be arithmetically measured but add to the strength of a nation.
Today, after the Cold War, the world is witnessing great power transition in which China has risen faster than most people anticipated. Any attempt to pinpoint its standing in the global order at a given point of time is of academic interest.
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