Timothy Garton Ash: On an auspicious anniversary, here are four keys to China's peaceful rise
[Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist.]
As we mark the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's launching the country's world-changing economic reforms, I want to address the $65 quadrillion question of China's peaceful rise. Some reactions I've had to columns I recently wrote from China indicate a large potential for misunderstanding, especially among Chinese readers, so let me make the argument plain.
Start at a possible bad end. When great powers rise and fall, there's an increased danger of war - not today or tomorrow, but in a timescale of decades. That proposition does not imply any judgment on Chinese culture or national character. It merely reflects a recurrent pattern of history, seen across thousands of years in many different regions and cultures. The war may not be started by the ascendant power. It may be started by the declining power, with defensive aggression. It may even be against someone else. (The hegemonic transfer from Britain to the US came as both were fighting Nazi Germany.)
There is nothing remotely original or offensive in this line of thought. The very notion of "peaceful rise", launched by a leading Communist party thinker a few years ago, was predicated on the same insight: that, historically, nations' rises have often not been peaceful. (The preferred official term may now be "peaceful development", but "peaceful rise" is analytically much sharper.) So that's the long-term risk: war. But the long-term opportunity is equally large: imagine one-fifth of humankind organised in a single modern, prosperous state, playing a constructive part in a co-operative international system and tackling trans- national challenges, such as global warming, which threaten us all. So the stakes are huge, either way.
Now let's be clear on one thing. What China does, whether it goes on rising and if so, how, is mainly up to the Chinese: legally, since theirs is a sovereign state; morally, since peoples have a right to shape their own destinies; but also practically, since the capacity of anyone else to influence the evolution of such a large, self-referential country is limited. Limited, but far from nil. This is not the 17th century. The prospects for the Chinese economy in 2009 depend directly on what happens in the American and European markets for Chinese exports. So we who are not Chinese have not just a stake, but also a hand in this story.
I have therefore come up with this shortlist of four keys to China's peaceful rise, attaching to each point a rough guesstimate of the division of responsibility (DoR) between us. In the confines of a column, my list is necessarily selective and of telegraphic brevity. I offer it with the health warning that on this subject I depend heavily on the expertise of others, and on Chinese voices interpreted or self-translated into English. Since, however, those experts and Chinese voices profoundly disagree among themselves, we outsiders still have to make up our own minds. Anyway, to stir debate, here are my four keys to China's peaceful rise. I welcome all responses, however critical, from those who are experts on China or, better still, are Chinese themselves...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
As we mark the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's launching the country's world-changing economic reforms, I want to address the $65 quadrillion question of China's peaceful rise. Some reactions I've had to columns I recently wrote from China indicate a large potential for misunderstanding, especially among Chinese readers, so let me make the argument plain.
Start at a possible bad end. When great powers rise and fall, there's an increased danger of war - not today or tomorrow, but in a timescale of decades. That proposition does not imply any judgment on Chinese culture or national character. It merely reflects a recurrent pattern of history, seen across thousands of years in many different regions and cultures. The war may not be started by the ascendant power. It may be started by the declining power, with defensive aggression. It may even be against someone else. (The hegemonic transfer from Britain to the US came as both were fighting Nazi Germany.)
There is nothing remotely original or offensive in this line of thought. The very notion of "peaceful rise", launched by a leading Communist party thinker a few years ago, was predicated on the same insight: that, historically, nations' rises have often not been peaceful. (The preferred official term may now be "peaceful development", but "peaceful rise" is analytically much sharper.) So that's the long-term risk: war. But the long-term opportunity is equally large: imagine one-fifth of humankind organised in a single modern, prosperous state, playing a constructive part in a co-operative international system and tackling trans- national challenges, such as global warming, which threaten us all. So the stakes are huge, either way.
Now let's be clear on one thing. What China does, whether it goes on rising and if so, how, is mainly up to the Chinese: legally, since theirs is a sovereign state; morally, since peoples have a right to shape their own destinies; but also practically, since the capacity of anyone else to influence the evolution of such a large, self-referential country is limited. Limited, but far from nil. This is not the 17th century. The prospects for the Chinese economy in 2009 depend directly on what happens in the American and European markets for Chinese exports. So we who are not Chinese have not just a stake, but also a hand in this story.
I have therefore come up with this shortlist of four keys to China's peaceful rise, attaching to each point a rough guesstimate of the division of responsibility (DoR) between us. In the confines of a column, my list is necessarily selective and of telegraphic brevity. I offer it with the health warning that on this subject I depend heavily on the expertise of others, and on Chinese voices interpreted or self-translated into English. Since, however, those experts and Chinese voices profoundly disagree among themselves, we outsiders still have to make up our own minds. Anyway, to stir debate, here are my four keys to China's peaceful rise. I welcome all responses, however critical, from those who are experts on China or, better still, are Chinese themselves...