APD Review | Why has China become the world's second largest power?

By APD writer Weizhan Meng

Has China already been the No. 2 power in the world? In addition to the United States, it seems that there isn’t any other country that is more powerful than China. However, many Chinese people still deny this fact today. Yan Xuetong, professor at Institute of Modern International Relations, Tsinghua University, believes that by 2023, China will become one pole in the new bipolar system, which received much criticism from Chinese scholars and amateurs.

There are two main paradigms in international relations: realism and liberalism. From a realist perspective, undeniably, China has already been the No. 2 power in the world. While from a liberal perspective, it is too early to say that. Both views are justified. Unfortunately, many critics of Yan misunderstood his views. As a matter of fact, his viewpoint doesn’t mean arrogance, but the respect for changes of objective facts.

Surprisingly, recently, there is a view that China's strength has surpassed that of the United States and ranked first in the world. According to Hu Angang, professor and director of Center for China Studies, Tsinghua University, China's comprehensive strength, including economic and military strength, will surpass that of the United States and become the world's largest country by 2020. But his calculating method almost didn’t receive any recognition from any other scholars. This article merely focuses on Yan’s viewpoint. Despite being controversial, his viewpoint has been accepted by quite a few Chinese.

Yan's critics proposed the following reasons. First of all, despite the fact that China's has been close to the United States in economic strength, there are many problems within China, such as corruption, the wealth gap, environmental pollution, food safety and mass accidents, so it’s hard for China to sustain economic growth. Secondly, even if China has already been the second largest economy in the world, its influence is far from being accepted and recognized by other superpowers. Wang Jisi, professor and director of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University, argues that due to the lack of influence in rule-making, China is still far from being the second power in the world.

From a liberal perspective, the relationship between China and the United States is like that between deans and the president of a university. Although China is now strong, if China's status is not recognized by the United States, then its influence on the world will be largely limited. What’s more, China has to rely on and adopt international trade rules set by the United States, the world's No. 1 power. The reason is that western countries still dominate the world at present and the total power of all Western countries and Japan is several times stronger than China. In short, whether China can become the No. 2 power depends on whether it can cooperate with Western countries and comply with their international rules.

But realists are more concerned with security, rather than trade. Besides realists in China, those in the United States, such as John Mearsheimer, also believe that China will be the only power that is able to threaten the United States in the future. In the next few decades, as long as China does not collapse, the strength of China will inevitably be close to that of the United States. This process will inevitably lead to deepening doubts and concerns of the US, with increasing conflicts between the two sides and more and more security pressure in China as a final result. Therefore, China must face up to the fact that it has already been the world's second largest and its strength is being closer and closer to that of the United States, instead of denying it. If China does deny the fact, it will “deceive itself” in Chinese term, which will do no favor to its response to security challenges. Instead of being arrogant or complacent, Yan is seriously considering how to deal with difficulties in the next few decades for China.

In addition, another problem caused by the ascent of China is that other East Asian countries will become increasingly skeptical and fearful of China. In the past when China was not strong, they could live in harmony with it. But now things are different. Even if China does not have the intention of invading neighboring countries, they still feel frightened. Therefore, Yan believes that China must adjust its diplomatic strategy to abandon the policy of non-alignment and adopt an alliance policy to protect neighboring countries. Only in this way can they feel at ease and reduce the fear toward China. This means that China should admit it has been the world's second largest and then adjust the diplomatic strategy. In the past we insisted our low profile strategy be the best choice, but now it has been out of date. Because it is impossible to reduce US and Asian countries’ concerns about China's rise even if China continues to maintain that policy. So we should establish closer relationship with neighboring countries in a more active manner and participate in more global affairs to make our will of peaceful development understood.

Indeed, we should not be complacent, but should be aware that the fact that China’s strength has risen to the second place in the world has brought us trouble. So we should seriously consider how to solve those problems.

Meng Weizhan is a PhD student at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, the University of Hong Kong. His research interests focus on China's foreign policy, East Asian security, strategic studies, and international relations theories.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)