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Home , Henry Kissinger, Revanchism, Robert Kagan

China’s discomfort in an American world

By Dan Blumenthal October 2015

KEY POINTS

. has reemerged as a in a world order created and dominated by the , and that order has had a profound effect ’s development. . China possesses three personalities. It acts as a civilizational empire, a nation-state, and a globally integrated economic power. The struggles to manage these often-conflicting identities. . A multitude of identities is not unique to China. The United States is both a classical nation-state and an “empire of liberty,” and the interaction between the three Chinas and the two Americas will shape the future of Asia.

f the end of the Cold provided a the world stage since it abandoned its Maoist I temporary reprieve from great-power radicalism and entered a period of high economic rivalry, the Sino-American relationship is growth known as the “reform and opening.” currently heralding its return. Although strategic Why, then, is China’s reemergence as a great competition is not the only dimension of the power a problem for the United States? The Sino-American relationship, it is beginning to challenge for Washington is not that China is define it. This turn of events should not surprise richer and more powerful; rather, it is the kind of Washington. In its short history, the United power that China is becoming under the States has played the role of both rising and continued one-party of the Chinese established power in rivalries with the United Communist Party. Kingdom, , Imperial Japan, and the . Indeed, the only surprise is that To fully understand the meaning of China’s some believed that there would be a “Chinese reemergence requires an understanding of the exception” to the normal course of great-power global strategic context of its increased power and behavior. prestige. The defining characteristic of that strategic environment is the overwhelming China’s rise did not have to be overly dominance of US power and influence—the US problematic. Indeed, ’s quest for wealth might be the most powerful country that the and power has improved the lives of hundreds of world has ever seen.1 From China’s point of view, millions of Chinese people, as well as contributed this means that after 200 years of weakness and to US prosperity. The People’s Republic of China humiliation, the PRC faces an America that is (PRC) has certainly acted more responsibly on stronger and more influential than all of China’s

1 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE previous adversaries combined (though America’s principles are universally applicable. The United dominance is now being challenged in many States vacillates between foreign policies that are quarters). based on more narrow national interests and those based on more universal liberal principles. Finding its way in this “world America made” is difficult for the world’s last functioning Leninist With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many party that still oversees a civilizational empire.2 thought that international affairs would take That is, China rules a physical empire that shape along the lines of American universalism— includes Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and the global liberalism would finally triumph. increasingly oppressed Hong Kong and seeks China had other ideas. Consequently for Beijing, more territory including and the South American universalism is as threatening as China Sea. Moreover, that physical empire has an American military power. Beijing does not make imperial mindset. China does not see itself as just great distinctions among the Clinton another nation-state among nation-states. administration’s spread of liberalism, the Rather, it has a profound sense of itself as the freedom agenda of George W. Bush, and the center of civilization and conceives of itself as not liberal internationalist polices of . just a country but a historically superior The Chinese Communist Party believes that all of civilization that deserves deference from other these post– presidents have been eager countries. to change China. Empires and Leninist countries have not fared well in the era of American dominance, and Beijing is vigilant in protecting against the presumed, and in some ways real, ideological and America: Nation-State or material threat posed by the United States. It is Empire of Liberty? doing so while attempting to reconcile a still- existent imperial mindset with China’s As Robert Kagan and others have argued, the development as a modern nation-state. Famed unique American experiment with political liberty scholar Lucian Pye described China’s struggle has led to distinct patterns in its conduct of aptly: it is “a civilization attempting to be a .6 Americans are the true firstborn nation-state.”3 children of the Enlightenment, made in the image of John Locke, Adam Smith, and Montesquieu.7 Another layer must be added to these two Although the proper and realistic application of Chinese identities. China is not only an empire America’s liberal ideas in has been and a nation-state; to gain wealth and power in a matter of great debate among Americans, US the American world, China became part of the leaders have shared at least one common belief: postmodern, global, capitalist economic system. that their country will be safer and more Thus, China thinks like an empire, a Leninist-run prosperous in a world conducive to political nation-state, and a highly globalized political liberty. economy. China’s three personalities mirror Indeed, the hard-nosed creators of the post– British scholar- Robert Cooper’s II American world began their famed description of the differing character types of strategy document, National Security Council states in the contemporary international system. Report 68, with references to the Declaration of Cooper identifies three types of countries: Independence and the Constitution, even though premodern, modern, and postmodern.4 China has the document was not for public consumption— elements of all three. belying the notion that US leaders use American To be sure, having a multitude of identities is not ideals only to persuade the public to carry out unique to China. The foreign policies of many narrow-minded policies.8 This belief in liberal countries are shaped by competing identities. values has resulted in different varieties of Most important for China, the United States is American universalism, tempered by American both a classical nation-state and an “empire of tendencies toward pragmatism. liberty.”5 Americans believe that their deeply held

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On one hand, Americans shaping their country’s the notion of sovereignty, that countries rise to dominance believed in the Kantian were supreme within their borders and “perpetual .” American leaders thought that that no other country had the right to international law and international institutions intervene in their domestic affairs. The could govern relations among nations to keep the borders defined the reach of peace. Many of America’s “founding fathers” of international law. The use of force across great-power foreign policy, such as Dean borders could be defined as illegal or as Acheson, , and Henry Stimson, at least aggression.9 on some level, believed that liberal principles and Sino-American relations evolve even as the US institutions should help govern the world; hence continues its struggle to balance its universalist the International Court of Justice, global “empire of liberty” identity and its role as the disarmament conferences, and international enforcer of -state system. arbitration to resolve disputes. They believed that supranational organizations combined with American power could settle disputes peacefully and perhaps even guide countries on the path of China in the American progress and enlightenment. World: Empire or Nation- For example, these statesmen had a role in creating institutions and treaties such as the State? Kellogg-Briand Pact that criminalized war among nations, the 1920s disarmament pacts, the China has struggled with its at League of Nations, the , and least since the decay of the Qing dynasty and the economic institutions such as the International shock of foreign encroachment. In the decades Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the following the 1911 revolution, China World Trade Organization (WTO). These experimented with republicanism, democracy, institutions concerned themselves with the and rule by two different Leninist parties— internal workings of governments and domestic Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese economies, making America party to Communist Party (CCP)—with each successive international litigation and arbitration of governing structure attempting to channel commercial disputes. These were legacies of the Chinese . Enlightenment: peace through reason and In 1949, four years after the end of WWII, Mao enlightened self-interest. won the Chinese civil war and proclaimed, “China 10 On the other hand, the founding fathers of the has stood up.” This was surely a statement of American order believed they governed a nation- national pride in China’s revival, but the CCP’s state in a system of nation-states. They accepted civil war victory did not settle the empire versus the Westphalian idea of how nation-states would nation-state debate. and should behave: international order is a In many ways, Mao acted like a Chinese emperor. product of sovereign nations treating one another Although he knew that China was not strong equally under the law; countries would form enough to reestablish the traditional stable balances of power so that no one could Sinosphere—the Middle Kingdom’s old Asian dominate another; and war could be necessary tributaries had gained independence and but legitimate only in the defense of territory and emerged as strategic actors in their own right—he sovereignty. As has explained: believed that China’s version of communism was What we consider universally applicable. He supported Maoist today really dates back only to the Treaty insurgencies throughout Asia and positioned of Westphalia of 1648. After the suffering Chinese communism as a purer form of caused by religious , a new communism than that of the Soviet Union. Mao international concept was needed. That believed his form of communism could lead the international concept had various decolonizing and developing world out of poverty, elements: it introduced for the first time misery, and humiliation.

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The imperial Mao had seemingly repudiated the ’s market reforms in the 1970s traditions and rule of the Qing dynasty, yet sent began what called “the most his troops to retake the lost Qing territories: dynamic burst of wealth creation in human Xinjiang in 1949 and Tibet in 1950. His history.”14 The Chinese people benefited from an successors would have Hong Kong handed over to international system that proved agile enough to them by the British in 1997.11 To this day, taking absorb its entry. It seemed as though China was Taiwan remains China’s paramount strategic finally becoming a fully modern nation-state. goal. However, the world order that Deng thought he Ultimately, however, Mao had to play modern was joining was rapidly changing. As China was nation-state . He had to adapt to a bipolar finally fully embracing its role as one of many power struggle between America’s liberal order equal nation-states in the international system, and Soviet communism. He grudgingly accepted the democratic powers were changing the rules of the Westphalian notion of sovereign equals the game. The international system aligned itself working to establish a stable balance of power. more closely with the ideals of its Anglo- Military force in defense of sovereignty was an American creators. Westphalian practices of important tool of this statecraft. Thus, China respect for sovereignty were fraying with the rise went to war to expel the United States from the of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, in Korean Peninsula. The Republic of China’s which UN members were granted an implicit attempts to retake the mainland still had to be right to intercede if dictatorial regimes did not beaten back. To keep the Americans at bay, Mao protect their citizens basic rights. The West needed to “lean to one side”—toward the moved farther than it ever had before to Soviets—and acquire nuclear weapons from unshackle itself from the UN charter’s limitations them.12 on the use of military force. A turning point was NATO’s fight against Serbia in , conducted While Mao’s reign continued China’s hard-wired without UN approval and on mostly policies of universalism, he also showed great humanitarian grounds.15 ideological flexibility in the service of China’s more narrow national interests. When the Soviets While Westphalian principles were never as turned against him, he needed the Americans as doggedly adhered to as many imagine, the 21st- his security partner. In his final act, he accepted century postmodern project offered some unique ’s invitation to join the “family of changes to the modern system of international nations” and normalized relations with the hated relations. In Europe, rich and powerful countries capitalist United States.13 A new conception of a attempted to shed nationalism and cede Chinese nation-state playing by the rules of sovereignty voluntarily. According to Cooper: classical eventually won out, at least for a time, over Chinese universalism. The postmodern system in which we Europeans live does not rely on balance; nor does it emphasize sovereignty or the separation of domestic and foreign The World Deng Entered: affairs. The has become a highly developed system for mutual Liberalism and interference in each other's domestic Postmodernism affairs. . . . The CFE Treaty, under which parties to the treaty have to notify the A 20th-century manifestation of US universalism location of their heavy weapons and was Washington’s offer of membership to the allow inspections, subjects areas close to liberal order to all comers and it attempts to the core of sovereignty to international persuade the reluctant to accept its belief in the constraints. It is important to realize power of free markets and . Richard what an extraordinary revolution this Nixon’s opening to China is the most is.16 consequential example of this impulse.

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When such a powerful group of nations so After WWII, the allied victors formed the United radically changes its ideas about how security and Nations in part to reaffirm Westphalian prosperity are obtained, it shakes the world. Of principles that had been violated by the Nazis in course, Cooper is expressing the of what Germany and the fascists in Japan. International postmodern nation-states aspire to, rather than politics was to be organized around equal nation- the continuing realities of modern European states with well-defined borders. What went on international politics. inside those borders was not supposed to concern other nation-states.20 Western leaders lauded the new international system. As then–NATO Secretary General Javier Jiang insisted to Kissinger that the United States Solana stated in 1998, “The Westphalian model is and China work with each other to solidify an inhospitable to international law and norms that order based on Westphalian principles—the are valued widely today in the West, such as traditional state system. According to Jiang, democracy and .”17 A leading China was ready to overcome its “Middle American foreign affairs commentator expressed Kingdom remoteness [and] dominance”—the old this view: Chinese civilizational world order. It was ready, after more than a century, to play by the Our notion of sovereignty must . . . be Westphalian rules, but this very modern notion of conditional, even contractual, rather world order seemed to be disappearing. than absolute. . . . The diplomatic challenge for this era is to gain Playing by the Westphalian rules proved more widespread support for principles of idea than reality as China became an important state conduct and a procedure for player in what some call the third wave of determining remedies when these . Observers note that the first wave principles are violated.18 of globalization was tied to the Industrial Revolution, when steamships reduced the cost of

international transportation and railroads could move goods within countries more cheaply. China, the Fraying of Nations that could embrace this new and faster Westphalia, and trade did so.21 Postmodern The second wave of globalization came after World War II. Statesmen created a new system of Geoeconomics finance, commerce, and global monetary policy. They set up trading institutions such as the WTO Just as they were gaining comfort with the to lower international trade barriers and other practice of modern international politics and restrictions. Not surprisingly, exports as a share economics, the Chinese were shocked by this turn of gross world product multiplied. When the of events. Former National Security Adviser and WTO failed, countries negotiated bilateral trade Henry Kissinger recounts agreements to lower tariff barriers. conversations with , former general But the third wave of globalization further secretary of the Communist Party, who was eager changed the world. Technological innovations to finish Deng Xiaoping’s work and accept the changed the nature of global production. Perhaps modern international system. He noted, “Jiang the most important technological innovation for was cosmopolitan enough to understand that driving new phases of globalization was the China would have to operate within an containerized ship. As Marc Levinson writes in international system rather than through Middle The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the Kingdom remoteness or dominance.”19 World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, In the long sweep of history, this type of entrepreneur Malcolm McLean’s idea to build “modern” nation-state international relations is containers that can transport cargo from land (via still relatively new. The longer history of trucks or railroads) to ships without ever being international relations is that kingdoms, empires, opened and repackaged revolutionized and religions fought one another for supremacy. international trade.22 Prices of shipping went

5 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE down dramatically as efficiency increased of globalization. Steinfeld argues that it was really allowing China to fast become a maritime trading in the 1990s, a decade after the beginning of nation with eight of the twenty largest Deng’s reforms, that China’s “domestic international ports. Alongside these revolution” began, one that was “intimately improvements in shipping and transportation linked” with the “globalization revolution.”26 came the information and communications According to Steinfeld, China took part in a revolution, which meant that ideas, innovations, “revolutionary” new mode of global production, money, and commerce could be exchanged with great success. The new wave of globalization instantaneously via computer networks. beginning in the late 1980s/early 1990s involved The rise of the multinational enterprise also “really for the first time in history, a truly global revolutionized global economics. Companies organization of production. . . . It is to this world began to design in one location, manufacture in that China hitched its fate and experienced an another, conduct research and development in epic domestic transformation as a yet another, and assemble and process for export consequence.”27 in yet another.23 According to a McKinsey Global China’s price for choosing this high-payoff path of Institute report, “Flows of goods, services, and economic growth was the forfeiture of some finance reached $26 trillion in 2012, or 36 sovereignty and control. The ferocious logic of the percent of global GDP, 1.5 times the level in 1990. new international economic regime required Now, one in three goods crosses national borders, changes in Chinese internal governance. To and more than one-third of financial investments prosper, the Chinese party-state had to change. are international transactions. . . . Global flows Important regulatory bodies became less political could reach $54 trillion to $85 trillion by 2025, and more technocratic, less tied to CCP doctrine more than double or triple their current scale.”24 and more open to new ideas. Rules and economic This new type of economics required new political systems created elsewhere clearly “interfered” arrangements. and economic with China’s sovereignty. managers had to agree on new laws and Certainly, the CCP sets most rules and continues regulations, the removal of barriers to trade in to define its many domestic institutions, but by goods and services, the freer movement of choosing to integrate with the international workers, standards for shipping, and other modes economy at the time that it did, China accepted of transport. Constructing and maintaining the quite a bit of interference in its internal affairs. postmodern economy required countries that Beijing encouraged Western firms to bring in participated in it to surrender absolute Western managers, workers, ideas, and sovereignty and abide by ever-increasing regulations that would allow Chinese industries international laws and regulations. to be restructured for growth. What resulted was a global economic system in In international finance, China embraced the new which boundaries mattered less than before. globalization with similar verve. This financial According to Edward Steinfeld, this globalization system is dominated by the United States, with “is not really about different parts of the world the dollar as the reserve currency. For Beijing, a trading at arm’s length and competing head to somewhat perverse consequence of China’s head. Quite to the contrary, it is about the world, seemingly traditional economic development including places once considered the farthest path (favoring exporters over importers and frontiers, getting pulled into sourcing and producers over consumers) is that to modernize, production systems that once existed in only one it had to become more reliant on the firm.”25 international, which meant the American, China chose to become a player in this new financial system. To keep its exports competitive, economic order. The country became a key link in China pegged its currency to the dollar, and the a global supply and production chain—an export intervention needed to maintain the peg led to base for multinational corporations. A the massive accumulation of dollar reserve assets. modernizing, industrializing China, dominated by In so doing China has had to give up a modicum state-owned enterprises, embraced the next wave of control over its financial policy.28

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Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Ryukyu Islands (now in Japanese hands). China’s A New Type of Great territorial claims are not just a matter of power politics or of conflicting interests that can be Power? The Three Chinas resolved though diplomacy and international law. Rather, China believes that it has “rights” in a By the first decade of the 21st century, when more powerful and profound sense: China is a China’s ascendance was in full bloom, it had universalist empire whose leaders rule “all under developed three international personalities. First, heaven.”32 it is a modern nation-state governed by a functioning Leninist party. This China is the one Nation-states are able to recognize each other’s the US focuses its energies on. US strategies of legitimate claims, even if they disagree with them. engagement and containment are meant to, on Classical diplomacy allows for flexibility as to one hand, convince China of the benefits of the what serves a nation’s interest at any given time. order it has built and, on the other, to make sure Countries accept that an ultimate solution might China cannot successfully overturn it. This China mean the abandonment of claims based solely on is arguably the world’s greatest defender of the what they deem just. This is especially true if Westphalian principle of “noninterference in countries view one another as sovereign equals. countries’ internal affairs” and the UN charter’s In contrast, imperial claims are zero sum. very specific and limited notions of when a Empires believe that others countries have lesser country can use force.29 status. They are tributaries, full of barbarians and Postmodern China is less concerned with vassals. Imperial claims have ideological balance-of-power politics, military issues, or underpinnings: since empires believe their rule is territorial sovereignty. Globalization has created universal and of the highest virtue, the room for a class of Chinese citizens who are international diplomatic give and take narrows. Indeed, China elites—“Davos Men,” who are more cosmopolitan does not believe that there is room for negotiation than nationalistic, more at home with other on China’s borders or territories in the South cosmopolitan business, cultural, and economic China Sea. To the imperial mind, Taiwan is part leaders than their own countrymen—who divide of the imperium, and historical justice demands their time between China and Western centers of its return. The fact that the island has developed technology and finance. The Chinese into a free-market democracy with a serious case “Argonauts,” as University of California Berkeley for international recognition does not matter to professor AnnaLee Saxenian writes, were Beijing. educated in the US and circulate their knowledge and innovations between Shanghai and Silicon Valley.30 China’s Future: Will a Finally, China still retains both its physical empire and the “mind of an empire.”31 The PRC “True” China Emerge? continues to rule people in Xinjiang and Tibet No country develops in a linear fashion. The who do not want to be part of China. Beijing question is will the nation-state be China’s regained Hong Kong and incrementally presses dominant identity as it is today, either along the the relatively free city to accept intrusive CCP lines of its Leninist structure or manifested in rule. It is diplomatically and militarily postured another form? Or will Chinese civilizational to secure the unification of a de facto universalism dominate? What about the forces of independent Taiwan. This is imperial postmodern globalization? One thing is certain: revanchism—the desire to reestablish Chinese the China I have described will not be the China rule over territories that were once under Qing of 2030. and Ming rule. Given the difficulty a one-party state has in Many Chinese strategic elites give great weight to managing the three Chinas it is worth also the fact that the Qing and Ming dynasties had considering whether the PRC is decaying, much tributary relationships with what are now

7 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE like its Qing predecessor. The Qing-Confucian experimenting with economic liberalism, the bureaucracy was unable to adapt to the economic party set up an inevitable clash between and social changes of 19th-century China. continued authoritarian governance and the Likewise, it famously would not adapt to modern energies and aspirations of the Chinese people. statecraft. As Evan Osnos describes in his book Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in Historian David Landes points out that the Qing, the New China, the Chinese people are no longer unlike the West, did not develop the checks on solely satisfied with material well-being and the state, the free markets, and the property state-sanctioned nationalism.39 The Pew Center rights Westerners were beginning to enjoy. They estimates that China now has some 67 million did not innovate. The emperor and the elite Christians, pointing to a spiritual restlessness in reveled in cultural superiority and rejected most China that the Chinese Communist Party is Western learning.33 The failure to reform its incapable of addressing.40 Tom Phillips, a leading imperial system made responding to foreign scholar of Christianity in China, believes that encroachments impossible. Internal decay and China will soon have the world’s largest Christian foreign policy humiliation led to regime collapse population.41 This phenomenon is both a reaction and years of warlordism and civil war. to Leninist modernism and a result of the partial What about today? Is the CCP adapting fast embrace of postmodernism—easier contact with enough to both internal pressures and international religions has provided succor to consequential changes in the external Chinese embarking on a religious/spiritual environment? In terms of openness to the best journey. political, economic and scientific ideas is China The two-centuries-long Chinese modernization actually backsliding? Today, as in the 19th project has left it with the legacies of empire, century, China faces seemingly insoluble internal with strong attempts to become a modern problems. Environmental degradation has caused nation-state, and with “postmodern” citizens scarcity in water supply and arable land, embedded in the liberal order pushing for rendering China increasingly dependent on many greater liberalism. Can the CCP really manage food products from abroad.34 its three personalities? The one-child policy and consequent sex-selective abortions have resulted in the twin demographic disasters of a rapidly aging population and a surplus of males. China’s demographics will look China and the United akin to those of Europe and Japan by 2030.35 States and Asia The physical empire is becoming more restive, The Sino-American interaction will shape the particularly Xinjiang. Some Uighurs are future of Asia, if not the world. The United States radicalizing in response to China’s repressive has, since its birth, struggled with its universal practices and may develop connections with and parochial identities. But the world has grown radical jihadi groups.36 Self-immolations in Tibet accustomed to these conflicting foreign policy and Sichuan raise the specter of a larger blaze to impulses: they no longer cause systemic come. Recent events in Hong Kong, meanwhile, disruption to world order. are a reminder that China will do whatever it takes to suppress democracy movements In contrast, China’s similar struggles are demanding more autonomy from the empire.37 occurring as it grows in power and prestige. The But that is not an easy task, particularly in a Chinese drama is happening in real time, and partially postmodern world in which Asia is struggling to adjust. The stakes are very movements can quickly gain international high as America’s future could well be more support.38 intertwined with Asia this century than with any other region. Perhaps the greatest challenge for the CCP is what the party would call the “growing The challenge for the United States in Asia is contradictions within its system.” In manifold, but first it must decide whether it will

8 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE continue to shape and defend the world order it 5. Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation (: created. Should the US decide to continue its Alfred A. Knopf, 2006) 6. For the ongoing American tensions between those post–World War II role, it must think more who advocate minimalist nation-state foreign policy deeply about what kind of Asia is in its interests. goals and maximalist universal empire of liberty, see Asia’s history is very different than Europe’s. The ibid.; George Herring, From Colony to : three types of nations described here are U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: predominantly a Western phenomenon and a Oxford University Press, 2011); Walter McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Western story developed as a response to Encounter with the World since 1776 (New York: Western . Mariner Books, 1998); and , Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and The very idea of nationhood and the practice of How It Changed the World (: , classical diplomacy do not yet have strong roots— 2002). particularly, the emerging nations of Southeast 7. Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power (New Asia. Burma, Indonesia, , the York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). Philippines, and Malaysia are all only a 8. US National Security Council, “NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National generation away from colonial rule. Many of Security,” April 14, 1950, these countries still struggle with the basics of www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm. national identity such as territorial sovereignty, 9. Henry Kissinger, “Current International Trends ethnic strife, and the development of general and World Peace,” speech at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Vatican City, April 28, 2007, principles upon which leaders can govern. They www.henryakissinger.com/speeches/042807.html. are now also faced with a powerful China that is 10. “Flawed Icon of China’s Resurgence,” CNN, n.d., part nation-state, part empire, part liberalizing www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/inside.chi postmodern country. na/profiles/mao.tsetung/. 11. Edward A. Gargan, “China Resumes Control of The United States cannot assume that all of Asia Hong Kong, Concluding 156 Years of British Rule,” is part of the “liberal order.” Many of these New York Times, July 1, 1997, countries need to more fully develop their www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/ 0630.html#article. identities as modern nation-states and practice 12. , “On the People’s Democratic the kind of statecraft necessary to create a Dictatorship,” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, workable Asian political order. They can do so June 30, 1949, only if they are free from a convulsive China www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected- working out its three personalities. works/volume-4/mswv4_65.htm. 13. Richard Nixon, “Asia After Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs, October 1976, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1967-10- 01/asia-after-viet-nam. About the Author 14. “China’s Growing Pains,” The Economist, August 19, 2004. Dan Blumenthal ([email protected]) is 15. NATO, “NATO’s Role in Relation to the Conflict director of Asian Studies and a resident fellow at in Kosovo,” July 15, 1999, AEI. www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm#C. 16. Robert Cooper, “The New Liberal Imperialism,” Guardian, April 7, 2002, www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/07/1. 17. Javier Solania, then-secretary general of NATO, Notes delivered this speech on November 12, 1998 at a symposium on the political relevance of the Peace of 1. Paul Kennedy, “The Eagle Has Landed: The New Westphalia: U.S. Global Military Position,” , www.nato.int/docu/speech/1998/s981112a.htm. February 1, 2002. 18. Richard N. Haass, “Sovereignty and 2. Robert Kagan, The World America Made (New Globalization,” Project Syndicate, February 17, York: Knopf Doubleday, 2013). 2006, www.cfr.org/sovereignty/sovereignty- 3. Lucian W. Pye, “China: Erratic State, Frustrated globalisation/p9903. Society,” Foreign Affairs, Fall 1990. 19. Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin 4. Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order Press, 2011). and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (New York: 20. Daud Hassan, “The Rise of the Territorial State Grove Press, 2004). and the Treaty of Westphalia,” Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence 9 (2006): 62–70.

9 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/research/bitstream/ha 35. Nicholas Eberstadt, “Demographic Trends Cloud ndle/10453/3289/2006006060.pdf?sequence=1. China’s Long-Term Economic Outlook,” Japan 21. Kevin H. O'Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, Society, March/April 2011, www.aei.org/wp- “When Did Globalization Begin?” (NBER Working content/uploads/2011/10/20110311-Eberstadt- Paper no. 7632, 2000), China.pdf. More productive labor has driven much www.nber.org/papers/w7632. of China’s growth, but by 2030 China’s labor force 22. Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping will be shrinking at about 1 percent per year. By Container Made the World Smaller and the World 2030, 30 percent of rural, poorer males in their late Economy Bigger (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 30s and 40s will never have been married. University Press, 2006), 48. 36. Justine Drennan, “Is China Making Its Own 23. Take the iPhone, the iconic information and Terrorism Problem Worse?” Foreign Policy, communications technology device of the new February 9, 2015, economy. Its design and production involved many http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/09/is-china- companies and countries and highly integrated making-its-own-terrorism-problem-worse-uighurs- networks of supply, design, and manufacturing. islamic-state/. 24. James Manyika et al., “Global Flows in a Digital 37. Elizabeth Barber, “79 Days That Shook Hong Age,” McKinsey Global Institute, April 2014, Kong,” Time, December 15, 2014, www.mckinsey.com/insights/globalization/global_f http://time.com/3632739/hong-kong-umbrella- lows_in_a_digital_age. revolution-photos/. 25. Edward S. Steinfeld, Playing Our Game: Why 38. ’s anti-corruption campaign also China’s Rise Doesn’t Threaten the West (New York: threatens to cause political fracturing. As Minxin Pei Oxford University Press, 2010), 22. has written, we now know that Chinese corruption 26. Ibid. was not the byproduct of the system or the cost of 27. Ibid. doing business; it was the glue that kept the system 28. Wayne M. Morrison, “China’s Currency Policy: together. Xi Jinping is going after that rot within the An Analysis of the Economic Issues,” Congressional system: he may succeed in removing it, or he may Research Service, July 22, 2013, bring down the system Minxin Pei, “Crony www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21625.pdf. Communism in China,” New York Times, October 29. United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, 17, 2014, October 24, 1945, 1 UNTS XVI, www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/opinion/crony- www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter1.shtml. communism-in-china.html. 30. AnnaLee Saxenian, The New Argonauts: 39. Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Regional Advantage in a Global Economy Truth, and Faith in the New China (New York: (Cambridge, MA: Press, 2007). Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). 31. Christopher A. Ford, The Mind of Empire: 40. Pew Research Center, “Global Christianity—A China's History and Modern Foreign Relations Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s (Lexington: Kentucky University Press, 2010). Christian Population,” December 11, 2011, 32. In imperial China, the term “tianxia” (or “all www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity- under heaven”) denoted the land divinely appointed exec/. to the emperor according to Confucian principles of 41. Tom Phillips, “China on Course to Become order. 'World's Most Christian Nation' within 15 Years,” 33. David S. Landes, “Why Europe and the West? Telegraph, April 19, 2014, Why Not China?” Journal of Economic www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/ Perspectives, 20, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 3–22. 10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds- 34. Beina Xu, “China’s Environmental Crisis,” most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html. Council on Foreign Relations, April 25, 2014, www.cfr.org/china/chinas-environmental- crisis/p12608.

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