Zheng Yongnian 郑永年
Our last instalment featured cold water poured on ‘remaking the international order’, a Xi Jinping New Thought idea, by Ding Gang 丁刚, senior journalist and Chongyang Institute visiting fellow. Now another prominent geopolitics pundit wittingly or otherwise takes up cudgels against him.
Zheng Yongnian featured in an earlier episode of Beijing Baselines. He’s my former colleague in Singapore’s East Asia Institute, who has since soared into the stratosphere as Presidential Chair Professor, Founding Director of the Advanced Institute of the Institute for International Affairs, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
Ding Gang’s article topped the Aisixiang daily ratings on its appearance a week ago, and at second place, Zheng’s piece is heading for the same top spot today. There’s no doubt an inside story as to why contrary-seeming pieces are attracting the same attention in the same venue; we await revelations. It’s worth pointing out that Zheng makes similar concessions to those implied by Ding, so the difference may be more apparent than real. Let me know what you think!
Zheng Yongnian
2023: Reassessing the international political environment1
1. The US domestic crisis generates externalities
When it comes to international political risks, the internal affairs of the US rank first. For many years, its research institutions have deemed the PRC the biggest ’threat’ to the world in ideological terms, whereas empirically the greatest threat are potential spillover risks of US internal affairs crises.
As predicted by international institutions, not least the World Bank, American economists and think tanks basically think an overall economic recession in the West led by the US is a high probability event in 2023. At present, the US is facing increasingly severe political polarisation. From Trump’s two presidential campaigns to the recent difficult election of the speaker of the House of Representatives, the political polarisation of the two parties in the US has become more and more serious. Partisanship politics is vividly reflected. The political polarisation between the two parties is not only the result of the high degree of polarisation in American society, but it in turn intensifies the polarisation of society. Partisanship and populism have fallen into a vicious circle.
US politics has to a large extent shown a trend of ’Latin Americanisation’, one of the characteristics of which is polarisation, like the Brazilian political area cycling between extreme left and right.
The internal division of the US is a matter within the US, but as the number one economic power and military power, the internal division of the US has huge externalities and has a profound impact on world politics.
Economic downturns combined with geopolitical conflicts and changes have often in history led to local wars, or even world wars. As in World War I, so in World War II. In some respects, the US has already transferred its internal conflicts to the international level, mainly at the economic level. For example, every time the Federal Reserve raises interest rates the impact on the world economy is not only huge on China and European powers, but fatal on small states as well. Could there be a military-level transfer? This is even more worrisome, and countries must guard against it.
We must meanwhile be aware that while the US economy is in recession, political polarisation is taking place, and while the US is deeply involved in regional or international conflicts, these do not mean that the development of the US has stagnated or that the US has been in overall decline. For the US, the current situation is also ’opportunity’ amidst ’danger’. The US also faces a problem of opportunity. As far as the development of the US itself is concerned, although its overall economy is in recession, US industries keep transforming and tech innovation is speeding up. Historically, every time the US experienced a crisis, such as World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, its technological level rose another cog. Crisis, it needs to be realised, is not only ’dangerous’ for a country, but presents ’opportunities’. We shouldn’t despise the US because of its domestic affairs, or imagine it is failing. While the US is creating crises, it is in fact also creating opportunities for itself.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is for example beneficial to the US in speeding up the NATOisation of Europe, boosting its military dependence on the US. Another example is the denounced dollar hegemony, a bad thing for the world. The US has become extremely selfish, abusing the dollar sanctions tool internationally, and issuing dollars indiscriminately, while itself suffering no major impact. It would be naive to think that, the US having abused it or issued it irresponsibly, the dollar has itself declined.
The hollowing out of the real economy and decline of manufacturing industry in the US were for a time objective facts. Recently though US industry and capital have returned, signs that the real economy has returned, i.e., ’re-industrialised.’ The US has recently used a naked Machiavellian method to pull TSMC to its homeland and form a chip alliance (Chip 4) against the PRC, at the expense of other economies’ interests. This shows that the US will not lose its national struggle because of internal conflicts. Profit execution.
The US is still a base attracting talent from all over the world. Its economy is facing recession, yet we must also see that it constantly gathers the world’s capital, technology, talent to itself by hook or by crook. In a word, recognise the US advantages and do not underestimate its strength.
2. The Russo-Ukraine war creates greater uncertainty
The Russian-Ukrainian war in Europe remains ongoing, and it is impossible to know when and how it will end. What is certain is that rather than a war between Russia and Ukraine, it is between Russia and the West, above all between Russia and the US. Ukraine is a mere proxy; this is a proxy war entirely.
To keep supporting a conventional war has now become difficult for Russia. Hence Putin recently released some ’goodwill’ and is willing to negotiate with Ukraine, but has yet to receive any response. US Secretary of Defense Austin has indeed long said he will use the war to completely drag Russia down. For the US, this is a chance to deprive Russia of the ability to launch similar military actions against other countries again. As far as the current situation is concerned, there is a high probability that the war will continue. But the question is whether the nature of the war will change.
As for Russia, if conventional war cannot be sustained, yet there is neither compromise nor response, the worry is whether it will use strategic nuclear weapons. Russia’s current strategic goals have changed. For Russia, ‘what is real is rational’ and it has no more demands. But with the support of the US, Ukraine clearly will not accept ‘what is real is rational’. Not only not accept it, but it may have to ’counterattack’ and get back what it lost. However, it is very unrealistic to ask Russia to surrender, which will profoundly affect the legitimacy of the regime and Russian nationalism. In other words, the war’s future direction depends on the US/Russia, not the Russia/Ukraine contest. If the US and Russia cannot compromise, war will continue. Most countries, including China, India and Turkey, hope to end the war as soon as possible, but they are not the main body of the war and cannot determine its future.
Will the war turn nuclear? This worries many t. It’s clear that nuclear war today is no longer a simple military or even a political decision, but a moral one. If Russia or any party uses nuclear weapons, it will not only affect the countries involved in the war, but also the whole of Europe and even the whole world. The use of nuclear weapons has opened up the channel for human beings to self-destruction.
3. NATOisation of Europe
Since the Russo-Ukrainian War, Europe has stepped up NATOisation. A product of the Cold War, NATO was a leading force in stabilising Europe throughout it. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, and disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has undergone five rounds of expansion, extending to the borders of Russia. Russia’s purpose in launching war in Ukraine was to prevent NATO expanding. The result however backfired. Stimulated by the war, NATO has once again expanded, and original neutral states Sweden and Finland are about to formally join it. A trend of NATOisation is seen in Europe, the speed-up driven by several factors:
the US-led international ’united front’. As US President Biden said, the Russo-Ukraine war has promoted the unity between the US and Europe. The war did not lead to European unity—or if it did, only temporarily—but to a high degree of European military dependence on the US. Whether active or passive, Europe and the US have formed a ’united front’ against Russia.
internal contradictions in Europe. European countries, especially France, have been emphasising the independence of Europe, and even advocated the establishment of a European army, downplaying NATO. But European autonomy so far looks like an ideal, indeed a fantasy. Objectively speaking, France today lacks strength and conditions sufficient to support European military security, while Germany’s national defence security remains highly dependent on the US. France is more independent than Germany, yet after EU expansion, more member states still, consciously or not, rely on US military protection. European autonomy is a long, tough road away.
There is on the one hand the US ‘United Front’ strategy; on the other a tendency within Europe to split, where the process of NATOisation is speeding up. NATO will not disband, it seems, even should Russia collapse. NATO is not indeed limited to eastward expansion, but continues to expand to the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific. Some East Asian states have been invited to take part in NATO affairs. We hence need to carefully analyse it, as it may In future become a super-regional dominant force.
4. Deepening nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula
For East Asian states, the Korean peninsula nuclear crisis not only exists, but gets worse, as other problems are simply too many and too serious, and the peninsula crisis has not been paid enough attention. The North Korean issue is mainly between North Korea and the US, which has not only fallen into a stalemate with no progress but continues to deteriorate. North Korea launched nearly 100 ballistic and other missiles in 2022, making it the year with the highest frequency of ballistic missile launches by North Korea. The outside world is also constantly predicting the time and location of North Korea’s seventh nuclear test. As stakeholders (stakeholders), Japan and South Korea are basically in a state of ’lying flat’ and completely rely on the US for security. After the Russo-Ukraine War broke out, Japan and South Korea proposed the concept of ’Nuclear Sharing’ with the US. In addition, the new regimes of Japan and South Korea are very pro-American, which further accelerated the profound confrontation on the peninsula. Although the geopolitics of the peninsula is undergoing profound changes and the risks are increasing sharply, China will not abandon the practice of ’non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs’ on the North Korean issue, so there will be no drastic changes in its policy towards North Korea.
Japan and South Korea can be said to already have ’nuclear weapons’ capabilities. Even without ’nuclear sharing’, Japan’s nuclear technology itself is strong. For the US, it can still take advantage of the tense atmosphere on the peninsula to promote the evolution of bilateral alliances between the US and Japan and the US and South Korea into multilateral alliances. At the NATO summit in June last year, NATO invited Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and other Asia-Pacific partners to participate for the first time, and also arranged two small-scale summits in the US, Japan, South Korea, and Japan, South Korea, and New Australia. For the US, this is a powerful starting point for promoting the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacificisation of NATO. This trend is accelerating because of the peninsula crisis, which poses enormous geopolitical pressure on China.
5. Reappearance of chaos in the Middle East
Middle East geopolitics has in modern times been dominated by Western powers. First, European powers, above all the UK; then becoming an arena for the US/Soviet competition for hegemony after World War II. After the defeat of the Soviet Union, the US finally took the leading position. After the ’9.11’ terrorist incident, the US launched a war against terrorism and implemented its plan for democracy in the Greater Middle East. But there is no doubt that the Greater Middle East democracy project has completely failed. In 2021, the US will fully withdraw from Afghanistan and shift its strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific to deal with China, thus leaving a huge power vacuum in the Middle East. As a result, neighbouring countries in the Middle East such as Turkey and India have entered the field to compete in the Middle East.
The decline of US power is also intensifying internal conflicts in the Middle East, mainly manifested in tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestine, Libya and Iraq. After the decline of US influence in the Middle East, the Middle East countries seem to have more autonomy and more choices, but in fact there are more new troubles. Although the decline of US influence is an opportunity for the players in the Middle East, because the new power structure has not yet been formed, it will inevitably lead to a state of extreme instability. In other words, the withdrawal of the US has cast a shadow over the stability of the Middle East.
Although China will not take the initiative to intervene in the geopolitical disputes in the Middle East, because China also develops close economic and trade relations with Middle Eastern countries, it must also prevent the geopolitical disputes in the Middle East from affecting us. As mentioned above, this kind of geopolitical dispute is not only manifested among countries in the Middle East, but also among major powers outside the region.
6. Speeding up India’s rise
India’s stepped-up rise rests on its comparative advantages in economy, policy and international situation.
At the economic level, a huge and swiftly growing population gives it a demographic dividend and labor force advantages. India has a large market. Although there are a large number of low- and middle-income populations, people are ’poor and want to change’, and people have a strong willingness to cross classes and sufficient motivation.
In policy terms, PM Narendra Modi after coming to power strove to be an Indian version of Deng Xiaoping; reform efforts have constantly stepped up. While there have been failures, they have shown a constant reform trend. India’s modernisation has been quite effective. Vigorously promoting all manner of reforms, it has via import substitution protected its domestic market and supported local manufacturing. Policy tends to be pro-business and pro-capital. Not least during the COVID epidemic, India entered rivalry with the PRC market in terms of attracting Western capital.
In terms of the international situation, the US regards China as its main competitor. To deal with China, the US focuses on growing substantive relations with India. From a business point of view, Western governments and capital both consciously help India transform and improve its business environment, investing more resources in personnel training, technology transfer, intellectual property protection, and rule building. In geopolitical terms, the US, Western countries and India have strengthened the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) mechanism, and newly constructed the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) based on ‘democratic values’. These external forces have all contributed to India’s influence on the international stage.
India will not however become a US vassal, but seeks to become an independent pole of power. India’s rise according to its own will plus Western support, will place significant geopolitical pressure on the PRC.
Beijing’s close neighbour and friend Pakistan will face a more powerful India; India-Pakistan issues will become more complicated
Beijing’s B&R initiative, especially the ’Maritime Silk Road’ through the Indian Ocean Facing more complex challenges;
with India’s rise, its thinking and identity as a major power will change.
As a maritime power, India’s geopolitical influence will spread to the entire Indian Ocean, especially the important external area of the North Indian Ocean. strategic area. The maritime influence can still be like this, not to mention the negative impact of the Sino-Indian border conflict on Sino-Indian relations. In recent years, India has occasionally provoked border disputes and skirmishes. This action only intensifies as its strength increases. Therefore, the accelerated rise of India is also a major challenge to China, and how to manage Sino-Indian relations will be an important issue.
7. Latin America continues to be polarised
It is said in the literature that there was a ’hundred years of loneliness’ in Latin America in the past, but Latin America is not alone. Unlike China’s modernisation model, which has achieved development and maintained independence, the modernisation of Latin American countries is completely dependent, highly dependent on Western capital, and has lost its independence. To this day, Latin America is still a dependent modernisation model, lacking an independent economic structure. Reflected in politics, it is manifested as extreme left or extreme right, with representative leaders such as Brazil’s Lula and Bolsonaro. Internally, the extreme right only speaks for capital, including Western capital, while the extreme left only speaks for labor; externally, the extreme right leans toward the West, and the extreme left leans toward labor. Both Russia and China are marginal to Latin American diplomacy.
The US is trying to promote the polarisation pattern in Latin America, and is more happy to see the continuation of the political polarisation pattern in Latin America. As far as the US is concerned, as long as there is partisan polarisation, the US can strengthen its control over the region by intervening in internal affairs. But as far as China is concerned, the polarised politics of Latin American countries such as Brazil (BRICS) or Venezuela has brought great uncertainty to the relationship between China and Latin America. The difference is that the US can intervene in the internal political affairs of other countries, even the trial of other countries’ presidents, while China pursues a foreign policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Therefore, China should pay more attention to multilateral diplomacy and strengthen cooperation with BRICS countries.
It should be emphasised that the polarisation of Latin America will also have a major impact on Latin America’s energy supply. Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, the three ’Lithium Triangle’ countries, are trying to follow the example of the ’Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) and prepare for the establishment of ’Lithium Peco’. Latin American countries such as Mexico, which are not so rich in lithium resources, also want to join. In view of the important position of lithium resources in the new energy vehicle industry, when the global supply of lithium resources is in short supply, China must properly handle the political polarisation of Latin American governments, so as to pave the way for a stable supply of lithium mines.
8. The UN system continues to be marginalised
Marginalisation of the existing UN-centred world order keeps speeding up. The UN is helpless the face of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The US played a leading role in forming the UN system after World War II. But it has for many years adopted the greatly damaging attitude of ’if it agrees, use the UN but if it doesn’t, forget it’. During the Trump administration the US withdrew from such multilateral institutions as the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO, threatened to withdraw from the WTO and paralysed the WTO trade dispute settlement mechanism. After taking office, Biden announced that ’America is back’, yet paid no attention to the role of the UN in essence.
With the UN system marginalised and increasingly irrelevant, a different kind of regional order is on the rise, displayed not only in the ’united front’ stance of the US—i.e., an exclusive alliance policy targeting third countries— plus China’s inclusive partnerships that do not target third countries. At the economic level, regional and sectoral institutional arrangements such as RCEP, CPTPP, and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement will continue to emerge.
The UN system’s greatest advocate and supporter is the PRC. Repairing or even rebuilding it is the challenge we face. The UN has become a forum. All countries can express their opinions but the UN itself is no longer an actor. For all its vast difficulties, there is currently no international organisational arrangement to replace the UN. For those countries that still need the United Nations, especially developing countries, saving the UN is a top priority.
As a major power, China should not only do its best to save the UN, but also keep up its open and inclusive multilateralism targeting no third countries. While regional in nature such multilateralism runs parallel to globalisation.
9. Constant humanitarian crises
Not unique to contemporary times, humanitarian crises have existed since ancient times, but the UN could respond in a coordinated manner only after World War II. Empirically, an effective international order can respond to such crises. An international order is effective mainly given sufficient international public goods. Making a difference major powers are obliged to provide proper international public goods; minor powers tend to to free ride, opting to follow major powers, taking advantage of their public goods. Today, absent major power cooperation, not only do they fail to provide sufficient international public goods, they are impotent or numb in the face of ever more international public bads, such as crises of climate change, public health, nuclear proliferation, marine ecological , etc. Ever more countries and regions, whether poor ones in sub-Saharan Africa, or with low development, or a Pacific island country, all are highly vulnerable to climate and economic crisis. If there are inadequate good international public goods to support them they will be the biggest victims.
Today, climate change, nuclear proliferation, public health crisis, deterioration of marine ecology, wars and hunger continue to appear, as if the world has returned to a Malthusian state; this is really a human tragedy. In the 21st century, humanity is highly developed in material and technology, and is fully capable of enabling all to live ’well-off lives’. Yet due to lack of major power cooperation, the world order has fallen into chaos. The PRC wants to promote major power cooperation, and is willing and able to provide more international public goods, if it is the only major power taking the initiative, it remains insufficient, absent cooperation, to save global humanitarian crisis.
Even so, as a responsible major power, the PRC still needs to demonstrate the spirit of internationalism and do its best in the event of humanitarian crisis.
10. Sino-US relations are confronted and eased
Last but not least, US-China relations. This is no simple bilateral relationship, but two pillars of the world order. In the foreseeable future, the US attitude towards China will not undergo major changes. Today, the only bipartisan consensus in the US is to deal with China.
Confrontation between the PRC and the US will continue for a long time, yet we must remain calm and rational.
We must achieve ’fight without breaking’. As with US policy toward China, we should contend with the US where we need to, compete where we need to, and cooperate where we need to.
’Fight without breaking’ refers to boosting international cooperation and conducting benign competition on the basis of avoiding vicious competition. In such fields as climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, public health, and maritime crises, the two countries have tried their best to cooperate in promoting globalisation.
But, where there is competition, there is competition. Whether it is the ’stuck neck’ policy of the US or the decoupling of the system promoted by it, the two countries will continue to compete at the economic level. We must also face up to the competition and strive to shape healthy competition.
However, in terms of competition, we will not engage in vicious military competition with the US, but promote legitimate national defence modernisation according to our own military modernisation needs.
Second, we must achieve ’fighting without fighting.’
Conflicts should be avoided on the South China Sea issue and the Taiwan issue, and we should do our best to avoid war.
Taiwan is the core interest of China’s core interests. China has no room to compromise. In the event of a crisis, we will use the power of the whole country to safeguard core interests.
As far as US domestic affairs are concerned, China-US confrontation on the Taiwan issue will continue to intensify. In a populist era, the power of the US president and executive authorities has been weakened, while Congress and individual politicians have more say. On the Taiwan issue, the US as a whole can be said to have ’lost its baseline and control.’ Its Taiwan policy is not only partisan and localised, but also personalised and individualised. Politicians, including the Speaker of the House will keep undermining the stability of cross-strait relations by deliberately provoking Beijing under the guise of protecting ’democratic and free’ Taiwanese institutions. Stimulating China on the Taiwan issue, shaping Taiwan into the Ukraine of Asia, and at the same time promoting the formalisation of NATO in Asia are the biggest goals of American anti-China forces.
Meanwhile though, the administration has calculations of its own. The government has opened up a front in the Russo-Ukrainian war, and conditions don’t yet exist to formally open a second, Indo-Pacific front. The US will hence still try to ease Sino-US relations in the new year, above all not wanting open conflict. This is the main reason that it emphasises setting ’guardrails’ for conflicts with China. It should be realised however that détente does not mean it no longer competes with China. On the contrary, competition is being strengthened. Predictably, the US still wants, under détente, to make inroads. Given this China still has to match wits with the US. Just as the PRC took advantage of the situation to launch military exercises against Taiwan after Pelosi’s departure, China should think about how to turn crisis into opportunity on the Taiwan issue. As regards Taiwan, however, China should not and will not remain passive in dealing with the US, and can turn crises into opportunities in the process of dealing with the US. Not only will China not be led by the nose by the US: it should reunify the motherland according to its established policy. As its modernisation continues, especially the modernisation of national defence, the possibility of China’s peaceful national reunification becomes ever more realistic.
Most importantly, China should handle Sino-US relations from the perspective of a major power. What it needs to deal with is relations with the US, not with a few anti-China politicians and political forces. We need to be a responsible major power, centring on the goal of reshaping the world order, and rationally use wisdom to handle Sino-US relations.
Here they are (NB: I provide a link to the original Chinese text in a footnote to the translation):
首先,我们要做到“斗而不破”。。。
第二,我们要做到“斗而不战”。。。
Hi - thanks for translating and posting this interesting speech. Do you have the Chinese terms for 'fighting without breaking' and 'fighting without fighting' quoted in section 10? I'm interested in digging into/understanding more about those terms/their origins and the aisixiang link only goes to section 6 on India. Thanks