How China Sees the World – A Scholarly Review
Map of China and the World, c. 1800, The Library Congress.
Robert G. Sutter’s book review “How China Sees the World: Insights from China’s International Relations Scholars,” immediately addresses the elephant in the room: finding books in the English language that perpetuate a clear understanding of Chinese thinking. He uses the word “systematic” often when referring to an assessment of perceptions of Chinese specialists and reviewing Chinese international affairs. Through a two-part analysis, is the understanding of China in world affairs and a comparative understanding of the US-political relationship with China taken from variables of scholarly Chinese perceptions. From the data findings in this book review, Sutter confirms China’s economic growth but also a hybridity with the US without excelsior and with a focus on the China rise and how that affects its foreign relations.
Feng, He, and Li’s second chapter from the book, How China Sees the World shows another Chinese scholarly angle on the importance of power to politics. The correlation of power based on actions taken by the state, once again, seen through a series of analytical surveys. The scholarly understanding of those assessments will bridge the gap between the policymakers and the public eye by hosting a clearer understanding with China’s input on the directive it seeks to take with foreign relations and foreign policies. It also hosts a desire to remove general perceptions and biases by backing up the data with the analytics purveyed from the data.
From the statistics observed, the word that stood out most was the rise of “multipolarity.” Referring to the state of power being distributed amongst three or more nations, through an open, interdependent economic system. The responses from the survey were taken over time (four years), allowing for a potential shift of opinion to occur based on the opinions addressed and diplomatic actions taken by the state, especially in 2016 with China’s movement in establishing its own World Bank. With a self-assessment inquiry by the scholars, when compared with the United States, we remain confronted by skepticism of a power rising China, and only continue to observe it as a regional hegemon and a unanimity in its global positioning due to its economic power. However, more specifically, China remains interdependent returning us to a multipolarity. In China’s interdependent role, it’s also easily affected by its decisions towards diplomacy, hence an inquiry about “power” becomes subjective to the viewer's understanding of what sort of power is being addressed. China as an economic power is certain, and with their Belt and Road Initiative, it gives more ground for China not only to submit to manufacturing needs, but also global infrastructure dependency. Reaffirming a multipolarity and a constant shift will occur since China’s rise is not only relying on US decline, but more so reliant on developing countries and maybe in the long run, hold a position in the international world order. But that remains unknown, or rather, uncertain.
The article from The Diplomat, “What Do Chinese People Think of Developed Countries?” opens with a historic high result from a survey done on 14 major countries who hold unfavorable views about China (including the United States and Canada). As Ai Weiwei slams the US and Canada for their complicit involvement in the rise of China. The “artist'' chastises the West as “the hidden force behind China’s rise” and accuses it of “profiting from the status quo” when referencing his exhibition in Toronto in 2019 as he opinionates a cause:effect to the factors behind China’s economic growth.
In Mark Weisbrot and Jake Johnston’s, “Voting Share Reform at the IMF: Will it Make a Difference?” at the Center for Economic and Policy Research focusing on the voting shares at the International Monetary Fund, we are presented by vote reallocations. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries hold a majority vote, while the countries that fall under ‘developing’ are losing their voting share. What I found most interesting was how this article pointed out the Republican prevention of IMF voting shares in the United States for five years since 2010 showing clearly how the impact of party’s decisions in the national and global lens. This is also a period following the financial crisis of 2008, stating that China’s economy had grown by 76% compared to Europe at zero. With the United States being a lead in the industrial economy since the foundation of the IMF in 1944, and the continued failure to activate a developing country to lead the IMF, China is certainly in the running due to its rising voting share, its world economic contribution especially coming from an industrial contribution, and also is still considered a developing country. This makes China the highest in the share, yet the lowest in likelihood of control, yet an essential source of lending. The United States Treasuring remains (by consensus) the leading decision-maker for policies at the IMF.
Due to the above challenges to China’s rise, China is coming up with their own World Bank. In Jane Perlez’s New York Times article, “China Creates a World Bank of Its Own,” through their BRI efforts. Coming with blessings from the IMF, but skepticism from the United States, some development foresight might determine the need for a new world economic intermediary without the involvement of the IMF, the World Bank, or the Asian Development Bank. Giving new grounds for China to prove its intentions which continues to be at the detriment of the US, and in lieu, Japan as well, resulting in their disinterest to join or acknowledge a China World Bank. Resulting in China’s redirection from Washington to Britain where it had more chances and resulting in an EU following.
What is considered one country’s victory, is another country’s dismay. In Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer’s Foreign Policy article, “Outfoxed and Outgunned: How China Routed the U.S. in a U.N. Agency,” China’s ambitions are a detriment to the US when leading the Food and Agriculture Organization for the UN. With China winning votes in the United Nations for candidate Qu Dongyu, shaking up American expectations, their win is another’s power loss. While still defining concerns of corruption and bribed ambitions of relieving debts in Africa in return for loyalty votes, buying expensive plane tickets, hotel accommodations, and relieving South American involvement unless swayed to a China vote, from what it seems, China was playing their game well. With a cat and mouse chase of public shaming Georgian UN candidate Kirvalidze and simple Chinese ambition, the run has proven the fall of American influence.
Rather than looking at this topic as ‘how China sees the world,’ in actuality it is how the world sees China with the limited pockets of comprehensible information. From the perspective of data accuracy, surveillance, and actions taken by the Chinese system to prove the inevitability of their rise, whether the United States chooses to be a part of that change, marks shifts of not only power, but rather influence.
Author: Aïda Eltorie
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References
Robert G. Sutter. 2020. Book Review “How China Sees the World: Insights from China’s International Relations Scholars.” Pacific Affairs.
Feng, He, and Li. 2019. How China Sees the World Ch.2. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Liu, Li, and Fang. 2021. “What Do Chinese People Think of Developed Countries?” The Diplomat.
Mark Weisbrot and Jake Johnston. 2016. “Voting Share Reform at the IMF: Will it Make a Difference?” Center for Economic and Policy Research
Jane Perlez. 2015. “China Creates a World Bank of Its Own.” New York Times
Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer. 2019. “Outfoxed and Outgunned: How China Routed the U.S. in a U.N. Agency” Foreign Policy
Goldstein, Caroline. “‘The Real Problem Comes From the West’: Ai Weiwei Slams the US and Canada for Their Complicity in Tensions With China.” ArtNet News. 30 January 2019, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-weiwei-slams-us-canada-china-1452409