中國的經濟崛起及其對拉丁美洲之衝擊 - 政大學術集成

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(1)International Master’s Program in International Studies National Chengchi University 國立政治大學國際研究英語碩士學位學程. The Economic Rise of China and Its Impact on Latin America 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 中國的經濟崛起及其對拉丁美洲之衝擊. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Miguel Ilin Wu 吳奕霖 Advisor: 鄧中堅 Chung-Chian Teng, Ph.D.. January 2021. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(2) Abstract According to the statistical data by ECLAC (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), Latin America is the most unequal region in the world. 1 Inequality has not only damaged the economic potentials of the region but also an immoral problem. There have been many existing problems causing the inequality since the colonial era and the United States influence afterwards. Apart from the United States, the rising power- China now is another alternative of economic cooperation for the region. However, this paper is aiming at not only. 政治大 inequality but also unveiling the qualitative difference of the newly-born prosper. 立 providing the statistical panorama of the China-boom and its correlation with. ‧ 國. 學. Key Words: China, Latin America, inequality, United States, hegemony,. ‧. economic cooperation. sit. y. Nat. io. er. 根據聯合國拉丁美洲和加勒比海經濟委員會的統計資料，拉丁美洲為世界上不. al. iv n C hengchi U 德層面上也是一大問題。自殖民時代，及緊接而來的美國勢力之影響，形成了 n. 平等問題最嚴重的地區。不平等現象，不僅扼殺了此一地區的經濟潛力，在道. 許多既有的問題，並深遠影響著拉丁美洲。如今，除了美國霸權以外，中國崛起也為此一地區提供了經濟合作的另一可能。此論文主旨在於，以數據分析及個案研究，解析中國熱潮及此一地區經濟不平等現象之關聯性。關鍵字: 中國、拉丁美洲、不平等、美國、霸權、經濟合作. 1. United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC). 2011. “Protección social inclusiva en América Latina. Una mirada integral, un enfoque de derechos” (Inclusive social protection in Latin America. An integral look, a focus on rights). Resumen. ISBN 9789210545556. I. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(3) Table of Contents Abstract……………………..………………….………………………...………......I Table of Contents…..………………….………………………...…..…………….....II List of Tables…..………………….………………………...…………………….....III List of Charts…..……………….………………………...……………...……….....IV Chapter 1. Introduction………………..……………….………………………...…....1 Chapter 2. Methodology and Research Question……….………………………….....3 Chapter 3. Theoretical Basis.………………………………………….…….…….......7. 政治大 3-2. Coexistence of China’s Huge Transformation and Its Old Mentality…………………..............14 立. 3-1. Industrialization, Deindustrialization, and Interdependence………………..…….…….............10. ‧ 國. 學. 3-3. Clash of Civilizations or A Major Geopolitical Contest? ………………..……….…….............20. Chapter 4. Winning of Liberal World? ……………..……..........................................26. ‧. Chapter 5. The Other Perspective of Geopolitics..……………...………...….............32. sit. y. Nat. Chapter 6. A Devastating Problem in Liberal Democracy: Inequality……….............39. er. io. Chapter 7. Scope and Limit of Research with Data Analysis………………………..50. al. n. iv n C hengchi U 8-1. Chinese Model ……………………………...……….............…..…….………………................57. Chapter 8. Case Studies……………………………………………………..………..57. 8-2. A Case Study: China- Brazil Economic Relations……………….............…..…….…….............58 8-3. A Case Study: China- Chile Economic Relations…………………...…...…..…….…….............65. Chapter 9. Conclusion………………………………………………………..………70 Bibliography…………………………………..…………..………………………...73. II. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(4) List of Figures Figure 1. Latin American and Caribbean Trade with China, as a share of LAC GDP……………………………….…………………………………………………51 Figure 2. Correlation between Income Inequality and China’s Outward FDI to Latin America…………………….………………………………………………………55 Figure 3. Changes of Income Inequality During the China Boom in Latin America…………………….………………………………………………………55. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. III. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(5) List of Charts Chart 1. Average Income of an Individual in the Bottom 50 Percent of the Nation of Region………………………………………………………………………………..40 Chart 2: The Ratio of Average Income in the Top1 to That in the Bottom 50 Percent………………………………………………………………………………..42 Chart 3. Differential Levels of Social Mobility…………….………………………………………………………………..46 Chart 4. Commodity Price Data for Selected Products, 2000-2019. 政治大 Chart 5. Main Products of China-Latin American 立. (annual prices in US$)………….…………………………………………………….51. ‧ 國. 學. Trade….……………………….…………….…………….…………….…………..56 Chart 6. A Brief Summary of Winners and Losers in the Political Debate on China-. ‧. Brazil Economic Ties……….…………….………………….….……….…………..66. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. IV. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(6) Chapter 1. Introduction Since the Chinese economic reform in 1978 led by the incumbent paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, China had risen very rapidly not only economically but also politically. Even though China has a huge population and not being democracy, it has been the world’s second biggest economy in terms of GDP by 2014. 2 Therefore, many other developing countries and regions have regarded it as an alternative of the development model rather than the traditional Western type capitalist one which the U.S., Western Europe and Japan represent. 3 As one of these developing regions, Latin. 政治大 of China, especially after China joined WTO in 2001. For example, China’s import 立. America have also built up a much stronger economic tie with the People’s Republic. ‧ 國. 學. from Latin America had grown sevenfold during 1999 and 2005, while its export had tripled during the same time. 4 China had also invested in Latin America through. ‧. many policy banks mainly for improving the infrastructure to get access to the. sit. y. Nat. material for the trade. 5. al. er. io. Politically, since the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, Latin America and. n. iv n C The fluctuationhofethe nanti-Americanism g c h i U has also been a crucial. had been seen as the extension of the U.S. imperialism or more subtly nowadays, of the U.S. influence. 6. point of the politics in the region. Being the few remaining diplomatic allies with the de facto self-ruled Republic of China (Taiwan) which China claimed one of its inseparable provinces, the Central American countries are also in a pivotal area that 2. Liang, W. 2019. “Pulling the Region into its Orbit? China’s Economic Statecraft in Latin America” Journal of Chinese Political Science 24: 433-449. 3 Lin, Y. 2015. “Firm Heterogeneity and Location Choice of China Firms in Latin America and the Caribbean: Corporate Ownership, Strategic Motives and Host Country Institutions” China Economic Review. 34: 274-292. 4 Jenkins, R., Peters, E. and Mauricio Mesquita Moreira. 2008. “The Impact of China on Latin America and the Caribbean” World Development. 36(2): 235-253. 5 Bräutigam, D. 2009. The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford University Press: Oxford. p.71. 6 Kerry, J. 2013. “Remarks on U.S. Policy in the Western Hemisphere” U.S. Department of State. November 18. http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/11/217680.htm. 1. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(7) U.S. usually uses to counterweigh its balance against China, its main competitor in the world forum now. 7 Economically, U.S. is still the biggest investor and trade partner with many countries in the region. 8 Thus, we could say that the power struggle between U.S. and China underlies the changing scenario in Latin America. This thesis is aiming at the analysis of what has been going on in the region.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 7 Su, Zhenxing. 2009. “How to Face the Future of China-Latin America Relations” Journal of Latin American Studies. 2: 18. 8 2017. “Latin America & Caribbean Exports, Imports and Trade Balance by Country 2017” World Integrated Trade Solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/LCN/Year/2017/TradeFlow/EXPIMP/Partner/by -country. 2. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(8) Chapter 2. Methodology and Research Question In terms of the rising influence that China had on Latin America, even though the quantitative changes of the economies matter, the qualitative factors such as political cultures of each country and its effect on poverty and inequality are also unavoidable. As China had become superpower that had also expanded its influence globally, it had applied many different agents and institutions in various aspects. It would take piles of pages to even just touch the surface of the complicated phenomenon, thus this paper would mainly aim at it influence on the economic impacts that China had put on. 政治大 To sum up, as the narrative of the news article of China Daily (中國日報網) , one of 立 Latin America.. 9. ‧ 國. 學. the media which subordinated the Chinese Communist Party, China is not only an important friend but also an economic development partner. Firstly, China’s Belt and. ‧. Road Initiative has intensified exchanges between China and Latin America and. sit. y. Nat. reduced the distribution costs of goods and services. Secondly, different from the. al. er. io. Western institutions, Chinese investment is not associated with the interference in. n. iv n C h the funding can be really used to improve e nlivelihoods g c h i ofUpeople in Latin America.. Latin American countries' internal, including political, affairs. As a result, Chinese. Thirdly, in addition to economic relations, Latin America and China have also been conducting various cultural interactions－about 4,000 professionals from Latin America visited China to receive further training in 2018 alone. This prospect of China’s narrative sounds pretty promising. However, it also raised my research question: do economic activities with China really improve people’s lives in Latin America? In the first place of literature review, I would mention the direct influences and 9. China Daily Global. Jan. 11, 2021. http://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/11/WS5ffb7d83a31099a23435323b.html 3. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(9) indirect influences of China on Latin America. Also, I would not only introduce the existing academic theory of resource curse about the region, but also have a look if it had fit the essence of the economic activities between China and the region, even the various interactions between China and the sub-regions (Mexico, Central America, and South America). In addition, in the next paragraph, I would peek the interdependence theory and liberalism, the definition of industrialization and the deindustrialization as well as the changes of China’s foreign policies for the theoretical basis for the whole thesis. For a further discussion about liberalism and making it clear about the essence of the rising. 政治大. power- China, I would start with a review of China’s ancient Middle Kingdom. 立. mentality which is pretty unique from the conventionally theoretical basis of realism. ‧ 國. 學. and liberalism in terms of international relations. In the field of international relations,. ‧. sometimes ideology and balance of power (the terms of realism) matter more than the performance of the global and international economic institutions (the symbols of. y. Nat. er. io. sit. liberalism). For instance, what shaped the identity of the countries in Latin America and what they have struggled with the United States (the anti-Americanism) play a. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. crucial role in the relatively new economic boom with the rising power- China.. engchi. For other minds, owing to the end of the Cold War, the conflict of ideology had also ended up. Instead, the more general term- civilization had already replaced its previous dominant positions on international relations. Civilization is also more complex, even changeable and organic than ideology. Based on the famous thesis Clash of Civilizations by the renowned scholar, Samuel Huntington, in the post-Cold War era, civilization plays a vital role in strategic fields. It can also explain why the Chinese Communist regime is different from the Soviet Communist Party and the possibility to avoid the major war with the prospect of cooperation with the United States in pursuit of the well-being of the respective people under different 4. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(10) civilizations. In my opinion, China’s rising in Latin America could be seen as the reflection of the competition between the United States and China. Thus, I would also cite and summarize two articles to talk about the pros and cons of geopolitics, or on the other hands, the liberal capitalist democratic world order. In the last part of the literature review, I would also summarize the statements and the data from the article written by the previous Singaporean ambassador in U.N.Kishore Mahbubani to look into one the dark sides of this liberal capitalist societies, and the leader of this kind of order- the United States would be used as the representative case study.. 立. 政治大. As I have mentioned in the paragraph of the introduction, to illustrate the scope and. ‧ 國. 學. the limitation of this research, I would address and analyze some quantitative data. ‧. such as the commonly-used Gini Coefficient during 2003 and 2013 (after the Chinaboom) as the dependent variable of the income inequality which is usually the cause. y. Nat. er. io. sit. of the wealth inequality. Furthermore, it may also be more conspicuous than the total population under extreme poverty since the GDP of some Latin American countries. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. are pretty high. On the other hand, I would also make trade volume (imports and. engchi. exports with China) and Outward FDI flows from China as independent variables. To see the correlation between the variables, I would run two scatter plots. Furthermore, I would also organize a table about the prices of the main exported primary goods from Latin America to see the changes along time and know more about the timing that China had more obviously extended its economic influences on Latin American countries. It would also be important to additionally prove that these products were the most important ones in the China-Latin American trades, thus I would also produce a table about the top five imported and exported products to Latin America. Nevertheless, these tables and figures might not be enough to unveil the interwoven 5. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(11) phenomenon, so I would also do some qualitative research through case study of Chinese model of economic development, China’s trade with Brazil and Chile, the two biggest economic partners of China among Latin America for its abundance of the resources that China have craved at and their geographical location. These case studies would make the research more complete and with more details of the historical, political, even cultural issues. In conclusion, I would like to make both the quantitative data analysis and the qualitative case study complementary to one another.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 6. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(12) Chapter 3. Theoretical Basis On the topic of China’s economic activities on Latin America, there is abundance of literature. First of all, I have chosen The Impact of China on Latin America and the Caribbean published by the journal World Development of 2008 to have a comprehensive look. According to the article, there were two categories of the impacts defined by the degrees of their influences- the direct ones and the indirect ones. The direct impacts started from the contents of the products of imports and exports between the region and China. For example, most of the products exported. 政治大 China would need for boosting its rapid economic growth and domestic demands. On 立 form the region to China were primary goods such as iron ore, oil, and copper that. ‧ 國. 學. the other hand, although the amount of the imports was not as significant as the amount of the exports, most of the products imported from China to the region (85%). ‧. were non-resource based manufactures such as the manufacturing equipment. What’s. sit. y. Nat. more, most of the FDI from China to Latin America, especially to the main. er. io. economically cooperative countries with China (Brazil, Chile, Peru and Venezuela). al. n. iv n C U curse or the latest h eold-fashioned materials. Thus, as the approach of the n g c h i resource. was for the establishment of the infrastructure to the access of the aforementioned raw. theory of deindustrialization, it would raise us a question about one of the indirect impacts: due to the huge population bonus of China, the labors were really cheap, so it resulted in many relatively cheaper Chinese products, was this kind of cooperative pattern between China and the region complementary or competitive? The other impact was about the FDI flow from all over the world to China being much more than Latin America, which had been negative for the economic development of the region. The article also provided several interesting approaches for this phenomenafrom the viewpoint of the producers, the consumers, and the governments. For the 7. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(13) producers, it might be the economic opportunity for the huge flow of investments and demands for the raw materials of China. For the consumers, it might reduce the cost of living for the cheap and competitive prices of imported Chinese products. For the governments, there would be more revenues from taxation of trades with China. What’s more, there was also regional disparity between Central America and South America for the political reasons (the proximity of the U.S. and the recognition of Taiwan) and the distribution of natural resources (most of the products China need are in South American countries). Speaking of the different distribution of natural resources, to know its relevance to the. 政治大. decision of China’s economic policy towards the region by the public sector and of. 立. the establishment of the private firms, I chose my second paper- Firm Heterogeneity. ‧ 國. 學. and Location Choice of China Firms in Latin America and the Caribbean: Corporate. ‧. Ownership, Strategic Motives and Host Country Institutions from the journal China Economic Review of 2015. The paper tried to explain the ODI (outward direct. y. Nat. er. io. sit. investment) from China was qualitatively different from the ODI from the developed countries. The author extracted the approved projects by the Chinese Ministry of. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Commerce from its online database between 2003-2012 for proving the hypothesis. engchi. that the Chinese firms were more likely natural resource-seeking and market-seeking driven. In short, China’s ODI was characterized by the decisive role played by the Chinese SOEs (state-owned enterprises) and strategic consideration related to their resource seeking activities which led them toward the countries with high political uncertainty and weak rule of law. Although there might be inherent theoretical limitations in the approaches used for this article as the author suggested to have a multi-level framework which included institution-based view, resource-based view, and industry-based view for better understanding of the complexity, the statistical results of this article still showed that the motivation of the Chinese SOEs in Latin 8. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(14) America was more resource-seeking, whereas the Chinese POEs (privately-owned enterprises) were more market-seeking. The results also proved the hypothesis that the Chines SOEs were less risk averse and tended to be attracted to countries with weak institutions when those enterprises considered to invest in LAC countries. However, the institutional effects such as the rule of law had insignificant impacts on the Chinese POEs. To summarize, compared to the Western style of technical and cost proposal, the way the Chinese preferred to apply for competitive bidding was to establish high-level government-to-government relationships. These extractive industries and projects were often secured in a non-market way and agreed by the. 政治大. governments, especially when the host countries which received the Chinese. 立. investment had the government with larger capacity of economic intervention and less. ‧ 國. 學. regulated by the rule of law.. ‧. When it comes to the heterogeneity of China’s economic activities with the LAC countries, there has been disparity among the sub-regions: the sum and the degree of. y. Nat. er. io. sit. the South American countries are much more than those of the Central American countries, however, located at the North America and being the seventh. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. technologically similar country to China, Mexico provided a very special case to study.. 10. engchi. In the article Trade as an Engine of Creative Destruction: Mexican. Experience with Chinese Competition from the Journal of International Economics of 2013, the authors looked at the total share of the imports first, for example, the share of the Chinese imports to Mexico had risen from 0.5% in 1994 to 8% in 2004 (nearly in a factor of 16!), while that of the Mexican imports to China had just risen moderately from 1.9% in 1994 to 2.8% in 2004. In other words, it had been a pretty. 10. Ray, R. and Kevin Gallagher. 2015. “China-Latin America Economic Bulletin 2015 Edition” Working Group on Development and Environment in the Americas, Global Economic Governance Initiative, Discussion Paper 2015-9, Boston University. September:1. 9. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(15) asymmetric trade structure. In the third-market which was very crucial target market for both China and Mexico- the United States, the increase of the share of total Chinese imports (from 6.5% in 1996 to 13.4% in 2004, more than doubled) also overtook that of the Mexican counterpart (only in a factor of 1.15). It mattered from two approaches, first of all, we would think China crowded out the share in the U.S. of the developed countries, but it was rather a huge challenge for the share of other developing countries in the U.S. Secondly, we have to take the proximity of Mexico to the U.S. and its membership of NAFTA into consideration. Since Mexico possessed comparative advantage in the production of labor intensive industries within NAFTA. 政治大. (85% of Mexican exports goes to the U.S.), it shouldn’t have been overtaken by. 立. China. This defeat revealed a grandeur challenge and competition for other LAC. ‧ 國. 學. countries as well.. ‧. Afterwards, the authors had taken three different approaches to complement the competition and made a conclusion that the competition was highly asymmetric and a. y. Nat. er. io. sit. kind of creative destruction that would reinforce the asymmetry itself. The first approach was the size approach, and the second approach was the product and. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. industry approach. To sum up, it was more difficult for smaller firms and marginal. engchi. product producers to survive in LAC countries facing with the competition with China because larger plants and core products benefited disproportionately from such expanded access to imported Chinese intermediates.. Industrialization, Deindustrialization, and Interdependence What I meant about the growth in the title is about a more positive partnership for improving the long-existing problem in Latin America- the income inequality. Being historically colonized, China had claimed the similar experience of getting rid of the dim past and boosting its economic growth in a different path from the developed 10. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(16) countries when it comes to forming the foreign policies with Latin American countries. The aforementioned developed countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., they had gone through the process of industrialization earlier than China and Latin America. However, the structure of these economies now is facing a new phenomenon called deindustrialiazation. In other words, most part of their GDP consist of the service sector rather than manufacturing as it used to. This resulted in the interdependence with the new workshop of the world, China and the huge trade deficit in terms of imports and exports of goods. Different from manufacturing, post-war global trade liberalization has not progressed in services. Almost all of the. 政治大. global trade in goods is included by a wide-reaching multilateral agreement overseen. 立. by World Trade Organization (WTO). By contrast, services haven’t been in. ‧ 國. 學. the same extent speaking of the openness of markets.. ‧. This economic phenomenon somehow aroused the doubts of some Latin American countries that China was far from an economic partner who shared the dark past of. y. Nat. er. io. sit. imperialism, but another new possible colonizer who was merely eager to attain the abundant natural resources for its own rapid economic growth. For example, the. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. government of Argentina had passed a bill to regulate the amounts that a certain foreign entity could hold.. engchi. About the theoretical basis in terms of international relations behind the emerging economic ties between China and Latin America, firstly, I would like to have a brief discussion about its relevance to the realism and liberalism, which have been the two biggest theories in the discipline. As the former United States National Security Advisor, John Bolton addressed in his latest book about his experience dealing with the U.S. foreign policy under Trump administration, China sought politico-military benefits from its economic activity that free-market societies simply do not contemplate. Since the era of Monroe Doctrine, 11. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(17) Latin America had been regarded as the theater of the extension of U.S. influence. Furthermore, according to David Ricardo’s theory, the less developed economies (in this case, Latin American countries in general compared to China) may struggle with negotiating the terms of trading with wealthier countries that provide them with aid mercantilism deployed to foster a trade surplus. Bolton’s claim could be seen as a kind of realist response to the rising Chinese influence in Latin America. In other words, it could be seen as a threat and a cause of the possible conflict. But does the Chinese influence really go so far with such ambitious moves and even ready to push the trigger of conflict? Couldn’t China be competitive but meantime cooperative?. 政治大. On the other hand, if we look at this emerging relation between China and Latin. 立. America through the lens of liberalism, we would find another path to the criticism. ‧ 國. 學. towards China, one of the traits of liberalism is that within the international system, a. ‧. certain actor (normally a state) should be a democracy which China is still politically far away from, thus, it is difficult to mainly address this thesis on basis of liberalism.. y. Nat. er. io. sit. However, now that China still had joined many democratic institutions and it is still inevitable to talk about the interdependence of China and other countries, including. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. the Latin American ones, I would still use part of the theoretical basis of liberalism as. engchi. complementary elements to analyze the phenomenon. Under the interdependence, citizens in each country may harbor illusions of independence, the fact is that their governments cannot conduct independent economic or foreign policies, and they are certainly incapable of initiating and conducting full-scale war on their own. Nevertheless, there have been some criticisms from both the developed and developing countries against China and its economic activities. Under the communist political system, China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are usually holding the advantages that the companies under democracies do not have, such as the massive subsidies by the government and their huge scales and prioritized rights to do the 12. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(18) business before other domestic competitors. They are always regarded as unfair competitors from the point of view of the equivalent in the developed countries. The close tie between the Chinese SOEs and Chinese government also caused the doubt of their partners about the transparency and independence of decision-making of these SOEs. The surveillance of the Chinese government is also another uncertainty once a research institution received the sponsor from the Chinese capitalists. According to the investigation by Curtis J. Milhaupt and Wentong Zheng from Paulson Institute, even among the hundred biggest privately-owned enterprises in China based on their revenue, ninety-five of them were very close to the communist authority. The. 政治大. communist government could also influence the operation of the private sector. 立. through stakeholding and even launch mergers forcefully. For the political benefits,. ‧ 國. 學. Chinese companies had already acquired not only the most advanced technologies but. ‧. also the crucial natural resources. In the developing countries such as Latin American ones, China has always been an especially important source of growth for the. y. Nat. er. io. sit. infrastructure and consuming resource industries. On the basis on the data of 2015, China had consumed 54% of the aluminum, 48% of the copper, 46% of the zinc, 28%. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. of the soybean, 12% of crude oil of the world. In short, it has been a very important. engchi. trade partner of these countries rich in the natural resources. Since “the go out strategy” (走出國門) articulated by the Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji in 1999, Chinese companies have been encouraged to find the resources which were necessary to fuel Chinese economic growth. Both SOEs and private companies became leading investors in infrastructure throughout resource-rich countries to help ensure access to the resources that the country needed for its own development, such as copper, iron ore, and bauxite. However, different from the other main investors, China had drawn particularly serious scrutiny in various countries when it comes to the support of “rogue states”, and its disregard of international labor 13. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(19) and environmental standards. The weak corporate social responsibility of the Chinese companies had been seen as a sabotage of liberalism and led to a backlash in in number of countries. Whereas there were so many warnings of the nature of Chinese investment, it is also overestimated based on the statistics. For example, the Chinese investment in Latin America in 2016, it ranked fourth in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in monetary value, right after the Netherlands, the United States, and Spain.. Coexistence of China’s Huge Transformation and Its Old Mentality. 政治大. Therefore, is it impossible to make China democratic to fit in the theoretical liberalist. 立. path in terms of international relation? The previous ambassador of Singapore to the. ‧ 國. 學. United Nations- Kishore Mahbubani had provided some insights. Raised in an Indian. ‧. family in a nation which consists of mostly ethnically Chinese people and was influenced by Western culture for centuries of British rule and huge American. y. Nat. at peace making between the two super powers.. n. al. Ch. er. io. sit. investment, his opinions and arguments could be regarded more moderate and aiming. i Un. v. Mahbubani mentioned about the hubris that China experienced after the 2008-2009. engchi. global financial crisis, which aroused the doubts of the Westerners if China had become more expansionist since then. Based on the description in the book The Party by Richard McGregor, what happened at the 2009 Boao Forum, China’s equivalent of the annual World Economic Davos Forum, really revealed the tone of Chinese officials to be more confident even more assertive. Nevertheless, the history of China shows the key factor which led to the success of China is its economic engagement with the rest of the world. Since Deng Xiaoping’s opening up decision, China’s economy has taken off and soared. On the contrary, the mentality that China was a great self-sufficient Middle Kingdom that it did not need 14. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(20) to participate the world had made China fall so behind and brought about a century of chaos and humiliation. Due to the past few decades of globalization, however, China has not only fueled its rapid economic growth (at an average annual rate of 10.29% between 2000 and 2009 according to the data of IMF) but also made over a hundred countries (most of them are developing countries) trade with China than with U.S., the biggest economy in the world and the championship of globalization. In other words, the world is more exposed to China and China is reinforcing its importance as a market, supplier, and provider of capital.. 政治大. Back to the question: does the Westerner’s skepticism towards China is increasing at. 立. the same time? There could be different answers under the diverse capitalist market. ‧ 國. 學. economies. As the governor of Kentucky state, Matt Bevin said in May of 2017 in a. ‧. distinct tone from that of Washington, DC: “There’s a tremendous amount of capital in China that’s looking for a place to be deployed, in a safe, reliable environment. The. y. Nat. er. io. sit. United States affords that opportunity. There is a tremendous infrastructure need in this country (China). The two largest economies in the world and the most powerful. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. are that of the United States and China. The idea that we would not work together. engchi. seems inconceivable.” It reveals that China can grow its economy well on its own for the abundance capital and domestic need even without American investment in theory. The question is: would China go in this alienated direction in practice? In the case of China, it should attract American, and even Western investments out of strategic reason- to rationally create a stabilizer in China’s relations with these investing countries. So far, all the trade and investment that occurred in Latin America, China and the United States had all been complied through the prominent reserve currency- the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar is currently well-protected by a complex global financial 15. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(21) system. Most of the countries in the world do business with it for their trust on the U.S. being impartial arbiter in international issues. If China could step in, although the Chinese renminbi (RMB) is still far from replacing the U.S. dollar to be a dominant reserve currency due to the absence of an open capital account and convertibility of the currency, for example, the fact China had launched Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as of April 2019, 125 countries had signed agreements with China on BRI. This provides a clear indication that most countries would also trust Chinese currency, no matter it is cash or cryptocurrency, that is ultimately backed by Chinese sooner or later. This also arouse a likely question: would the economic primacy of China in. 政治大. Latin America make the region decouple the U.S. dollar and even the U.S. firms? Are. 立. the transactions thorough RMB (the cash flow) reducing the income inequality of the. ‧ 國. 學. region more than the U.S. dollar does?. ‧. The injection of millions of low-wage Chinese works into the global economic system also brought some influences to it. What’s more, clearly, after encouraging the entry. y. Nat. er. io. sit. of China into the WTO in 2001, American leaders should have thoughtfully prepared for the structural impact of this event on the American economy and society. Sadly, no. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. leader suggested this. American workers were left alone to cope with this structural. engchi. shock, which may cause inequality too since the average income of the bottom 50 percent of the Americans has stagnated, while that of the top 1 percent has increased astronomically during these decades. On the other hand, many European countries spend 1 to 3 percent of their GDP to retrain their workers, whereas U.S. spend only 0.24 percent. Would Latin American countries follow the U.S. pattern more than the European pattern in terms of this? In the deeply polarized political atmosphere of Washington, DC, these days, it is almost impossible to get a broad-based political consensus on any topic. However, even in this deeply polarized environment, a strong consensus developed among the 16. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(22) U.S. political, security, and intellectual establishments, including both Democrats and Republicans, that China had emerged as an aggressive and expansionist military competitor to the United States. For example, in September 2019, the Department of Defense reported the remarks of undersecretary of defense for policy John C. Rood as saying that “it is not an exaggeration to say China is the greatest long-term threat to the U.S. way of life, but China also poses the greatest challenge to the Defense Department.” Another more powerful figure, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, made several remarkable allegations a month later that China’s military behavior has become “increasingly provocative” over the past year, arguing that China has. 政治大. “regularly menaced and strong-armed” its ASEAN neighbors in the South China Sea,. 立. while provoking Japan in the East China Sea and using the BRI to “establish. ‧ 國. 學. footholds in ports around the world, ostensibly for commercial purposes, but those. ‧. purposes could eventually become military.” Yet Mahbubani argued with the fact that China had not fought a major war in forty years and had not fired a bullet across its. y. Nat. er. io. sit. borders in thirty years. The lack of military action reflected both a powerful civilizational impulse and a deeply pragmatic view of power.. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Culturally, he not only cited the dialogues from the Analects by Confucius that. engchi. Chinese culture has revered scholars more than soldiers compared to American culture, but he also quoted the explanation by the renowned veteran American diplomat Henry Kissinger accurately distilled from the advice given by China’ master strategist Sun Tzu: [The] foundations [of China’s distinctive military theory] were laid during a period of upheaval, when ruthless struggles between rival kingdoms decimated China’s population. Reacting to this slaughter (and seeking to emerge victorious from it), Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict. 17. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(23) He further quoted Sun Tzu: “All warfare is based on deception… Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance… For to win one hundred victories is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” Historically, compared to the European powers, China was never inherently militaristic and expansionist. In the eighth century, at the peak of China’s territorial development during the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese had an army near the Fergana Valley in Central Asia. When the Abbasids moved eastwards, they clashed with the Chinese. In the historic battle of Talas, the Abbasids defeated the Chinese army, and the Chinese never crossed the Tianshan Mountains again in their history. The other. 政治大. historical fact was that even at the start of the fifteenth century which was nearly a. 立. hundred years prior to Christopher Columbus trying to find a route to the Spice. ‧ 國. 學. Islands, China had sent out seven naval expeditions under the remarkable leadership. ‧. of Admiral Zheng He. He traveled as far as Africa on ships that were much larger in size than the Portuguese and Spanish vessels. Although the Chinese navy under Zheng. y. Nat. er. io. sit. He did get into several military battles and overthrew several regimes in Ceylon and Sumatra for example, they had never occupied or conquered any overseas or distant. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. territories. Another renowned scholar, Professor Wang Gungwu of National. engchi. University of Singapore identified the majority of Chinese people, the Han Chinese as essentially agrarian. They only emphasized on finding good agricultural soil and turned back as long as they encountered the hostile steppes or the rugged mountain regions. They were also not very interested in going overseas. Most of Chinese territorial expansion, like Inner Mongolia or Xinjiang or the mountainous regions in the southwest took place when Chinese was ruled by “foreign” (non-Han-Chinese) dynasties such as the Yuan (1279-1368) by the Mongols and Qing (1644-1911) by the Manchus. Despite the many wars the Chinese had fought, most of them were within China instead of being outwards. 18. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(24) The United States believes that the Americans should stand for universal values and the world would be a better place if the rest of the world implemented American values. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a speech in 2016 which represented this kind of ideology: When we say America is exceptional, it […] means that we recognize America’s unique and unparalleled ability to be a force for peace and progress, a champion for freedom and opportunity. Our power comes with a responsibility to lead, humbly, thoughtfully, and with a fierce commitment to our values. Because, when America fails to lead, we leave a vacuum that either causes chaos or other countries or networks rush in to fill the void.. 立. 政治大. Strategically, unlike the U.S., China had genuinely been perplexed that U.S. had. ‧ 國. 學. allowed itself involved in the “unnecessary military conflicts” in the Middle East and. ‧. didn’t serve its own national interests, it would refrain from getting involved in unnecessary fights and wasting the resources. The Chinese are genuinely bewildered. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. expansionist power.. sit. by the Americans portrait of China as an inherently aggressive, militaristic, and. Ch. i Un. v. According to the chapter Is China Expansionist? from the book Has China Won?,. engchi. Mahbubani had concluded that after two thousand years of Chinese history, China has created a strategic culture that advises avoiding fighting unnecessary wars in distant places. The more likely portrait of the upcoming future of the world is that, while China’s strategic weight and influence in the world will grow significantly, it will not behave as an aggressive and belligerent military power, but it will become more dominant and powerful in other nonmilitary sphere. Therefore, he predicted that the real competition between US and China would not take place in the military sphere. Moreover, he also made an ironic argument that, while US policy makers are often making an analogy between China and the politically similar Soviet Union, but in the 19. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(25) current geopolitical contest between US and China, US is behaving more like the Soviet Union, and China is behaving more like US back in the Cold War.. Clash of Civilizations or A Major Geopolitical Contest? As the renowned American political scientist Samuel Huntington argued in his article titled “The Clash of Civilizations” which was published in 1993, in the post-Cold War world, Huntington believe that the age of ideology had ended up. Instead, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the main source of conflict. What’s more, the non-Western countries and civilizations are not the exploited victims of Western countries and civilizations anymore.. 立. 政治大. When it comes to this argument and the questions extended from it that if there is. ‧ 國. 學. another actor (state) would replace the hegemony of the United States after its victory. mentioned about.. ‧. of the Cold War. China which is the biggest rising power is indeed inevitable to be. y. Nat. er. io. sit. Unlike the military and economic conflict, the conflict between civilizations is pretty hard to quantify and predict. Even emotions play an important part in international. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. relations. To make it clearer, the fear of the Westerners towards China had been rooted. engchi. deep in the unconscious of the Western minds deriving from the “yellow peril”. One of the most famous sayings along history was the one by Napoleon Bonaparte: “Let China sleep; when she awakes she will shake the world.” Here lies a question behind: Why did Napoleon pointed China rather than India which was an equally large and populous civilization? The answer is that no empires or principalities of Indians had ever threatened or ravaged European capitals. By contrast, hordes of Mongols (once regarded as part of China), had appeared at Europe’s doorstep in the thirteenth century. In any political, economic or social pursuits, the Western mentality could be very 20. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(26) different from the Chinese mentality. On one hand, the Western mind cultivated by the Western civilization is very used to black-or-white distinctions. In other words, one side is right, the other side is wrong. The Chinese mind cultivated by the Chinese civilization is very different. Both black and white can be right. This mind-set of dualism is best depicted by the concept of yin and yang. According to Dr. Hong Hai of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who has tried to explain this concept, he wrote:. The ideas of yin and yang reflects a dialectical logic that attempts to explain relationships and. 政治大. change. Stripped to its bare essentials, yin and yang are not much more than labels that. 立. capture the perception of duality in nature-light versus darkness, hardness versus softness,. ‧ 國. 學. male versus female. Thus the yin-yang doctrine is a holistic view of the world that places all. ‧. entities as parts of a cosmic whole. These entities cannot have existence independent of their relationship to other entities. Dualism implies that an attribute like brightness has meaning. y. Nat. n. er. io. al. sit. only relative to darkness, as does beauty relative to ugliness.11. Ch. i Un. v. In terms of the fundamental national interest of both societies of China and the United. engchi. States is to improve the well-being of their people. In March 1809, Thomas Jefferson wrote, on his departure from US presidency: “the care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government." 12 Noting this observation, the chief commentator of Financial Times, Martin Wolf further inspected: “How might one measure ‘happiness’? What promotes. 11. Hong Hai, “Daoism and Management,” chap. 4 in The Rule of Culture: Corporate and State Governance in China and East Asia (London: Routledge, 2019). 12 Thomas Jefferson, “To the Republicans of Washington County, Maryland,” March 31, 1809, http:// founders.archieves.gov/ documents/ Jefferson/ 03-01-02-0088, quoted in Martin Wolf, “The Case for Making Wellbeing the Goal of Public Policy,” Financial Times (London), May 30, 2019, http:// www.ft.com/ content/ d4bb3e42-823b-11e9-9935-ad75bb96c849. 21. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(27) it?” As Wolf noted, these are very cliché questions. The Western utilitarian philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, have long been posing them. Fortunately, contemporary utilitarian philosophers have taken up the challenge of measuring happiness. For instance, Professor Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, in his coauthored book The Origin of Happiness, has said that selfreported “life satisfaction” can be a good proxy for measuring happiness. As a result, Layard argued that well-being will eventually become totally accepted as the standard way to evaluate social policies. Quantitatively, the United States is a much wealthier country than China. Its nominal. 政治大. per capita income of US$62,641 is at least six times larger than that of China at. 立. US$9,771. 13 However, even though U.S. is wealthier, the well-being of its people,. ‧ 國. 學. especially the bottom 50 percent of the population, has deteriorated in recent decades.. ‧. One fact cannot be denied: U.S. wasted nearly $5 trillion on wars in the Middle East since 9/11. Brown University’s Watson Institute reported:. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Totaling these expenses and Congressional requests for FY2017, the U.S. federal government. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. has spent and obligated approximately $4.8 trillion on the post-9/11 wars. In addition, by. engchi. 2053, interest costs will be at least $7.9 trillion unless the U.S. changes the way it pays for the wars. 14. Based on the calculation by Kishore Mahbubani, if these 4.8 trillion had been redistributed among the bottom 50 percent of the American population, each American citizen would have received about $29,000. If this amount is laid alongside. 13. World Bank, “GDP per Capita (current US$),” The World Bank data, https:// data.worldbank.org/ indicator/ NY.GDP.PCAP.CD. 14 US Federal and States Budgets, “Costs of War, Watson Institute: International & Public Affairs, Brown University, https:// Watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic/budget. 22. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(28) the statistic that two thirds of American households do not have access to emergency cash of $500, it shows clearly why it is in America’s national interest to put the wellbeing of its people first. Heidi Garett-Peltier as well wrote in 2017 paper for Brown University’s Watson Institute:. Because the federal has spent trillions of dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Pakistan, we have lost opportunities to create millions of jobs in the domestic economy, and we have lost opportunities to improve educational, health, and environmental outcomes for the American public. […] Education and healthcare create more than twice as many jobs as. 政治大. defense for the same level of spending, while clean energy and infrastructure create over 40. 立. percent more jobs. 15. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. Since China’s per capita income is much lower than that of the United States, it is reasonable for China to prioritize improving the well-being of its people for its. y. Nat. er. io. sit. national interest. To sum up, both U.S. and China should make improving the wellbeing of their people is unquestionable. Yet, the fact that the strategic thinkers seem. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. not able to see this fundamental point and demonstrate how distorted their. engchi. perspectives had become. It is an appealing ideal that they can both focus on the wellbeing of their people and allow the Pacific Ocean to protect their respective homelands, both societies would be better off. Many American strategic thinkers tend to make an analogy of China with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Yet, the Chinese Party, although not democratic essentially, is far more capable and adaptable than the Soviet Communist Party.. 15. Heidi-Garrtee-Peltier, “Job Opportunity Cost of War,” Costs of War, Watson Institute: International & Public Affairs, Brown University, https:// Watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2017/Job%20Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Wa r%20-%HGP%20-%20FINAL.pdf. 23. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(29) Different from the Soviet Communist Party, it is in no danger of disappearing anytime soon, because it is not taking advantage of ideology; instead, it is riding the wave of a resurgent civilization, and that civilization has proven itself to be one of the strongest and most resilient civilizations in history. Kishore Mahbubani pointed out the mistake that American strategic minds had made when only focusing on Chinese Communist Party being a communist party. Chinse communism is not a threat to American democracy. Rather, the success and competitiveness of the Chinese economy and society should be the real challenge. To meet this challenge, American thinkers should concentrate on ensuring the success. 政治大. and competitiveness of the American economy and society. What is interesting is that. 立. George Kennan, the famous advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion. ‧ 國. 學. during the Cold War, also emphasized the importance of a strong domestic American. ‧. society in his famous Mr. X essay. Instead of wasting precious resources on a nonexistent ideological threat from China, America should use the same resources to. y. Nat. er. io. sit. revitalize its own society to attract other countries learning from it as it once did. In an article entitled “The Fusion of Civilizations,” Lawrence Summers and Kishore. n. al. Ch. Mahbubani pointed out the following:. engchi. i Un. v. The great world civilizations, which used to have detached and separate identities, now have increasingly overlapping areas of commonality. Most people around the world now have the same aspirations as the Western middle classes: they want their children to get good educations, land good jobs, and live happy, productive lives as members of stable, peaceful communities. Instead of feeling depressed, the West should be celebrating its phenomenal success at injecting the key elements of its worldview into other great civilizations. 16. 16. Kishore Mahbubani and Lawrence H. Summers, “The Fusion of Civilization: The Case for Global Optimism,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2016, https:// www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-04-18/fushion-civilizations.. 24. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(30) Americans hold their sacred values, especially political values of freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion and they also believe that every human being is entitled to the same fundamental human rights. The Chinese, on the other hand, believe that social needs and social harmony are more important than individual needs and rights and that the prevention of chaos and turbulence is the main goal of governance. Nevertheless, a fundamental contradiction would only take place in this area if China tries to export its values to the United States, who have become obsessed with the threat from China, have begun to suggest that China is trying to undermine the values of American society. This was an implication in the famous FBI director Christopher. 政治大. Wray, who said that there was now a “whole-of-society” threat from China. Sadly, the. 立. report put out by a group of American scholars entitled Chinese Influence & American. ‧ 國. 學. Interests also said that China was trying to undermine American freedoms. There are. ‧. some words about it: “Openness and freedom are fundamental elements of American society democracy and intrinsic strengths of the United States and its way of life.. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. countries.”. sit. These values must be protected against corrosive actions by China and other. Ch. i Un. v. In conclusion, it is a contest between the two great powers for the different values of. engchi. their respective civilizations. In my opinion, this is the core of the geopolitical competition and conflicts. I would address it with providing more details of both optimism and pessimism in the following paragraphs.. 25. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(31) Chapter 4. Winning of Liberal World? When we are making the analogy of history, we have to be very careful, especially the ones that are related to the international relations, or say, the international security. I have also quoted a journal article from the renowned Foreign Affairs written by the American academic Walter Russell Mead. In his arguments, he believes in the revenge of the revisionist powers against the hegemonic United States and the return of geopolitics, but he doesn’t agree with the influences that these revisionist powers have are as big as those of the Soviet Union.. 政治大 the ideological triumph of liberal capitalist democracy and the so-called global 立. His intention is to remind those who wholeheartedly and optimistically have faith in. ‧ 國. 學. governance. They do deem that the collapse of Soviet Union has been to shift international relations away from zero-sum issues toward win-win ones. What’s more,. ‧. they consider that after the Cold War, the winning United States and EU would rather. sit. y. Nat. move past geopolitical questions of territory and military power and focus instead on. er. io. ones of world order and global governance: trade liberalization, nuclear. al. n. iv n C h powers due to the latent power the revisionist e n ghave, c h itheUparticular geopolitical. nonproliferation, human rights, the rule of law, climate changes, and so on. However,. foundations laid in the 1990s would not remain the same anymore. Mead listed the facts that in the year of 2014 Russian forces seized Crimea, China made aggressive claims in its coastal waters, Japan responded with an increasingly assertive strategy of its own, and Iran tried to use its alliances with Syria and Hezbollah to dominate the Middle East all shaken the balance of power and changed the dynamics of international politics. To sum up, the geopolitics is coming back. The over-optimistic belief in this liberalist ideology of world order could be traced back to the famous philosopher in the nineteenth century—Georg Wilheim Friedrich 26. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(32) Hegel, he expressed that the geopolitical consequences were the extension of ideological struggles. In his era, in order to fight against the West which was once the most dominant region successfully, a certain nation would have to become like the West. The more modern equivalence of Hegel was the American political scientist, Francis Fukuyama. His most well-known formulation is the end of the history and the last man in it. For many people, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union didn’t just mean that humanity’s ideological struggle was over for good; they thought geopolitics itself had also come to a permanent end. Furthermore, the conflation of the end of geopolitics and the end of history offered an. 政治大. especially enticing prospect to the United States: the idea that the country could start. 立. putting less into the international system and taking out more from the global. ‧ 國. 學. economic system. To be more specific, the U.S. could shrink its defense spending, cut. ‧. the State Department’s appropriations, lower its profile in foreign hotspots. This vision was not only appealing to the liberals but also to the conservatives in the. y. Nat. as an example to prove his argument in his article:. n. al. Ch. engchi. er. io. sit. United States. Mead looked into the history of the recent decades of the United States. i Un. v. The administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton began to take the aforementioned actions and assumed with his policymakers that the international system would become stronger and wider-reaching while continuing to be conductive to U.S. interests. For example, former Representative Ron Paul of Texas argued that the United States could dramatically cut both military spending and foreign aid while continuing to benefit from the global economic system. Afterwards, following 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush made defeating the Middle Eastern terrorists as the first priority for his foreign policy. In some respects, it appeared that the world was back in the realm of history and geopolitics. Nevertheless, the Bush administration still believed with prospect that democracy could be implanted quickly in 27. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(33) the Arab Middle East. President Barack Obama convicted that the “war terror” was overblown and history was really over. He built his foreign policy through promoting the liberal world order rather than playing classical geopolitics. The administration’s ambitious agenda in support of that kind of order included: blocking Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, negotiating a global climate change treaty, striking Pacific and Atlantic trade deals, signing arms control treaties with Russia, repairing U.S. relations with the Muslim world, promoting gay rights, restoring trust with European allies, and ending the war in Afghanistan. 17. 政治大. Although there have been some challenges from the perspective of the United States. 立. by other super powers, both regional and global, Mead argued that “one should not. ‧ 國. 學. speak of a strategic alliance among them, and over time, particularly if they succeed. ‧. in undermining U.S. influence in Eurasia, the tensions among them are more likely to grow than shrink.” For example, he pointed out that “China has no intention of. y. Nat. er. io. sit. contenting itself with a secondary role in global affairs, nor will it accept the current degree of U.S. influence in Asia and the territorial status quo there.”. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Leaders in all these challenging countries, such as China, Russia, and Iran also agree. engchi. that U.S. power is the main obstacle to achieving their own revisionist goals. Not only do they hope that the decline of U.S. power will make it easier to reorder their regions, but they also worry that Washington might try to overthrow them. China, which has the greatest capabilities among them, has paradoxically been the most frustrated. Its efforts to assert itself in its region have only tightened the links between the United States and its Asian allies and intensified nationalism in Japan. As Beijing’s capabilities grow, so will its sense of frustration. China’s surge in power will. 17. Mead, W. 2014. “The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers” Foreign Affairs. 93 (3): 69-79. 28. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(34) be matched by a surge in Japan’s resolve, and tensions in Asia will be more likely to spill over into global economic and politics. The revisionist powers have a wide range of agendas and capabilities that none can provide the kind of systematic and global opposition that the Soviet Union did. As a result, Americans have been slow to realize that these states have undermined the Eurasian geopolitical order in ways that complicate U.S. efforts to construct a posthistorical, win-win world. One can see the efforts of this revisionist activity in many places. The following paragraph from Mead’s article addressed the efforts that China had made in recent years:. 立. 政治大. In East Asia, China’s increasingly assertive stance has yet to yield much concrete geopolitical. ‧ 國. 學. progress, but it has fundamentally altered the political dynamic in the region with the fastest-. ‧. growing economics on earth. Asian politics today revolve around national rivalries, conflicting territorial claims, naval buildups, and similar historical issues. The nationalist. y. Nat. er. io. sit. revival in Japan, a direct response to China’s agenda, has set up a process in which rising nationalism in one country feeds off the starting bilateral crises with greater frequently, and. n. al. Ch. fixating more and more on zero-sum competition. 18. engchi. i Un. v. On the other hand of the United States, there had been a developing unwillingness of holding the post-Cold War liberal world order due to the different public perception of the Americans developed from the different historical path:. The United States has not suffered anything like the economic pain much of Europe has gone through, but with the country facing the foreign policy hangover induced by the Bush-era. 18. Mead, W. 2014. “The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers” Foreign Affairs. 93 (3): 69-79. 29. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(35) wars, an increasingly intrusive surveillance state, a slow economic recovery, and an unpopular healthcare law, the public mood has soured. On both the left and the right, Americans are questioning the benefits of the current world order and the competence of its architects. Additionally, the public shares the elite consensus that in a post-Cold War world, the United States ought to be able to pay less into the system and get more out. When that doesn’t happen, people blame their leaders and government. In any case, there is little public appetite for large new initiatives at home or abroad, and a cynical public is turning away from a polarized Washington with a mix of boredom and despise. 19. 政治大. Although Chinese, Iranian, and Russian revanchism haven’t overturned the post-Cold. 立. War settlement in Eurasia yet, and may never do so, they have converted an. ‧ 國. 學. uncontested status quo into a contested one. U.S. presidents no longer have a free. ‧. hand as they seek to deepen the liberal system; they are increasingly concerned with shoring up its geopolitical foundations.. y. Nat. er. io. sit. The end of history, as Fukuyama reminded readers, was Hegel’s idea, and even though the revolutionary state (Napoleon France at that time) had triumphed over the. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. old type of regimes for good, Hegel argued, competition and conflict would continue.. engchi. It still seems so based on the fact that in order to increase its power, China will clearly have to go through a process of economic and political development that will require the country to master the problems that modern Western societies have confronted. The realities of personal and political life in post-historical societies, as Fukuyama investigated at the second part of his book, are very different from those in such countries as China, Iran, and Russia. The European bureaucrats and U.S. lobbyists resemble the nihilistic “last man” described by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: a. 19. Mead, W. 2014. “The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers” Foreign Affairs. 93 (3): 69-79. 30. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(36) narcissistic consumer with no greater aspirations beyond the next trip to the mall. These people would be unwilling to make sacrifices and focus more on the short-term, easily distracted, and lacking in courage. It is not just that those different societies bring different personalities and values to the fore; it is also that their institutions work differently and their public are shaped by different ideas. Therefore, societies filled with Nietzsche’s last men (and women) characteristically misunderstand and underestimate their supposedly primitive opponent in supposedly backward societies—a blind spot that could offset their countries’ other advantages and even bring conflicts.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 31. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(37) Chapter 5. The Other Perspective of Geopolitics Walter Russell Mead had illustrated how the geopolitics played an important role in current international relations after the world order led by the United States declined. On the contrary of his perspective, John Ikenberry, the international relations theorist and foreign policy maker of U.S., had blatantly argued that the geopolitics could be only an illusion and the liberal world order would be an absolute outcome. There are several reasons behind his theory. First of all, he supposed that Mead had overestimated the capability of the “axis of weevils” (led by China, Russia, Iran) to. 政治大 Secondly, they were seeking opportunities to resist the United States’ global 立 undermine the existing liberal order.. ‧ 國. 學. leadership, especially when they confronted in their own neighborhood. However, these conflicts were fueled more by weakness- their leaders’ and regimes’- than by. ‧. strength. In other word, they have no appealing brand.. sit. y. Nat. Thirdly, as Ikenberry said: “the construction of a U.S.-led global order indeed did not. er. io. begin with the end of the Cold War, it just won the Cold war. In the nearly seven. al. n. iv n C U agreements, and political h e n galliances, far-flung system of multilateral institutions, c h i trade decades since World War II, Washington has undertaken sustained efforts to build a. partnerships.” Although the United States will really come down from the peak of hegemony that it occupied during the unipolar era, its power is still undoubted and unrivaled. Its wealth and technological advantages remain far out of the reach of China and Russia, not to mention those of Iran. Strategically speaking, one of the requirements to be the hegemony is the amount of a state’s allies, Ikenberry wrote in his article:. 32. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.

(38) According to a study led by the political scientist Brett Ashley Leeds, the United States boasts military partnerships with more than 60 countries, whereas Russia counts eight formal allies and China has just one (North Korea). As one British diplomat revealed to Ikenberry, “China doesn’t seem to do alliances.” But the United States does, and they pay a double dividend: not only do alliances provide a global platform for the projection of U.S. power, but they also distribute the burden of providing security. 20. On the other hand, there is also the logic of mutual assured destruction behind the nuclear weapons, they do radically reduce the likelihood of great-power war. The. 政治大. atomic age has deprived China and Russia of this opportunity to expand their own. 立. international order. Nuclear weapons also make China and Russia more secure, giving. ‧ 國. 學. them assurance that the United States will never intrude. It reduces the possibility that. ‧. they will resort to desperate moves resulting from insecurity.. What’s more, the geographic conditions reinforce the United States other benefits. As. y. Nat. er. io. sit. the only great power not surrounded by other great powers, the country has appeared less threatening to other great powers and was able to rise dramatically over the. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. course of the last century without causing a war. After the Cold War, when the U.S.. engchi. was the world’s sole superpower, other global powers, oceans away, did not even attempt to balance against it. As a matter of fact, the United States’ geographic position has resulted in other countries to worry more about its abandonment than domination. Allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have sought to draw the U.S. into playing a greater role in their regions. The outcome is what the historian Geir Lunderstad has called an “empire by invitation.” The United States’ geographic advantage is on full display in Asia. Most countries in. 20. Ikenberry J. 2014. “The Illusion of Geopolitics: The Enduring Power of the Liberal Order” Foreign Affairs. 93 (3): 80-90. 33. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202100367.