【时尚先生Esquire】China at the Wheel of the World: Sissy or Superpower?

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China at the Wheel of the World: Sissy or Superpower?
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/war-room/china-government-043009

April 30, 2009, 2:10 PM By Thomas P.M. Barnett


Chinese president Hu Jintao (left) acts nice, but will he play nice?

The Chinese may be helping the States, but can they help themselves? The view from Beijing is a tea party hell-bent on global leadership, but if the government can't give up its moribund socialist movement, America might be riding solo well after Obama.

BEIJING — China is in a foul mood, according to the appropriately titled Unhappy China, a white-hot bestseller that is as controversial here as I've found it to be accurate in a week-long canvassing of this country's increasingly important growing pains. It's a collection of essays from five overtly nationalist writers who want China to stand up and assume the global leadership that, in their opinion, naturally falls to their country once America's profound bankruptcy has been revealed. The book has triggered an intense debate across China's vast sea of netizens, with the bulk of commentary as scathingly critical of the authors' long-term vision of China's superpower-dom as the book is of American leadership.

Taken as a whole, one can easily get the impression that China is deeply distressed by Team USA's recent streak as globalization's guns-a-blazing Leviathan, but equally reluctant to replace. Having survived Mao Zedong's murderous insanities, China's version of Boomers are truly careful what they wish for.

But if the Chinese are unhappy with America's government, there's even more dissatisfaction with their own. Between the milk scandal, a poor response to the massive Sichuan quake, and pervasive corruption of officials, China's ruling capitalist party finds itself wading nervously through a series of anniversaries: twenty years of Tiananmen Square memories, thirty since Deng Xiaoping's world-shaking reforms, and the sixty for the People's Republic itself.

With that kind of ideological crossroads, it's little wonder that China's confused about what it wants to be when it's all grown-up.

Still, some of this anger from the Chinese is rather petty: The Olympics were a massive coming-out party last year, and not everyone on the planet gave the regime a thumbs-up, being so rude as to complain about situations like Tibet, Darfur, and Myanmar. But if China's going to get all pissy over some Hollywood blowback, then how's it going to handle the kind of widespread enmity that comes with being king of the hill? Being a superpower ain't for sissies.

It's almost as if Chinese people expect the world to withhold its political opinions in the same manner as they're commanded by the Party. Then again, maybe that's why Unhappy China has triggered such a cathartic social debate. With President Hu Jintao standing front and center at G-20 photo-ops and Premier Wen Jiabao publicly calling out America for sabotaging the global economy, why should China take any of this sanctimonious guff from the West?

Unprepared for Takeover, In Need of a Makeover

Honestly, I agree with Unhappy China's primary prescriptions: China needs to lead the world in discovering new ways to use natural resources more intelligently (necessity being the mother of invention), and step up to some serious global policing (how about some Asian blood for Asian oil?), and navigate its way toward true democracy (Deng's own long-term prediction).

If getting mad at America is what it takes to fire up the Chinese people, that just proves a little social anger goes a long way to push governments for better answers. So bring on da' noise (populism) if you wanna bring on da' funk (progressivism). And then get yourself a bevy of Teddy Roosevelts, Upton Sinclairs, and suitably self-righteous civic groups to drive the much-needed makeover.

Right now China and globalization at large are suffering from the same growing pains that plagued "rising" America in the latter decades of the 19th century: too much income inequality, too much despoiling of the commons, too little regulation of a rapacious capitalism desperately in need of taming. So I might ask, If not China, then who? And if not now, then when? Europe's too busy getting old, and America's too busy paying off its second mortgage (plus Afghanistan).

Speaking of Hu and Wen, my sense is that this global crisis caught China's tight-lipped leadership about a decade too early. Beijing's current ruling generation consists of homebodies who never took their junior years abroad. The next generations, teed-up for rule in 2012 and 2022 respectively, earned plenty of graduate degrees from the West's top universities. But today's leaders were trapped at a young age by the Cultural Revolution — a formative experience that left them risk-averse.

So just when this financial meltdown tempts China to grab globalization's steering wheel, we get guys whose entire lives prepared them to pull the parking brake and little else.

Heads in the Sand, Missed Chances for the Future

I've spent the past couple days lecturing at China's version of Harvard — Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, where I found no shortage of best-and-brightest material among the school's small army of Ph.D. candidates in International Relations. There is a glorious naïveté about these young students, none of whom can remember a time when China wasn't on the rise. They truly believe that if we all just play nice with one another, there'll be nothing to kill for, nothing to die for, and no extremists either.

I felt like such a cynic, then, telling them that China is better off sticking with the whole "peaceful rise" mantra and leaving the Leviathan work to a greater power. Unless, of course, they could foresee a day when the People's Liberation Army leads the U.N.-sanctioned coalition force into some shoot-'em-up with seriously bad actors.

Moreover, I told them that China can't possibly lead the world until it evolves past single-party rule. As smart and as sophisticated as the upcoming generations of Chinese leaders are, they'll never be able to match America's tolerance for strategic risk — the essence of genuine leadership. The United States has the political confidence to lead because, in the event of great failure, it can change ruling parties with a lag time that's four years at worse and sometimes as quick as two. There is no "throw-the-bums-out" option in China, and when face cannot be lost, it'll remain masked by diplomacy.

And that's what I mean by history catching China too early: Leadership here is still based on authority rather than legitimacy — it's not about how you gained power that counts but how you wield it. Beijing's bosses have long based their authority on being able to deliver strong economic growth, the implied grand strategy being nothing more than restoring China to its rightful place in the world.

But like the dog chasing the car and eventually acquiring its target, China has little idea of what comes next.

Instead, China purposefully dithers when it could be decisive. Afraid of arousing America's lingering suspicions but too proud to be its junior partner, China has avoided comprehensive strategic cooperation by insisting that the Taiwan issue "must be settled," as if Hillary Clinton could snap her fingers and make that happen. Yet China's military build-up remains based primarily around this scenario, leaving the force rather useless for actual global policing.

Imagine an American political system obsessed with reunification with Cuba, or a U.S. military designed primarily for that conflict scenario. Would anybody in the world take us seriously as a global superpower?

What's most telling is China's avoidance of any real regional leadership on North Korea: China's party chiefs can't bear the thought that Kim's fall would reflect badly on their perceived legitimacy as a socialist state, and so they prop up his criminal regime while facetiously mumbling about "peaceful resolution."

My advice, again: give Washington a call when you're serious about leading the world instead of the moribund world socialist movement. Hell, on the basis of Medicare and Social Security alone, I'd give the U.S. a higher score than China on the socialism scale.

On the Bright Side, a Chance to Lead

Nonetheless, I've come away deeply impressed with Tsinghua's students and faculty. They strike me as deeply aware of China's many strengths and weaknesses, and completely committed to building not just a better China but even a better world.

And, no, I ultimately don't want to disabuse these bright minds of the notion that trade and connectivity and globalization are all pacifying and therefore good. Because they are. I just want them to understand that something that good is worth defending with more than just words.

So I remain optimistic about China's future, and this trip has only reinforced my confidence. The country and government and people are all strenuously progressing through a long list of social and economic transformations at a stunningly fast rate. Yes, with that magnitude of change comes plenty of social friction, but when those are eventually resolved with more competitive domestic politics, I fully expect China will become happier with itself and the world — and thus capable of truly visionary global leadership.
I just hope China hurries up and gets its act together, because our superpower — even after these first hundred days — could use some competition.

Esquire contributing editor Thomas P.M. Barnett is the author of Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.

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