China – The peaceful rise of a global power

There was an interesting article on the rise of global powers by Jean Pierre Lehmann in the ST on 23 Jul 15. The author is the emeritus professor of international political economy at IMD, Switzerland and visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. The article titled, ‘ China’s historic quest for a peaceful rise’, reminded the western powers that their rise to global powers were never peaceful and never responsible. From Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and the USA, their rise was accompanied by ‘conquest, destruction, enslavement, executions, looting and the like were the order of the day’. The Americans were infamous for genocide of the Red Indians, slavery and bullying of the Mexicans and land grabbing. The Spanish were infamous for their mass murders of natives in the name of God and civilization. Japan and Germany were key players of invasion, aggression and conquest in the two World Wars. The British were the criminals in the Opium Wars against China and subduing and robbing India.

China was the biggest victim to the rise of European and Japanese powers, being colonized piece meal by the foreign powers and robbed of everything. Jean Pierre found it ludicrous for the Americans and westerners to chide China to be a responsible stakeholder as it rises to be a global power. The hypocrisy was so clear that nothing more needs to be mentioned, especially from the irresponsible Americans in their conduct of world domination by provoking and starting wars in all corners of the globe.

In his thesis, Jean Pierre concluded that there is no such thing as a peaceful rise of a global power.  He has doubt as to China’s peaceful rise and asked whether ‘China will behave with the same ruthless cynicism and cause as much misery and mayhem as its nine predecessors, or whether it will break the pattern and tear asunder the great power rising paradigm by rising peacefully.’ And he said it again, ‘It’s a tough challenge, especially, I repeat, as there is no precedent, no guidebook one can take off the shelf, no historical mentor one can turn to’.

You see what you want to see. You believe what you want to believe, especially when one is conditioned to think by decades of fabricated truth. Even before China’s rise as a global power, it has been demonized as an evil power when in fact it was the victim of the rise of global powers. China is still the victim of western powers and western oppression. There is now a contradiction and an unpleasant truth that western thinkers and politicians refused to see or acknowledge. When there was a Chinese Empire before the invasion of western colonial powers, China’s global GDP was 30%, befitting of a global power. It was a global power without wrecking or savaging the world.  The rise of the dynastic Chinese empires did not lead to world wars. Dynastic China had its own world view of things and the only wars it conducted were the usual border wars with neighbouring tribes and countries when the borders were not defined. And many of these wars were defensive in nature, to ward off aggression from neighbouring tribes. In many ways, the rise of dynastic China as a global power without global ambition was peaceful in the global context.

This may not be sufficient to dispel the thesis of no peaceful rise of a global power. The proof for such a phenomenon is right before our eyes but none willing to see and accept this unpleasant truth. Is China now a global power? In many senses it is a global power, financially, economically, militarily, unless the definition of a global power is one that engages in wars of conquest. China is the undisputed second largest economy in the world. Militarily it is second only to the Americans.

Is China not a global power today? If the answer is yes, then China has proven that it is possible to become a global power without conducting wars and causing mayhem to the rest of the world or to its neigbours. Today’s China is happy as a global power without having to attack any country or indulging in conquest to acquire territories. It reclaims islands from the seas based on historical rights. Its only other claim is to reclaim territories ceded by conquest when it was weak.

China is already a global power and has yet to fire a single bullet to claim its arrival. China does not need a war to be a global power. In fact a war would derail China’s rise and ambition as a world power.  It is avoiding war to the point that little countries could provoke and agitate and even make claims on China’s islands in the South China Sea while Japan continues to claim Diaoyu Islands as theirs. China’s peaceful rise may not remain so if the Americans and the Japanese are bent on provoking a war with China. Even if so, its rise as a global power is already a peaceful one to date, unless one is denying that China is still not a global power. And what is this nonsense of an irresponsible stakeholder? China has been playing everything with the rules of international laws and norms and has not behaved aggressively like the Americans and the Japanese.

Who is or are the irresponsible stakeholders? Definitely not China!  The West cannot accept a responsible world power like China and its peaceful rise. To them there is no such thing as a responsible China and a peaceful China as a global power. They refused to see this reality, that China has risen as a world power, peacefully and acting responsibly as a global power. Their mindset is that China cannot be a world power. If China is a world power it must be an irresponsible world power. And it cannot rise to be a global power peacefully. So China is not a global power yet. It can only be acknowledged as a global power after it creates havoc and mayhem to the world.

China has risen, peacefully, as a global power. Get it? The Americans and their allies can keep on demonizing China. The hard truth, Americans and their allies are the real demons instead.