Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

China's rise must be seen 'in context of re-emergence of multipolar world'

SINGAPORE — China's rise does not mean that Singapore is faced with binary choices, said former permanent secretary of foreign affairs Bilahari Kausikan on Thursday (July 12).

Former permanent secretary of foreign affairs Bilahari Kausikan outlined how the rise of China and the resurgence of identity politics are two global trends that will affect Singapore.

Former permanent secretary of foreign affairs Bilahari Kausikan outlined how the rise of China and the resurgence of identity politics are two global trends that will affect Singapore.

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — China's rise does not mean that Singapore is faced with binary choices, said former permanent secretary of foreign affairs Bilahari Kausikan on Thursday (July 12).

Instead, it must be seen in the context of the gradual re-emergence of a more multipolar world, after a "brief and exceptional period of unchallenged American preeminence", he added.

"It is not as if the only alternative to an 'American world' is a 'Chinese world'."

Speaking at a forum organised by OCBC Bank in which he outlined how the rise of China and the resurgence of identity politics are two global trends that will affect Singapore, the retired diplomat noted that the Chinese re-emergence as a major international actor is often described by a "simplistic and misleading narrative".

"China's rise is both a symptom and consequence of a far broader and more complex re-ordering of international order," he explained.

He noted that the binary nature of the Cold War international order has entrenched such a view of the world that has influenced how the term 'China's rise' is understood.

"To state my essential argument upfront: China's rise is not necessarily America's decline. The post-Cold War world is complex, not binary," he said, adding that almost every major power relationship today is underlined by ambivalence.

"Neither the US nor China finds their ambivalent relationship comfortable," he noted, citing how the Trump administration's approach towards trade and Chinese President Xi Jinping's attempt to find an alternative to China's interdependence with the US through his Belt and Road Initiative both reflect this discomfort.

At the same time, China was the main beneficiary of post-Cold War globalisation and would well be the main loser if "that order frays because America under the Trump administration no longer embraces an open and generous definition of leadership."

On the current US administration, Mr Kausikan said that it is "important to recognise that Mr Trump is a symptom not a cause".

"Like Mr Obama before him, he is a reaction to the hubris that contaminated American policy after the end of the Cold War," said Mr Kausikan, noting that without the balance imposed by the Soviet alternative, American arrogance had drawn it into interminable wars in the Middle East.

This in turn led to public disillusionment with the traditional political establishment and American values, and the election of Mr Obama and Mr Trump.

Both leaders are "different iterations of the post-Cold War metamorphosis of American values," said Mr Kausikan.

"Without the existential challenges of the Cold War, why should Americans bear any burden or pay any price? Time to put one's own house in order," he added.

"This is not a retreat from the world, but it implies a different concept of American leadership."

But with America no longer prepared to be as open or as generous as before, the resulting uncertainties about what this means for the international order affect all countries, China included.

"China's rise must be seen in the context of the gradual re-emergence of a more multipolar world, after a historically brief and exceptional period of unchallenged American pre-eminence," he said.

"Multipolarity and China's rise therefore implies only relative, not absolute, adjustments of global power."

The paradox and challenge now is that a multipolar world still rests on institutions, norms and practices established by American leadership, he noted.

"No other power, either singly or in combination, is a substitute for American leadership," he said.

"China alone is not an alternative. To lead, China must work with America. It can supplement, but not substitute for, American leadership," he added.

This is because an open global order cannot be led on the basis of a still largely closed Chinese model.

Mr Kausikan noted that the 18th Chinese Communist Party Congress of 2012 recognised that the Chinese model that led to the spectacular growth of the 1990s was not sustainable over the long-term, but even after the 19th Party Congress in 2017, there was still no clear answer to how and how much more China should open up.

"It remains to be seen how Mr Xi will deal with this. He will have to manage many contradictory considerations," said Mr Kausikan, noting that the Chinese President's insistence on stronger party control may have sharpened the fundamental challenge of finding a new balance between party control and economic efficiency.

At the same time, there is growing international awareness that the externalisation of China's internal challenges through its Belt and Road ​Initiative "is not without liabilities to recipient countries", resulting in "greater caution if not out-right push-back".

"None of this implies that China will fail. I don't think China will fail," said Mr Kausikan.

"But awareness of these complexities presents a more nuanced and qualified understanding of the trope of 'China's rise' than is usually presented by officials, intellectuals and academics of a certain ilk, or the media."

Sign up for TODAY's WhatsApp service. Click here:

Sign Up

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.