Plus, in order for China to have global power – which one should note is something which China surely seeks – it must first have regional power or regional primacy in East Asia. Regional power or regional primacy is the springboard for global power. As a result, we are likely to witness efforts on the part of China to flip the status quo of affairs in East Asia whereby America was the most preponderant power over the course of the last number of decades. And when China decides to flip the status quo of affairs in East Asia, it is inevitable that the United States will be mired in conflict yet again and in yet another region of the world, at a time when the United States is perhaps seeking to avoid conflict in East Asia given its entanglements in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
It is therefore likely that sometime in the future, the United States will be mired in conflict throughout the Eurasian landmass, at a time when the United States is seeking to avoid conflict. And to borrow from Brzezinski yet again, by drawing the United States into conflict throughout the entire Eurasian landmass, it follows that: “Prospects for a more vital and larger West would thereby become more remote.” Nor will China slow down economically as it joins Russia and the Middle East in terms of drawing the United States into worldwide conflict. To borrow from Brzezinski: “Given China’s recent performance, as well as its historical accomplishments, it would be rash to assume that the Chinese economy might suddenly grind to a halt.”
And even if the West were to boycott China for having drawn it into worldwide conflict along with Russia and the Middle East, it would not hurt China that much. The impact on China would be minimal. As Brzezinski noted: “But none of that would be reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s systemic disaster. China’s influential and rising role in world affairs is a reality to which Americans will have to adjust – instead of either demonizing it or engaging in thinly concealed wishful thinking about its failure.” China also enjoys the advantage over the West of having a prudent and unified leadership apparatus which can steer the ship effectively in the coming years.
Kissinger and some others such as Howard French – both of whom can be considered as credible and legitimate Sinologists – have also deciphered a deeper motive behind China’s push for regional and perhaps even global power, namely, submission to China and bowing to China’s authority. Even at a time when the Chinese were relatively weak from an economic and material standpoint, Mao insisted that the world system is Sinocentric and that the Chinese were culturally and ideologically and philosophically superior to the West, even if China was weaker than the West from an economic and material standpoint. That cultural and ideological and philosophical superiority would be the impetus and the source for China’s global power in the future, as Mao contended. And indeed, China’s cultural and ideological and philosophical sophistication has translated into a rising China from an economic and military standpoint. While other empires in the West are declining, China is rising, and much of it has to be attributed not to economic and military factors, but to the cultural and ideological and philosophical underpinnings of China’s recent rise as an economic, military, political, and social force in the international system.
Adam A. Azim 