新闻周刊：The Rise of a Fierce Yet Fragile Superpower
[i]The much-heralded advent of China as a global power is no longer aforecast but a reality. Now we, and they, must manage its triumph.[/i][align=center][i][img]http://sports.people.com.cn/mediafile/200712/25/F200712251702243119819022.jpg[/img][/i]
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For Americans, 2008 is an important election year. But for much of the world, it is likely to be seen as the year that [url=http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=China]China[/url]moved to center stage, with the Olympics serving as the country'slong-awaited coming-out party. The much-heralded advent of China as aglobal power is no longer a forecast but a reality. On issue afterissue, China has become the second most important country on theplanet. Consider what's happened already this past year. In 2007 Chinacontributed more to global growth than the United States, the firsttime another country had done so since at least the 1930s. It alsobecame the world's largest consumer, eclipsing the United States infour of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities. And afew months ago China surpassed the United States to become the world'sleading emitter of CO2. Whether it's trade, global warming, Darfur or North Korea, China has become the new [i]x[/i] factor, without which no durable solution is possible.
Andyet the Chinese do not quite see themselves this way. Susan Shirk, theauthor of a recent book about the country, "The Fragile Superpower,"tells a revealing tale. Whenever she mentions her title in America,people say to her, "Fragile? China doesn't seem fragile." But in Chinapeople say, "Superpower? China isn't a superpower."
Infact it's both, and China's fragility is directly related to itsextraordinary rise. Lawrence Summers has recently pointed out thatduring the Industrial Revolution the average European's livingstandards rose about 50 percent over the course of his lifetime (thenabout 40 years). In Asia, principally China, he calculates, the averageperson's living standards are set to rise by 10,000 percent in onelifetime! The scale and pace of growth in China has been staggering,utterly unprecedented in history—and it has produced equally staggeringchange. In two decades China has experienced the same degree ofindustrialization, urbanization and social transformation as Europe didin two centuries.
Recall what Chinalooked like only 30 years ago. It was a devastated country, one of theworld's poorest, with a totalitarian state. It was just emerging fromMao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, which had destroyed universities,schools and factories, all to revitalize the revolution. Since then 400million people have been lifted out of poverty in China—about 75percent of the world's total poverty reduction over the last century.The country has built new cities and towns, roads and ports, and isplanning for the future in impressive detail.
So far [url=http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=Beijing]Beijing[/url]has managed to balance economic growth and social stability in a highlyfluid environment. Given their challenges, China's political leadersstand out for their governing skills. The regime remains adictatorship, with a monopoly on power. But it has expanded personalliberty in ways that would be recognizable to John Locke or ThomasJefferson. People in China can now work, travel, own property andincreasingly worship as they please. This is not enough, but it is notinsignificant, either.
But whether this forwardmovement—economic and political—will continue has become the crucialquestion for China. It is a question that is being asked not just inthe West but in China, and for practical reasons. The regime's mainproblem is not that it's incurably evil but that it is losing controlover its own country. Growth has empowered localities and regions tothe point that decentralization is now the defining reality of Chineselife. Central tax collection is lower than in most countries, a keyindicator of Beijing's weakness. On almost every issue—slowing downlending, curbing greenhouse-gas emissions—the central government issuesedicts that are ignored by the provinces. As China moves up the valuechain, so the gap between rich and poor grows dramatically. Largesectors of the economy and society are simply outside the grip of theCommunist Party, which has become an elite technocracy, sitting abovethe 1.3 billion people it leads.
Political reform is part of the solution to this problem. Chinaneeds a more open, accountable and responsive form of government, onethat can exercise control in what has become a more chaotic andempowered society. What such reform would look like remains an openquestion, but one that is being debated within the seniormost levels ofthe regime. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, John Thornton, aninvestment banker turned China expert, traces how Beijing is takinghesitant but clear steps toward greater rule of law and accountability.
China'ssense of its own weakness casts a shadow over its foreign policy. It isunique as a world power, the first in modern history to be at once rich(in aggregate terms) and poor (in per capita terms). It still seesitself as a developing country, with hundreds of millions of peasantsto worry about. It views many of the issues on which it ispressed—global warming, human rights—as rich-country problems. (When itcomes to pushing regimes to open up, Beijing also worries about theimplications for its own undemocratic structure.) But this is changing.From North Korea to Darfur to Iran, China has been slowly showing thatit wants to be a responsible "stakeholder" in the international system.
Somescholars and policy intellectuals (and a few generals in the Pentagon)look at the rise of China and see the seeds of inevitable great-powerconflict and perhaps even war. Look at history, they say. When a newpower rises it inevitably disturbs the balance of power, unsettles theinternational order and seeks a place in the sun. This makes it bump upagainst the established great power of the day (that would be us). So,Sino-U.S. conflict is inevitable.
But some great powershave been like Nazi Germany and others like modern-day Germany andJapan. The United States moved up the global totem pole and replacedBritain as the No. 1 country without a war between the two nations.Conflict and competition—particularly in the economic realm—betweenChina and the United States is inevitable. But whether this turns uglydepends largely on policy choices that will be made in Washington andBeijing over the next decade.
In another ForeignAffairs essay, Princeton's John Ikenberry makes the crucially importantpoint that the current world order is extremely conducive to China'speaceful rise. That order, he argues, is integrated, rule-based, withwide and deep foundations—and there are massive economic benefits forChina to work within this system. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons make itsuicidal to risk a great-power war. "Today's Western order, in short,is hard to overturn and easy to join," writes Ikenberry.
TheChinese show many signs of understanding these conditions. Their chiefstrategist, Zheng Bijian, coined the term "peaceful rise" to describejust such an effort on Beijing's part to enter into the existing orderrather than overturn it. The Chinese government has tried to educateits public on these issues, releasing a 12-part documentary last year,"The Rise of Great Nations," whose central lesson is that markets andnot empire determine the long-run success of a great global power.
But while the conditions exist for peace and cooperation, there arealso many factors pointing in the other direction. As China grows instrength, it grows in pride and nationalist feeling—which will be onfull display at the Summer Olympic Games. Beijing's mandarin class isconvinced that the United States wishes it ill. Washington,meanwhile—sitting atop a unipolar order—is unused to the idea ofsharing power or accommodating another great power's interests.Flashpoints like human rights, Taiwan or some unforeseen incident couldspiral badly in an atmosphere of mistrust and with domesticconstituencies—on both sides—eager to sound tough. Two thousand eightis the year of China. It should also be the year we craft a seriouslong-term China policy.
[i]© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.[/i] 在新闻周刊的网页上，有很多网友对此做出了评论 一个脆弱的超级大国 真能形容
很贴切 可笑的是，大部分都不是美国人的留言
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Posted By: 22sam @ 12/27/2007 4:51:04 PM
Comment: Mr. Zakaria has again lived up to his well deserved reputation. Although an excellent article, no one can formulate an all knowing and encompassing opinion on such limited information. I believe that Mr. Zakaria made many excellent points which the leaders of both countries would be wise to consider in future dealings with each other. Given all the problems this planet has, the United States should welcome another "Superpower" and assist in grooming it to become an ally instead of a perceived threat.
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Posted By: xwbxwbxwbxwbxwb @ 12/28/2007 11:29:53 AM
Comment: Very detialed analysis form both aspects of China and the US, as a Chinese I hope China could experience a peaceful rise mentioned in this article. Good luck China! Good luck 2008!
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Posted By: xwbxwbxwbxwbxwb @ 12/28/2007 11:33:08 AM
Comment: Very clear analysis form both the aspects of China and the US, as a Chinese I am confident that the peaceful rise of China should be more welcomed and I believe it will be a double-win for both China and the US. Good luck China! Good luck 2008!
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Posted By: Mr. He @ 12/29/2007 8:31:48 AM
Comment: Frankly speaking, I'm a Chinese in Guangzhou and have never left China. What long-term China policy would be made depends on how American view China. A communist regime? A vast market with a population of 1,400,000,000? Or an eastern ancient culture? I dare swear no durable China policy would be made if American just consider China as a common country disregarding its scale and culture. The secret why China is successful in globalization is that they are willing to learn from all over the world. China doesn't have any plan to replace the USA as the No.1 country. With increasing self-improvement, China may naturally surpass the US. When it learn more and more, maybe one day it would become the center of human civilization. For America, the best way to get along (or compete) with China is to learn from China. Arrogant leads to ignorance. Try not to put your philosophies on others. More than 3,000 years ago, an ancient Chinese named Jiang Ziya said, the world belongs to the people all over the world. It means that the world doesn???t only belong to any person, country, or culture. It also means that the world doesn???t belong to any fairy.
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[quote]Posted By: garyyw @ 12/30/2007 8:41:40 AM
Comment: I read Zakaria's article and found it to be a high-quality piece of reporting. I also went through all the reader comments and found them to be well-intentioned and insightful. Yes, people are interested in debating what China's rise means for the rest of the world because in many ways it has something to do with almost everyone. I agree with someone who said that China's rise is one of the most important events in the past 100 years.
As a Chinese, I think China's rise is no threat to anyone else, but an opportunity businesses around the world can bank on. My corporate experience has demonstrated this. China has now become the word's #2 or #3 market for all the 3 Fortune 100 companies and the growth is still on track (20% growth is norm for most industries for MNCs.) Sooner or later, China will be an even bigger market than the US for many manufacturered products, if not for many service products. The world has to base their strategy on this trend to avoid making any mistakes.[/quote]
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Posted By: eyingon @ 12/30/2007 10:59:20 AM
Comment: Glad to see this objective comment on China's change in the past. China's peaceful growth is inevitable, and at the same time not unexpected--any country is striving for development, for better living standard for its people, for a better standing in the stage of the whole world, for its power to speak and many other things. Consequently, it is not against the will of God.
However, it is a matter of fact, we have witnessed competition in the process of every country's struggling for a brighter future, and that has become even fiercer. Just this fiercer competition makes some countries see no friend of China, instead, they see only enemy. Why not we play the game of growth under the guidance of the same world order? It's for the bigger good for the whole.
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Posted By: Diana 7777777 @ 12/31/2007 10:38:23 PM
Comment: KEEP BUYING ALL THAT CHINESE JUNK YOUR KILLING YOUR COUNTRY, THIER KILLING OUR KIDS WITH TOYS THE SILENT KILLER, ROTTEN FOODS, STOP ALL TRADE WITH CHINA........NOW
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Posted By: XMAN_VN @ 01/01/2008 2:51:41 AM
Comment: Chinese people have a great ambition to rule the world. Firstly, it aims at ruling Eastern Asia countries and its neighbouring countries such as: Vietnam, Mongolia, Myanmar, Laos...the other ASEAN countries such as: Philippines, Indonesia,... At present, China is threatening to Vietnam's, Philippines's security by claiming that it own Spartly and Paracel Islands. This is unable to be acceptable by Vietnam. Because these Islands have been always belong to Vietnam and it has not been belong to China. China has done as a act of invasition to Vietnam. China is threatening to ASIA. Vienamese shall always do its best in the future to gain Vietnam's territory which China has stolen.
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Posted By: XMAN_VN @ 01/01/2008 3:27:31 AM
Comment: China has a extraordinary ambition to be the Center of the World. In the forthcoming time, China will threaten to Asia, specially the East Asia Countries. It is targeting to set the rule on its neighbouring countries such as: Vietnam, Mongolia, Myanmar, Laos...and the other Asean countries including 11 countries members. The threatening and dangers from China to East Asia is reality. It has claimed to own the Spartly and Paracel Islands. It is very absurd. Because these Islands have been always belonging to Vietnam and these Islands have never belonging to China. Why China have the such claims. China takes this action as a act of invasition to Vietnam. Vietnamese people will never forget to gain what China has stolen from Vietnam. Furthermore, China is threatening to East Asia's security. It has not only irrational claims of territory to Vietnam, but to other countries such as: Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia...I call upon the community of the world to have a words to oppose the act of ivasition of China to its bordering countries such as Vietnam and the East Asia countries.
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Posted By: spitfire88 @ 01/01/2008 8:37:08 AM
Comment: XMAN_VN is full of xit. The names Paracel and Spratley are Anglicized renditions of islands that had belonged to China before the European came to East Asia. In deciding whether an island belongs to a certain nation, the best evidence comes from historical maps available in Western universities BEFORE oil and gas resources are discovered. All those maps show unequivocally that the islands in the South China Sea had been part of Chinese territory. Vietnam had never laid claim to any of the islands before fossil-based oil and gas were discovered in the South China Sea. The people of this nation isn't particularly noted for honesty and fair play. It had received the equivalent (in today's terms) of 80 billion yuan from the Chinese government in its fight against the French and the Americans before winning its independence. Yet it has shamelessly tried to have the cake and eat it too -- by accepting Chinese aid on the one hand, while serreptitiously nibbling away Chinese territory in the South China Sea.
Chinese is a peace-loving country. If the land grab this nut has been talking about in his post has actually been on China's mind, it would have done it hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Why did China even help Vietnam to achieve national re-unification if conquest was on her mind?
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