Rise of a multipolar world

Although the latest spat in US-China ties may already be cooling down, it revealed that some of the fundamental tensions in the relationship remain, even after the positive dynamics of President Barack Obama's first year in office.

The problems on this occasion were Tibet and Taiwan.

By meeting the Dalai Lama albeit in the White House Map Room, not the Oval Office and agreeing to sell arms to Taiwan, Obama was accused by the People's Republic of China (PRC) of undermining its "core interests".

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's more recent comments coming at the end of the National People's Congress blaming the deteriorating relationship solely on the US evinces a rather permanent message emanating from Beijing.

There was something slightly different about the Chinese reaction this time. As the hinted threats of damage to Boeing's business in China suggested, Beijing's response was stronger and slightly more confident than in the past.

This reflects the gradual, but noticeable, shifts in the global balance of power over the last decade, especially since the depths of global economic doom were reached in late 2008.

It should be emphasised that these shifts are gradual and relative: the US remains the pre-eminent global military power, and the largest economy by a long way.

Neither do these shifts represent a new departure in Chinese policy. It is not just that Tibet and Taiwan have always been sensitive issues in China. The leaders in Beijing have long talked perhaps as much in hope as expectation about a trend towards "multipolarity" in global affairs.

Some recent PRC commentary has hinted at the poles: the US, Russia, Japan, EU, India, Brazil, and, of course, China. The combination of the financial crisis and the way that climate change negotiations went at Copenhagen late last year give further confidence to these Chinese aspirations.

It is this scenario, where no one country is dominant, rather than a picture of ‘China ruling the world', which is on the lips of Beijing's strategists. Nonetheless, multipolarity is neither on the immediate horizon, nor inevitable in the long run.

Tough questions

However, the idea itself, and the importance of the concept in official Chinese thinking, does raise a number of important questions for opinion in the US.

Among these is how the US establishment views any shift to multipolarity. Talk to US diplomats, and the line is that Washington welcomes China to the top table, though it may be spoken with some nervousness.

The US military's views are perhaps less accommodating, and references to the threat from China certainly inform strategic military planning (and — the cynics argue — boost the military's budget).

The business community might be expected to be positive, given the global economic reliance on Chinese growth; but even here the idea that the PRC might set the rules of the commercial game gives pause for thought in business circles. Recent angst over the value of the Chinese currency is a good example of the problems the US economy faces being attributed to China's rise.

Early Obama administration statements focused on treating China as an equal partner. This included references to the importance of mutual learning, seen by many in the PRC as an important change from the one-sided haranguing of yesteryear.

If Washington can indeed deliver on this, then the relationship between the two countries will be smoother, and any further gradual shifts in global power might be more easily manageable.

One problem for the US (and indeed the EU) is that this will involve compromising on their own ‘core values', such as going along with PRC handling of political dissent or human rights. The more difficult question is whether the reality of domestic politics in the US will allow such realism its head.

Any shift to a multipolar world will therefore bring with it plenty of more bumps in Washington's relationship with Beijing.

— OpinionAsia, 2010

Tim Summers, a former British diplomat, is a researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.