IR's China Problem |
China's rise, sustained by extraordinary economic growth and by lifting some 75 per cent of its population out of absolute poverty, has deflated the dominant assumptions of classical modernisation theory. It has also shaken the foundations of realism and liberalism, the two schools that have dominated the discipline of International Relations since the First World War. Western analyses have long presupposed that economic development and democratisation move together, that one cannot exist without the other. Whether this is Chinese exceptionalism remains a question in history, but especially post-Mao, China opened its markets to global capital without qualifying for even a minimalist, procedural democracy, let alone the more 'liberal' or 'substantive' forms of democratic governance the West expected. That redistributive justice could be achieved, and social welfare delivered, by an authoritarian state has perplexed the West, politicians and academics alike. China's ascent to the top of a largely American-led unipolar order poses a further question for IR scholars. Will China's economic development translate into military might, causing a structural shift? And might the vast trade volume between Washington and Beijing prevent the outbreak of war, in the classical liberal fashion?
These questions are not merely theoretical. Since the Trump administration returned to a harder........