China: A Superpower?

In 1803, long preceding the state of international relations as it exists today, the French conqueror Napoleon was said to have pointed at a map of China saying “here lies a sleeping giant, let her sleep, for when she wakes up she will shake the world.” Indeed, many nations throughout history have had the ability to shake and shape the world, the most recent of these being the United States of America throughout the twentieth century. America’s ever-growing power, dominance and influence throughout this period, and that of its rival, the Soviet Union, gave rise to the term ‘superpower’, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “an extremely powerful nation…able to enforce its will upon the most powerful states.”  Nevertheless, power itself remains a difficult quality to quantify, making it equally hard to gauge whether a nation is or isn’t a ‘superpower’. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America enjoyed a period of unrivalled power across the world, solidly asserting its status as a global hegemon in a uni-polar system. This was achieved on four main axes of power: military, economic, political and cultural, or ‘soft’ power.  At the turn of the twenty-first century, America’s prominence as the sole global hegemon was said to be threatened by an Asian giant awaking from an extended sleep; China. However, based on the same four axes’ of power, it seems that while China is a major and regional power, it cannot be classified as a superpower.

At the 1978 Plenum of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee, the new leadership under Deng Xiaoping implemented several economic reforms policies aimed at developing China’s economy. The policies attempted to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms in order to “increase productivity, standards of living, and technological quality without aggravating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits.”  These reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output throughout the 1980’s. Nowadays, China’s economy is the fourth largest in the world, having maintained continuous average economic growth of 9.5% and above for the past twenty six years.  In 2005, its economy was $2.26 trillion, about one seventh the size of the United States’ economy.  Similarly, in 2005, China’s total trade exceeded $1.4 trillion and China moved into the position of the world’s third largest trading nation following the United States and Germany.  China is one of the most promising areas for investment and trade in the world. Additionally, China is now the largest market in the world for almost every imaginable consumer good.

Nevertheless, discrepancies exist underneath such high levels of sustained growth.  These include, financial deficits, low productivity of state owned enterprises and inflation.  Recently, the Chinese government began imposing controls aimed at cooling the overheating economy and prevent runaway growth correlating with runaway inflation.  In June 2008, inflation was still fairly high at 7.1%. Moreover, China faces competition not only from established industrialised nations such as the United States, South Korea and Japan but also from other rising centres, such as India. Consequently, while China’s rapidly developing and growing economy is impressive, it isn’t without fault. It still ranks well behind other major economies and thus China cannot be classified as an economic superpower.
         
Integral to China’s economy, is another axis of power; the military. China’s rapidly growing economy has allowed the economic boom to finance its military expansion.  As the modernisation program has advanced, so too has China’s military budget grown.  In the last decade, China has assembled a modern navy consisting of a renovated surface and submarine fleet.  Primarily purchasing from Russia, China has also constructed a formidable air force. China’s military capabilities are formidable, especially as China has the world's largest standing army of around two million foot soldiers. However, its military logistics are considered inferior and in military terms China isn’t at par with most Western nations in technology and export to other countries.  It still has a weapons export industry with the exception of pistols and rifles designed at home based on international concepts. Accordingly, China cannot be categorised as a military superpower in modern terms.

China’s political influence has undeniably grown in the past three decades, somewhat subject to “the reversal in its position in the international order.”  Up until the 1970’s, the efficient American containment policies of embargo and ostracism meant China was excluded from the international political and economic community.  In 1971, China was admitted into the United Nations and finally gained legitimate repute in the global community. As one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, China has the power of veto which notably accords it with a substantial deal of power.  Nevertheless, China has had mostly a passive role within the UN since 1971, having rarely been an active mover of events within the UN and using the power of veto only four times in the United Nations Security Council.  Thus, while it has most definitely made progress China still fails to achieve global superpower status in the international political arena.

The final element contributing to superpower status, and strongly intertwined with political power, is the cultural axis of power, or soft power. Soft power is “a nation winning influence abroad by persuasion and appeal rather than by threats or military force.”  Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the 1980s transformed not only the economy but China’s reputation in the world, attributing to the growth of China’s cultural influence.  However, China suffered setbacks and blows to its reputation, discernibly due to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989 “making the PRC appear a reactionary political fossil in the perceived tide of democratisation elsewhere.”  China has since endeavoured to overcome the negative international perceptions of it, especially as an appalling abuser of human rights, and thus translate its sustained economic success into cultural influence.  Most recently, the August 2008 Beijing Olympics represents the transition of China into an internationally major power and growing presence on the world stage.

This relatively newly established global prominence has led many to perceive China’s power as much greater than it is. In the Pew Research Centre Survey Report, released in June 2008, it was revealed that "most of those surveyed in Germany, Spain, France, Britain and Australia think China either has already replaced the U.S. or will do so in the future," as a superpower.  Similarly, the extensively prevalent ‘Made in China’ label gives many people the impression of a nation emerging as a superpower or already one.  Such perceived power can in fact contribute to a nation’s worth as a superpower. For instance, in the 1950’s and 1960’s the USSR was perceived to have as much power as the USA when in reality it was actually a weaker state. The USSR was at that time categorised as a superpower. Nevertheless, though China’s perceived power certainly plays an important role in contributing to China being a major power, when compared to the United States its cultural influence still does not extend far enough to deem it a superpower.

While many perceive China to be very powerful, in respect to becoming a superpower, “most experts on the topic range from unsure to very skeptical that China is ready to climb the podium. Yet there are clear signs of serious progress”  “Where China goes, so too, goes the future of Asia. None of us can ignore a country with over one-fifth of the world’s population, intercontinental nuclear weapons, veto power on the U.N. Security Council and one of the most dynamic economies in the world.”  There are no doubts that China’s economy will persist to grow at rapid speeds, making it a much more powerful nation that it has been in recent global history.  In correlation, so too will China’s military capabilities, political and cultural influences transcend unto the world. However, these factors currently do not add up in such a way that China can be categorised as a superpower now, nor in the near future, leaving the United States of America to remain as the sole hegemon for the time being. The Chinese giant has definitely opened her eyes. Her potential is extremely powerful. Napoleon may have been right about China, but she hasn’t shaken the world hitherto, not yet.



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