Pluralism and World Order: Theoretical Perspectives and Policy Challenges 981199871X, 9789811998713

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IPP STUDIES IN THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA’S PUBLIC POLICY

Pluralism and World Order Theoretical Perspectives and Policy Challenges

Edited by Feng Zhang

IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy

Series Editor Feng Zhang, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy combines original research and theoretical innovation to provide fresh insights into the fastchanging landscape of China’s public policy. Books in the series, written by scholars based inside China or commissioned by the IPP, draw on local Chinese experiences to generate empirical findings and theoretical insights. The field of China’s public policy is broadly defined to include all aspects of the country’s social, economic, technological and foreign policies. The series encourage interdisciplinary approaches to public policy, with a special but not exclusive focus on the study of south China, especially the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau Greater Bay Area, one of the most vibrant regions of growth and innovation in China.

Feng Zhang Editor

Pluralism and World Order Theoretical Perspectives and Policy Challenges

Editor Feng Zhang Institute of Public Policy Guangzhou, China

IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy ISBN 978-981-19-9871-3 ISBN 978-981-19-9872-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: MR.Cole_Photographer This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

1

Introduction Feng Zhang

1

Part I Theoretical Perspective 2

The Foundations of Political Orders Richard Ned Lebow

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Deep Pluralism as the Emerging Structure of Global Society Barry Buzan

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Part II The Great Powers 4

China, the United States, and the Future Global Order: One World, Two Contending Pluralist Visions Yongjin Zhang

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World Power Structure Over the Short and Long Run Yinhong Shi

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Pluralism and the US–China Development Partnership Mehri Madarshahi

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India’s Frustrated Search for a Multipolar Order Ian Hall

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Part III Multilateralism and Regionalism 8

The United Nations and New Multilateralism Hans d’Orville

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East Asian Multilateralism: A Glass Half Full T. J. Pempel

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ASEAN’s Strategic Response to the US–China Competition Chew Yee Ng and Mingjiang Li

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Regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean Juan Ignacio Dorrego Viera

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Part IV Future Prospects 12

Contours of a Future World Order Kishore Mahbubani

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Barry Buzan is a Fellow of the British Academy, Emeritus Professor in the LSE Department of International Relations and a Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS. He is an honorary professor at Copenhagen, Jilin, and China Foreign Affairs Universities, and at the University of International Relations (Beijing). Among his articles on China is a trilogy of pieces in the Chinese Journal of International Politics exploring the possibilities for China’s ‘peaceful rise’. His most recent book is Making Global Society: A Study of Humankind Across Three Eras (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Hans d’Orville was Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning (2000–2015) and Deputy Director-General (2010) of UNESCO. Prior to that, he was Director of the Information Technologies for Development Programme at UNDP (1996–2000), Senior Officer to the UNDP Administrator and since 1975 in various positions UN Secretariat. Since 2014, he is an Honorary Professor at the South China University of Technology, Guangzhou and at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Born in 1949, he holds a Dr. rer. soc. and M.A. in economics from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Ian Hall is a Professor of International Relations at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He is also an Academic Fellow of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on two areas: the history of international thought

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and India’s foreign and security policy. He is the author and editor of several books, including Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy (2019). Richard Ned Lebow is Professor Emeritus of International Political Theory in the War Studies Department of King’s College London; ByeFellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge; and James O. Freedman Presidential Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of The Atheneum. His most recent books are The Quest for Knowledge in International Relations: How Do We Know? (Cambridge 2021), and coauthored with Feng Zhang, Justice and International Order: East and West (Oxford, 2022). In 2022, he also published Rough Waters and Other Stories (Ethics International) and Obsession (Pegasus), a classic English murder mystery. Mingjiang Li is an Associate Professor and Provost Chair in International Relations at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His main research interests include Chinese foreign policy, Chinese politics, China-ASEAN relations, Sino-U.S. relations, and Asia-Pacific security. Mehri Madarshahi worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York for 26 years and retired as Senior Economist. In her association with UNESCO, she established the “Melody for Dialogue among Civilizations” Association. To promote a new global role for creative culture as a soft power for diplomacy and to promote environmental policies in urban settings, in 2013 she founded “Global Cultural Networks (GCN)”, and soon after the Shenzhen-Qianhai Global Cultural Consulting company (MAH). She was appointed as a Visiting Professor at three Chinese universities: South China University for Technology, Guangzhou University on Foreign Studies, and Jinan University. Recently she is appointed as a Non-Residence Senior Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG). Kishore Mahbubani a veteran diplomat, student of philosophy, and author of nine books, Kishore Mahbubani is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Mahbubani has dedicated five decades of his life to public service. Mahbubani is also a former President of the UN Security Council (Jan 2001, May 2002) and the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004–2017). Mahbubani writes and speaks prolifically

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on the rise of Asia, geopolitics, and global governance. His latest books, Has China Won? and The Asian twenty-first Century were released in 3 March 2020 and January 2022. Chew Yee Ng is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University. Her research focus is on International Security and Strategic Studies. She was previously a Research Analyst in the Military Studies Programme at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and an Associate in Contemporary China Studies at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. T. J. Pempel is Jack M. Forcey Professor (emeritus) of Political Science at UC Berkeley where he has been on the faculty since 2001. From then until 2006, Pempel was also director of Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies. The author or editor of 24 books and over 120 articles, his latest book is A Region of Regimes: Prosperity and Plunder in the Asia-Pacific. Yinhong Shi is a Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing. He mainly engages in the history of and themes in international politics, strategic studies, East Asia security and foreign policies of both China and the United States. He published twenty books, including Great Tumults Before and After the Darkest Ages: A Political and Strategic Reading of Records of the Three Kingdoms (2022); The Dramatic Changes and Political Prudence: On Statecraft in Foreign Relations (2019); The Traditional Chinese Foreign Strategies: Lessons from the Four Earliest Classical Historiographies (2018). He also published more than 640 articles and essays and nineteen books in translation mainly on war and strategic history. Juan Ignacio Dorrego Viera is a doctoral candidate at the Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC University in Varese, Italy. He obtained an MSc in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has also earned a Postgraduate degree in Development and International Relations issued by the University of London. He has graduated in Business Management at the University of the Republic (Uruguay), where he has also earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Economics and Management for Social Inclusion. Juan works as a researcher for a number of institutions in Italy, Austria, and Uruguay. He has worked as a Senior Advisor of the Director of the Planning and Budget Office.

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Feng Zhang is Professor of International Relations and Executive Dean of the Institute of Public Policy at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, and editor of IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy published by Palgrave. He studies international relations, theory and substance, with a focus on China. He is the author of Chinese Hegemony: Grand Strategy and International Institutions in East Asian History (Stanford, 2015) and, with Professor Richard Ned Lebow, of Taming Sino-American Rivalry (Oxford, 2020) and Justice and International Order: East and West (Oxford, 2022). Yongjin Zhang is a Professor of International Politics at the University of Bristol, UK. He holds an M.Phil. and a D.Phil. both in International Relations from the University of Oxford. His publications have appeared in Review of International Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Millennium, International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, China Quarterly, Chinese Journal of International Politics, and Journal of Contemporary China, among others.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Feng Zhang

Pluralism comes in many varieties. Probably the most well-known pluralist position in international relations is advanced by the English School. This conception is strongly state-centric and empirical. It presupposes states as the dominant unit of international society and emphasizes the primacy of state sovereignty in international relations. States share little other than minimal concerns about survival and coexistence. Agreements among them are largely confined to mutual recognition of sovereignty, rules for diplomacy, and promotion of the non-intervention principle. Within the English School pluralism is challenged by solidarism, which focuses on the possibility of shared norms underpinning a more expansive and interventionist understanding of international order (Buzan 2004, 46–7). Political theorists and philosophers have advanced other conceptions of pluralism. Value pluralism, for example, is the thesis that there are many distinct values, not reducible to one supreme value or way of being

F. Zhang (B) South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_1

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good, and that the distinct values may also be incapable of being realized together in the life of a single individual or society (Raz 2003, location 100). Joseph Raz deploys the concept of “genre” to make the point. We identify something as an instance of one genre, and judge it by the standards of that genre. The thing is good because it is good by the standards of that genre. Thus, one system of criminal justice is good to the extent that it is a good adversarial system; another is good to the extent that it is a good prosecutorial system. “The two systems,” Raz says, “may be no worse than each other, each being good through being a good instance of a different, and conflicting, kind” (ibid., location 509). This volume, which has emerged out of an international conference organized by the Institute of Public Policy at the South China University of Technology in August 2021, is not an intellectual exegesis of different conceptions of pluralism. It instead explores the implications of pluralism for international order while sidestepping controversies surrounding the notion of pluralism in political theory and philosophy. Contributors focus especially on the manifestations of international pluralism in great power relations, multilateralism, and regionalism. The volume is divided into four parts. Part I offers state-of-theart theoretical perspectives on international order and pluralism. In Chapter 2, Richard Ned Lebow provides a sophisticated overview of the causes and mechanisms of the rise and fall of political orders that draws on diverse disciplinary approaches including international relations, history, philosophy, and psychology. Lebow defines order as legible, predictable behavior in accord with recognized norms. Robust orders require a high degree of solidarity among their members. Solidarity is the product of social interaction and cooperation, which in turn requires appropriate norms and predictable patterns of behavior. Declining orders reveal a breakdown of solidarity, often attributable in the short-term to elite violation of rule packages and the sharper contradictions they create in perceptions between existing practices and the principles of justice on which orders rest. Elite violation of rule packages can lead to expanding and more acute conflict in a society but also encourage others to violate norms that sustain solidarity. In the longer-term, decline in solidarity, and, in part, elite violations of rule packages, can be attributed to loss of traction of principles of justice and shifts in the relative appeal of competing principles and their different formulations.

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Lebow makes an important distinction between top-down and bottom-up orders. Top-down orders—governments, bureaucracies, military organizations generally—rely on rules and procedures that have originated with, or if not, are sanctioned and enforced, by central authorities. Bottom-up orders are the product of iterative and self-correcting process of trial and error with multiple feedback loops and branches in logic. It is on the whole an emergent property. Top-down and bottomup orders are ideal types as they rarely exist independently of each other and generally penetrate one another to some degrees. Most social orders incorporate and rely on both forms. Their coexistence may be necessary for any large social-political unit, but it is never unproblematic. Each kind of order meets particular needs, and problems can arise where the two intersect. Lebow’s conception of political order emphasizes the connection between solidarity among an order’s members and the order’s robustness. It reminds us that international order is not robust if measured by interstate solidarity; and so are domestic orders that are engulfed by civil conflicts. With a few notable exceptions, such as the European Union and the North Atlantic region, regional and international orders are primarily pluralistic. In a pluralistic world, the maintenance of order requires both top-down and bottom-up approaches. The former, through what the English School refers to as “great power management,” is still an indispensable if woefully inadequate tool in global governance (Bull 2012). The latter, as manifested by the growing role of international institutions, non-governmental organizations, and diverse private sector actors, is proving increasingly essential to sustaining international order (Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Rosenau and Czempiel 1992). In Chapter 3, Barry Buzan proposes “deep pluralism” as a novel concept to understand the emerging structure of global society, thereby deepening our understanding of pluralistic international politics. Deep pluralism describes a global society in which power, wealth, and cultural and political authority are distributed diffusely within a system that has high interaction capacity and is strongly interdependent. Both “deep” and “pluralism” carry specific meanings. Pluralism privileges the units of the interstate system/society over global society, valuing sovereign states as a way of preserving the cultural diversity that is the legacy of human history. It favors raison d’etat (or raison d’empire) over raison de système, and operates by a logic of coexistence within a fairly thin international society. In this context, “deep” means not just a diffuse distribution of wealth and

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power, but also of cultural and political authority. These criteria contrast sharply with the preceding decades of Western domination and globalization in which wealth and power, and cultural and political authority, were relatively concentrated. Buzan makes a further distinction between consensual and contested pluralisms. The former means that the main players in global society not only tolerate the material, cultural, ideological, and actor-type differences of deep pluralism, but also respect and even value them both as expressions of diversity, which like biodiversity is to be valued in itself, and as the foundation for coexistence. The latter means substantial resistance to the material and ideational reality of deep pluralism. This might take various forms: former superpowers (most obviously the United States) refusing to give up their special rights and privileges; great powers refusing to recognize each other’s standing, and playing against each other as rivals or enemies. Whether deep pluralism unfolds in a consensual or contested manner, especially as manifested in great power relations such as the escalating rivalry between America and China, will shape the future character of global society. Buzan identifies at least five general features of deep pluralism: no superpowers and strong anti-hegemonism; introverted great powers; a historical legacy of post-colonial resentment, and former colonial forgetting; declining influence of some non-state actors; and regionalization. He draws out some significant implications of deep pluralism for the future of humankind, especially those concerning sustainable development. In his view, the future of humanity will hinge to a great extent on how global society will respond to, and be shaped by, the rising pressure from shared fate threats. Deep pluralism also holds implications for the foreign policies of great powers and has been applied to the case of China (Zhang and Buzan 2022). As Part I lays out the conceptual foundations for understanding pluralism and international order, Part II proceeds to discuss the implications of international pluralism for great power relations. In Chapter 4, Yongjin Zhang describes the contending pluralist visions between America and China and explores their implications for Sino–American rivalry. America’s vision is one of a world safe for democracy, and China’s a community with a shared future for mankind. Zhang argues that both visions are deeply pluralistic, but inherently problematic and fiercely contested. He presents an alternative vision of the future global order,

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an equally pluralistic one of liberal persuasion, but one that aims at constructing a world safe for diversity and prosperity. If Zhang applies a blend of liberalism and constructivism to SinoAmerican rivalry, in Chapter 5, Shi Yinhong adopts a largely realist perspective on the geopolitical struggle between China and the United States. Shi argues that the short- and medium-term structure of world politics will be characterized by the confrontation of and rivalry between two coalitions, respectively, headed by China and the United States. Over the long run, as these two coalitions continue to exist, there will emerge a vast “intermediate zone” comprised of a large number of countries that might develop some common identities. Interestingly, Shi contends that the future of world politics may witness more countries entering this “intermediate zone,” outside of China or the United States. If his forecast is right, the future structure of international politics will not be bipolar, as some scholars contend, but pluralistic (Tunsjø 2018; Yan 2020). In Chapter 6, Mehri Madarshahi offers a third take on Sino-American relations. Her concern is the possibility of what she refers to as a “development partnership” between the two countries. She argues that world order today is facing myriad challenges including slower growth, global warming, pandemics, and geopolitical rivalry. The best way to meet these challenges is to revisit the US–China partnership across all the relevant sectors. Efforts should also be made to leverage the role of non-state stakeholders with concrete tools and capabilities to develop new initiatives in a multipolar and pluralistic word. Madarshahi emphasizes in particular the importance of a Sino–American partnership for tackling the challenge of climate change. In a pluralistic world order America and China need to share their place with other established and emerging powers. One of the most important rising powers today is India. In Chapter 7, Ian Hall examines Indian foreign policy in terms of its search for a multipolar and pluralistic world order. Such an order has long been India’s first preference, as Indian elites believe that an order in which power is distributed between several major powers would be more stable, peaceful, and equitable, and more amenable to India’s interests and values. India was frustrated during the Cold War when two superpowers emerged to dominate the international system, and then concerned when a unipolar order replaced bipolarity after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moreover, India’s troubled relationship with China has repeatedly driven New Delhi to align the country

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with other major powers, complicating the process of realizing multipolarity. Hall analyzes India’s frustrated pursuit of a multipolar order, undermined by a lack of relative power and the challenge of managing ties with China. In Part III our attention turns from great powers to multilateralism and regionalism. Great powers are crucial actors in world politics, but processes and mechanisms like multilateralism and regionalism are as important to understand the nature of world politics. In Chapter 8, Hans d’Orville offers a passionate plea for revitalizing global multilateralism centered on the United Nations. The United Nations is the heart of the international system. d’Orville argues that the path to a better, more peaceful, and more sustainable future is paved with cooperation—not competition or zero-sum approaches. International organizations around the world have been built primarily—as stated in the UN Charter—to promote development, protect human rights, resolve interstate issues, and tackle global issues that transcend borders, such as financial crises, pandemics, terrorism, criminal networks, threats to our oceans and climate change. We must therefore continuously adapt and modernize our multilateral institutions and better equip them to face the global multicrises and intergenerational challenges we face. d’Orville suggests that multilateral organizations must be given the means to make a difference on the ground. They need to be more open and inclusive of the voices of young people, women, the disabled, civil society, parliamentarians, the private sector, academia, and others. d’Orville’s appeal for multilateralism is made at the global level. In Chapter 9, T. J. Pemple offers a lucid analysis of multilateralism at the East Asian regional level, a region that is becoming increasingly crucial to global prosperity and security. Pemple shows that East Asia has become steadily more regionally interconnected through ever deepening networks of transportation, communication, travel, trade, investment, and supply chain production. Many of these links were developed, not by governments, but by the private sector, leading to claims that East Asia is under-institutionalized. Pempel advances three counter-claims. First, the problem-solving expectations for such institutions are unrealistic. Second, in several non-trivial areas regional multilateralism has achieved substantial successes. Third, criticisms of soft institutionalism and loose rules downplay the long-term potential inherent in such bodies. Ultimately, the test of the efficacy of East Asian multilateralism is whether it can dampen

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the geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry between China and the UScentered alliance system in the region. Here, it is premature to draw any firm conclusions. In East Asia the most important process of regionalism has taken place in the Southeast Asian region as embodied by the institutional success of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). In Chapter 10, Chew Yee Ng and Li Mingjiang offer an analysis of ASEAN’s strategic response to Sino–American rivalry. They argue that this rivalry has posed a significant challenge for ASEAN and its member states. They are facing a situation in which the US security role is very important for regional stability and at the same time economic ties with China are also crucial. As a result, most regional states are adopting a hedging strategy, combining elements of engagement and balancing. They also try hard to maintain ASEAN centrality in managing regional multilateralism as a strategic response to US–China competition. This chapter thus nicely complements Pempel’s in bringing in a Southeast Asian strategic dimension to regional multilateralism. There are, of course, important advances of regionalism outside East Asia. In Chapter 11, Juan Ignacio Dorrego Viera examines progress of regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean. These regions experience a complex geoeconomic and geopolitical transition process shaped by dramatic changes in the international context, the reconfiguration of the regional political map, and the exhaustion of the regionalization attempts of the past two decades. At the same time, China has gradually increased it presence in the region while a series of global and regional systemic factors seem to drive the Latin American subcontinent toward an interregionalism with the Asia Pacific zone. This chapter suggests that in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of Latin American regionalism, we need to take into consideration the dynamics of a changing international environment as well as region-specific uncertainties and risks. In Chapter 12 of Part IV, our concluding chapter, veteran diplomat Kishore Mahbubani offers a seasoned Asian practitioner’s take on the future world order. He identifies three major paradoxes facing world order today. First, the current benevolent world order is a Westerninspired and Western-created world order. Yet, it is the West which has been weakening and undermining it. Second, even though the West is weakening and undermining the current world order, the West is going against its own long-term interests when it undermines this world order.

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Third, if the West changes course and decides that it is in its long-term interest to strengthen the current world order, it only has to return to some fundamental Western principles to strengthen the world order. Mahbubani suggests the importance of making world order more democratic by reforming key United Nations institutions such as the Security Council and the General Assembly. He thus echoes the pleas of earlier contributors, especially those of d’Orville in Chapter 8 and Pemple in Chapter 9. It is now commonplace to say that the world has entered a new era of disorder, marked by an interstate war (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), great power rivalry (especially that between America and China), and a host of other challenges including pandemics and climate change (Haass 2018). This volume has singled out the structural feature of pluralism and explored its implications for international order. It has not tried to be comprehensive, but focused on the dynamics of great power relations, multilateralism, and regionalism. Our contributors have found plenty to be concerned with in the myriad challenges to international order in the years ahead, yet they eschew alarmist conclusions. There is still scope for the great powers to better manage their relations, and equally important, much space for multilateralism and regionalism to play their increasingly important roles in stabilizing world order. We can be cautiously hopeful about the future world order.

References Barnett, Michael, and Martha Finnemore. 2004. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Buzan, Barry. 2004. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bull, Hedley. 2012. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 4th ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Haass, Richard. 2018. A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order. New York: Penguin. Raz, Joseph. 2003. The Practice of Value. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Kindle edition. Rosenau, James N., and Ernst-Otto. Czempiel, eds. 1992. Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Tunsjø, Øystein. 2018. The Return of Bipolarity in World Politics: China, the United States, and Geosctructural Realism. New York: Columbia University Press. Xuetong, Yan. 2020. Bipolar Rivalry in the Early Digital Age. Chinese Journal of International Politics 13: 313–341. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poaa007. Zhang, Feng, and Barry Buzan. 2022. The Relevance of Deep Pluralism for China’s Foreign Policy. Chinese Journal of International Politics 15: 246–271. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poac014.

PART I

Theoretical Perspective

CHAPTER 2

The Foundations of Political Orders Richard Ned Lebow

My writings embed the study of political behavior in psychology, history, and philosophy. Psychology offers insights not only into individual and group behavior, but also into human motives beyond appetite. It also problematizes the concept of reason and situates it in cultural context. History reveals how culture and epoch determine which human drives dominate and how they are channeled. Yoked to psychology, it alerts us to how each culture and epoch confront different kinds of challenges that have profound implications for political behavior. Political philosophy directs our attention to the big questions of human existence, most notably, how should society be organized and who should rule? In The Rise and Fall of Political Orders, I treat the origins, evolution, and decay of orders at a very abstract level because I believe that microand macro-outcomes in the social world are context-dependent (Lebow 2018). Context is determining because decisions and policies are generally path dependent. Outcomes in turn are often the product of path

R. N. Lebow (B) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_2

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dependence, confluence, accident, and agency. Even when actors behave rationally—not always the norm—they may be framing their decisions in terms of other problems and goals, making their choices appear less than fully rational. Outcomes and their follow-on effects are the products of complex, often non-linear, interactions among multiple actors. For this reason, actor expectations, even if the result of careful assessments, may be confounded. And understanding why actors behave as they do is only a starting point; we also need to know how their choices and behavior are aggregated. The best analytical strategy is to develop ideal types and use them as starting points for narrative explanations or forecasts that build in context. The Rise and Fall of Political Orders appeared in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum in Britain and Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the U.S. Many Americans believe their constitutional order is at risk, and many Europeans believe their supranational project is threatened. Most studies of the viability of the postwar order focus on the most immediate threats and their shorter-term consequences. I direct my attention more to the causes of these causes, which have developed or unfolded over decades, or even centuries. I develop a theory of order that posits a set of relationships among values, hierarchies, and principles of justice, and identify the underlying conditions of resilience and fragility. This includes the subset of conditions in which economic inequality is most unacceptable. They have to do with the relative importance society puts on appetite versus honor and equality versus fairness, the thickness of the rule packages governing elite behavior, and the extent to which they conform to them. Such an understanding of political order indicates that wealth and its display assume different meanings—positive and negative—in different social contexts where they may also have divergent consequences for political stability. To fathom these relationships, and others important for order and disorder—and more importantly, for human fulfillment—we must go beyond economics to sociology, political science, philosophy, and history, and beyond theories that attribute outcomes to so-called structural factors, whether they be the market or the balance of power. Attempts to explain the behavior and contentedness of people in terms of their economic interests and relative affluence does not take us very far and blinds us to the more important question of what values and goals people adopt and pursue. This is equally true of politics, where leaders

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and peoples make different choices. Goals and strategies are culturally and historically specific, not something that is universal and readily specified. To capture the variety of these goals, my Cultural Theory of International Relations elaborates the Greek understanding of the psyche and demonstrates its relevance to foreign policy and international relations in a series of case studies. Its principal claim is that thumos —infelicitously but unavoidably rendered in English as “spirit”—has been neglected by modern social science yet remains an important source of human behavior (Lebow 2008). It builds on the Greek insight that self-esteem is an important human need, and one that often rivals and trumps appetite. For Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, people achieve self-esteem by excelling in activities valued by their society; we could add family and peer group to the list. They feel good about themselves when they win the approbation of those who matter to them. People often project their needs for self-esteem onto their states and thumos accordingly encourages the striving for national status and distinction. It is a major source of national solidarity and international conflict. Cultural Theory of International Relations develops a paradigm of politics based on thumos and presents it as an ideal type that can be used to understand international relations. I maintain that thumos, along with appetite and the emotion of fear, generate distinct logics of conflict, cooperation, and risk-taking, and give rise to different kinds of hierarchies. Thumos- and appetite-based hierarchies appeal to different principles of justice: fairness versus equality. In the real world—in contradistinction to the ideal type worlds of my theory—appetite, thumos, and fear, are always present to some degree and responsible for domestic and foreign policies that sometimes appear contradictory. The relative importance of these three motives is a function of the degree to which reason restrains and educates thumos and appetite. Fear rises in importance as reason loses control of either and self-restraint gives way to self-indulgence. At a deeper level, changes in the relative importance of appetite and spirit are due to shifts in values and material conditions within societies. I have a second, parallel agenda that has to do with political theory. I offer my research as an example of how to repair the rift between political science and political philosophy. The latter owes its origins to the fact that no one can make a rule and expect others to follow it without providing some kind of reasoned argument about why it is necessary or advisable. Every argument gives rise to a counter-argument, and every claim a counter-claim. There is no politics without argument, not even

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war is an alternative because once hostilities cease argument resumes. Arguments, moreover, are more than window dressing for rule by fiat. Good arguments—defined in terms of their appeal—are an important source of influence. There is no political order without an argument that explains why that order is worthwhile. And no political order is immune from counterclaims by those who want to replace or reform it. A key concern of these arguments is who should rule. In this respect, political theory is political science because arguments about who should rule are part of the explanation for who does rule. This idea harks back to Aristotle, whose political science deeply informs my project. It is also apparent in the great works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century political theory and political science, many of which I also draw on. Yet the deep connection between political theory and political science seems to have been largely severed in the postwar era—with the recent development of international political theory a notable exception. Partly this is because political science overvalues arguments about methods, especially statistical or rationalist ones, often at the expense of talking about or trying to understand politics. And partly it is because political theory has isolated itself. Some political theorists too readily assume that their task is solely to ascertain how things should be, and to communicate this “guidance” to the political world. They believe that if we reason well about politics, we will arrive at the truth about how politics should be conducted, and there is no reason why the real political world cannot be brought into correspondence with the truth. These assumptions are mistaken, even arrogant. Pre-Kantian political theory was more interpretative and less didactic. It was humble about our ability to ascertain the truth about politics and justice, it saw the partial truth on different sides in arguments about justice. It saw how these arguments serve to persuade and to legitimate; it recognized the empirical force of ideas, often very flawed ideas. I return to that older practice of political theory—a practice that integrated political theory and political science by tending to the real-world force of ideas and arguments. Nothing is more elemental than political order, and nowhere is the force of ideas more apparent and important. My core argument is that there is no political order without an argument about why that order is just—an argument that works, that persuades, at least some. And there is no political order that is invulnerable to counterarguments, which is why no political order is permanent. In short, ideas and arguments

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about justice are the fundamental cause of political order and disorder. By bringing this elemental and profound insight back into focus, I give hope of rejoining political science and political theory.

Problems of Political Order I suggest that order can be defined as legible, predictable behavior in accord with recognized norms. Robust orders also require a high degree of solidarity among their members. The two conditions are related because it is social cooperation that produces legible and predictable patterns of behavior. Any definition of order must accordingly incorporate the organizing principle of social rank. It is another source of norms and solidarity, but also of conflict. Finally, we must recognize that orders are based on, and draw strength from, their ability to advance fundamental human needs, which include physical and material security, self-esteem, and social contact. We might define order as a hierarchical arrangement, supported by most of its members, that fosters security, self-esteem, and social contact, encourages solidarity, and results in legible, predictable behavior. I distinguish between top–down and bottom–up orders. Top–down orders—governments, bureaucracies, military organizations generally— rely on rules and procedures that have originated with, or if not, are sanctioned and enforced, by central authorities. Bottom–up orders are the product of iterative and self-correcting processes of trial and error with multiple feedback loops and branches in logic. It is on the whole an emergent property. Top–down and bottom–up orders are ideal types as they rarely exist independently of each other and generally penetrate one another to some degree. Most social orders incorporate and rely on both forms. Their coexistence may be necessary for any large social-political unit, but it is never unproblematic. Each kind of order meets particular needs, and problems can arise where the two intersect. What are the nature of order and the similarities and differences between physical and social orders? Equilibrium is inappropriate to the study of social phenomena and the most stable orders are those that undergo significant, incremental change. Given the open-ended nature of the social world, political orders and their evolution cannot be understood in isolation from their economic, social, and intellectual contexts. For the same reason, universal, falsifiable propositions about order are all but impossible. We can nevertheless identify some general reasons for the

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construction, evolution, decline, and reconstitution of orders and identify some of the dynamics associated with these processes. Toward this end, I rely on Weberian ideal type descriptions of societies. My analysis of order and disorder rests on four substantive assumptions. First, disorder at the top–down level is the default, and all robust orders at this level are temporary. Second, robust orders, top–down or bottom–up, must be justified with reference to accepted principles of justice. Third, orders become threatened when those principles are challenged, or the discrepancy between them and practice becomes apparent and unacceptable. Fourth, orders require solidarity to soften the consequences of hierarchy. Principles of justice are central to my analysis of the rise, evolution, decline, and reconstitution of orders. Justice is a fundamental human concern, but so too is order because of the security, material, and emotional benefits it can provide. If justice is the foundation of order, order is necessary for justice. In an ideal world, they would be mutually reinforcing, but this is never the case. They are always to some degree at odds, and difficult trade-offs must be made between them. Those who advocate reforms on the grounds of justice invariably meet opposition from those who assert the status quo is essential to order and stability. The difficulty of predicting the consequence of changes and a general preference for the evils we know over those we do not, may help explain why people are often willing to put up with orders they consider unjust. By far the two most important principles of justice are fairness and equality. There are other principles, but they are more limited in scope and most can be reduced to fairness or equality. Commutative justice refers to relations between individuals or institutions regarding contracts and the equitable exchange of goods. It is restricted to a specific domain, and the norms and laws governing it rest on the principles of fairness or equality, usually some combination of the two. The same is true of procedural justice that refers to the methods used to settle disputes and allocate resources. Here too, norms, laws, and arguments are invariably justified, or invoke, in the case of arguments, principles of fairness or equality. What are the origins of social and political orders? It is possible that hominids of all kinds inherited a propensity to live in social groups because it greatly enhanced the prospect of survival. For apes and other primates, social groups provide security and facilitate hunting. Human communities may have arisen for the same reasons. Social orders among humans and animals require high degrees of cooperation, and appear to

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rest on behavior we associated with the principles of fairness and equality. Different primate groups and human societies rely on different degrees and combinations of these principles. Among humans, interest, honor, and fear generate different logics of cooperation, conflict, and risk-taking. They also provide different motives for adherence to rules and norms. They need to be theorized in tandem because of the interaction effects. Compliance for reasons of fear, interest, or honor can over time make it habitual. This, in turn, can make enforcement easier for either top–down or bottom–up orders. The relative importance of each mechanism for compliance varies within both kinds of order but there is much more variance among top–down orders. Modernity has also affected them in more fundamental ways. Interest, honor, and fear also prompt different responses to similar challenges. Prediction is made more difficult still by the likelihood that two or all three of these motives are in play at the same time, making responses very sensitive to priming and context. My theory of politics stands in sharp contrast to reductionist approaches like realism or evolutionary psychology that attempt to explain foreign policy, or human behavior, in the case of the latter, with reference to a single motive or kind of adaptation. Advocates of these approaches are compelled to import a deus ex machina to account for behavior seemingly at odds with their mono-causal accounts, as in the case of altruism for the “selfish gene” hypothesis. We need to analyze the decline and collapse of orders. They are fragile because they are hierarchical. A small number of actors receives much more in the way of rewards than the majority. Stratification encourages exploitation. Elites have power and prestige that they can usually translate into material, social, and sexual rewards. Those at the bottom have little to no power or prestige and must labor more and receive less. Why do people, or collective agents, accept, endorse, and offer up their labor, wealth, and even their lives, for orders in which others reap most of the benefits? I believe answers are to be found in the powerful emotional and substantive rewards that orders provide. Most people believe they are more secure, better off, and have higher status within orders than they would outside of them, even though they may be worse off relative to many, perhaps most, other members of their society. Social integration confers identity, enhances self-worth, and enables social relationships

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and intimacy. Elites, moreover, are generally astute enough to propagate discourses with the goal of legitimizing the orders from which they benefit. These discourses invoke metaphorical carrots and sticks, the former by raising the prospect of internal chaos or conquest by some external foe if order is not maintained, and the latter, by exaggerating the material and psychological benefits of belonging. When these discourses find traction, they reinforce elite sanctioned practices, and may make them habitual. Discourses also attempt to shape expectations of what is reasonable for orders to provide. Most orders survive because they deliver at least in part what they promise or convince people that they do. When orders consistently fail to meet expectations, people are likely to become disenchanted and more willing to support moderate, even radical, change. Discontent and change are also promoted by shifts in principles of justice. These two underlying causes of decline are often related. Agency is critical to both, but especially to perceptions of a growing gap between the theory and practice of orders—top–down or bottom–up. I identify and explore pathways to disorder that are novel to the social science literature and derived from my analysis of thumos- and appetitebased worlds. Both worlds are sufficiently competitive that actors are tempted to violate the rules by which honor or wealth is attained. When enough actors do so, those who continue to obey the rules are at a serious handicap. There is a strong incentive to defect for all but the most ethically committed actors. This problem is best alleviated by the proliferation of multiple pathways to honor and standing, which allow more people to achieve these goals. Competition may nevertheless be intense in many of these pathways, especially high-status ones. Competition in appetite-based worlds need not be zero-sum because the total wealth of a society can be increased. Actors nevertheless often frame the acquisition of wealth as a winner-take-all competition even when cooperation would result in larger payoffs. Lack of self-restraint in the form of defection encourages others to follow suit. So too does conspicuous consumption, which is the principal means by which actors in appetite-based worlds seek status. Rules for achieving honor or wealth can be violated by actors at any level of their respective hierarchies. The most serious problem, I maintain, is defection by those at the top. It reduces the incentive others have for playing by the rules and can set in motion a vicious cycle that significantly weakens the order in question. Here too, I follow Aristotle, who

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argues that the principal cause of the breakdown of orders is the unrestricted pursuit by actors—individuals, factions, or political units—of their parochial goals. Their behavior leads others to worry about their ability to satisfy their spirit or appetites, and perhaps fear for their wellbeing or survival. Fearful actors are likely to implement precautions that run the gamut from bolting their doors at night to acquiring allies and more and better arms. Mutually reinforcing changes in behavior and framing often start gradually but accelerate rapidly and bring about a phase transition. When this happens, actors enter fear-based worlds. Lack of restraint, especially by high-status actors, subverts the principles of justice associated with their hierarchies. Unconstrained spirit, which intensifies the competition for honor, gives rise to acute and disruptive conflict within the dominant elite. It has wider consequences for the society because it not infrequently leads to violence and reduces, if not altogether negates, the material and security benefits clientalist hierarchies are expected to provide for non-elite members of society. Unconstrained appetite also undermines an elite’s legitimacy and arouses resentment and envy in other actors. It encourages others to emulate elite self-indulgence and disregard the norms restraining the pursuit of wealth at the expense of the less fortunate. In the modern world, both kinds of imbalance are endemic. The two pathways to decline can be synergistic, making decline that much more likely once societies have traveled a certain distance down these pathways.

Top–Down and Bottom–Up Orders Earlier I defined order as legible, predictable behavior in accord with recognized norms. I claimed that robust orders require a high degree of solidarity among their members. Solidarity is the product of social interaction and cooperation, which in turn requires appropriate norms and predictable patterns of behavior. Declining orders reveal a breakdown of solidary, often attributable in the short-term to elite violation of rule packages and the sharper contradictions they create in perceptions between existing practices and the principles of justice on which orders rest. Elite violation of rule packages can lead to expanding and more acute conflict in a society but also encourage others to violate norms that sustain solidarity. In the longer-term, I attribute decline in solidarity, and, in part, elite violations of rule packages, to loss of traction of principles of justice

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and shifts in the relative appeal of competing principles and their different formulations. All but the smallest of orders (e.g., hunter-gatherers, kibbutzim) are to varying degrees hierarchical. One of the fundamental paradoxes of top–down orders, and societies more generally, is that there is always a minority who receives more of whatever is valued and a majority that receives less. The paradox is made more acute by the fact that in so many societies, Western and non-Western alike, those who receive less are often the strongest supporters of their orders. I suggest multiple reasons for this curious phenomenon, among them the fewer life choices available to the disadvantaged. It makes them more concerned with preserving the few they have, more risk averse, and often more fearful of change. Because they are less educated, and perhaps less confident or arrogant, they are also more likely to internalize the discourses elites propagate to justify the existing order and their privileges. When those who are disadvantaged—by far the majority in any order—do become disenchanted, they may become more risk prone, and more willing to support change. Orders rapidly lose their legitimacy in this circumstance and are likely to confront a crisis. Top–down and bottom–up orders draw strength from their ability to satisfy fundamental human needs. These include physical and material security, self-esteem, and social contact. We might refine our definition of order and describe it as a hierarchical arrangement, supported by most of its members, that fosters security, self-esteem, and social contact, encourages solidarity, and results in legible, predictable behavior. To some degree, people understand the relationship between order and human fulfillment. Many are motivated to overvalue the benefits they receive and undervalue those they lack. This bias helps to rationalize acceptance, even support, of the status quo. It may also help to explain why those at the bottom of the hierarchy are often so hostile to those who criticize their orders. The principles of justice that enable and sustain orders find expression in discourses and practices. Discourses define justice and its associated norms and practices. They also attempt to justify discrepancies between the behavior required by these principles and how people act. In the U.S., popular discourses have, over time, undermined some of these practices for ordinary people, while elite discourses, most notably, neoliberalism, have done so for many in the elite. These popular discourses might

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be regarded as counter-discourses as they undermined existing practices supportive or order. The irony here is that these counter-discourses were sponsored by the elite in the case of neoliberalism, and to some extent propagated by them in the case of popular discourses. We tend to conceive of counter-discourses as products of those opposed to the status quo, and this is often correct. The American experience suggests that counter-discourses may be produced by those who support the existing order and hope to profit from it. This was certainly true of presidential speeches, television sitcoms, and popular music. It is not only capitalism, but successful orders of all kinds, that generate immanent critiques. I distinguish top–down from bottom–up orders, and government from society. Governments are always top–down, but so are many institutions of civil society. This is true, for example, of many schools, and certainly the authoritarian ones I attended for a decade beginning in the mid-1940s. Society precedes government, and often outlives it, and regimes not imposed by force only come into power by to some degree instantiating societies’ values. Societies can constrain government in the sense of providing incentives for it to conform to valued norms and practices. Governments can over time transform society. Strong governments like France and so-called totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea have successfully fostered top–down social transformations. Such success is always Janus-faced. It creates greater expectations among populations about what government can and will do for them, creating more alienation when and if they fail to deliver. This phenomenon was pronounced in the Soviet Union and most communist countries in Eastern Europe. It is a serious risk in contemporary China. The society–state difference is important to keep in mind when analyzing the origins of states and their decline. As noted, societies precede states and generally survive them. Chaos is the opposite of order; it is characterized by the absence of rule-based behavior, functioning institutions, lawlessness, and often, unpredictability. True chaos would require the collapse of both top–down and bottom–up orders and this rarely happens. When it does, some kind of bottom–up order quickly forms, often initially, of a rapacious, gang-based kind. Order and predictability do not necessarily co-vary. Hobbes’ state of nature is lawless and violent but all too predictable. So too are Brazilian favelas and the streets of Mogadishu. One of the most important political facts of the last one hundred years is how long-lived societies are in comparison to states, and how much

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more so compared to regimes, many of which have a short life. Societies too can decline, but it is usually a much slower process. My analysis of decline focuses largely on political orders: states and their regimes. But I implicate societies in this process because social change can be, and often is, the principal underlying cause of regime or state decline. Top–down order relies on a combination of enforcement and voluntary compliance It rests on the Hobbesian assumptions that government—or a hegemon in international affairs—is necessary to coordinate mutually beneficial cooperation and punish those who do not conform. And further, that most actors conform because they see the utility of this arrangement. Top–down political orders often appear more robust than is warranted. They may function well in a limited range of circumstances—those in which they can minimize or control uncertainties—but even here their seeming authority may be misleading. Charles Perrow (1984) describes how tightly coupled complex systems (e.g., nuclear power plants, electrical grids, air traffic control, major hospitals) only function effectively when operators make informal arrangements among themselves to circumvent many of the rules and replace them with simplified, informal procedures. Bottom–up order may be more essential in a society with highly regimented the top–down orders. They are also less tolerated by such orders, as the communist experience in the Soviet Union and communist countries of Eastern Europe testify (Lebow 2013). Top–down systems can suffer catastrophic failures when confronted with unanticipated developments. This is because efforts to respond, based on existing repertoires or informal procedures, may not be at all appropriate to the challenge. They can also have the unintended and counterintuitive effect of exaggerating the problem, as they did at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear plants (Perrow 1984; Nuclear Energy Agency 2008). A nice political example is provided by efforts of the Polish Communist Party in the 1950s to control dissent at their new steel city of Nowa Huta. The Party’s heavy-handed efforts a repression provoked more resistance and compelled it to negotiate with the workers and ultimately gave rise to the Solidarity movement (Lebow 2013). During the Cold War, I warned of the potential for catastrophe in American nuclear command and control; efforts to prevent accidental or unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons might make such an event more likely in a crisis situation because of the interactions between a complex mechanical system and emotionally aroused human operators (Lebow 1985). Highly structured top–down orders entail another kind of risk:

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they socialize actors in ways that minimize their ability or willingness to act independently. Bottom–up orders reveal different kinds of vulnerabilities. They can be more rapid in response to local challenges, even extreme ones, but may find it difficult to respond to those that require considerable outside resources. Disasters like floods and fires illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of bottom–up orders. Local communities quickly organize, often without reliance on officials, to fill sandbags or provide quarters, clothes, and food for people who have been evacuated. If there is much destruction, they in turn become dependent on others for supplies and funds for rebuilding (Dickerson and Ferré-Sadurní 2017). Bottom–up orders are also at a serious disadvantage in conflicts with top–down orders because of the respective power balance. When boundaries between bottom–up and top–down orders are ill-defined or poorly recognized in practice, there is a risk of conflict and disorder where they come into contact. Top–down and bottom–up orders rarely exist independently of each other and generally penetrate each other to some degree. Most societies, incorporate and rely on both forms. Their coexistence may be necessary for any large social-political unit, but it is never unproblematic. Each kind of order meets particular needs, and problems arise, as noted, where the two intersect. In a fascinating book about recess in American schools, Anna Beresin (2010) found that pupils allowed free time in the schoolyard organized their own rules about space, games, and comportment. Recess order is bottom–up and emergent, in contrast to classroom order, clearly imposed from above. Jostling, name-calling, and fights arose in the liminal space between the orders, when students spilled out of the classroom or were forced following recess to go back in. This phenomenon is widespread. In healthcare, a substantial proportion of medical errors occur during handovers from one department or professional to another. This is because the so-called “systems” for patient care “are a patchwork of poorly connected—or entirely unconnected—constituent parts that don’t work well together (Bohmer 2009).” These problems are likely to be most pronounced when bottom–up orders hand off to top–down ones, or vice versa. Robust orders of scale require synergy between their top–down and bottom–up components. Like Yin and Yang, these seemingly opposing forms can be made to some degree complementary, interconnected, and interdependent (Wang 2021). They may even give rise to each other, as top–down orders do with bottom–up ones in the tightly coupled systems

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that Perrow (1984) describes. There is also good reason to suppose that societies came before governments, and that top–down orders were based on and outgrowths of bottom–up ones (Scott 2017). The most robust top–down orders may be those that build on and copy bottom–up rules and practices. What works on the street, in everyday life or in face-toface encounters in different professional domains, is often the product of trial and error, implicit and explicit communication among actors, and common attempts to maximize certain shared values or goals. To the extent that these values and goals are widely shared, their adoption by top–down orders and efforts to regularize and enforce them can win popular approval and enhance efficiency. Top–down and bottom–up orders roughly—but only roughly—coincide with state and society. Governments and most of their associated bureaucracies are unambiguously top–down orders and most, but by no means all of civil society, can be characterized as bottom–up order. The distinction is not a binary but a continuum with a fair number of institutions—depending on the society, of course—found in the middle. The tensions that arise within and between bottom–up and top–down orders encourage us to recognize that life is more complex than our conceptions of it acknowledge, that peoples’ behavior is often motivated by multiple motives they do not fully acknowledge or grasp, that the consequences of behavior are often unknowable in advance but people must act as if they are predictable, and the political order is something we require but do not really understand. We act to uphold or benefit from it and may unwittingly do the reverse. Shakespeare is telling us—and I follow him—that political order cannot adequately be represented by a single, coherent, and consistent formulation. Such formulations blind us to tensions and contradictions and the behavior and uncertainty to which they give rise. Knowledge requires us to go beyond them, not to resolve the tensions, as that is rarely possible in practice, and often ill-advisable in theory, but to foreground them and make them central to our definitions and analysis. What may appear intellectually sloppy and inelegant may have the virtue of being philosophically profound and conceptually useful. As I unpacked my definition of order, its tensions became increasingly evident. I consider this one of the rewards of the exercise. The tensions are internal and external. My definition embodies components (e.g., predictability, solidarity, hierarchy) that sometimes work at cross-purposes. More of one component may mean less of another—or

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not—depending on the circumstances. The external tensions arise from efforts to apply the definition to historical worlds. Our categories never quite fit protean reality, or they do in ways that differ across societies. The several components of my definition may also have different interaction effects. Both sets of tension tell us important things about the nature of the order and politics, more so, I believe, than simple, seemingly consistent definitions that attempt to ignore or finesse these tensions.

References Beresin, Anna R. 2010. Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling. Jackson, Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press. Bohmer, Richard M. J. 2009. Designing Care: Aligning the Nature and Management of Health Care. Cambridge: Harvard Business Press. Dickerson, Aitlin, and Louis Ferré-Sadurní. 2017. Like Going Back in Time: Puerto Ricans Put Survival Skills to Use. New York Times. https://www. nytimes.com/2017/10/24/us/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-coping.html? hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module= photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0. Accessed 22 Aug 2021. Lebow, Katherine. 2013. Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1949–56. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned. 1985. Nuclear Crisis Management: A Dangerous Illusion. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned. 2008. A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned. 2018. The Rise and Fall of Political Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD). 2008. Chernobyl: Executive Summary. Nuclear Energy Agency. https://www.oecd-nea.org/rp/chernobyl/c0e.html. Accessed 22 Aug 2021. Perrow, Charles. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. New York: Basic Books. Scott, James C. 2017. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wang, Robin. Yinyang (Yin-yang). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http:// www.iep.utm.edu/yinyang/. Accessed 22 Aug 2021.

CHAPTER 3

Deep Pluralism as the Emerging Structure of Global Society Barry Buzan

Introduction This chapter sets out the case for deep pluralism as the emerging structure of global society in the coming decades. The bare-bones definition of deep pluralism is a global society in which power, wealth and cultural and political authority are distributed diffusely within a system that has high interaction capacity and is strongly interdependent (Buzan 2011; Buzan and Lawson 2015; Buzan and Schouenborg 2018; Acharya and Buzan 2019). By global society, I mean a set of primary institutions in the English School sense, that operate not just in the interstate domain, but span across that and the transnational and interhuman domains (Buzan 2004, 2023). The next section sets out a general sketch of what deep

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_3

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pluralism will look like during the next one or two decades. The section following ‘The General Character of Deep Pluralism’ takes a brief look at the likely dynamics of deep pluralism in terms of its major dialectics.

The General Character of Deep Pluralism In one sense deep pluralism is a theoretical concept about structure, and in another it is an empirical projection of global trends. In a structural theoretical sense, deep pluralism can be compared and contrasted to both the premodern structure, which also had diffuse wealth, power and cultural and political authority, but not within a system that had high interaction capacity and was strongly interdependent; and the opening phase of modernity, where wealth, power and cultural and political authority were concentrated in a small group of mainly Western states plus Japan and Russia, but within a system that had high interaction capacity and was strongly interdependent. In this sense, deep pluralism is a distinctive global system/society unlike any we have experienced before. Both ‘deep’ and ‘pluralism’ carry specific meanings. Pluralism privileges the units of the interstate system/society over global society, valuing sovereign states as a way of preserving the cultural diversity that is the legacy of human history. It favours raison d’etat (or raison d’empire) over raison de système, and operates by a logic of coexistence within a fairly thin international society. In this context, ‘deep’ means not just a diffuse distribution of wealth and power, but also of cultural and political authority. These criteria contrast sharply with the preceding decades of Western domination and globalisation in which wealth and power, and cultural and political authority, were relatively concentrated. In the last few decades, quite a lot of thought has gone into how to conceptualise what was agreed to be an important shift in the nature and structure of GIS. Various labels have been put forward to capture the novelty and complexity of this emergent construction: plurilateralism (Cerny 1993), postmodern international system (Buzan and Little 2000), heteropolarity (Der Derian 2003), no one’s world (Kupchan 2012), multinodal (Womack 2014), multiplex (Acharya 2014), decentred globalism (Buzan 2011), polymorphic globalism (Katzenstein 2012), and multi-order world (Flockhart 2016). This array of concepts offered different emphases in their interpretations of the shift that was underway. Some assumed globalisation to be the main trend, and so emphasised the relative disempowerment of states and the rise of non-state actors

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of various kinds. Others emphasised the diffusion of wealth and power and the relative decline of the West. Most saw a more complex, multifaceted type of world order than a simple Realist vision of a system of states jockeying for wealth and power. A reversion to the old realist idea of multipolarity could not capture the main architecture of what was happening even though there was a diffusion of power. Acharya and Buzan (2019) offered the concept of deep pluralism, in an attempt to aggregate the vocabulary. They noted that deep pluralism could unfold in two ways. Contested pluralism means that there is substantial resistance to the material and ideational reality of deep pluralism. This might take various forms: former superpowers (most obviously the US) refusing to give up their special rights and privileges; great powers refusing to recognise each other’s standing, and playing against each other as rivals or enemies. Consensual pluralism means that the main players in GIS not only tolerate the material, cultural, ideological, and actor-type differences of deep pluralism, but also respect and even value them both as expressions of diversity, which like biodiversity is to be valued in itself, and as the foundation for coexistence (Acharya and Buzan 2019). Consensual pluralism might also be supported by a degree of intersubjective realisation of common interest in dealing with the set of inescapable shared-fate issues that increasingly confront humankind as a whole. We are now entering into deep pluralism, and as we do so, are beginning to experience the dawn of modernity in a more truly global form, not just the Western-dominated transition of the first round of modernity. That said, empirically, we do so under the specific historical circumstances of reaction against the collapse of the short-lived heyday of neoliberalism, economic globalisation and supposed unipolarity, during which the liberal order over-extended itself. Under the imperative of neoliberalism, it pushed for a global economy that incorporated too many illiberal regimes, and whose governance mechanisms were inadequate. From a liberal perspective, there were some big gains from this experiment in terms of lowering production costs and spreading development, but some big costs too, both in destabilising the societies and polities within the liberal core, and empowering authoritarians in China and Russia. The idea that liberalism and democracy would be transplanted everywhere by the spread of capitalism proved totally wrong. Now populists both inside and outside the West want to pull down globalisation (especially economic) and reinstate the domestic/international divide in a more robust form.

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The much-used term ‘emerging economies’ captures the wider array of states and societies now finding success in increasing the wealth and power they can extract from modernity. As they do so, pluralism gets both wider as more countries shift from periphery to core; and deeper, as more varieties of capitalism and modernity unfold. This is where the full picture of second-round modernity begins to crystallise, because it has now spread well beyond the founding elite, and established itself effectively in a range of societies outside the West. Multiple modernities and varieties of capitalism come into clearer meaning, as do the sustainable forms of global political economy. Now that we are actually beginning to experience deep pluralism, one can see at least some of its specific features more clearly. These are generally driven by a mix of structural logic (i.e. they could be expected in any instance of deep pluralism), and historical circumstances (i.e. arising from the particularities of the recent history that led here). There are at least five such general features, and they are not wholly mutually exclusive: . No superpowers and strong anti-hegemonism . Introverted great powers . A historical legacy of post-colonial resentment, and former colonial forgetting . Declining influence of some non-state actors . Regionalisation. No Superpowers and Strong Anti-Hegemonism In much day-to-day public discourse about world politics, and even in some academic literature on current affairs, the term superpower is used in a very loose and poorly defined way. At its most ridiculous, one even hears talk of ‘regional superpowers’, which amounts to an entirely unnecessary and unhelpful inflation of meaning. There is a lot of talk of China as a rising superpower, carrying the implication that we are moving once again into a world of two superpowers (bipolarity in the neorealist jargon). To support a dramatic claim, going against this conventional wisdom—that we are moving into a system with no superpowers—requires clear definitions. For this purpose, I adapt and update the ones given by Buzan and Wæver (2003):

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Superpowers – The criteria for superpower status are demanding in that they require broad spectrum capabilities exercised across the whole of the international system/society. Superpowers must possess first class militarypolitical capabilities (as measured by the standards of the day), and the economies to support such capabilities. They must be capable of, and also exercise, global military and political reach. They need to see themselves, and be accepted by others in rhetoric and behaviour, as having this rank. Superpowers must be active players in processes of securitisation and desecuritisation in all, or nearly all, of the regions in the system, whether as threats, guarantors, allies or interveners. Generally, superpowers will also be fountainheads of ‘universal’ values of the type necessary to underpin international society. Their legitimacy as superpowers will depend substantially on their success in establishing the legitimacy of such values. Taking all of these factors into account, during the nineteenth century Britain, France and more arguably Russia had this rank. After the First World War, it was held by Britain, the US and the Soviet Union. After the Second World War it was held by the US and the Soviet Union. After the Cold War it was held only by the US. The US is just about still the sole superpower, though its leadership legitimacy and ideological credibility are fraying fast. China is not yet in a position to treat the world as its region or to be accepted as a superpower. Great Powers – Achieving great power status is less demanding in terms of both capability and behaviour. Great powers need not necessarily have big capabilities in all sectors. Neither do they need to be actively present in the securitisation processes of all areas of the international system, though they do need to be a significant factor beyond their own region. Great power status rests mainly on a single key: what distinguishes great powers from merely regional ones is that they are responded to by others on the basis of system-level calculations about the present and near future distribution of power. This might imply that a great power is treated in the calculations of other major powers as if it has the clear economic, military and political potential to bid for superpower status in the short or medium term, but great powers are sufficient in themselves to affect global calculations, and they may of course be declining superpowers. This single key is observable in the foreign policy processes and discourses of other powers. It means that actual possession of material and legal attributes is less crucial for great powers than for superpowers. Great powers will usually have appropriate levels of capability, though even before China could meet that standard it demonstrated an impressive ability over nearly a century to trade on future capabilities that it had yet to fully deliver (Segal 1999). They will generally think of themselves as more than regional powers, and possibly

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as prospective superpowers, and they will be capable of operating in more than one region. But while these characteristics will be typical of great powers they are not strictly speaking necessary so long as other powers treat them as potential superpowers. Occasionally, a declining power will be given honourary great power status. Regional Powers - Regional powers define the polarity of any given RSC [regional security complex]: unipolar, as in Southern Africa, bipolar in South Asia, multipolar as in the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia. Their capabilities loom large in their regions, but do not register much in a broad-spectrum way at the global level. Higher level powers respond to them as if their influence and capability were mainly relevant to the securitisation processes of a particular region. They are thus excluded from the higher level calculations of system polarity whether or not they think of themselves as deserving a higher ranking...

In a general sense, the very definition of deep pluralism, with its emphasis on the diffusion of wealth, power and political and cultural authority, leans against the idea of there being one or more superpowers within it. Superpower status depends on one or more states being able to acquire disproportionate weight within the system. I have also argued that as modernity spreads, it will fuel a strong anti-hegemonism, stemming partly from reaction against the two-century hegemony of the first-round modernisers (and in particular fuelled by post-colonial resentment against them on which more below), and partly from the fact that rising powers generally cultivate anti-hegemonic attitudes. Since many are rising as the second round widens and deepens, and since the first-round modernisers are not going away (they are mainly in relative, not absolute, decline), it will necessarily be difficult, if not impossible, for the US to retain superpower status, or China to reach it. Indeed, the US seems to be losing the political will, and the support of its electorate, to play the superpower role, and a reasonable case can be made that China does not want the role. Unlike the US, which projects ‘universal’ values, and thinks everyone should become like America, China’s exceptionalism is much more inward looking, stressing its uniqueness by the frequent use of the term ‘Chinese characteristics’ (Cui and Buzan 2016). The prospect is of a world of several great powers and many regional ones. The US and China might well be primus inter pares, but they will not be superpowers. In a technical sense, this system might look multipolar, and that will be the context in which any cooperation on great power management

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of global society has to be approached. But because of strong antihegemonic sentiments it is unlikely to feature the Realist type struggle to dominate the whole system normally associated with the idea of multipolarity. What is emerging will be novel in a number of respects. Increasingly, power, wealth and cultural and ideological authority will be wielded by non-Western as well as Western actors (Buzan and Lawson 2015; Acharya and Buzan 2019). Although they are all embedded in a highly interdependent global economy, and a single planetary environment, none wants to, or can, lead or dominate GIS. It seems likely that while the US and China will be primus inter pares, they will not be in an entirely different class from India, the EU, and possibly Russia, Brazil and Japan. They will be great powers in the sense that their influence extends beyond their own regions, and that they have to be taken into account at the global level, but the world will not be their region in the sense of the definition given above, and therefore neither will be a superpower. Their contest seems to be more about adjusting spheres of influence in Asia, and about bringing the US down a peg or two in its pretensions to global primacy and leadership. It does not, at least in the short and medium term, or possibly the long term, look like a contest for global primacy. Indeed, under emerging deep pluralism, the very idea of global hegemonic leadership, which has been closely associated with Western hegemony for more than two centuries, seems likely to be delegitimised. Such a world will feature different economic and political ideologies and systems, including the remnants of the liberal order. This will be a novel system/society, and not only because we have got used to living in a GIS with a high concentration of power dominated by superpowers. Introverted Great Powers The argument that deep pluralism will look like a multipolar system, but not behave as one, is reinforced by the fact that the particular historical conditions of this transition point in modernity, suggest that all of the likely great powers will be introverted in their outlook and behaviour. Nothing in the theory says that deep pluralist systems are necessarily populated by introverted great powers, though the diffusion of wealth, power and authority perhaps make that more likely than not. The concept of ‘autistic’ great powers has been around in the IR literature for a long time. In states it can be understood as where reaction to external inputs

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is based much more on the internal processes of the state—its domestic political bargains, party rivalries, pandering to public opinion (whether it be nationalist or isolationist), and suchlike—than on rational, fact-based, assessment of and engagement with the other states and societies that constitute international society (Senghaas 1974; Buzan 2007; Luttwak 2012). To some extent ‘autism’ in this sense is a normal feature of states. It is built into their political structure that domestic factors generally take first priority, whether because that is necessary for regime survival, or because the government is designed in such a way as to represent its citizens’ interests. Autism, however, is a complex phenomenon, and its use as an analogy may not be the ideal way to capture the fairly simple quality of introversion and self-referenced behaviour in states. There is a growing interest in the new great powers and their roles and responsibilities in international society (Gaskarth 2015; Falkner and Buzan 2021). Introversion will be strong in the current and near future set of great powers for two reasons. First, the old, advanced industrial great powers (the US, the EU, Japan) are not going to go away, but they are exhausted, weakened both materially and in terms of legitimacy, and are increasingly unable or unwilling to take the lead. No clearer illustration of this could be desired than the surprising 2016 successes in attracting voter support of both the Brexit campaign in the UK, and Trump’s ‘America first’ campaign in the US (Buzan and Cox). The EU has weak foreign and security policy institutions anyway, and is too mired in its own local problems of the Euro, Brexit, migration, Turkey and Russia to have much diplomatic energy or legitimacy left for raison de système. It is barely maintaining raison de région. Japan is preoccupied with recovering its status as a ‘normal country’ and trying to deal with the rapid rise of a China that seems committed to maintaining historical hostility against it. The rising great powers (China and India, possibly Brazil) are very keen to claim great power status, and might provide new blood to the great power camp. But they are equally keen not to let go of their status as developing countries. They want to assert their own cultures against the long dominance of the West, and some, notably China, are cultivating a nationalism based on historical grievance. But while they know what they are against, the rising powers have as yet shown little clear idea about what kind of alternative GIS they want. That combination leads them to give priority to their own development. They argue, not unreasonably, that their own development is a big and difficult

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job for them, and that developing their own big populations is a sufficient contribution to GIS in itself. On that basis, they resist being given wider global managerial responsibilities. Russia is not a rising power, and is too weak, too unpopular, too self-centred and too stuck in an imperial mind-set, to take a consensual global leadership role. The cycle of prickly action–overreaction relations typical of introversion is already visible in US–China, Russia–EU, US–Russia and China–Japan relations. Great powers are in part defined by their wider responsibilities to raison de système. If, as seems likely, it becomes accepted that developing countries can also rank as great powers, then the general consequence will be a granting of great power rights to more states, alongside a reduction in great power responsibilities. To the extent that states, and especially great powers, have introverted foreign policies, they not only fail to uphold raison de système, but also lose touch with their social environment, and are blind to how their policies and behaviours affect the way that others see and react to them. In such conditions a cycle of prickly action– overreaction is likely to prevail, and building trust becomes difficult or impossible. Everyone sees only their own interests, concerns and ‘rightness’, and is blind to the interests, concerns and ‘rightness’ of others. If this diagnosis turns out to be correct, then we are unlikely to see responsible great powers. The absence of responsible great powers in conditions of deep pluralism points to a contested deep pluralist GIS, weak, and possibly quite fractious. Russia is the most extreme exemplar of a great power putting raison d’etat first, and caring little about raison de système. China seems to be abandoning its earlier position of peaceful rise/development, and following the Russian playbook of bullying neighbours and cultivating victimhood nationalism. China and Japan, with their unresolved history problem, make a classic case of introverted relations (Buzan and Goh 2020), and China’s relations with India seem headed in the same direction. The US and China are pushed more towards contested deep pluralism by domestic political imperatives: seeking domestic unity in the face of a challenger to US primacy for the US; hardening and sealing itself to reduce outside influence and consolidate CCP control, in the case of China. Introverted great powers means that the exercise of great power management responsibility under deep pluralism will be more diffuse and more complicated than under the relatively concentrated domination of the US over the last few decades, or the relative simplicity of the bipolar Cold War. One factor is the wider diversity of great powers created by the

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rise of China, India and others. Developed/developing is one element of this, but there are other ways of parsing this issue. Cui and Buzan (2016), for example, explore an ideological spectrum ranging from universal, open and inclusive polities (e.g. pre-Trump US, Canada, Brazil), to parochial, closed and exclusive ones (e.g. China, Japan, Israel). Such ideological differentiations mattered during both the interwar and Cold War years. They may well matter again under deep pluralism, where there will not only be a divide between authoritarians and democracies, but also one between the different civilizational values represented by the US, Europe, Russia, China, India and the Islamic World. Both the likely rise in prominence of the regional level as compared with the global one, and the impact of empowered post-colonial resentment, could also play strongly into great power differentiation. More on these below. Post-colonial Resentment and Metropolitan Forgetting The third predictable quality of emerging deep pluralism is that it will sit on top of a very tricky and corrosive history problem composed, on the one hand, of a large reservoir of post-colonial resentment in those seeing themselves as victims of colonialism, and on the other, of a mixture of forgetting, ignorance and denial, among the former metropoles (Buzan and Goh 2020). The existence of this history problem is a historically particular effect of the monocentric route to globalisation. The uneven but combined development that took over with such force during the first round of modernity came in a colonial, core–periphery, form in which one civilisation, itself fragmented into competing states, subjugated all the others, and, with much ruthlessness and coercion, imposed many of its social and material forms on them. Colonialism came along with political subjugation, economic exploitation, cultural disrespect, scientific superiority, and racial inequality and discrimination. It also came along with elements of development, but these were generally pitched towards the needs and concerns of the individual metropolitan powers. Railways and ports were built mainly to extract resources from the colonies, open their markets to the manufactures of the metropole, and sometimes to facilitate mass migrations. As noted above, even Japan’s noteworthy industrialisations of Korea and Manchuria were done to extend its imperial core, not to benefit the locals.

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The experience of colonialism unsurprisingly left a deep and powerful resentment within almost all countries that experienced it, and that resentment is now a major part of what the Global South brings to the table as inputs from the non-West into thinking about, and practising, international relations (Zarakol 2011; Acharya and Buzan 2019; Buzan and Acharya 2022). Hodgson (1993) nicely captures the humiliation in the ‘sense of radical spiritual defeat’ that the encounter with the power and ideas of the modernising West inflicted on the Islamic world and China. It was a blow to their inner prestige to have their sense of being the dominant world civilisation so rudely and abruptly displaced. Post-colonial resentment against the racism, coercion and cultural contempt of the colonial West and Japan is not going to disappear any time soon. Indeed, as the second round of modernity unfolds, the new wealth and power, and recovered cultural and political authority, of the Global South are increasingly linked to this still strongly felt post-colonial resentment. To get a measure of this one has only to look at the importance China still attaches not only to reproducing the memory of its ‘century of humiliation’, but also to making it an active factor in its day-to-day foreign and domestic policy. It comes up everywhere in the post-colonial Global South, from demands for aid as a form of reparations; through insistence on unequal responsibilities for the legacy polluters of the first round of modernisation in taking on the burdens of controlling climate change; to claims for the return of cultural objects looted or appropriated by the former colonial powers. Such claims certainly need to be addressed, but inept leaders in the Global South still can, and do, make good political use of blaming colonisation for their own shortcomings in achieving development. By contrast, while public opinion in the liberal West remains sensitive to racism and slavery in its domestic spheres and histories, it has largely forgotten about, marginalised or denied the racism and coercion it exercised against other peoples during the imperial era. The ‘black lives matter’ movement going strong at the time of writing not only exemplifies this selective sensitivity, but the distinctive American version of it which associated slavery and race much more strongly than was generally the case everywhere else during the premodern era. So while there are, to be sure, ongoing campaigns against historical racism and slavery within the West, there are at the same time white nationalists and neo-fascists re-legitimising racism in relation to contemporary migration. Many in the West and Japan have forgotten, or are ignorant, about the colonial history of their countries, and some promote counter-narratives of the colonial

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period as a mainly successful civilising mission. The particular forms and patterns of this history problem vary from country to country, but overall there remains a huge and politically volatile gap between former colonised and colonisers about how to understand their shared history (Buzan and Goh 2020). When Hedley Bull (1984) worried about the Third Worlds’ ‘revolt against the West’ nearly forty years ago, that revolt could still be, and largely was, ignored by the West, because the newly decolonised states and peoples behind it were mostly poor, weak and culturally emasculated. The West largely satisfied itself with some commitment to give foreign aid to the Third World in the hope that development along liberal lines would somehow be easy and automatic. Modernisation theory assumed that modernisation effectively meant Westernisation (Spruyt 2020). Now, substantial parts of the former periphery are growing strong, and knocking on the door of the core. They are finding, or in some cases such as China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, have already found, their own paths to modernity, and they are not clones of the West, but distinctive syntheses between their traditional cultures and modernity. Their historical grievances against the West and Japan can no longer be side-lined. Coming to terms with the legacy of colonialism is necessary to the construction of a viable, deeply pluralist, global society capable of dealing with the rising tide of shared threats. Reconciling this colonial past will not be easy for either side, though the widespread acceptance of human and racial equality should help. The West and Japan need to acknowledge their role, and accommodate the sense of grievance and humiliation in the former colonial world. But the former colonial world also needs to acknowledge its own responsibilities and complicities. Colonialism was certainly a story of ruthlessly exploited inequality, but it was not a simple dyad between colonisers and colonised, exploiters and exploited. Until the late eighteenth century, for example, slavery was a normal practice in every major culture. Collaboration was also a big part of the story from Korea to Africa; and as the contrast been Japan’s and China’s responses to the Western challenge show, colonised and/or exploited countries bear some responsibility for their own weakness and vulnerability (Gray 2002). China resisted modernity so successfully during the nineteenth century that it made itself weak and vulnerable to outside powers (Wang 2019). The Islamic world likewise proved unable to adapt itself to modernity

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quickly enough to prevent widespread colonisation by the West, and fragmentation into Western-style states (Piscatori 1986). The highly uneven onset, development and spread of modernity initially divided the world into core and periphery. As modernity now becomes more widespread and more culturally differentiated, the huge gaps in wealth, power and cultural and political authority opened during the nineteenth century are beginning to close (Findlay and O’Rourke 2007; Buzan and Lawson 2015). If reconciliation occurs, it will have to be a two-way street in which both sides will need to examine their own faults as well as those of the other side. As wealth, power and cultural and political authority become more widely diffused in global society, the legacy of colonialism could easily poison diplomacy, push deep pluralism more towards conflictual mode, and impede functional cooperation on shared-threat issues such as climate change and disease control, and the process of reforming IGOs. How this history problem is handled by both sides, will be one key determinant of whether deep pluralism is more contested or more consensual. Declining Influence of Some Non-state Actors Many of the discussions noted above that tried to capture the nature of the emerging new world order, took the view that non-state actors would play an expanding role alongside states. Nonstate actors ranging across the spectrum from civil (e.g. Red Cross/Crescent, Médecins Sans Frontièrs, some transnational firms), to uncivil (e.g. Islamic State, organised crime), with many in between (e.g. Facebook, mercenary companies, proselytising religions, other transnational firms) would become prominent players in global society. States would probably remain the dominant form of actor, but much more entangled in webs of global governance than is implied in the term multipolarity. There would be many non-state actors in play in global society, some of which would wield significant amounts of wealth, power and authority. The transnational domain would become more equal to the interstate one in the composition of global society. That view reflected the strength of arguments about globalisation and global governance in the discussion of IR during the two decades following the end of the Cold War. Until quite recently, I agreed with that assumption. But with deep pluralism now unfolding in front of us, it is necessary to question it. The idea rests on the calculation that both

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firms and INGOs will continue on the upward track of diplomatic prominence that they have been building through much of the first round of modernity. Firms are now ubiquitous across the global capitalist system in both democracies and authoritarian states, and will probably be able to maintain, if not improve, their position. INGOs, however, are more precariously placed, and might be set to decline for the duration of deep pluralism. Unlike the relatively even distribution of firms, global civil society (GCC) was always heavily associated with the INGOs of the West, and served to enhance Western dominance by projecting Western values (Clark 2007; Hurrell 2007; Armstrong 1998). Western INGOs both rode on the back of Western power, and the universalising thrust of liberal teleology, and reinforced it. As the West becomes just one core of wealth, power and cultural and political authority among several, and the liberal teleology loses its force, it seems a fair bet that the influence of GCC actors will decline. In a sense, democracy and the liberal teleology are back in the 1930s, facing both an internal crisis of legitimacy (inequality, financial crisis, unemployment) and being surrounded by an array of powerful populist, authoritarian and even neo-fascist regimes that are in competition with them. The key difference is that the threat from outside is not mainly of military invasion, because the risks of great power war are now too high. Neither does capitalism itself seem much threatened by alternative ideologies. Now the challenge is more about the direct and indirect subversion of open societies, which is difficult to counter without the necessary measures themselves undermining open societies and the non-state actors that flourish within them. China as a rising power does not look at all likely to generate its own stable of independent INGOs to throw into the ring. Authoritarian regimes in general do not provide fertile ground for independent nonstate actors. Like the Soviet Union, they may try to put forward their own front organisations, but these are hardly likely to be accepted as genuine representatives from the transnational domain. The influence of INGOs will not disappear, but it might well be more confined to the sphere of liberal democratic states. What had looked, during the later decades of the first round of modernity, like a movement towards the diversification of the actors engaged in diplomacy across the board, and therefore towards a kind of diplomacy for global society, rather than for global interstate society, may well slow down or stall for the duration of deep pluralism. In principle, deep pluralism should not be a friendly environment for

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INGOs, and in practice there is both a weakening of their support base in the West, and a hostile environment of post-colonial resentment against Western liberal values. The one exception to this will probably be militant non-state actors, which look set to be mainstream participants in war and diplomacy. Regionalisation Regionalisation is a relatively recent development in international relations. The regional level thus did not really come into its own worldwide until decolonisation created autonomous subsystems of states, first in the Americas, and after the Second World War in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Even then it was constrained by superpower overlay during the Cold War, and up to a point thereafter by US primacy and globalisation. The relative decline of the US and Western dominance during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and the move into deep pluralism, would seem to offer good prospects for a more regionalised global society. The definition of deep pluralism suggests favourable conditions for what might be thought of as a subsystem-dominant form of international system/society. The diffusion of wealth, power and cultural and political authority on the one hand, and the absence of superpowers treating the world as their region, on the other, both open up space for regional dynamics to gain more autonomy and prominence. But is that the way things will unfold? In relation to this question, a lot hangs on how the relationship between China and the US works out. If mainstream opinion is right, and deep pluralism becomes dominated by a globe-spanning superpower rivalry between the US and China, then, as during the Cold War, the autonomy of regional dynamics will be compromised by degrees of overlay, in which the global-level rivalry of two superpowers penetrates and dominates more local dynamics. The main question marks hanging over this scenario arise from the domestic politics in the US and China. In the US, the rise of Trumpism left the legitimacy of US claims to global leadership deeply in doubt, and damaged many of the secondary institutions that supported it. If, as seems likely at the time of writing, Trumpism remains a powerful force in US domestic politics, the stability of the US’s will and capability to play a superpower role are in serious question. In the case of China, one has to reflect on the longstanding self-centredness of Chinese politics, in which concerns about its domestic order far outweigh

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concerns about foreign relations. Luttwak (2012) argues that China is the most autistic of the great powers, not least because it is the biggest. Recall that during the 1930s and 1940s, the main political actors in China were, for most of the time, far more concerned about the civil war among them than about resisting Japanese imperialism. China seems more likely to remain relatively inward looking in this way, than to want to be running the world. If I am right, and the US and China are not superpowers treating the world as their region, but merely big great powers, then there is considerable scope for a more regionalised global society. In that case, the US–China rivalry would be mainly about spheres of influence in Asia, and not, as the US–Soviet rivalry was, a contest to dominate the planet. In a no-superpower scenario of deep pluralism, many of the emerging powers would have as much or more focus on their own regions, and their position within them, as they would on the global level. When superpowers dominated the system, global-level concerns generally trumped regionallevel ones. But in a world of several great and many regional powers, the regional level could well become more autonomous. China has some global aspirations, but its main immediate concern is to gain primacy in Asia. Russia, India and Brazil want recognition as great powers, but are mainly interested in their own regions and those immediately adjacent. If regional dynamics become stronger relative to global ones, then many different models will come into play. The observation of Buzan and Wæver (2003) about the relationship between regions and great powers remains salient here. Regions vary hugely in how they relate to great powers. Some are heavily dominated by a single great power within them (North America, South Asia, the former Soviet Union, possibly South America). Some have created substantial institutional frameworks to mediate their affairs (Europe). Some have more than one great power within them (East Asia). And some have no great powers within them (Africa, the Middle East). Great powers can and do intervene in adjacent regions (China in South and Southeast Asia; Europe and Russia in the Middle East; Europe in Africa). For the most part, great powers can no longer simply exploit their local preponderance to maintain regional order. They need to negotiate with their neighbours and regional powers. As the transition towards a post-Western deep pluralism progresses, the waning of superpowers should raise the relative autonomy of the regional level, and the regional dynamics with internal and adjacent great powers.

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On this basis, we might anticipate that under deep pluralism, great powers will operate on two levels, global and regional. On the global level, the extent and character of cooperation/conflict will depend on whether deep pluralism is more contested or more consensual. That, in turn, depends on how a complex conjuncture of factors plays out. How will the great powers respond to the various shared-fate threats, such as climate change and pandemics that affect them all? How deeply will postcolonial resentment poison relations between first- and second-round modernisers? Will great power rivalries over spheres of influence disrupt their ability to cooperate? The key danger here is that the global level will remain undermanaged because a more regionalised global society will draw interest and attention away from the global level. On the regional level, there is likely to be quite considerable diversity in how great powers operate. That diversity will be partly generated by different structures, and partly by different foundations of cultural authority. On one end of the spectrum will be Europe, with its relatively strong and consensual regional institutional framework which is still in a class of its own even after Brexit. On the other end will be the spheres around Russia and China, both of which seem to be seeking primacy over their regions, and tending to think a bit like empires. Southeast Asia has elements of both regional institutionalisation and local great power dominance. Regions with no internal great powers—the Middle East and Africa—will either be left more to their own affairs, or intervened in by neighbouring great powers if they become securitised by them. The issue of migration from Africa and the Middle East to Europe is a current example of that securitising dynamic. In my reading, the odds favour a deep pluralism with a strong regional level. The global level will be generally weakened as a result. Part of that will be a long contestation over the reshaping of secondary institutions to accommodate the new realities of wealth, power and cultural and political authority in a global society with no superpowers and no guiding ideology. The key question is whether the pressure of shared-fate threats will be enough to sustain specific forms of global GPM adequate to deal with them (Acharya and Buzan 2019). Conclusions There is a considerable amount of inertia behind the move into deep pluralism. Structural shifts such as the wider distribution of wealth, power, and cultural and political authority, the fading out of superpowers, and

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the rise of regionalism, are hard to stop. Points of historical baggage such as introverted great powers, post-colonial resentment and the normative crisis of liberalism and its teleology, also run deep. Lumped together, this appears to create a powerful push towards the contested form of deep pluralism as something that will happen regardless of whether the US– China rivalry turns out to be global or inter-regional. As the second round of modernity delivers more states into the core, displacing Western dominance, but not eliminating the West as a major centre of wealth, power and influence, the prospect is one of a more decentred international order. Liberalism will become just one of a number of forms of modernity in play, and no longer provide the dominant teleology. A larger and more diverse core of powers at the leading edge of modernity points towards a looser and more contested global order. The evening-out of modernity will, perhaps for some decades, put the brakes on what seemed to be the momentum of the first round of modernity towards ever-greater economic, social and political globalisation. Yet inertial drift is not the whole story of deep pluralism. There are also contradiction and dialectics on the social structure and material conditions on deep pluralism that need to be taken into account.

The Dynamics of Deep Pluralism in Terms of Primary Institutions The first round of modernity was hugely successful in intensifying globalisation by improving both physical and social interaction capacity. But its drive for economic globalisation went too far too fast, once again crashing into the fragmenting logics of sovereignty, territoriality and nationalism, and so far failing to overcome them. The dialectic between the global market and economic nationalism therefore looks set to continue, and may be of the zhongyong type that remains durable rather than unfolding towards some resolution (Qin 2018). Even China, perhaps the most autarchically inclined of the great powers, seems to recognise that orderly global trading is necessary, and that this requires cooperation on rules for trade, investment and finance. The second round of modernity inherits the dynamics of that contradiction, but also confronts the new, and rapidly burgeoning one of environmental globalisation. Economic and environmental globalisation are of course related, with the former being a principal dynamic giving rise to the latter. Either kind of globalisation challenges the fragmenting logics of global society. The big question is

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therefore whether environmental globalisation will hit the same buffers as the economic kind, failing to break through to a more integrated form of global society? Economic globalisation was to a considerable extent a choice. Some, of course, had it rammed down their throats during the first round of modernity, but others, most notably China under Deng, chose it on the grounds that its developmental benefits outweighed its costs even for a government determined to retain a Leninist state. Environmental globalisation will not be a choice in the sense that one can opt in or opt out. Whether in terms of a shift to planetary management, or as a shared experience of environmental deterioration, all will confront environmental globalisation whether they like it or not. In terms of the contradictions and dialectics going forward into deep pluralism, three observations stand out. First, is that there looks to be a major island of stability comprising the strong mutually reinforcing cluster of primary institutions around the modern state: sovereignty, territoriality, nationalism, diplomacy and international law. This cluster is strong not only because the institutions are mutually supporting, but also because the principle ones—sovereignty, territoriality, nationalism—have deep roots across the three domains. This is the core support for the argument that there will be a lot of continuity in the structure of global society going forward. This cluster of institutions is mainly about how global society is internally differentiated and fragmented, and what makes it a social structure is that this set of principles of differentiation and fragmentation is widely agreed as legitimate. All of these institutions look robust in themselves, and their mutual support makes them stronger. This is the bedrock of the anarchical society. War in its traditional, mainly military, sense was part of this package during the first round of modernity, but has weakened and dissipated so much as an institution (less so as a practice, where it has become more diverse and diffuse) that it will probably have much less shaping influence on the second round. Development might also count as part of this package on the grounds that it seems likely to remain a strong primary institution given that uneven development is unlikely to disappear soon as a collective problem for global society. Development is often embodied in the form of developmental states in both core and periphery, and so fits with this core package. All of the major powers, and most of the lesser ones, seem firmly in support of this anarchical society. The second observation is also about continuity, but in a more paradoxical way: that many of the contradictions and dialectics that opened

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up during the first round of modernity will remain ongoing in defining the second round. . The dialectic between the market and economic nationalism remains vigorous, and shows no signs of coming to an end. . The multifaceted dialectic between human equality and inequality (in terms of racism, slavery, patriarchy, wealth), and the related contestation over the nature of human rights, likewise show no signs of coming to an end any time soon, if ever. . The dialectic between religion/mysticism (faith and revealed ‘knowledge’) and science (evidence and rational argument) seems to have reached a kind of draw, with neither able to eliminate the other, and their contradiction fought out issue by issue, as most recently with Covid-19. These three feel like they are zhongyong dialectics, not just taking a while to resolve, but almost permanent contradictions needing to be managed according to the evolving conditions of the day. Perhaps these zhongyong style dialectics are a characteristic of modernity’s general turbulence. A fourth ongoing dialectic is that between development and environmental stewardship. This certainly had roots in the first round of modernity, but might better be thought of as the distinctive dialectic of the second round. The contradiction is between the ongoing pressure for the pursuit of human empowerment, and the rising pressure from shared fates, some of which are driven by that pursuit. The Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated the mounting threat from environmental issues interplaying with the Anthropocene, and the problem of climate change is not far behind. There is thus a powerful meta-dialectic emerging in the second round of modernity between environmental integration/interdependence on the one hand, and fragmentation (sovereignty, identity, territoriality) on the other. This dialectic is inherently unpredictable inasmuch as it cannot be known which shared-fate issue(s) will generate a global crisis, when this will happen, and in what form. Neither can it be known how the availability, or not, of new technologies, especially digital and biological ones, will play into these developments. The general nature of the problems and threats posed by pandemics, sea-level rise, extreme weather, mass migrations, etc., are reasonably knowable, but the details, timings and placings are not. Will such issues deepen divisions and

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become weaponised as part of the armouries of rivalry in a contested deep pluralism? Or will they inspire, or necessitate, global cooperation and a change of mindset about the priorities of global society, moving deep pluralism towards a more consensual form? This dialectic has a clear potential resolution in the concept of sustainable development, but the outcome remains uncertain. Sustainable development might be achieved, offering a way forward for the continued unfolding of human empowerment within modernity. Or the contradiction between unrestrained attempts to increase human empowerment might be pushed to an environmental crisis and regression of the human species. Given the link of development to the cluster of primary institutions supporting the anarchical society, this might also be understood as the defining meta-dialectic of second-round modernity: the anarchical society package on the one hand, and economic and environmental globalisation/deterritorialisation one on the other. From that perspective, we might expect this meta-dialectic to open up more powerfully than before the longstanding contradiction between national security (security against) and common security (security with). This contradiction is not new, but it looks set to become particularly intense in the coming decades. Although the imperatives of ‘security against’ are still in robust play in world politics, the imperatives of ‘security with’ are gaining ground as shared threats from pandemics and global warming to terrorism, mass migration and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, increasingly impinge on global society. These provide a new and unprecedented set of circumstances in which a less deterministic view of power politics, and a more open view of the interplay of anarchy and hierarchy, might be both useful and necessary. Shared fates support a turn towards the principle of common security meaning that security ‘with’ might become more important than security ‘against’ (Buzan and Hansen 2009). The third observation is a negative one. Nothing in the analysis given above suggests either that new primary institutions or new contradictions/dialectics, are about to open up along the path of human empowerment. If this is true, then the second round of modernity will proceed along the familiar dynamics set up by the first. The one obvious objection to this argument is that humankind may, in the coming decades, confront itself either with species differentiation (biotech) or rival forms of intelligence (AI). Such developments could redefine the meaning of humanism to be about the preservation of the mark-1 human

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being against superior rivals. But rather than creating a new contradiction/dialectic, such developments would simply add another layer to the existing, already elaborate, one about human (in)equality. The major key to the second round of modernity is how global society will respond to, and be shaped by, the rising pressure from shared-fate threats. Humankind is perhaps unlucky in having to face this dialectic from a starting point defined by a deep pluralism that has arisen for myriad reasons other than the emerging dialectic with the planetary carrying capacity. There is a real danger in this that environmental crises will reinforce contested pluralism in a way that forestalls an adequate collective response to the shared threat. That outcome is not inevitable, for as illustrated by US and Soviet cooperation on arms control during the Cold War, even contested deep pluralism does not exclude a degree of GPM on specific functional issues such as shared-fate threats. There are also possibilities, perhaps less likely, that the rising shared threat from the environment will hasten the turning of the deep pluralism supertanker. This could either be towards a more consensual deep pluralism, which would make cooperation on the environment easier, or towards some new form of political and economic globalisation aimed at making species responsibility for management of the planet the first priority of global society. Either of these moves is likely only if (a) the impacts of the environmental crisis on humankind and its civilisation intensify, and (b) if there is some common understanding of the threat and what needs to be done about it. We are likely to get (a) whether we want it or not, so the key is in what direction those impacts push global society: towards everyone for themselves, or towards degrees of collective action. That is where the scope for agency lies in the second round of modernity. Having globalised the economy and the environment, the next task of modernity is to find a way of globalising humankind sufficiently to enable it to operate and survive on a planetary scale.

References Acharya, Amitav. 2014. The End of American World Order. Cambridge: Polity. Acharya, Amitav, and Barry Buzan. 2019. The Making of Global International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Armstrong, David. 1998. Globalisation and the Social State. Review of International Studies 24: 461–478.

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Bull, Hedley. 1984. The Revolt Against the West. In The Expansion of International Society, ed. A. Watson, 217–228. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buzan, Barry. 2004. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry. 2007. People, States and Fear. Colchester: ECPR Press. Buzan, Barry. 2011. A World Order Without Superpowers: Decentred Globalism. International Relations 25: 1–23. Buzan, Barry. 2023. Making Global Society: A Study of Humankind Across Three Eras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry, and Amitav Acharya. 2022. Re-Imagining International Relations: World Orders in the Thought and Practice of Indian, Chinese, and Islamic Civilizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry, and Evelyn Goh. 2020. Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities. London: Oxford University Press. Buzan, Barry, and George Lawson. 2015. The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry, and Laust Schouenborg. 2018. Global International Society: A New Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry, and Lene Hansen. 2009. The Evolution of International Security Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry, and Michael Cox. Forthcoming. The End of Anglo-America? In Power Shifts in English School Perspective, ed. Cornelia Navari and Tonny Brems Knudsen. Buzan, Barry, and Ole Wæver. 2003. Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, Barry, and Richard Little. 2000. International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cerny, Phil. 1993. “Plurilateralism”: Structural Differentiation and Functional Conflict in the Post-Cold War World Order. Millennium 22: 27–51. Clark, Ian. 2007. International Legitimacy and World Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cui, Shunji, and Barry Buzan. 2016. Great Power Management in International Society. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 9: 181–210. Der Derian, James. 2003. The Question of Information Technology. Millennium 32: 441–456. Falkner, Robert, and Barry Buzan. 2021. Great Power Responsibility and Global Environmental Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Findlay, Ronald, and Kevin H. O’Rourke. 2007. Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Flockhart, Trine. 2016. The Coming Multi-Order World. Contemporary Security Policy 37: 3–30. Gaskarth, Jamie. 2015. China, India and the Future of International Society. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Gray, Jack. 2002. Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodgson, Marshall G.S. 1993. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hurrell, Andrew. 2007. On Global Order: Power, Values and the Constitution of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Katzenstein, Peter J. 2012. Many Wests and Polymorphic Globalism. In AngloAmerica and Its Discontents: Civilizational Identities Beyond West and Eas t, 207–247. London and New York: Routledge. Kupchan, Charles A. 2012. No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn. New York: Oxford University Press. Luttwak, Edward N. 2012. The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Piscatori, James. 1986. Islam in a World of Nation-States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Qin, Yaqing. 2018. A Relational Theory of World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Senghaas, Dieter. 1974. Towards an Analysis of Threat Policy in International Relations. In German Political Studies, ed. Klaus von Beyme, 59–103. London: Sage Publications. Spruyt, Hendrick. 2020. The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wang, Gungwu. 2019. China Reconnects: Joining a Deep-Rooted Past to a New World Order. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. Womack, Brantly. 2014. China’s Future in a Multinodal World Order. Pacific Affairs 87: 265–284. Zarakol, Ayse. 2011. After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PART II

The Great Powers

CHAPTER 4

China, the United States, and the Future Global Order: One World, Two Contending Pluralist Visions Yongjin Zhang

This chapter discusses two different visions of the future global order articulated recently in China and the United States respectively. It considers critically whether and how these contending visions can be accommodated in the collective quest for an ethically sensible, morally defensible, and politically and economically viable global order in an anarchical society of states that is no longer solely dominated by the West both materially and ideationally. Discussions in this chapter consist of three parts. The first part takes a brief look at the claim that the current American-dominated liberal global order is in crisis, which is,

Y. Zhang (B) School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_4

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paradoxically, a worldview shared by both Chinese and American elites and pundits. They offer, nevertheless, contrasting perspectives on the current crisis of the liberal global order as well as very different prognoses. This is to be followed, in the second part, by a critical examination of the articulation of two contending visions for the future global order in the United States and China respectively. They are, namely, the American vision of a world safe for democracy and the Chinese vision of a community with a shared future for mankind. Both visions are deeply pluralistic, but inherently problematic and fiercely contested, as discussions below will demonstrate. Neither is, therefore, likely to be supported by both China and the United States as viable foundations for future order construction, not to speak of garnering sufficient global support or even acceptance. The third and final part then presents an alternative vision of the future global order, an equally pluralistic one of liberal persuasion, which aims at constructing a world safe for diversity and prosperity. This is normatively desirable and politically imperative, it is argued. It calls for negotiating a series of grand bargains between China and the United States that strive for a global covenant for constructing such an order that is conducive to human flourishing. This is, however, not a call to re-centre international relations on these two great powers or to reinstate realpolitik in world politics. It is rather a critical move towards planetary politics, wherein humanity matters more than nationality and human flourishing trumps great power rivalry as an end.

A Shared Worldview, Contrasting Perspectives It is broadly acknowledged in the Anglo-American and the trans-Atlantic world—or the West, if you prefer—that the current liberal global order is in deep crisis. It is also widely accepted that the unravelling of the post-Cold War liberal order not only sees the end of unipolarity, but also reflects the crisis of liberal internationalism itself in the practice of world politics. ‘The old Western-led liberal order’, John Ikenberry (2020a: 3) laments, ‘looks more troubled today than at any time since the 1930s’. What has been hotly debated, though, is how to explain this crisis and what are sources of the crisis. One consensual explanation is power structural, focusing on the external challenge/threat to American hegemony, more specifically, the resurgence of hostile authoritarian powers such as China and Russia. For structural realists in particular, the rise of China and the resurgence of authoritarian Russia as a great power

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have made the international system increasingly multipolar, ‘which is a death knell for the liberal international order’ (Mearsheimer 2019: 42). More recent American official narratives seem to have echoed this sentiment and explanation, as they increasingly frame the great power strategic rivalry between the United States and China in terms of an emerging global contest between democracy and autocracy. In the words of President Biden, ‘We’re in a contest, not with China per se, … with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world, as to whether or not democracies can compete with them in a rapidly changing twenty-first century (Reuters 2021)’. It is also openly accepted, however, that the current crisis of the liberal global order is precipitated not just by hostile and illiberal revisionist powers outside the West and the global march of authoritarianism. The liberal order has also been under sustained assault from within. The White House (2021) is candid when it states ‘democracies across the globe, including our own, are increasingly under siege. Free societies have been challenged from within by corruption, inequality, polarization, populism, and illiberal threats to the rule of law’. ‘America First’ is symptomatic of attacks on liberal internationalism. During the Trump presidency, the ‘rules-based order’ was unravelling as the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, exited the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), and threatened to leave the WHO. As early as 2017, just a few months after Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, there was a stark warning that ‘The world’s most powerful state has begun to sabotage the order it created’, and that ‘Trump’s challenge to the liberal order is all the more dangerous because it comes with a casual disrespect for the norms and values of liberal democracy itself (Ikenberry 2017)’. ‘I am not worried by the rise of China’, Joseph Nye was quoted as saying, ‘I am more worried by the rise of Trump (Allison 2018)’. Under Trump, the liberal order was otherwise undermined by the surge of reactionary nationalism and populism, and authoritarian attacks on openness and the rule of law. The crisis of democratic governance at home is best exemplified by the January 2021 Capitol Attack in Washington D.C., ‘the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War (Biden 2021)’, which witnesses ‘the American republic’s near-death experience’ (Wolf 2021). Writing in 2021, Anne-Marie Slaughter and LaForge (2021) state that ‘Four years of erratic, personality-driven leadership in the United States under President Donald Trump, …, have left the liberal

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order in tatters’. For Fukuyama (2021), America’s political decay was clearly accelerated under Trump. By the same token, making the world safe for democracy in the global contest between democracy and autocracy must start with, in the words of President Biden (2021), ‘rebuilding the nation, revitalizing our democracy, and winning the future for America’. In other words, if indeed America is back ‘in competition with China and other countries to win the twenty-first century’, it must deal with the existential threat posed to liberal democracy from within by rebuilding the social purpose of liberal democracy at home. The resilience of liberal global order, as Trine Flockhart (2020) argues, depends on its ability to adapt in response to its triple crises, namely, crisis of leadership, crisis of democracy, and crisis of multilateralism. Paradoxically, this worldview concerning the deep crisis of the current liberal global order is shared broadly by Chinese political elites, academic scholars, and pundits. There is, intriguingly, a converging American and Chinese view of the root causes for this deep crisis: the changing structural balance of power with the ongoing power transition between China and the United States for one, great power rivalry and realpolitik back in vogue in world politics for another, and the political and economic malaise within the liberal democratic countries for still another. The Chinese are, however, less interested in explaining the crisis. They are more attentive to empirical evidence of such crisis: troubles with American democracy generally such as intensified social divisions and socioeconomic discontent, popularism and assault on the Capitol Hill, political polarization, catastrophic governance failure in controlling the global pandemic, and the United States’ diminished global standing and foreign policy debacles such as the less than honourable American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Chinese elites and pundits have therefore arrived at their conclusion from an entirely different perspective from their American counterparts. Their views of the liberal global order in crisis are often wrapped in a grand strategic assessment of the systemic change of world politics and in the claim that ‘the world today is experiencing profound changes unseen in a century’ (百年未有之大变局). This assessment points to not only the ongoing global power shift between the United States and China, but also equally importantly the changing distribution of global wealth to the point that the parity between the East and the West is within reach and is going to tip in favour of the East in a decade or two. It is such transfer of

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global wealth and diffusion of power that makes the hegemonic decline of the West irreversible. This hegemonic decline has, however, also brought about a long period of great global uncertainty and instability, starting in 2016 with the Trump presidency and the Brexit. As the world enters a period of turbulent change, the existing global order with no clear global leadership is backed into a cul-de-sac. There is no ready answer to how to get out of this cul-de-sac. In such contingent historical context, China’s rise constitutes ‘profound changes unseen in a century’ precisely because through the global redistribution of power and wealth, China has moved from the periphery increasingly to the centre stage of world politics for the first time in modern international history. The global pandemic, it is argued, has accelerated these profound changes with heightened level of uncertainty and instability in the global order. This is particularly true given Washington’s growing antagonism towards Beijing, as Washington seeks to weaponize ideology in the strategic rivalry between China and the United States (Zhang et al. 2019). Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Chinese elites and pundits are more concerned about whether this deep crisis of liberal global order is indicative of the long-term ‘trend’ of the terminal decline of American power, or just its temporary recession. They are more interested in understanding how China can take advantage of ‘this period of turbulent changes’ in its historical quest for national rejuvenation and what challenges and opportunities this ‘critical juncture of world history’ provides for China to exercise its agency and to find its rightful place in the future international system (Zhang et al. 2019). There is also a cautionary note that ‘The world’s profound changes unseen in a century are not changes in one moment, one event, one region, or one country, but changes in the world, the era, and in history’. An epic question they raise is ‘what is wrong with the world we live in? What can we do about it?’ (Ren 2021).

Two Contending Pluralist Visions If the current liberal order is indeed in crisis, what next, then? What alternative and contending visions of a future global order has been articulated in the United States and in China? In the United States, Jennifer Lind and William Wohlforth (2019) affirm that the liberal order is worth saving but asks the question of how. Ikenberry (2020a: 284) argues for ‘some sort of updated and reformed liberal international order’, which, he believes, has

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growing support from a wide range of interests and constituencies. Any reform or rescuing of the existing liberal global order has to be pursued, however, at a time when ‘the supremacy of democracy is more imperilled than at any time in generations’ (Brands 2021) and when democracies are, in President Biden’s view, locked in a must-win historic battle with autocracies. At his first press conference as the President, Biden (2021) did not mince his words, when he stated that ‘I predict to you your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded, autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake’. More than ever before, constructing a world safe for democracy is politically and strategically imperative for the United States. This American vision may sound familiar. But this 2021 vision of a world safe for democracy is widely different from the one envisaged and practised by liberal internationalism in the first two decades of the twentyfirst century. It is much more conservative and defensive in nature. For President Biden, winning the future for America in the epic struggle between democracy and autocracy in the twenty-first century entails ‘rebuilding the nation and revitalizing our democracy’. As a lead advocate of liberal internationalism, John Ikenberry (2020b: 135) offered a rare contrition when he acknowledged that ‘Under the auspices of the liberal international order, the United States has intervened too much, regulated too little, and delivered less than it promised’. This new vision of a world safe for democracy has to be therefore ‘a more cautious vision … more focused on the necessity of building collective capacities and institutions to protect modern societies from themselves, from each other, and from the violent storms of modernity (Ikenberry 2020a: 12)’. It is, moreover, ‘about creating an international “space” for liberal democracy (Ikenberry 2020a: 6)’. In the similar vein, Lind and Wohlforth (2019) call for abandoning a profoundly revisionist post-Cold War liberal order led by the United States. In their words, ‘The best response [to the crisis of liberal order] is to make the liberal order more conservative. Instead of expanding it to new places and new domains, the United States and its partners should consolidate the gains the order has reaped’. John Mearsheimer (2019: 44) advocates meanwhile ‘a live and let live approach towards most countries in the world’. In his words, ‘liberal democracies have no choice but to take small steps here and there to remake the world in their own image’ because of the failure of the liberal political project after the Cold War.

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This American vision of a world safe for democracy, conservative and defensive it may sound, is unlikely to have a global appeal, however. Its legitimacy is likely to be contested for at least four reasons. First, it is decidedly exclusive. As envisioned, the reformed liberal order remains American-led and, arguably, American-owned. Such an order, Mearsheimer (2019: 50) emphatically asserted, ‘must be fashioned to serve the United States’ interests’. President Biden’s Summit of Democracy in December 2021 exemplifies the pretension that an exclusive alliance of democracies can come together to define what is a viable global order. Paradoxically, such a divisive initiative may jeopardize democracy, as it threatens global cooperation and global problem solving in dealing with major challenges confronting humanity. Democracy cannot feel secure and thrive in the calamity of climate change, which threatens the survival of humanity. Second, if democracies are locked in a must-win historic battle with autocracies in the twenty-first century, as is framed in the socalled Biden Doctrine (Slaughter 2021), a world safe for democracy is likely to be built on the insecurity of those outside the charmed circle of self-identified liberal democracies, particularly those great powers that are deemed to be autocratic, revisionist, and hostile to the United States. Liberal democracies, in the words of John Ikenberry (2020a: 18), ‘may act in decidedly “illiberal” ways outside the boundaries of the liberal order, intervening in and dominating societies on their periphery. In all these ways, the entanglements between liberal and illiberal forms of order are inescapable, complex, and shifting’. Such a binary vision in fact legitimizes counter initiatives of autocratic powers, which aim at making the world safe for autocracy in ways that make the world unsafe for democracy. As Robert Manning and Mathew Burrows (2021) argue, ‘While advocates of a democratic order seek to avoid a new Cold War, it is difficult to see how their binary democracy or authoritarianism division of the world could avoid a bifurcated, conflict-prone future’. Third, given the record of the foreign policy behaviour of the United States in recent history, international community is deeply, and rightly, wary of ‘moralist tendencies and activist impulses of liberal internationalism’, as Ikenberry (2020a: 24) readily admits. It is true that the currently articulated vision of liberal internationalism is conservative and defensive in nature. It is also true that a recent Pew Research Centre survey in March 2021 shows that only 20% of Americans support ‘promoting democracy abroad as a long-range foreign policy goal’

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(Drake 2021). But what if this is just a temporary retreat of ‘a highly revisionist and wildly ambitious policy of regime change’ (Mearsheimer 2019: 49) from the liberal internationalist agenda that is bent on remaking the world in its own image? Fourth, it is highly questionable that the global order constructed on this vision is sufficiently common in accommodating ethical, cultural, and ideological diversity of the world that we are living in and moving towards. It is unclear how the values and interests of an inclusive society of states can be defended and advanced in such an order, given the age-old democratic-autocratic divide remains strong and looks durable in international society. This is especially true because the increasingly strong and prosperous China boasts a different political and value system and a distinctive form of capitalism, the combination of which has not been seen before in world history, and with which the West will have to learn to live in a society of states no longer solely dominated by the West both materially and ideationally. The contending Chinese vision, if any, of a future global order can be found in the articulation of the idea of a community of shared future for mankind (人类命运共同体). First emerged as a rhetorical slogan in Chinese diplomacy in 2011, it has been progressively filled with content and substance and given new interpretations, particularly since 2017 after President Xi Jinping’s speech at the United Nations in Geneva entitled, ‘Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind (Xi 2017)’. The phrase has subsequently found its way into the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after its 19th National Congress in October 2017, and into the Chinese Constitution in March 2018. Constructing a community of shared future for mankind has since been touted as one of the overarching goals of China’s foreign policy. As a vision for the future global order, it embodies, as Chinese official media claims, ‘the ideas of building an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity. It provides answers to the major question of how the international community should face a period of turbulence and change that is characterized by increased fragmentation in response to salient risks and challenges (Xinhua 2020)’. Beijing has actively promoted this vision in its public diplomacy. The phrase has been endorsed in numerous UN resolutions related to international peace and security. These include S/RES/2344 (2017) unanimously adopted at the Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan; A/RES/72/250 (2018) concerning further

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practical measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space; and more recently A/RES/75/37 (2020) concerning no first placement of weapons in outer space. Beijing celebrates such endorsement, which it claims demonstrates that this Chinese vision has been translated into ‘international consensus’. The most charitable interpretation sees this Chinese vision of a community of shared future for mankind as the latest conceptual expression of China’s time-honoured grand strategy of peaceful development as well as China’s search for soft power in a new phase of greater Chinese assertiveness in striving for achievement. It looks at China’s all-around pursuit of this grand strategic goal as a symbol of its commitment to fostering a new development paradigm and promoting win–win cooperation for mutual benefit on a global scale. It identifies global peace, cooperative and common security, international inclusive development, and international ecological civilization as four pillar goals the Chinese vision strives to achieve based on the principles of sovereign equality, inter-civilizational dialogue, and multilateralism. Even for such a charitable interpretation, a tough question nevertheless remains. Does this Chinese vision have ‘the ability to inspire, and the power to shape’ a viable global order, as President Xi (2017) so wishes, ‘in a politically divided world community, the economic and demographic gravity centre of which is inexorably pivoting towards Asia in the twenty-first century (de la Rasilla and Hao 2021: 347)?’. Embodying the ideal that the world unites as one humanity, a community of shared future for mankind has also been interpreted as seeking ‘harmony in diversity’, contributing Chinese wisdom to the construction of a future global order. However, a community of shared future for mankind, like Great Harmony (大同), is more of an ideal forever to strive for but never could realize. This flagship vision articulates, in other words, not ‘China’s solution to collectively address global challenges’, as the Xinhua (2020) claims, so much as Chinese aspiration for an ideal type of world order. It is not an affirmative vision for a viable order to guide institutional reform and innovation in constructing a new global order, which Beijing has strongly advocated. As Chinese scholars openly acknowledge, ‘A community of shared future for mankind is an ideal. Between an ideal and a reality, there is a huge gap. To realize this ideal calls for not only the effective practical action on the part of China, but also the mobilization of common efforts of international society, including most importantly Western developed nations (Zhang et al. 2019)’.

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This Chinese vision of future global order is equally unappealing globally, as it is often associated with a parochial vision of China’s national rejuvenation. Xi Jinping was quoted as saying in 2017 that ‘Managing our own affairs well is China’s biggest contribution to building a community of shared future for humanity (Weiss 2019)’. Like Xi’s idea of the Chinese dream, ‘it is more likely to repel international audiences than attract them (Weiss 2019)’. Such a vision has many detractors, doubters, sceptics, and critics in the United States and more broadly in the developed West. To start with, it is the question of the strategic motives behind Beijing’s articulation of such a visionary global order. Is it ‘an attempt to pre-empt and resist the transformative effects of liberalism and to make the world safer for its authoritarian model (Rolland 2020: 6), i.e., a defensive one to ‘create a world safe for Chinese autocracy’ (Weiss 2019)? Or is it an offensive one to make ‘a world unsafe for democracy’ (Foot 2021)? A harsh European critic even claims that ‘Xi Jinping’s vision of a new community [of shared future for mankind] is not enlightenment. It is a threat to all who value individual freedoms (Kinzebach 2018)’. For Nadège Rolland (2020: 38), this Chinese vision ‘looks more like a list of what Beijing advocates for its own needs, security, and position than an innovative contribution for the future of the world’. She has little doubt that ‘Behind its grandiose rhetoric of a “shared future for mankind” lies an eagerness to assert the CCP’s unchallenged power. This essentially means weakening and displacing the American hegemon and ultimately replacing its related values of liberalism and democracy with the CCP’s own version of hegemony (Rolland 2020: 6)’. Rush Doshi reads Beijing’s articulation of a community of shared future for mankind as an integral part of China’s emerging global strategy to displace the American order. Though the concept of a community of shared future remains ‘amorphous’, Doshi (2021: 279) notes, it appeared twenty-two times in China’s 2019 White Paper China and the World in the New Era ‘as an example of “Chinese wisdom and strength for solving world problems”’. Poring over related Chinese discourse, Doshi (2021: 279–80) concludes that Ultimately, the concept appears to be a stand-in for global Chinese hierarchical order that secures deference to Beijing’s prerogatives through a mix of coercion, consensual tools like public goods, and rightful legitimacy. It resembles what some might call a kind of “partial hegemony,” one that is not necessarily geographically bound but rests on a complex web of

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different instruments of statecraft all radiating outward from China around the world.

It is abundantly clear from the discussions above that the American vision of a world safe for democracy has little appeal to the Chinese, whereas the Chinese vision of a community of shared future for mankind has been rejected by the Americans as a Chinese ploy either to make the world safe for Chinese autocracy (defensively) or to make the world unsafe for democracy (offensively). These respective visions have already elicited significant pushbacks one way or the other. Interestingly, though, both American and Chinese visions are underlined by a common understanding, that is, the future global order will be deeply pluralist in nature. President Biden’s declaration that America is back ‘in a competition with China and other countries to win the twenty-first century’ (Biden 2021) is an open acknowledgement that the pluralist order now prevails. No matter whether the twenty-first century will be marked by the continued dominance of the democratic West or will it become the age of autocrats, the global order will be invariably pluralistic.

Towards a World Safe for Diversity and Prosperity?1 Is it possible then to articulate a pluralist vision of global order that can be shared by China and the United States, which also has broad global appeal? This is a difficult question that defies simple answers, given the sharp deterioration of Sino–US relations in recent years and the uncertainty of global order transition in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It is nevertheless normatively desirable and politically imperative to do so. Constructing a future global order must take into consideration a myriad of complex global realities, old and new. Here are five most important ones, in my view. First, the primary and perpetual challenge that confronts any quest for a future global order continues to be ‘how divergent historic experiences and values can be shaped into a common order (Kissinger 2014: 10)’, and how divergent cultures can be translated into a common system. Second, we are living in a world of ‘the diffusion 1 Discussions in this section draw in part from my forthcoming article ‘China and the Next Liberal World Order’ in Millennium.

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of cultural authority and legitimacy to more civilizations (Buzan 2018: 454)’ and of divergent purposes of power at a time when the quest for future global order is to be pursued in a pluralistic civilizational context and in a world of profound diversity. Third, China’s rise as the second among great power equals with a different political system and a set of diverse values has clearly sharpened this challenge when global international society is no longer solely dominated by the West both materially and ideationally. Fourth, it is the imperative of great power consensus and its enduring importance to give ‘general direction’ to the evolution of global order (Bull 1977). With overlapping but limited and delicate consensus among great powers about the general normative direction of emerging global order in the historical period of power transition, different conceptions of the morality of the state among great power need to be carefully negotiated. Last but certainly not least is the demand of global appeal. This putative order must be inclusive, and the claim of its ownership must be global. That is to say that not only the West and the global north, but also by the rest, the post-colonial states and the Global South as well as non-state and civil society actors around the world can all claim ownership, particularly in terms of global rules making. This calls for a global order whose governance is far more participatory, inclusive, equal, deliberative, and effective than the existing one. What may this shared pluralist vision of future global order look like, then? At the height of the Cold War in 1963 and reflecting on the Cuban missile crisis and the profound differences between the United States and the former Soviet Union, President John F. Kennedy offered a vision of a common order, which captures well the liberal pluralist logic. In his words, If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. (Kennedy 1963)

Sixty years on, Kennedy’s vision for a common order remains both inspirational and practical. An updated Kennedyesque vision in the twenty-first century would be ‘to help make the world safe for diversity and prosperity’. This, I suggest, can be a shared vision for constructing the future global order in an inherently pluralist world, as it is an inspiring vision

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that potentially has global appeal, which can serve as a foundation for negotiations for a functioning and viable political order with common institutions, bargains, and shared understanding of social purpose that is conducive to global peace and prosperity. This liberal pluralist vision can be defended on several grounds. First, it is morally defensible, because its inclusive vision fosters the preservation and cultivation of political and cultural differences and distinctness that are the legacies of human history, and because it is conducive for advancing global justice in an imperfect world, particularly the agenda of domestic and international distributive justice worldwide, thus promoting human well-being and human flourishing. Second, it is normatively compelling and strategically justifiable given the imperatives of dealing with a wide range of global challenges and shared threats, the hydraheaded problems of the twenty-first century such as the impending global calamity caused by climate change. ‘Beijing, quite literally, holds the future of the humanity in its hands’, comments Adam Tooze (2021). Third, it is politically viable, for it captures well an area where the vital American strategic interest, i.e., ‘keep Americans safe, prosperous, and free (White House 2021)’ and the vital Chinese strategic interest (the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation) converge. It also helps to achieve the ‘co-evolution’ of Chinese and American power despite their profound differences, which ‘means that both countries pursue their domestic imperatives, cooperating where possible, and adjust their relations to minimize conflict (Kissinger 2011: 526)’. Fourth, philosophically, it is compatible with an array of liberal traditions ranging from liberal pluralism to liberalism of fear (Gray 2000), and to liberalism of danger and insecurity, ‘a bleaker face of liberalism’ (Ikenberry 2020a: 11–12). It is also compatible with the Chinese tradition of Great Harmony (大 同). Fifthly, it is institutionally practical because it calls for reimagining, repurposing, and reinvigorating existing international institutions, not their replacement or rejection. China has clearly embraced the view that the United Nations ‘best represents global international society in formal organizational terms (Jackson 2003: 341)’ and has been a strong defender of the UN Charter-based order. For the United States, ‘The persistence of Westphalian institutions’, in the words of John Ikenberry (2020a: 283), ‘provides a lasting foundation on which distinctively liberal and democratic institutions can be erected and defended’. A pluralist international society, as Robert Jackson (2003: 181) asserts,

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remains the most articulate institutional arrangement that humans have yet come up with in response to their common recognition that they must find a settled and predictable way to live side by side on a finite planetary space without falling into mutual hostility, conflict, war, oppression, subjugation, slavery, etc.

Finally, it is ethically sensible, for it insists with foresight that ‘the greatpower games, as deadly as they have been and could still be, must give way to planetary politics, in which human beings matter more than nationalities. Competition itself is fine and natural, but it needs to be competition to achieve a goal that benefits us all (Slaughter 2021)’. If this shared vision is normatively desirable, is it politically possible to get the United States and China to accept this as a shared vision for constructing a future global order? This is a good question, given we are bombarded daily with malicious narratives of mutual demonization and relentlessly negative rhetoric concerning US–China relations. This is nevertheless also an empirical question. I would be the first to concede that it will not be politically easy. But as Bismarck famously said, ‘Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best’. The next best in the global contest between democracy and autocracy, Stephen Krasner (2020) argues, is for Washington to adopt a foreign policy that keeps the country safe by working with the rulers the world has, not the ones the United States wishes it had. That means adopting policies abroad that can improve other states’ security, boost their economic growth, and strengthen their ability to deliver some services while nevertheless accommodating a despotic ruler. For the purposes of U.S. security, it matters more that leaders in the rest of the world govern well than it does that they govern democratically. And in any case, helping ensure that others govern well—or at least well enough—may be the best that U.S. foreign policy can hope to achieve in most countries.

Krasner (2020) further warns that ‘But the alternatives—hubristically trying to remake the world in the image of the United States or pretending that Washington can simply ignore leaders it dislikes—would be even worse’. For Anne-Marie Slaughter (2021), the next best is to make the contest between democracy and autocracy beyond the US borders ‘an open competition to see which governments can deliver more—materially, intellectually, spiritually and all the other ways we measure human flourishing—for their people’. ‘One measure’, in her

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words, ‘might be which country does the most to achieve the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, as assessed by a global coalition of civic organizations’. Learning to live with despots is, in this reading, a necessary condition for negotiating a series of grand bargains between the United States and China as the first step towards preparing a global covenant aimed at the construction of a truly global and inclusive pluralist order that helps make the world safe not only for diversity but also for prosperity. This is a political project that requires creative political imagination and extraordinary moral courage of political leaders in both China and the United States to define a new moral and social purpose of the society of states beyond just managing the clash of interests and ideologies to preserve international peace and security and to transcend great power rivalry as an end. As Kissinger (2011: 371) recently reminds us, ‘A reconstruction of the international system is the ultimate challenge to statesmanship in our time’. No one can guarantee the success of this political project. But both China and the United States bear special managerial responsibilities for global order, because of their unique position in the power hierarchy of global international society. They must make this political project work. Should it be allowed to fail, the world in the twenty-first century could not be safe for democracy, and the shared future for mankind is likely to be tragic and disastrous. As Anne-Marie Slaughter (2021) puts it starkly, What difference does it make whether the United States “beats China” if our cities are underwater, the Gulf Stream stops warming northern Europe and the United States, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees are on the move? If we destroy the biodiversity on the planet? If millions more people die from serial pandemics? If people the world over do not have the means to flourish and care for one another?

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Brands, Hal. 2021. The Emerging Biden Doctrine: Democracy, Autocracy, and the Defining Clash of Our Time. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs. com/articles/united-states/2021-06-29/emerging-biden-doctrine. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Bull, Hedley. 1977. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. London: Macmillan. Buzan, Barry. 2018. China’s Rise in the English School Perspective. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 18: 449–476. Doshi, Rush. 2021. The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drake, Bruce. 2021. Americans Put Low Priority on Promoting Democracy Abroad. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/02/americ ans-put-low-priority-on-promoting-democracy-abroad-2/. Flockhart, Trine. 2020. Is This the End? Resilience, Ontological Security, and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order. Contemporary Security Policy 41: 215–240. Foot, Rosemary. 2021. A World Unsafe for Democracy? China and the Shaping of Global Order. Journal of the British Academy 9: 213–222. https://www. thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publishing/journal-british-academy/9/a-world-uns afe-for-democracy-china-and-the-shaping-of-global-order/. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Fukuyama, Francis. 2021. Rotten to the Core? How America’s Political Decay Accelerated During the Trump Era. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaf fairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-01-18/rotten-core. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Gray, John. 2000. Two Liberalisms of Fear. The Hedgehog Review Spring: 9–23. https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/democracy/articles/twoliberalisms-of-fear. Ikenberry, G. John. 2017. The Plot Against American Foreign Policy. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-04-17/ plot-against-american-foreign-policy. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Ikenberry, G. John. 2020a. A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ikenberry, G. John. 2020b. The Next Liberal Order. Foreign Affairs 99: 133– 142. Jackson, Robert. 2003. The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kennedy, John. F. 1963. Commencement Address at American University, Washington D.C. JFK Library. https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/otherresources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-university-19630610. Accessed 27 Oct 2022.

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Kinzebach, Katrin. 2018. Will China Dare Challenge the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? https://www.gppi.net/2018/12/10/will-china-dare-cha llenge-the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Kissinger, Henry. 2011. On China. London: Penguin Books. Kissinger, Henry. 2014. World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History. London: Allen Lane. Krasner, Stephen. 2020. Learning to Live With Despots: The Limits of Democracy Promotion. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ 2020-02-10/learning-live-despots. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Lind, Jennifer, and Wohlforth, William. 2019. The Future of the Liberal Order Is Conservative: A Strategy to Save the System. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-02-12/future-liberalorder-conservative. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Manning, Robert, and Burrows, Mathew. 2021. The Problem with Biden’s Democracy Agenda. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2021/ 07/the-problem-with-bidens-democracy-agenda/. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Mearsheimer, John. 2019. Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order. International Security 43: 7–50. https://doi.org/10.1162/ isec_a_00342. Rasilla, Ignacio, and Hao, Yayezi. 2021. The Community of Shared Future for Mankind and China’s Legalist Turn in International Relations. Chinese Journal of International Law 20: 341–379. https://doi.org/10.1093/chines ejil/jmab021. Ren, Zhongping. 2021. Long Journey from Scratch: On the Spirit of a Willing Ox, Pioneering Ox, and Old Ox in the New Journey. People’s Daily. http:// politics.people.com.cn/n1/2021/0122/c1001-32008455.html. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021. Biden: Democratic Nations in a Race to Compete With Autocratic Governments. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-dem ocratic-nations-race-compete-with-%20autocratic-governments-2021%E2% 80%9306%E2%80%9313/. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Rolland, Nadège. 2020. China’s Vision for a New World Order. NBR Special Report No. 83. Seattle, Was.: National Bureau of Asian Research. Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2021. It’s Time to Get Honest About the Biden Doctrine. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opi nion/biden-foreign-policy.html. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Slaughter, Anne-Marie, and LaFarge, Gordon. 2021. Opening Up the Order: A More Inclusive International System. Foreign Affairs. https://www.for eignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-02-16/opening-order. Accessed 27 Oct 2022.

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Tooze, Adam. 2021. Why There Is No Solution to Our Age of Crisis without China? New Statesman. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/ why-there-no-solution-our-age-crisis-without-china. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Weiss, Jessica C. 2019. A World Safe for Autocracy? China’s Rise and the Future of Global Politics. Foreign Affairs 98: 131–145. White House. 2021. Interim National Security Strategic Guidance. White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/ 03/interim-national-security-strategic-guidance/. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Wolf, Martin. 2021. The American Republic’s Near-death Experience. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/c085e962-f27c-4c34-a0f1-5cf2bd 813fbc. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Xi, Jinping. 2017. Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Xinhua. http://www.xinhuanet. com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Con gress.pdf. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Xinhua. 2020. Commentary: Why President Xi Strongly Advocates Building Community With Shared Future. Xinhua. http://www.xinhuanet.com/eng lish/2020-09/22/c_139388123.htm. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Zhang, Yunling et al. 2019. Understanding the Profound Changes Unforeseen in a Century. Charhar Commentary. http://www.charhar.org.cn/newsinfo.aspx? newsid=14706. Accessed 27 Oct 2022.

CHAPTER 5

World Power Structure Over the Short and Long Run Yinhong Shi

Primarily promoted by the Biden administration and in the context of the great effects imposed by the global coronavirus pandemic, a confrontational and rivalling structure between two coalitions, headed, respectively, by China and the United States has begun to surface based on the competitive relationship between China and the United States; these relationships can be defined both structurally and situationally. In other words, a bipolarisation of world power politics has started to emerge and is likely to become aggravated and increasingly intensified in the short-term and mid-term. Indeed, it is likely that the future relationships between China and the United States will become tenser, as more severe and military conflicts between them are made possible; in contrast, the long-term trend in

Y. Shi (B) Renmin University of China, Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_5

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the global power structure is likely to go in the opposite direction. On the one hand, the world may split into two “closed camps” headed, respectively, by China and the United States; on the other hand, a vast “intermediate zone” may arise, in which common ideologies may develop among the members of that zone, in conjunction with international political practices. This intermediate zone may represent the mainstream in contemporary world politics, rather than the superpowers doing to.

The United States, Japan and the Quad As the confrontation and rivalry between China and the United States have rapidly intensified, Japan has become a main ally in the American strategic group within the global political structure. In close connection to the severe military and political tensions over Taiwan, Tokyo has remarkably strengthened its strategic association with Washington, critically impacting and even damaging the outcome for Taiwan, which had for many years constituted a political base, as Beijing strongly asserted its position and Tokyo implicitly agreed on the types of relations between China and Japan. Moreover, in Japan’s national policy, the scenario of a massive military intervention in alliance with the United States and of war breaking out in the Taiwan Strait has become fundamental. The joint statement issued by the Japan–US “2 + 2” conference on March 16, 2021, particularly advanced the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Explicitly based on sources provided by the Japanese government, Kyodo News (2021g) reported that Nobou Kishi, the Japanese Minister of Defence, and Lloyd Austin, his US counterpart, agreed during the conference that if military conflict broke out across the Taiwan Strait, the armed forces of the two countries would closely cooperate and that Japan would probably send its self-defence forces to protect US warships and aircrafts engaged in any military intervention. On April 4, the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga delivered a speech on national television in which he said that the peace and stability of Taiwan was key to the region: “It is important for Japan and the United States to cooperate and use deterrence to create an environment where Taiwan and China can find a peaceful solution (Yamaguchi 2021)”. On April 15, Suga arrived in Washington, DC for a Japan–US summit with Joe Biden, at the end of which a joint statement was issued where the parties declared that they “underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the

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peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues” (Biden and Suga 2021). This was the first reference to the issue of Taiwan in any joint statement by the US President and the Japanese Prime Minister since the summit between Richard Nixon and Eisaku Sato in 1969. Based explicitly on Japanese government sources, Kyodo News (2021d) reported on April 24, 2021, that the Japanese cabinet was studying possible responses by Japan’s Self-Defence Forces in the event of a military conflict opposing the United States and China—responses that were within the limits of existing national security laws. The study focused on three kinds of situations: a security crisis with the potential to affect Japan’s security if left unchecked, an attack on a close partner that would threaten Japan’s own survival or a direct attack against Japan (Feng 2021b). Most likely, the speech delivered by Yasuhide Nakayama, Japan’s Deputy Defence Minister, at the Hudson Institute reflected the real intention or position of Suga’s cabinet: it was necessary to “wake up” in the face of China’s pressure on the question of Taiwan and protect the island “as a democratic country (Reuters 2021c)”. Moreover, Aso Taro, Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, one day said in a public speech that Japan needed to defend Taiwan with the United States if the island was invaded because “If a major problem took place in Taiwan, it would not be too much to say that it could relate to a survival-threatening situation (for Japan)” and “We need to think hard that Okinawa could be the next” (Metro US 2021). The Biden Administration has made the Indo-Pacific the most critical issue for its strategy towards China and even for its whole foreign policy, confirming and declaring that the Quad, a coalition composed of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, plays the essential and cornerstone role in the US Indo-Pacific policy (Reuters 2021a). The nations making up the Quad, together with Great Britain and Canada, two major advanced industrial maritime nations beside the United States, Japan, and Australia, have constituted the primary hard core of the US strategic camp. The foreign ministers of the four Quad members held an online meeting on February 18, 2021. After the meeting, the Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters that the four foreign minister unanimously and strongly opposed any attempt by China to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific by force (Price 2021). On March 12, a Quad summit proposed by the Biden Administration was held online (Kyodo News 2021i). The joint statement that was issued claimed that the

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Quad would facilitate cooperation “to meet challenges to the rules-based maritime order in the East and South China Seas”. The statement also targeted China in its COVID-19 “vaccine diplomacy”, promising to help India greatly increase its production capacity to deliver massive amounts of vaccine doses to Southeast Asia and to developing countries in other areas of the world (Biden et al. 2021). The significant concept of “economic coercion” was first used by Quad member Australia to condemn China and adjust global supply chains in an effort to target China. On March 16, 2021, Kurt Campbell, US National Security Council’s Indo-Pacific Coordinator, was interviewed for an Australian newspaper and declared that the United States would not improve its relations with China if China did not stop engaging in economic coercion against the United States, a close ally of Australia (Reuters 2021f). Since then, the “economic coercion” discourse has become one of the main attacks against China (S. A. Smith 2021). The most important function of the Quad is its strategic military role against China; the number of its military cooperative activities has increased, and these activities have deepened. On April 28, 2021, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared that the Australian government would spend USD 580 million to complete before 2026 the rebuilding and upgrading of four military bases in the northern part of the country and to expand joint drills with US marines (Packham and Jose 2021). More importantly, President Biden declared on September 15 that the United States was developing a new security partnership with Australia and Great Britain (AUKUS) that would permit the latter two to share the US’s advanced military technologies, including technologies having to do with AI, cybersecurity, submarine capability, and long-range strike weaponry. Most importantly, the United States and the United Kingdom will help Australia construct nuclear-powered attack submarines (Collins 2021). Immediately after the declaration, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton announced on September 16 that more US Marine troops would rotate through the nation’s Darwin port base and that the two allies would cooperate on the development of missiles and explosive ordnance amid shared concerns about China’s increasing assertiveness in the region (Associated Press News 2021). India has become increasingly valuable to the United States, primarily for its strategic military function. In March 2021, US Secretary of Defence Austin visited India and reached a consensus with his Indian

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counterpart, Raj Nath Singh, to deepen the US–India “strategic partnership” and cooperation in defence, intelligence, and logistics for the purpose of being, in Austin’s words, “able to offer credible deterrence to China or anybody else who would want to take on the US” (Garamone 2021). On February 3, a B-1B strategic bomber accompanied by an Indian fighter arrived at Bangalore International Airport, the first of several American bombers arriving on the Indian subcontinent since 1945 (Tirpak 2021). Marking India’s military role in the Indo-Pacific, the Ministry of Defence declared in New Delhi on August 2, 2021, that India would deploy four warships within a week in the South China Sea for a duration of two months and these ships would engage in joint drills with the US, Japanese, and Australian navies, in addition to ships from Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. This operation was called by a naval expert as “India’s most visible ‘show of flag’ naval presence east of the Malacca Strait (Lendon 2021b)”. Between October 12 and 14, four Quad navies participated in these joint drills, which were called Malabar and included the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and several other warships from Japan, Australia, and India (Kyodo News 2021h).

The Quad’s Flexible Expansion The Quad has been efficient at rapidly expanding. It has striven to directly or indirectly include Great Britain and EU major powers, to connect closely with NATO, and even to obtain the partial participation of the Republic of Korea. The Quad has demonstrated that it is expanding its reach across flexible functional areas, incorporating various nonstrategic military and para-strategic military aspects. The Obama Administration conceptualised the Quad as a tool of “smart power”. The Biden Administration has sought to increase the number of major powers in the Quad and to expand the Quad’s relationships with at least some of the other major Western powers. In fact, The Times reported as early as January 29, 2021, that the British government under Boris Johnson had responded quite positively, making this endeavour a major part of the British post-Brexit strategic foreign policy (Philp 2021). On March 16, the Cabinet presented to the Parliament a planning document for the UK’s foreign policy orientation after Brexit, defining two foreign policy priorities: working with the United States and deploying British strategic military forces to the Indo-Pacific, a region becoming “increasingly the geopolitical centre of the world” (Reuters 2021e).

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Through coordination with the Quad, Britain, France, and Germany declared they would demonstrate their military power in the South China Sea and even beyond. France has been the most active. A French nuclearpowered attack submarine already went across the South China Sea in February 2021, while a French amphibious assault ship and a frigate crossed these waters twice, as claimed by Beijing (N. Smith 2021; France 24 2021). As part of the annual mission of the Jeanne d’Arc, French warships will participate in the vast joint drill operation conducted by the navies of all the Quad members. The Royal Navy’s action has been characterised by its massive scale and elaborate pomp. On May 22, the UK’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, which was electronic powered with a tonnage of 65,000 tonnes, led a large strike group, setting sail from Portsmouth to the IndoPacific, a strategic journey that included sailing across the South China Sea and visiting Singapore, the ROK, Japan, and India while conducting several joint exercises with fleets from allies and partners; the operation was described by British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace as “the most significant Royal Navy deployment in a generation” (Vavasseur 2021; Pickrell 2021). On July 27, as soon as the Queen Elizabeth entered the South China Sea via the Singapore strait, she conducted a joint drill with United States, Dutch, and Singaporean warships (Feng 2021a). There have been numerous other exercises—too many to list them—in which this strike group engaged, along with other national naval forces, in transoceanic journeys, but two of the most significant operations must be mentioned. On October 2–3, 2021, the Queen Elizabeth rallied with two US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the Ronald Reagan and the Carl Vinson, and a Japanese helicopter carrier capable of launching F-35B, as well as warships from the Netherlands, Canada, and New Zealand; together, these warships participated in a large drill operation south-west of Okinawa, in an area adjacent to both Taiwan and the East China Sea (Reuters 2021b; Kyodo News 2021a, e). In November, USS Ronald Reagan and Carl Vinson, HMS Queen Elizabeth, and JMSDF Kaga and Ise, which were capable of launching F-35B, participated in several joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific, including in the western Pacific, surely with Taiwan in sight (Vision Newspapers Online 2021). Other major players in Europe and elsewhere have been engaged in the same sort of activities. The German government announced in early March that a German frigate would sail to Asia in August, sailing through the South China Sea without penetrating within the 12 nautical

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mile waters around isles controlled by China (Wang 2021). On August 2, this German frigate, the Bayern, sailed from Wilhelmshaven off the North Sea, accompanied by a statement from German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer that the first such deployment in almost 20 years was meant to uphold the freedom of navigation in international waters, protect “open societies” and express support for regional partners sharing Germany’s values (Sprenger 2021). The EU as a collectivity has also launched diplomatic interference over the South China Sea. The EU issued a statement on April 24 to condemn China’s behaviour, including the protracted presence of a Chinese fishing fleet composed of approximately 200 vessels at Whitson Reef, which had hindered peace and stability in the South China Sea; in its statement, the EU also urged all disputing parties to abide by the ruling of the Hague Tribunal in the Philippines’ lawsuit, which has denied China all its claims pertaining to its maritime rights and sovereignty in the South China Sea (Yew 2021). To the great pleasure of the US Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, allied navies expressed great interest for the US Navy to spend more time and resources to engage in joint training with them, in particular, to hunt for Russian and Chinese submarines. In fact, in the course of 2021, Canadian, Australian, Japanese, and Indian navies participated in this hunt, and Australia, India, the ROK, and New Zealand bought Boeing P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine patrol aircrafts (Woody 2021). The EU and the major powers within it have adopted and will continue to adopt the same positions as those of the United States and its maritime allies over issues of major concern—an attitude that is expected to endure in the future. In other words, these powers will agree more than they will disagree. This situation is a result of independent decisions as well as American influences. The areas of concern, or “hotspots”, in this structural confrontation or rivalry are Taiwan, the South China Sea, the US–Japan military alliance and the East China Sea, the Quad—as well as its connection with NATO—the arms race, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, trade disputes and industrial policy, high-tech decoupling and containment, the realignment of supply chains, ideological competition, claimed cyberattacks and disinformation, international independent investigations on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Belt and Road Initiative (Emmott and Siebold 2021). The position and attitude of the EU and its major powers on these issues have been to either criticise, confront, or compete with China, and these reactions have been somewhat milder than those of the United States and its maritime allies. The EU has been quite

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pleased to see Biden come to power in Washington because he values and respects the EU; therefore, the EU has become more susceptible to US influence. However, the EU and its major powers have adopted positions similar to those of China and engaged in cooperation with China on a few issue, i.e., trade, investment in China, the principle to multilateralism and global governance, and the Iranian nuclear problem. These issues are certainly important to both China and Europe. However, they will not have, or at least are unlikely to have, a decisive and lasting role in the relations between China and Europe. The Biden Administration has pushed NATO to connect with the Quad or its members in addition to the United States, benefitting from its close NATO associate, the Secretary-General Stoltenberg, who has persistently promoted NATO’s military involvement in the Indo-Pacific (Cook 2020). At the NATO foreign ministers online meeting on June 1, 2021, Blinken emphasised NATO’s requirement to strengthen ties with Japan, Australia, the ROK, and New Zealand and supported Stoltenberg’s efforts to make NATO more resilient and more capable of coping with comprehensive challenges emanating from China and Russia (Kyodo News 2021f). On June 14 in Brussels, a NATO members summit was held in which President Biden himself participated. In the summit’s communiqué, it was mentioned that “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security”. The document included a further declaration about NATO planning to strengthen “political dialogue and practical cooperation” with Japan and Australia, as well as with New Zealand and the ROK, to promote cooperative security and support the rules-based international order. Jack Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Advisor, said that the United States had made other NATO members at the summit agree to revise NATO’s “Strategic Concept” at the following year’s summit to cope with the challenges posed by China (Tanaka 2021). Washington has also looked to Seoul to integrate various alliances that work together against China. On April 30, 2021, Chosun Ilbo, the largest newspaper in the ROK, reported that President Moon Jae-in had decided to formally inform President Biden during his forthcoming visit to Washington about the ROK’s “partial participation” in the Quad (A. J. Kim 2021). During his visit, Moon declared that the ROK and United States

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had agreed to work together to develop stable supply chains for semiconductors, electric vehicle (EV) batteries, and pharmaceuticals (Yonhap News Agency 2021). Surprisingly, and possibly ominously, President Moon and President Bisen said in a joint statement that South Korea would work with the United States on “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait” (J. Smith 2021). Equally worth noting, according to reports published after October 2019, Moon’s government has been engaged for many years in the largest strategic buildup South Korea has ever known with the goal of constructing one aircraft carrier capable of launching F-35Bs and two nuclear-power attack submarines. The purpose of these projects is claimed to be an increase in the capability of long-range power projection in view of the ROK’s participation in the protection of the Middle East Sea lanes, which are vital for oil supply (Navy Recognition 2019; Lendon and Seo 2020). In the future, the ROK’s protection of sea lanes may include those of the South China Sea.

China’s Coalition Building Since the Trump Administration, the United States has constantly strengthened and upgraded its policy on precautions, threats, containment, isolation, and rollback against China. In international politics, interaction has often intensified a dynamics of confrontation, rivalry and conflict, but it is indeed the actions of the United States that have forced China to forge alliances or partnerships. Therefore, a system of confrontations and rivalries has emerged between the two coalitions, at least since late March 2021. Russia’s strength—especially it military strength—and uncompromising hard-line posture towards the West, have been overwhelmingly important to China’s foreign strategy, and the basis for this affinity has far surpassed the values of other allies and partners combined. The foreign ministers of China and Russia met on March 22 and 23, 2021, in China’s southwest city of Guiling. During the meeting, the Russian minister called for the reduction of the reliance on both the US dollar and Western financial institutions, as well as for a joint counterattack against the Western ideological condemnation and for cooperation against American hegemony; in addition, the Chinese foreign ministry announced that, through the joint statement that resulted from the meeting, both sides “expounded the proper contents of the concepts of human rights,

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democracy, international order and multilateralism and demonstrated the firm will of both China and Russia to defend international fairness and justice” (Qiu and Osborn 2021; Beijing Daily 2021). After three summits in Europe, which Biden himself attended, Russia conducted the largest naval drill in the Pacific since the end of the Cold War, only a few hundred miles from Hawaii, while the Chinese foreign minister declared that there would be no ceiling imposed on the strategic partnership between Russia and China (Martin 2021; CRI Online 2021). In early and mid-August, the China–Russia joint military exercise started escalating to a new level: a joint command was established for joint drills; military equipment used for the drills was shared, and the drills were conducted for the first time within mainland China (Lendon 2021a). From October 14 to 17, the Chinese and Russian navies conducted a joint exercise in the Sea of Japan, during which their warships (10 on the occasion) sailed for the first time through the Tsugaru Strait, an international waterway between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific (also between Honshu and Hokkaido) (Kyodo News 2021c). For the first time, approximately on October 23, the same Chinese and Russian warships sailed through Osumi Kaikyo, an international waterway south of Kagoshima, to enter the East China Sea (Kyodo News 2021b). Then, on November 19, four Chinese and Russian (two of each) nuclear-capable strategic bombers performed “joint patrolling” in the Sea of Japan for over 10 hours, resulting in emergency alert flights by Japanese and ROK fighters (Metzel 2021; Gehrke 2021). On November 23, the Chinese and Russian defence ministers signed online a bilateral “roadmap of military cooperation” for a period lasting until 2025 (Gehrke 2021). China’s military aircraft entered the airspace adjacent to Taiwan at the highest rate in early October, and at the same time, China prioritised its politics of military deterrence and pressure towards Taiwan. In this context, President Putin was interviewed by the American media CNBC on October 13 and said that China does not need to use force (to realise reunification across the Taiwan Strait). “China is a huge powerful economy, and in terms of purchasing parity, China is now the number one economy in the world, ahead of the United States”. Therefore, “China, with its growing economic potential, is capable of implementing its national objectives”. Does this mean that, if military tension became more intense, Putin would not agree with the use of force as the last resort to solve the problem of Taiwan, as the Chinese government has repeatedly declared for decades? At the same time, Putin’s comments about

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disputes over the South China Sea are not in full agreement with China’s fundamental position (E. Smith 2021). What is the impact of the Ukraine crisis on Sino-Russian relations? The crisis has taken place in the context of worsening Sino-American relations. Despite a few concrete instances of cooperation—all quite limited, indecisive and likely temporary—the 16 November 2021 online summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden demonstrated how difficult it is for both China and the United States to achieve a lasting shared understanding on any major issue and how easily any situation can deteriorate further from an already high level of tension. The issue of Taiwan continues to be the most prominent and significantly pressing. The Biden administration has stuck to its position about the United States safely broadening and deepening its comprehensive support of Taiwan, which includes the provision of military support; the United States has also sought to broaden and deepen its rivalry with China within and beyond the Indo-Pacific region without triggering a military conflict. Moreover, Washington has displayed a strict hard line approach, harder than almost ever before, on issues such as Xinjiang, the realignment of supply chains— mainly in the disfavour of China—high tech “containment”, and the Indo-Pacific regional rivalry (Choi 2022; Shi 2022). Because of their respective escalating rivalries with the United States and, to a somewhat lesser degree, with the rest of the world, China and Russia have now formed, by way of the simple balance of international politics, what resembles a para-alliance. However, this balance is still complicated: to date, there is no indication that Russians will commit to providing any degree of military support to China in a potential conflict over Taiwan, and the Chinese have been unwilling to commit to assisting Russia militarily over Ukraine. The Chinese government and its leaders have repeatedly declared that Russia’s legitimate security concerns should be addressed; furthermore, Putin’s demand that the European security framework be reorganised to guarantee the security of every European country (which means that the eastern European members of NATO should withdraw from that alliance and sever their military alliances with the United States and other western powers) has been supported by China (Roth and Ni 2022). All these demands may seem quite pro-Russian. However, this declaration of support was immediately mitigated by another statement by the Chinese government recommending that all parties remain calm and not do anything to increase the tension and aggravate the crisis (Kyodo News

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2022). In the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strong resolve to challenge Europe’s security order, it is doubtful that Beijing would be willing or even able to mitigate his intentions towards Ukraine. China has also enhanced its relations with Iran. The signing in Tehran of a China-Iran agreement at the end of March secured China’s investment of 400 billion USD in Iran over the next 25 years, including investment to be used for military cooperation (CGTN 2021). For the sake of brevity, this chapter does not address this agreement or China’s rejection of any public criticism against the behaviour of the Myanmar’s Junta in overthrowing the civilian parliamentary government there and its bloody repression against the mass protest movement. Changes in the relations between China and North Korea are the most remarkable issue in the context here. On March 22, 2021, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong En exchanged oral messages, represented by the head of the international department of the CCP Central Committee and a newly appointed DPRK ambassador to China, respectively. Xi, according to the Xinhua News Agency, stated that “China is willing to work with DPRK and other related parties, insist on a direction for a political solution for the peninsular problem, maintain peace and stability in the peninsula, and make new positive contributions to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity”. This statement omitted the most important and extraordinary component, i.e., the denuclearisation of the peninsula, which has been a major and consistent argument expressed in every statement about the peninsula by the Chinese government since 2003. However, this topic was remarkably absent from the statement (T-H. Kim 2021; Xinhua 2021). The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on July 11 that for the 60th anniversary of China–DPRK alliance treaty, Kim sent a telegraph to Xi to say that the bilateral “fraternal mutual trust and militant friendship has strengthened” in the face of “hostile forces”; moreover, Xi sent a telegraph to Kim to express his resolve to “constantly [lead] bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation to enter into a new stage (Reuters 2021d)”. At the end of the same month, also according to KCNA, telegraphs were exchanged again between these two leaders, who emphasised that “both China and DPRK are socialist states led by the Communist party”. In summary, China and North Korea have reinstated an alliance discourse and an expression of ideological commonality, while the denuclearisation of the peninsula has ceased to be an element of China’s posture and policy towards North Korea.

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Overall, like the United States, although later than the United States, China has also built its “core coalition”. Great power rivalries have often been symmetrical, and allies and partners have rallied to become major instruments available for China to strengthen its position. Whether this effect will last will surely be tested in the future.

Two Close Camps and a Vast Intermediate Zone A new Cold War has started to emerge between the United States and China, although it might already have fully emerged. This new Cold War has been perceived differently depending on whether the emphasis is placed on the word “new” or the phrase “Cold War”. If “new” is emphasised, many differences can be found between the relations of the United States and China and between the United States and the former USSR during the Cold War, although many people today tend to overstate these differences. On the other hand, if the term “Cold War” is emphasised, it is easy to find that the essential features of the current rivalry and confrontation between Washington and Beijing resemble those of the old Cold War that opposed Washington to Moscow, two great powers that were antagonistic throughout world history. The geopolitical and geostrategic actions involving Washington and Beijing have been increasingly hostile, as these two powers have intensified the arms race, their ideological rivalry, and struggles in the area of high technology; moreover, they have aggravated the hostile and nationalistic public opinion in their own country to the detriment of the other, while restraining each other’s political leadership. Hence, it is important to respect both the current situation and historical experiences. What is “new” is mainly the serious “decoupling” of critical areas of economic interdependence, which has increasingly fragmented and separated significant issues. This situation has acutely challenged the intellectual capacity and other capabilities of the present political and strategic leaderships in every major power; moreover, the pandemic and other climate-change-related disasters have further complicated the situation and often stunted the ability of various leaders. Additionally, the situation can be understood as “new” because it has involved more high-tech warfare or para-warfare, which has dramatically increased the dynamics of rivalry and made it difficult to control. The “remnants” of economic interdependence and liberal globalisation have likely become weaker than the combined forces against stabilisation.

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Although predicting the long-term future of human affairs has almost always been risky, one could still predict that the tension between China and the United States will probably become even more severe and that a military conflict between the two powers has become increasingly possible. Starting from this uncertain supposition, what would become of the long-term structure of world politics? What can be expected from the current trend? Throughout almost all of 2020, Russia worried about being drawn into the drastically intensified China–US rivalry and desired to maintain or increase its foreign policy independence in the situation. Some experts in the field of Russian foreign policy who had very close connections with Putin, urged the Kremlin via online articles to advocate an orientation of “new nonalignment” in the tension between China and the United States and to try to lead “a community of states” whose members have all been unwilling to stand on the side of any state seeking global or regional hegemony (Trofimov and Grove 2020). The positions of France and Germany have also been important. When French President Emmanuel Macron was interviewed in Le Grand Continent, a Paris-based policy journal, he emphasised that the European Union must push on its efforts to develop the capacity to act independently in technology, international finance and defence, even with Democrat Joe Biden taking over in the United States. Macron said that “The United States will only respect us as allies if we are earnest, and if we are sovereign with respect to our defence”; he added that “We need to continue to build our independence for ourselves” (Bloomberg News 2020). The views of the middle powers have also counted. For example, Retno Marsudi, the foreign minister of Indonesia, a vast country in terms of its population of 270 million in 2019, told Reuters on September 8, 2020, that the escalation of militarisation in the South China Sea and the broadening of the animosity between the United States and China were troubling. “One word: troublesome”, she said, followed by an explicit declaration that her country and ASEAN were determined “not [to take] sides as China–US relations deteriorated (Reuters 2020)”. Moreover, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a statement to the Associate Press on September 19, 2021, in which he said that two rival geopolitical and military strategies on the part of the United States and China would pose “dangers” and divide the world. Thus, he said, the foundering relationship must be repaired. “We need to avoid at all costs

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a Cold War that would be different from the previous one, and probably more dangerous and more difficult to manage”. He even appropriately warned that a new Cold War could be more perilous because the Soviet– US antipathy had created clear rules, and both sides were conscious of the risk of nuclear destruction. “Nowadays”, he said, “everything is more fluid, and even the experience of the past in managing crises is no longer there” (Lederer 2021). All these and similar phenomena have probably begun to suggest the ideological structure of a future world, within decades, this world would be based on a structure of power, interests and approach. In that future, except for a few “loyal associates” on the American or Chinese side, the other nations of the world would manage to maintain or strive for different degrees of neutrality and policy independence, driven by their imperative of national interests and beliefs. They would lean towards Washington over certain issues and sometimes towards Beijing on other fields and in other times; in general, these nations would abide by what Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group U.N. director, stated in September 2020: “A lot of the U.N.’s members think the U.S. is destructive, and China is power-hungry. They don’t find either very appealing”. Moreover, “Ambitious Europeans like Macron see a chance to fill the leadership gap, so they are willing to challenge Beijing and Washington” (Nichols 2020). Hence, according to this scenario, the global political economy and the “rational world” could be divided into two “close camps” headed respectively by China and the United States on one hand and an extraordinarily vast “intermediate zone” on the other. This “intermediate zone” would be sufficiently dynamic, or in the words of EU foreign policy Chief Josep Borrell, they would be players rather than mere playgrounds for the United States and China (Barigazzi 2019). This “intermediate zone” could include most of the “great powers” and advanced industrial and developing nations. The individual weight of these nations will remain much less than that of the United States or China, but they will have enough weight and be independent and “strategic” enough that they could force Washington or Beijing to yield important concessions in various issue areas in the face of their interests and beliefs. Therefore, China faces a stern external environment that is both current and future. The current context consists primarily of the confrontation with the United States and the pressure that comes from it, while the future

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context might be mainly characterised by the alienation of and even resistance from the “intermediate zone”. That vast “intermediate zone” will certainly encompass many different countries with various political/social systems and ideologies; however, these countries would probably gradually develop a common ideology or features of a common ideology, resulting in a partial multipolarisation of the world, rather than a comprehensive hegemony based on global rivalries over political themes. Moreover, the Chinese have advocated for decades that different leaderships should be based on differences in ways to approach various issues and on the irrelevance or the danger of military alliances or comprehensive partnerships (especially permanent strategic ones) involving either superpower. As French President Macron said in front of the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2020, “the world as it is today cannot come down to simple rivalry between China and the United States, no matter the global weight of these two great powers”; likewise, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag that “The EU must define its own interests and must be strong and independent of both China and the United States” (Associated Press News 2020). Therefore, change is highly probable. Transformations could occur in the ecology of global politics and in mentalities, making hegemonic power politics less tolerated, pluralism all but a reality, the rights and policy independence of national states more strongly preferred, international and transnational opinions more egalitarian and meaningful, and the preponderance of any great power less valued in a high-tech age. The most thorough and permanent mechanism necessary for all these changes to occur was already revealed by David Hume as early as 1752. This great philosopher and historian emphasised at the end of his masterwork “Of the Balance of Power” that “Enormous monarchies are, probably, destructive to human nature; in the progress, in their continuance, and even in their downfall, which never can be very distant from their establishment…. Thus, human nature checks itself in its airy elevation: thus, ambition blindly labours for the destruction of the conqueror”. Indeed, he asserted that Bourbon France, Habsburg Spain, Habsburg Austria, and the Roman Empire were similar to each other without exception (Hume 1752). This is indeed a wise maxim.

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Lendon, Brad. 2021a. Chinese and Russian Militaries Link Up, But Analysts Say Both Sides Have Differing Objectives. CNN . https://edition.cnn.com/ 2021/08/16/asia/chinese-russian-military-ties-intl-hnk-ml/index.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Lendon, Brad. 2021b. India to Deploy Naval Task Force into South China Sea and Beyond. CNN . https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/03/asia/indiawarships-south-china-sea-intl-hnk-ml/index.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Lendon, Brad and Yoonjung Seo. 2020. As Tensions Rise in Asia Pacific, South Korea is Building its First Aircraft Carrier ... Complete with US-Made Fighter Jets. CNN . https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/12/asia/ south-korea-aircraft-carrier-intl-hnk-scli/index.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Martin, David. 2021. Russia Conducts Largest Pacific Naval Exercise Since Cold War. Yahoo News. https://news.yahoo.com/russia-conducts-largest-pac ific-naval-193100111.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Metro US. 2021. Japan Deputy PM Comment on Defending Taiwan If Invaded Angers China. Metro US. https://www.metro.us/japan-deputy-pmcomment/. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Metzel, Mikhail. 2021. Defense Chief Reports to Putin on Successful Patrol of Russian, Chinese Strategic Bombers. TASS Russian News Agency. https:// tass.com/defense/1363797. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Navy Recognition. 2019. South Korea Navy to Acquire Two Nuclear Power Submarine. Navy Recognition. https://www.navyrecognition.com/index. php/news/defence-news/2019/october/7585-south-korea-navy-to-acquiretwo-nuclear-power-submarine.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Nichols, Michelle. 2020. As U.S., China Squabble at U.N., a Plea - and Warning - From One of World’s Smallest States. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/ article/uk-un-assembly-usa-china-idUKKBN26H0YT. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Packham, Colin and Renju Jose. 2021. Targeting Asia-Pacific Defence, Australia to Spend $580 Million on Military Upgrades. Yahoo News. https://news. yahoo.com/australia-upgrade-military-bases-expand-233448046.html?guccou nter=1. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Philp, Catherine. 2021. Boris Johnson Considers Joining ‘Asian Nato’ to Resist China. The Times & The Sunday Times. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art icle/boris-johnson-considers-joining-asian-nato-to-resist-china-78s90gr53. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Pickrell, Ryan. 2021. US Marine Corps F-35s Flew Over 5,000 Miles for a Deployment Aboard UK Aircraft Carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. Yahoo News. https://news.yahoo.com/us-marine-corps-f-35s-182643 750.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Price, Ned. 2021. Secretary Blinken’s Call with Quad Ministers. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-call-with-quad-ministers/. Accessed 8 Oct 2022.

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Qiu, Stella and Andrew Osborn. 2021. Russia, China Push for U.N. Security Council Summit, Lash Out at West. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/art icle/us-russia-china-un-idUSKBN2BF0GO. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2020. ‘Don’t Trap Us in Your Rivalry,’ Indonesia Tells US and China. Free Malaysia Today. https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/ highlight/2020/09/08/dont-trap-us-in-your-rivalry-indonesia-tells-us-andchina/. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021a. Biden Security Adviser: US Must Be Prepared to Impose Costs for What China Is Doing. Newsmax. https://www.newsmax.com/pol itics/biden-jake-sullivan-us-china/2021/01/29/id/1007817/. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021b. China Mounts Largest Incursion Yet Near Taiwan, Blames U.S. for Tensions. Thomson Reuters Foundation News. https://news.trust.org/ item/20211004144313-afbyb. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021c. Japan Minister Says Necessary to ‘Wake Up’ to Protect Taiwan. U.S. News. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-06-28/ japan-minister-says-necessary-to-wake-up-to-protect-taiwan?context=amp. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021d. Leaders of N. Korea, China Vow Greater Cooperation in Face of Foreign Hostility: KCNA. U.S. News. https://www.usnews.com/ news/world/articles/2021-07-10/leaders-of-nkorea-china-vow-greater-coo peration-in-face-of-foreign-hostility-kcna. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021e. UK Seeks More Influence in Indo-Pacific as ‘Moderating Impact’ on China. Gulf Digital News. https://www.gdnonline.com/Details/ 939271/UK-seeks-more-influence-in-Indo-Pacific-as-moderating-impact-onChina. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Reuters. 2021f. U.S. Tells China to Improve Ties with Australia: U.S. Official. U.S. News. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-03-16/ustells-china-to-improve-ties-with-australia-us-official. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Roth, Andrew, and Vincent Ni. 2022. Xi and Putin Urge Nato to Rule Out Expansion as Ukraine Tensions Rise. The Guardian. https://www.thegua rdian.com/world/2022/feb/04/xi-jinping-meets-vladimir-putin-china-rus sia-tensions-grow. Shi, Yinhong. 2022. The Continued Downturn of US–China Relations and Beijing’s Approach to the Ukraine Crisis. Joint. https://www.jointproj ect.eu/2022/02/11/the-continued-downturn-of-us-china-relations-and-bei jings-approach-to-the-ukraine-crisis/. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Smith, Elliot. 2021. President Putin on Taiwan: ‘China Does Not Need to Use Force’. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/13/president-putin-on-tai wan-china-does-not-need-to-use-force.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2022.

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Wang, Amber. 2021. Beijing to Berlin: Respect South China Sea Sovereignty During Frigate Visit. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/ news/china/diplomacy/article/3123951/beijing-berlin-respect-south-chinasea-sovereignty-during. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Woody, Christopher. 2021. US Allies Want to Spend More Time Practicing to Hunt Russian and Chinese Subs, Top Navy Admiral Says. Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/allies-want-more-training-with-usnavy-top-admiral-says-2021-6. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Xinhua. 2021. Secretary-General Xi Jinping Exchanged Oral Messages with Kim Jong En, Secretary-General of Workers’ Party of Korea (in Chinese). Xinhua. http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2021-03/22/c_1127241916. htm. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Yamaguchi, Mari. 2021. Japan’s PM Aims to Calm China-Taiwan Tension on US Visit. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japans-pm-aimscalm-china-taiwan-tension-us-76863596. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Yew, Lun Tian. 2021. EU Blames China for Endangering Peace in South China Sea. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-blames-china-end angering-peace-south-china-sea-2021-04-25/. Accessed 8 Oct 2022. Yonhap News Agency. 2021. Moon Says S. Korea, U.S. Agreed to Work for Stable Supply Chains for Semiconductors, EV Batteries, Medication. Yonhap News Agency. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210522004500315. Accessed 8 Oct 2022.

CHAPTER 6

Pluralism and the US–China Development Partnership Mehri Madarshahi

National and regional orders with their various definitions have always been part of the preoccupations of mankind. The search for the origin of a world order goes back to when and where humanity passed through a long and perilous path TO establish certain international rules and foundations of co-existence. The first known order is documented for the rule of Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great with what has become known as the first human rights principles. Yet, in historical terms, the notion of world order seems to be rather amorphous. It would be more precise to speak about an international order when the European order transformed into a global one.

M. Madarshahi (B) Institute for Public Policy, South China University for Technology, Guangzhou, China e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_6

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In his 2014 book “World Order” HenryKissinger (2014) portrayed the shape of the world over the past 2000 years or so, with reflections on where it may go in the next 50 years. In doing so, he identified four specific concepts of “order”: the European system, specifically the Westphalian model of sovereign states with equal status within the system; an Islamic system based on the wider idea of an ummah, or community; a Chinese system based on traditional ideas of the Middle Kingdom as a great regional power; and the American order, finding a new purpose a century ago under President Woodrow Wilson, eventually becoming dominant across the globe. The concert of great powers existed from the seventeenth to the midtwentieth century. According to Kissinger, it was a model of a world order which to some extent remains relevant even today. He continued to argue that creating a new international order, adapted to the realities of the twenty-first century, was the greatest challenge facing statesmen today. A sense of urgency has been increased by two developments: firstly, a return of great power competition that coincides with fears—or predictions— about the West entering a period of decline and, secondly, profound and unsettling technological changes which have transformed the basis of social, economic, and political life everywhere. Under these pressures, Kissinger wondered if the idea of a “liberal international order” had lost its value. He argued that as we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, we needed new thinking about the future of the international system—thinking that more accurately would reflect the era in which we live. Other scholars suggested that the post-World War II era with the rise of the USSR and the development of new nuclear weapons as well as other factors had given rise to a new world order exacerbating the inherent tensions in global relations which—in the context of a burgeoning cold war—could have unleashed the real possibility of a new war. In order of importance and as a turning point in the history of international order, we may highlight the emergence of the USSR in the wake of World War II. As a consequence of this, the division of the world into East and West changed completely the existing global political landscape and brought about new principles and practices in international relations. This post-World War II order differed significantly from the previous one. First, there were only two strong powers (the USA and the USSR) leading two military blocks (NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organization). At the core of the political and military bipolar balance were nuclear

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arsenals and the mutual assured destruction (MAD) deterrence strategy. Second, the division between the two blocks was based on ideological foundations which the previous world order in various forms had lacked. This order lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union and its socialist bloc on 25 December 1991, when the Soviet hammer and sickle flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin and was replaced by the Russian tricolor. This was the visible demonstration of the destruction of the previous bipolar world order. In its place emerged a unipolar world reflecting the belief in the absolute domination of the Western countries and market economies, institutions, and ideas that became synonymous with the idea of a Pax Americana (Attali 1991; Brzezinski 1998). During the 1990s, the USA, unlike former leading states, had managed to assemble under its umbrella a wide range of leadership powers ranging from technological, financial, and military to scientific and cultural. At the peak of its might, however, the USA was struck by the unexpected 9/11 terrorist events when an anarchist group attacked the World Trade Center Towers and other US targets. This represented a turning point in US domestic, foreign, and security policies. The financial crisis of 2008–2010 was another contributing factor to a growing perception that the US was losing its undisputed supremacy and its leading position in the unipolar world. The unipolar order also was experiencing another shift because of uneven economic and technological developments among countries of the North versus those of the South. The underlying reasons for this quicksand were attributed to the forces and impact of globalization which constantly and significantly had caused changes in the world order. By redistributing centers of productivity of goods and services and the relocation of a significant part of production, economy, and technology from developed to developing countries globalization had helped shifting the balance of economic power toward the developing world (Grinin and Grinin 2015). These shifts led to a further weakening of economic growth and a gradually diminishing role of the Western countries while the rest of the world such as China and India as well as a number of rapidly developing states (from Mexico to Malaysia and Ethiopia), the “tigers”, were assuming leading positions (see Fig. 6.1).

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Fig. 6.1 Dynamics of the share of the West and the rest of the world (‘the Rest’) in the global GDP after 1980 (based on the World Bank data on the GDP calculated in 2005 purchasing power parity international dollars)

New Challenges in World Order In early 1990s, the twin goals of peace and development became dominant factors within the world order. As a consequence of which, the “Agenda for Peace” was launched by the United Nations SecretaryGeneral and approved by the Security Council to highlight the potential peace dividend for development. Degradation of the environment led to the launching and approval by 197 nations of the Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Seven years later it has become clear that even though the ambitions have remained, progress had been gradual or insufficient. The Earth is losing its biodiversity at mass extinction rates. One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and scientists estimate that this will rise to 50 percent by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. Current deforestation rates in the Amazon Basin could lead to an 8 percent drop in regional rainfall by 2050, triggering a shift to a “savannah state”, with wider consequences for the Earth’s atmospheric circulatory systems.

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The chemistry of the oceans is changing more rapidly than at any time in perhaps 300 million years, as the water absorbs anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The resulting ocean acidification and warming are leading to unprecedented damage to fish stocks and corals. Glaciers in Antarctica are melting, and water scarcity threatens to wipe out part of our civilization. CO2 is on the rise as fossil fuel still is considered an easy means of energy consumption. Perceptibly, the Earth’s climate is changing rapidly, as a result of emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases with humans indisputably the cause. What will that mean? For the next 30 years or beyond, there will be more intense heat waves, longer and with more damaging droughts, and more episodes of heavy downpours that will result in widespread flooding in all continents. In recent years, the world has generated around 500 tons of CO2 per US$1 million of the global GDP. In 2019, 40 billion tons of CO2 were emitted per US$88 billions of the world’s GDP. Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6 percent in 2021 to 36.3 billion tones, their highest ever level, as the world economy rebounded strongly from the Covid-19 crisis and relied heavily on coal to power that growth (IEA Flagship Report, March 2022). This will necessitate drastic emission cuts in the next 10 years also in order to reach the long-term goal of net zero carbon. Environmental degradation will lead, among others, to rising unemployment, desertification, growing throngs of migrants moving through various continents, widening digital and technological divides, youth disillusionment, and geopolitical fragmentation. In 2020, the unprecedented outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic caused governments, businesses, societies, and individuals to grapple with its consequences. Recovery packages were developed by virtually all Governments, especially in the industrialized world, to the tune of trillions of US dollars. Yet not all governments had the requisite resources to steer capital sustainably at such a huge scale to meet the emerging social needs. Low income and vulnerable populations were suffering from job losses, mounting debt, and shrinking revenues, which have brought additional problems and affected the global constellation.

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The resulting economic shockwaves severely affected virtually allimportant financial decisions over the last 12 months. They will continue to shape the global economy for the next decade, coinciding with a period when all countries are expected to significantly reduce, if not cut by half carbon emissions in order to contain global warming within 1.5 degrees centigrade. Today, the pandemic has forced many to search for new opportunities elsewhere, beyond their home base. This trend will be accelerated by massive climate migrations resulting from drastic climate-induced weather changes, coastal flooding, prolonged droughts, wildfires, or extreme pollution. According to the World Bank, between 50 and 300 million climate migrants are projected to be on the move in the near future. Within the next decades, one billion people are expected to live in insufferably hot spaces. Rising sea levels could also displace the same number of people and changes in precipitation may result in shortages of water in some 200 cities, heavily impacting food and water security of many countries and communities. Covid-19 accelerated the transition to a more fragmented world order in which future organizing principles of the international system are

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becoming unclear. These factors are exacerbated by the competitive, zero-sum dynamics unleashed by the present pandemic. In the new geopolitical environment, it is increasingly difficult for any single country to exercise its will, with multiple poles competing and cooperating. Neither China nor the United States is in a position to emerge from Covid-19 as a “winner” in a way that would dramatically shift the balance of world power in its favor. The outcome of the ongoing geopolitical competition will lead to a fragmentation of power and will hinge on the relative economic recovery principally of the United States and China but also of other countries, especially in Europe and Asia. Despite all these challenges, the conditions of great power competition coupled with the economic pressures resulting from Covid-19, can also create opportunities for seeking ground for cooperation on issues of common interest, such as tackling global crises. At present, there is a significant potential to create an international center of gravity that can implement climate and health-related mitigation standards. Building on shared criteria and interests, it can form the core of an institutional support ecosystem. This will require significant development resources and collective efforts by all stakeholders. Such an initiative could re-engage development agencies and leverage the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Populist sentiment has arguably reduced appetite for multilateral cooperation in some countries—witness Britain’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union (EU) or US threats to withdraw from or to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other international treaties, especially affecting the environment and climate. Yet, declining support for multilateralism is hardly ubiquitous.

Sino-American Cooperation and Rivalry In 2014, the US government had made a strategic decision to announce jointly with China its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) under the envisaged Paris Climate Agreement. By this, the United States was to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26–28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28 percent, while China announced its intention to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to

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make best efforts to peak early and to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030.

Source United States Historic Emissions and Projected Emissions Under 2030 Target—USNDC This joint announcement had a major impact around the world. It was the first time China had come forward so early and so aggressively to announce its climate targets, and the first time the world’s two largest emitters had made such an announcement jointly. The announcement set the stage for other countries to refine the targets for their own climate strategies over the following months, so that by the time leaders gathered in Paris at COP 21 in December 2015, 180 countries (representing nearly 95 percent of global emissions) had already announced their own climate targets. This was crucial to building the international momentum that led to a successful conclusion of the new Paris climate agreement. On 15 October 2016, at the 28th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Kigali, Rwanda (United Nations Environment Program 2017), 197 countries reached an agreement on amendments to phase-down HFCs. Under the amendment, countries committed to cut the production and consumption of HFCs by more than 80 percent over the next 30 years. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that this phase-down schedule could avoid more than 80 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 2050 and avoid up to 0.5 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century.

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Developing countries were notably divided into two groups, with China falling into the first group of countries that had to freeze consumption by 2024, and India falling into the second group, that would be allowed to begin freezing emissions only by 2028. All developing countries were also eligible for financial support to aid in their transition away from HFCs. At their meeting in March 2016, President Obama and President Xi committed to working together to reach a successful outcome that year on the ongoing negotiations and to reach a deal on a global marketbased measure for addressing greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation, negotiated under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN specialized agency. After close negotiations between the United States and China, as well as extensive multilateral negotiations among other ICAO member states, an agreement was reached on 6 October 2016. The ICAO “Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA)” resolution committed countries to cap aviation emissions at 2020 levels by 2027. These targets were voluntary until 2027. However, countries were encouraged to opt-in prior to that date. As of 12 October 2016, some 66 states, representing more than 86.5 percent of international aviation activity, have stated their intention to voluntarily participate in CORSIA (ICAO 2016). During the Trump Administration, the US–China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), was restructured to de-emphasize energy and climate cooperation. The new framework for high-level negotiations, the “US–China Comprehensive Dialogue”, comprised four main tracks: diplomacy and security, economics, law enforcement and cybersecurity, and society and culture (JCCT 2017). China had become a strategic partner of the United States in policy discussions concerning climate change and clean energy. This role has gained particular importance as thousands of people from both countries started working together by collaborating in research, sharing experience and information, and developing commercial ventures in deploying clean energy technology. Moreover, the two countries, through their Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), had begun to discuss politically sensitive issues, trade barriers, and matters related to international security ensuring an open channel for diffusing potential conflict. Bilateral engagement between the United States and China on climate change allowed the two countries to leverage their size and significance to

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mobilize action from other countries, thereby helping the United States achieve several multilateral outcomes in which it had a stake. In January 2021, as the US prepared to transition from the Trump to the Biden presidency, the list of responsibilities for economic stability, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and prevention of large-scale violent conflict and mounting challenges to human security at home and abroad was to include also managing a global pandemic and reinvigorating the power of American values in competition with an increasingly powerful China. Facing a changing international order, the United States needed more allies, partners, and friends as it wrestled with more capable and numerous rivals, mounting challenges to human security at home and abroad. President Biden was fully aware of the fact that the US global leadership had been insufficient during the preceding four years. Too often, it had relied on an empty chair or hollow words when key interests were at stake. In the meantime, close US allies—such as Japan in Asia and Germany in Europe—had stepped into more active roles. And more so, this space was also filled by Russia and, especially, China, whose ascendancy represented the most significant challenge to the United States. Today, the greatest threats to US security include near-peer competition and global climate change; addressing them unilaterally would be extremely difficult. Although the United States and its allies have continued to rely on each other for a variety of security needs, they have seldom revised the agreed rationale for these relationships. As a result, America’s adversaries had leveraged “gray zone” measures, short of war, to chip away at the credibility of the US alliance system and challenged the prevailing world order for which the United States and US allies relied on. Adversaries also actively sought to exploit divisions and further fragmented the fragile alliance relations recognizing that the USled alliance system is a strategic advantage. They also note its vulnerability, and routinely and systematically tried to weaken and fracture its bonds. These were despite the acknowledgment that the weakening if not demise of the US might bring about a deep, rather difficult, and critical transformation of the world system and may lead to a fundamental change of the whole structure of the world economic and political order. Questions were left unanswered whether an eventual sunset of the USA could turn into a new sunrise or cause temporary turbulences, including a lack of stability and struggle between different actors of the new order.

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Hopes for the Future Geopolitics in the coming decades will be substantially defined by economic and technological competition. Those countries that lead in emerging technologies and shape technical standards will enjoy returns that extend into strategic advantage. Economic, technological, information, human security, and military power now intersect to define many challenges our world faces. The persistent fear today is if and when the US would lose its status as the lead nation. This would not be just a simple change of leadership, but it would bring about a fundamental change in the whole structure of the world’s economic and political order. Whether new China-sponsored organizations such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative are challenging the current global order may be too early to say (Chin and Freeman 2020). Considering prevailing circumstances, to succeed, the United States must adapt its alliance system to a world that is more multipolar, more interconnected, and less manageable through siloed frameworks with a knowledge that alliances can selectively choose where to align with the United States versus choosing their own paths. As discussed elsewhere in this volume, there are numerous important challenges confronting global multilateral organizations. Nonetheless, I would argue that—for now at least—the basic pillars of the global order stand, subject to accepting that sovereignty and economic liberalism remain important features of the multilateral fora. This may signal a transition from a global order constructed around a few commanding international organizations dominated by powerful Western states, to a more multifaceted order based on complex and polycentric governance arrangements among a wider community of national governments, international organizations, and non-state actors. The past few decades have seen rapid growth in the number and diversity of non-state actors involved in global governance, including private transnational regulatory organizations, global public–private partnerships, trans-governmental networks, NGO coalitions, and multi-national corporations. This growing prevalence of non-state authority could be seen to challenge the global order as we have defined it. This development may have the final potential to challenge the state-based sovereign nature of the current global order.

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A world in which the political authority or financial power of non-state actors’ eclipses that of national governments would clearly constitute a radical departure from the current state-led order. At present, however, such a hypothesis may suggest that the growing inclusion of non-state actors in global policymaking could serve to fill gaps in state-led governance and helps to make governance outcomes more representative and responsive to local needs. Moreover, the laws, norms, and institutions underpinning the international system are also under increasing stress. These may include trade protectionism, emerging technologies governance, multilateral institutions and modes of cooperation, and others. Simultaneously, the range of global challenges, advanced military threats, and gray zone provocations remain daunting. While this growing complexity presents significant challenges of coordination, it does not fundamentally contest foundational principles of sovereign equality, economic openness, and rules-based multilateral interactions. The problems of the transition period and the balance of power despite the inevitable weakening of the US leadership is that the US will preserve a number of advantages for a long time, including the American soft power leadership. Without these advantages, it will be a long and difficult transition to a new world order. This may temporarily increase turbulences and strife, as well as a lack of stability and struggle between different protagonists of the new order. While there are ever clearly visible trends toward a new world order, such an order will most probably be different. It will be a world without a hegemon and with some centers of power and influence, among which the United States is likely to be the most important. But it may only be able to claim the title of being the “first among equals”, rather than the title of superpower. The best way to meet today’s challenges is to reinvest in a US–China partnership across all sectors, involving all stakeholders, avoiding any decoupling, upholding globalization, and shaping a new mechanism for cooperative action on relevant twenty-first-century issues. Efforts should also be made to leverage the role of non-state stakeholders with concrete tools and capabilities to develop new initiatives in a multipolar world. The flexibility of partnerships within the world system framework will probably increase for some time, but some of the emerging alliances and coalitions may well turn chimeric, ephemeral, or fantastic. Thus, although we may anticipate rather turbulent times in the emerging balance between

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different countries and coalitions, humanity will have rather good chances to rely on continued processes of globalization to create the foundations of a new world order.

References Attali, J. 1991. Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order. New York: NY Times of Books. Brzezinski, Z. 1998. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books. Chin, Gregory T., and Freeman, Carla P. 2020. Emerging Global Governance. The Journal of European Public Policy 27. Grinin, Anton L., and Grinin, Leonid L. 2015. The Cybernetic Revolution and Historical Process. Social Evolution and History 14: 125–184. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). 2016. Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). ICAO. https:// www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CORSIA/Pages/CORSIA-News. aspx. Accessed 27 Aug 2021. Kissinger, H. 2014. World Order. New York: Penguin Press. The US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT). 2017. U.S.-China Joint Fact Sheet on the 27th U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. U.S. Department of Commerce. https://2014-2017. commerce.gov/news/fact-sheets/2017/01/us-china-joint-fact-sheet-27thus-china-joint-commission-commerce-and-trade.html. Accessed 27 Aug 2021. United Nations Environment Program. 2017. Ratification of the Kigali Amendment. United Nations Environment Program. https://ozone.unep.org/sites/ default/files/2019-08/ratification_kigali.pdf. Accessed 27 Aug 2021.

CHAPTER 7

India’s Frustrated Search for a Multipolar Order Ian Hall

India’s leaders have favoured a multipolar international order since the country gained independence in 1947. And India’s grand strategies have, for the most part, reflected that preference (Jaishankar 2020). During the first half of the Cold War, New Delhi opted for nonalignment, hoping that avoiding entanglement with the superpowers would both keep India safe and show the way to a more just, equitable, and multipolar international order. During the second half, India found itself in a more challenging set of circumstances and although its elite still yearned for multipolarity, it was forced to compromise, distancing itself from the United States (US) in exchange for a degree of security provided by a partnership with the Soviet Union. After the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, New Delhi took a different approach, but with a

I. Hall (B) Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_7

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similar objective in mind. Concerned about the power of the US and the West’s predilection for military and political intervention, India’s leaders practiced a kind of ‘soft balancing’ against the US, in particular, at least until it was able to acquire a nuclear deterrent in 1998 and forge a very different relationship with Washington (Mohan 2003; Pape 2005).1 None of these strategies achieved India’s objective of bringing a multipolar order into being. Nonalignment did not end the Cold War, nor did it prevent the superpowers from engaging in strategic competition— frequently with devastating consequences—in the Global South (Westad 2005). When that conflict finally came to a close, it was replaced by a unipolar order, led by the US and its Western allies. India’s soft balancing, including New Delhi’s rejection of tighter arms control regimes and resistance to the limitation of the norm of non-intervention, did little to change those conditions. And the slow unravelling of that order might eventually bring about multipolarity, but it could also deliver something else, thanks partly, if unintentionally, to India’s present grand strategy: a new Sino-US bipolar order, with New Delhi locked in a partnership with Washington. Why has India’s search for a multipolar order repeatedly been frustrated? The answer, I argue, following the lead of Tanvi Madan (2020), lies in India’s relationship with China and in the approaches New Delhi has used—by choice and by necessity—to manage the bilateral relationship with Beijing. The unresolved border dispute, status competition, strategic rivalry, misaligned interests, and deep mistrust have all intervened at one point or another since 1947 to push India to align with other major powers to help manage its relationship with China. During the Cold War, New Delhi first sought American assistance to manage China, then established a close strategic partnership with the Soviet Union to balance against what India’s leaders perceived as an ongoing threat from its northern neighbour. In the 1990s, India tried to engage China diplomatically to resolve their border dispute, improve bilateral trade and investment, and cooperate on a series of global challenges, from climate change to international terrorism, all with eye to bringing a more equitable and balanced multipolar order into being. These initiatives failed, however, leaving New Delhi with little option but to align India more closely with the US—a policy that Beijing portrays as contributing to the emergence of a new bipolar antagonism. This chapter explores the tension between India’s commitment to a multipolar order and the challenge of managing the relationship with

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China. The first section looks back to the concept of multipolarity in the worldview of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and the distorting effects generated by Chinese pressure, which forced New Delhi into a closer relationship with the US. The second examines the role that Indian threat perceptions concerning China played in Indira Gandhi’s decision to pursue a strategic partnership with Moscow, which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. The third and fourth sections turn to the rise and fall of India’s post-Cold War push for a multipolar order, driven initially by anxiety about American power, but undermined during the 1990s by mounting fear of China’s growing might and unclear intentions. The last section discusses New Delhi’s contemporary concept of multipolarity and its pursuit of a multipolar Asia, shaped by perceptions of America’s relative decline and China’s regional ambition.

Nonalignment and Multipolarity India’s leaders found themselves in an unusual position in 1947, with few if any precedents for how they might manage the newly independent state’s foreign and security policy and very limited capacity in diplomacy and defence (Hall 2016a). Even if they had wanted to follow the approach taken by the British Raj, which they did not, they could not have done so: they lacked the necessary administrative and military capabilities. In any case, very few Indian politicians were interested in international affairs and fewer still had much experience of diplomacy. As a result, it was largely left to Nehru—who was interested in the world and who did have some diplomatic experience—to craft a new approach that he hoped would not only make India more prosperous and secure, and provide an example for other non-Western states emerging from European colonial rule. By design and by default, he became ‘the philosopher, the architect, the engineer and the voice of his country’s policy towards the outside world’ (Brecher 2011: 564). Nehru’s approach was underpinned by a mix of Fabianism, liberal internationalism, and the hybrid Buddhist-Hindu socialism of his friend and mentor, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It explicitly rejected the idea that states were locked into armed competition due to the anarchical nature of the international system. Power politics, Nehru thought, were the result of simple greed and the morally corrupting effects of empire— of exercising unlimited power over others, which harmed the oppressor as well as the oppressed. The end of European imperialism would usher

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in a new age not just of national self-determination, he believed, but also peaceful and civil relations between societies, perhaps under the auspices of an international federation, and mutual respect between societies and cultures. And even if it did not, Nehru argued, the Second World War had demonstrated that the destructive nature of modern warfare had rendered the use of force by states obsolete, due to the diminishing returns to be had from state-sanctioned violence. One way or another, he believed that the end of power politics was imminent and a new, pluralistic, peaceable, multipolar international order was about to begin (Nehru 2004; Bhagavan 2013). In this context, Nehru implemented a grand strategy that he claimed would allow India to develop, socially and economically; avoid dependence on others that might limit its autonomy; keep it secure; and play a positive role in international affairs, despite the country’s relative poverty and lack of power. This strategy was what became known as ‘nonalignment’ (Rana 1976).2 It involved effectively opting out of the Cold War—resisting both American and Soviet pressure to ally India to one bloc or another. Joining an alliance, Nehru counselled, would not just drag New Delhi into old-fashioned European-style power politics. It would also entail the diversion of scarce resources from development to defence, make India a potential target in the event of war, and require it to stay silent when its superpower patron did things with which it disagreed (Bandyopadhyaya 1979: 100–101). Indeed, nonalignment did not imply neutralism: Nehru wanted India to use its independent voice to hold the powerful to account, especially at the United Nations. And nor did it imply pacifism: Nehru recognised that states still used force and so postcolonial India maintained a military and reserved the right to use it to defend its interests (Raghavan 2010: 16–17). Instead, nonalignment was an attempt to cope with immediate domestic and international pressures while positioning India for the world to come—a multipolar world ‘in which there is free cooperation of free peoples, and no class or group exploits another’, as Nehru put it in 1946 (Nehru 1961: 2). Nehru’s grand strategy was soon tested, first by Pakistan and then by China, significant states with which India had been left with border disputes and with which New Delhi had ideological differences. In effect, Pakistan claimed to represent the Muslim communities of the subcontinent, its founders having argued—with some success—that followers of Islam should not be subjected to Hindu-majority rule (Cohen 2004). On those grounds, soon after the Partition of British India, Islamabad

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colluded in an effective invasion of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, whose ruler, the Hindu Hari Singh, had opted to join postcolonial India. Nehru responded by sending troops to repel the invaders, but also by appealing to the UN, as a firm believer in the principles of the Charter, requesting that the Security Council sanction Pakistan. Unhappily for India, however, the UN decided not to take action against Pakistan, but instead called for a plebiscite to decide the future of Jammu and Kashmir, contrary to the wishes of both New Delhi and Islamabad. This episode shook New Delhi’s confidence in the UN, exposing both the limitations of the institution and Nehru’s reliance on it to safeguard India’s security, and its confidence in the Western powers, which had proved more sympathetic to Pakistan. And, of course, it left Kashmir divided, with one part controlled by India and one by Pakistan, and the dispute unresolved, giving Islamabad a cause that it could leverage against its bigger neighbour in its dealings with the major powers (Brecher 1953). The challenge from China lasted longer and was ultimately more damaging. From the British, Nehru also inherited two other problems: an unsettled border with China and the unresolved status of Tibet. He was soon confronted with a third: how best to manage the new Communist regime of Mao Zedong, which assumed control of mainland China in September 1949. To do that, Nehru decided to take actions consistent with his philosophy and strategy, despite the reservations of some colleagues, aiming to achieve a mutually respectful relationship with China and avoid armed conflict. In January 1950, India became the first non-communist state to recognise the new regime, despite Mao’s promise to soon send the People’s Liberation Army into Tibet, a strategically important buffer state with which many Indians had close cultural ties. When a full-scale invasion of Tibet was launched in October 1950, Nehru rejected American entreaties to give overt support to the resistance, hoping that Mao would reward Indian goodwill by not stationing a large number of troops in the territory nor imposing direct political control (Garver 2001: 49). A similar logic informed both Indian lobbying for the People’s Republic to take China’s permanent seat at the UN in the early 1950s (Garver 2001: 117) and the decision in April 1954 to affirm China’s sovereignty over Tibet in the so-called Panchsheel (‘Five Principles’) agreement. In Nehru’s mind, at least, the Panchsheel agreement laid out the principles that

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ought to guide relations between states in the new postcolonial, soonto-be multipolar age: mutual respect, non-aggression, non-interference, equality, and peaceful coexistence (Nehru 1961: 99–102). Nehru hoped that non-competitive and non-conflictual relations could be established between China and India that might serve as an example to others. That hope was not shared, however, in Beijing, which increasingly saw the relationship through the prism of Marxist-Leninist ideology, as a contest between a liberal-capitalist society destined to lose, and a socialist alternative bound to win. By 1957, Mao had set China on a collision course with India, aiming to displace it as a leader of the emerging postcolonial world, and to turn the nonaligned into a formal bloc—into a pole in a new multipolar order that could challenge the power of both the West and the Soviets (Garver 2001: 121–122). Tensions grew along the unsettled frontier between China and India, negotiations failed, and both sides upgraded infrastructure and deployed troops into contested areas to put pressure on the other. In October 1962, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked and overwhelmed Indian positions, inflicting a humiliating defeat (Maxwell 2015). The border war prompted a re-evaluation of India’s China policy and— in time—of nonalignment as a grand strategy. During the crisis, the UN failed to act, the Soviets urged New Delhi to accept Beijing’s demands, and although Washington responded positively to Nehru’s requests for military materiel, what the Americans supplied fell short of expectations (Chaudhuri 2014; Madan 2020). Thereafter, India adopted a stronger posture towards China: although Nehru continued to refuse to ally with either the US or the Soviet Union, New Delhi invested far more in its armed forces to deter further incursions by the PLA and defend itself, if war reoccurred (Kavic 1967: 192–207). India’s shift to a strategy of internally balancing China rather than diplomatically accommodating Beijing, as it had done in the early 1950s, had knock-on effects, however. The military build-up prompted Pakistan’s leader, General Ayub Khan, to go to Washington and claim that it now needed reinforcement, to ensure it could defend itself, should India decide to take advantage. Ayub also pressed for US arms transfers to India being made conditional on India talking about Kashmir with Pakistan, to which New Delhi reluctantly agreed (Chaudhuri 2014: 125– 131). In parallel, Ayub also made overtures to Beijing, concluding an agreement over their mutual border (Madan 2020: 159). Thereafter, the failure of the Kashmir negotiations and the strengthening of ties to China

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emboldened Pakistan, which decide to attempt to change the status quo by force in mid-1965 (Madan 2020: 181–185). Although India quickly defeated Pakistan’s forces, it was clear by this point that New Delhi needed a more durable partnership with a major power than Nehru, who died a year earlier, had been willing to accept, even if that meant greater dependence.

Polycentricism and Partnership In 1966, a group of policymakers and scholars met at the Indian School of International Studies (now part of Jawaharlal Nehru University) in New Delhi to discuss the state of the world. They pointed to developments that could soon transform a deadlocked international order: the shock of the Cuban Missile Crisis; the re-emergence of Germany and Japan as major industrial powers; the nuclear tests conducted by China and France; and the formation of nonaligned states into a formal bloc. These changes had the potential, some argued, to undermine Cold War bipolarity and usher in a new ‘polycentricism’ that might be more conducive to India’s aspirations to be recognised as a major power (Prasad 1967). Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter, who became prime minister in January 1966, likely did not share that optimism.3 But she and her advisors did see room for India to manoeuvre. Already disillusioned with the US, which had failed adequately to assist New Delhi in the conflict with Pakistan a few months earlier, and which was now embroiled in its own costly war in Vietnam, they also recognised that domestic interests in the US were lobbying for an American rapprochement with China. And so, of course, was Islamabad, which was constructing a durable partnership with Beijing. The widening Sino-Soviet split also made such a move increasingly attractive, promising new means by which Washington could put pressure on Moscow. At the same time, these developments created space for India to pursue a closer partnership with the Soviet Union that would allow it to manage and balance against perceived threats from Pakistan and China without compromising the basic principles of nonalignment (Singh 2019: 210–212). Indira argued that such a partnership would bolster India’s autonomy, not curb it. She insisted that ‘bipolarity’ remained ‘alien to the true interests of India’ and so too was ‘tripolarity’. She insisted too that India continued to oppose ‘spheres of influence’ (Singh 2019: 212– 213) as it had in the 1950s and 1960s. But Indira believed that India

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should take advantage of shifts in the balance of power to secure itself and its interests, especially in South Asia. Initially, that logic proved sound. In August 1971, India agreed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. Formally, it committed both parties to extensive economic, technical, and defence cooperation. Informally, it signalled that India and the Soviets would endeavour to work more closely on major international issues. Importantly—especially for India—the Treaty bound both parties not to ally or aid a third party involved in a conflict with the other. This provision gave New Delhi a measure of reassurance that the Soviets would not assist Pakistan or China in the event of another war (Singh 1979: 1057). This gave Indira’s government some confidence when, in December 1971, Pakistan attacked Indian air bases in retaliation for New Delhi’s backing for the secessionist Mukti Bahini forces in what was then East Pakistan, justifying the full-scale military intervention that led to the creation of Bangladesh.4 Whether the Indo-Soviet partnership enhanced India’s autonomy over the longer term is debatable, however. There is no doubt that India benefited from the economic and technical elements of the relationship, nor what it gained from the access Moscow permitted to advanced defence technology, including fighter aircraft, tanks, and submarines. But on the political side, the gains were less obvious. The Soviets did give New Delhi diplomatic protection at the UN, when issues like Kashmir, Bangladesh, and India’s involvement in the Sri Lankan civil war were tabled (Thakur 1991: 828). In return, New Delhi served as an apologist for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, angering Washington (Paliwal 2017: 47–76), and provided Moscow with an ‘entrée’ into the Nonaligned Movement (Thakur 1991: 830). In those ways and others, the Indo-Soviet partnership exacerbated the ‘estrangement’ between India and the US that began in the late 1960s and which deepened after New Delhi refused to sign the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) and then tested a nuclear device (Kux 1992). It allowed Washington to treat India as a Soviet fellow-traveller, in Cold War terms, stuck in a strategic backwater, rather than a globally significant independent player (Chadda 1986). And the partnership also did little to help India resolve its differences with China, another precondition to the emergence of a more multipolar order. Soviet diplomatic cover and military hardware were sufficient only to manage the problem, giving India capabilities to deter and defend against a Chinese attack. They did not

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provide the means to arrive at a settlement of the border dispute or the wider strategic contest. This problem became very clear in the late 1980s as Moscow and Beijing patched up their differences and began to settle their own border dispute (Bakshi 2001).

Soft and Hard Balancing India’s predicament soon got much worse. The instability caused by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 caused oil prices to spike and precipitated a balance of payments crisis, leading New Delhi to seek an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund. It also left New Delhi with a major humanitarian problem: how to repatriate almost 200,000 Indian citizens stranded in a war zone. Meanwhile, India’s vocal opposition to UN-sanctions and a proposed military action against Iraq in the early stages of the situation irritated the West (Malik 1991). Then, at the end of the year, the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving New Delhi without a strategic partner and significant export market (Singh 1995). India’s leaders remained committed to multipolarity, even if it appeared even further out of reach in what Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao called a ‘unipolar’ world now ‘dominated by Western ideas’ (Rao 2016: 192). India had to have faith, however, in what Rao called ‘our own tradition’ and ‘sustain our self-confidence’, recognising that ‘India is not just another State but a State that constitutes a civilisational centre’ (Rao 2016: 192–193). For that reason, Rao argued, India should not deviate from nonalignment, ensuring that it is free in its ‘decision-making’, and preserve both its freedom and ‘self-reliance’ (Rao 2016: 188). To achieve these aims, Rao—in office for five crucial years between June 1991 and May 1996—made significant changes to India’s grand strategy. First, his government deregulated and liberalised major parts of the economy in response to the balance of payments crisis, aiming to boost growth, stimulate trade, and attract inward investment. These reforms were intended not just to raise living standards, but also to make India stronger and more capable of safeguarding its citizens and its interests (Baru 2016). Second, Rao embarked on a round of personal diplomacy in East Asia, aiming, in what became known as the ‘Look East’ policy, to attract inward investment and know-how, and boost trade (Gordon and Henningham 1995). Third, his administration resisted international efforts to persuade India to give up its nuclear weapons

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programme, as well as attempts by Western states the way to put limits on the norm of non-intervention. In doing so, Rao aimed to keep open the possibility of acquiring a nuclear deterrent should India’s circumstances demand it, while preventing the creation of mechanisms that could be used to allow others to intervene in India’s many internal conflicts, including an ongoing insurgency in Punjab and, of course, the situation in Kashmir. New Delhi therefore opposed the indefinite extension of the NPT and refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Mattoo 1996). In parallel, it voiced scepticism, if not outright opposition, concerning the armed humanitarian interventions of the mid-1990s (Virk 2013), and dragged its feet in talks concerning Rome Statue, eventually agreed in 1998, that created the International Criminal Court (Hall and Jeffery 2021). Some elements of this strategy worked better than others. The economic reforms were the most successful: India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) surged to an average growth rate of close to 6% in the 1990s and more than 7% in the 2000s (Majumdar 2018: 9). Look East also produced dividends: investment and trade grew, India became a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) security-focused Regional Forum in 1996, and relations with Japan improved dramatically (Hall 2016b: 273). But the results of the Rao government’s other initiatives were mixed, at best. Its opposition to Western agendas concerning human rights and nuclear proliferation—as well as to American ‘hegemonism’ in general (Mohan 2003: 145)— prolonged India’s estrangement from the US and European states but garnered only lukewarm support from others and did little to affect the global distribution of power. What did make a difference during the 1990s, however, was the rise of China. Some Indian analysts argued that this might be a positive development, leading to a more multipolar order (Muni 1991). But as the decade wore on, New Delhi grew concerned. In 1993, Rao went to Beijing and signed a landmark agreement designed to maintain ‘peace and tranquillity’ in the frontier areas. The deal ‘delinked’ the border dispute from other issues, allowing economic, cultural, and other interactions to develop (Fravel 2020: 172–173). It did not settle the dispute, however, nor remove the possibility of a future conflict, nor address the growing wealth and power differential between the two. In 1980, China and India had roughly similar GDP per capita. By 1995, the average Chinese citizen was about two and a half times wealthier (World Bank 2022) and the

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Chinese state was in effective control of significantly more revenue to spend. As a result, Indian analysts and policymakers were forced to reassess their views of China—and then shift Indian policy to match. Barely a decade earlier, some leading strategists judged that China was a ‘declining power’ with ‘obsolete weapons’ and ‘increasingly less credible’ military capabilities (Subrahmanyam 1982: 190–191). This view changed as Deng Xiaoping’s reforms delivered a more dynamic economy, as China began to modernise the PLA, and as evidence of Beijing’s assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes accumulated (Mohan 2003: 147–148). For these reasons, some concluded that, as Defence Minister George Fernandes put it in 1998, China is a ‘potential threat no. 1’ (Burns 1998). Concerned by these developments and the widening gap between China and India in wealth and power, New Delhi began to contemplate a drastic step that might allow India to secure itself against a major conventional conflict or nuclear blackmail in a cross-border crisis: testing and developing a deterrent. Rao almost crossed that threshold in 1995 but was dissuaded by Washington (Sitapati 2016: 279–295). Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government finally made the leap three years later (Mohan 2003: 7–11).

Multialignment and Multipolarities For New Delhi, the immediate effects of India’s nuclear tests were adverse. Pakistan moved quickly to carry out six tests of its own and to make its latent deterrent capability overt. Governments around the world condemned India’s move and imposed economic sanctions. But once the initial shock and outrage has subsided, New Delhi’s situation started to improve. Eager initially to put some limits on India’s nuclear weapons programme, and ideally bring it into the CTBT, the Clinton administration opened a high-level channel of communication between India and the US (Talbott 2004). A presidential visit followed in 2000—the first since Jimmy Carter went to New Delhi in 1978—as Washington began to perceive India in a different light, as an emerging economic power and a putative security partner (Tellis 2005) and New Delhi suggested that the US might be, as Vajpayee put it, India’s ‘natural ally’ (Vajpayee 2000). The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath helped to catalyse that shift, as did mounting concerns about China’s might and unclear intentions (Mohan 2003: 83–115). And the results, when they came, were striking: the

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US abandoned its hectoring of New Delhi over issues like Kashmir and instead opted to recognise India as a de facto nuclear power, cooperate to develop India’s civilian nuclear industry, and assist the modernisation of India’s military.5 Importantly, New Delhi’s vision of its preferred world order was not substantively altered during the 2000s by this rapprochement with the US, despite the disappearance of the word ‘nonalignment’ from prime ministerial lexicons (Baru 2014: 167). The aim was still to make India a respected, self-reliant, and independent major power, positioned to take its rightful place in the multipolar order to come and to rewrite at least some of its rules (Sikri 2009: 277–290). What was new in the 2000s was the confidence New Delhi displayed about achieving that objective. In large part, that arose from the rapid economic growth India experienced during the decade, as GDP expanded by more than 7% a year (Majumdar 2018: 9). This success had led, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh observed in a landmark speech, to ‘a greater willingness internationally to work with India and build relationships of mutual benefit and mutual inter-dependence’ (Singh 2005). And there were other positive signs: much improved ties with the US and Japan, for example, and two agreements with China concerning the border dispute, signed in 2003 and 2005 (Smith 2014: 36–39). Taking advantage of these more favourable circumstances to accelerate growth and development at home, and establish India’s credentials a rising major power abroad, New Delhi forged a new set of relationships, moving beyond nonalignment to what some dubbed ‘multialignment’ (Hall 2016b). It deepened ties with ASEAN, signing a framework agreement for a free trade deal in 2003, and becoming a founder member of the East Asia Summit in 2005. It negotiated strategic partnerships of varying kinds with China (2005), the European Union (2004), Indonesia (2005), Japan (2000), Russia (2000), and Vietnam (2007), among others. It took up observer status at the China and Russia-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2005. Soon after, it joined with Brazil, China, Russia, and later South Africa to form the so-called BRICS group of emerging economies, which held its first leaders’ summit in 2009. Throughout, the objective of these moves was clear: to find markets, resources, investment, and know-how to fuel India’s economy and create a platform from which it might exert greater influence in the world (Baru 2014: 160–177).

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This successful and confident phase did not last, however. The Global Financial Crisis stalled India’s growth. The economy was then overtaken by inflation. Accusations of corruption mired Singh’s government after its re-election in 2009, and the domestic and external security situation deteriorated. In the latter half of the 2000s, India suffered multiple mass casualty terrorist attacks, including the 26/11 assault on Mumbai carried out by the Pakistan-based Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (Subramaniam 2012). In parallel, it experienced a surge in militant activity by the Maoist Naxalite movement, which forced New Delhi to deploy up to 100,000 paramilitary troops into affected areas in eastern India in 2009 (Sahoo 2019). And to the north, China grew more assertive, as Beijing looked to take advantage of the economic crisis engulfing the US (Friedberg 2014). Most of Beijing’s attention during this period was focused on the South China Sea, but India was also affected. In 2009, China blocked an Asian Development Bank loan intended to upgrade infrastructure in Arunachal Pradesh—the ‘first time’, as Manjeet Pardesi notes, that it ‘tried to influence the Sino-Indian border dispute at a multilateral setting’ (Pardesi 2016: 184). At the same time, People’s Daily and Global Times launched verbal attacks threatening military action and even the breakup of India in response to New Delhi’s modernisation of roads on its side of the LAC (Smith 2014: 42–43). Calm was restored and persisted up to the end of Singh’s term in office in May 2014, but underlying tensions were not resolved. New Delhi’s anxieties encompassed Chinese naval forays into the Indian Ocean, intrusions across the LAC by PLA patrols, and Beijing’s growing influence over India’s neighbours, especially Pakistan. Beijing, on the other hand, fretted about the Dalai Lama’s presence in Dharamshala and its effect on the stability of Tibet, India’s military modernisation and defence infrastructure projects along the LAC, and New Delhi’s burgeoning ties to the US and its regional allies (Smith 2014: 47–51).

Multiple Multipolarities Animated by a shared desire to see a multipolar order emerge, as well as their national interests as developing societies, China and India did collaborate during the 2000s and into the 2010s. They coordinated their positions in climate negotiations, for example—most notably in Copenhagen in 2009 (Dimitrov 2010). With their BRICS partners, they created the New Development Bank, originally an Indian idea, headquartered

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in Shanghai (Cooper 2021). India then agreed to become a founder member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a Chinese initiative (Ren 2016). These actions were consistent with New Delhi’s multialignment strategy, as well as its focus on trying to maintain an external environment conducive to India’s economic and social development. These moves were also consistent with the aim of ushering in a new multipolar order. But as Mohan Malik argued in 2012, by the early 2010s, New Delhi’s understanding of its preferred order was diverging from those of other rising and resurgent powers, largely because of Beijing’s new assertiveness. China and Russia might see multipolarity as ‘saving others from US hegemony’. By contrast, India was starting to conceive it as ‘“saving itself and others” from American and Chinese hegemony’ (Malik 2012: 361). This difference was very clear in a series of statements from authoritative figures and think tanks, including NonAlignment 2.0, a major report on Indian strategy published in 2011 by the well-respected Centre for Policy Research. Its authors called on India to strive for ‘a more just and equitable global order’ in a context in which no power had the global reach enjoyed by the Cold War superpowers (Khilnani et al. 2011: 8). They did not, however, see China as an ally in that struggle, nor did they think Beijing shared New Delhi’s goals or India’s interests. Instead, they argued that India should compete as well as cooperate with its northern neighbour, judging each issue on its merits, while trying to avoid the impression that New Delhi is ‘irrevocably committed to an anti-China containment ring’ (Khilnani et al. 2011: 14). In broad terms, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, which swept to power in May 2014, did not deviate much from the previous government’s understanding of India’s aims and the best means to achieve them (see Hall 2019). On the campaign trail, Modi did promise to be tougher with China, and once in office, his government made a point of reaffirming India’s partnerships with Australia, Japan, Vietnam, and of course the US. An invitation was made to Barack H. Obama to become the first President to be guest of honour at a Republic Day celebration. But Modi also tried to charm Xi Jinping, who had assumed power eighteen months earlier. A lengthy and elaborate state visit was arranged for the Chinese leader in September 2014. But what occurred during that event was ominous: New Delhi was disappointed by the amount of investment promise by Xi and disconcerted by an alleged PLA intrusion across the LAC in the days prior to his arrival (Bajpai 2017: 80–81).

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Thereafter, the bilateral relationship deteriorated in stages, as New Delhi responded to Chinese actions by drawing closer to the US and its allies, angering Beijing still further, leading to more verbal and even physical clashes on the LAC, and attempts to compel India to distance itself from its strategic partners. The unveiling of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in April 2015, with road and rail projects through Pakistani-administered Kashmir, ruled out the possibility that New Delhi might endorse the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and pushed it to come out as a vocal critic. Beijing’s refusal to add Pakistani militants to UN terrorist lists and to let India join the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group also irritated the Modi government. Then, in mid-2017, at Doklam, came a standoff between PLA troops building a road and Indian soldiers, during which Beijing repeatedly threatened military action. Two inperson summits between Modi and Xi followed that episode but failed markedly to improve the relationship (Hall 2021: 7–10). This worsening of Sino-Indian relations forced a shift in New Delhi’s aims and methods. In the second half of 2017, following the Doklam crisis, the Modi government began to move away from what Rajesh Rajagopalan (2020) terms ‘evasive balancing’—blending military modernisation and the deepening of strategic partnerships with ongoing efforts to engage Beijing—towards more overt balancing of China. It agreed to reconstitute the Quad grouping with Australia, Japan, and the US, with an officials’ meeting in November. It also worked to deepen defence and security ties with the US, in particular. In 2018, New Delhi hosted the first 2 + 2 foreign and defence ministers’ meeting with US officials and signed an important military communications agreement. In parallel, India finalised a series of defence orders for the supply of American-made equipment, including anti-submarine helicopters and Sea Guardian drones (Smith 2019: 10–11). Importantly, New Delhi also started to talk more loudly about the need for a multipolar Asia, not just a multipolar world. This idea first arose in the context of India’s response to China’s BRI. In an important speech to the inaugural Raisina Dialogue in March 2015, the then-Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar argued against projects that see ‘connectivity as an exercise in hard-wiring that influences choices’, especially in the ‘absence of an agreed security architecture in Asia’. And given that the global economic centre of gravity was shifting to Asia, he went on, it was imperative that connectivity initiatives were mutually agreed and mutually beneficial, rather not unilaterally driven or dominated. If ‘we seek a

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multipolar world’, Jaishankar added, ‘the right way to begin is to create a multipolar Asia’ (Jaishankar 2015). Advocated by Jaishankar, the main intellectual driver of the BJP government’s foreign policy and, after May 2019, India’s External Affairs Minister,6 this idea grew during the latter part of Modi’s first term in office to become central to New Delhi’s understanding of the region, complementing the notion of a ‘rules-based’ Indo-Pacific shared with India’s Quad partners, and offering an alternative to Sinocentric visions of a ‘Community of Common Destiny’ (Panda 2019).

Conclusion New Delhi—and Indians more broadly—wants to see a multipolar order in which their country has a fair say and a fair stake in global governance. And around them, they see changes happening that might bring such an order to life. For Jaishankar, at least, today’s world is in flux: ‘turbulent’, ‘nationalistic’, and ‘individualistic’ (Jaishankar 2020: 3–17). In this, he sees potential threats, but also opportunities to expand India’s strategic autonomy, as well as potential threats, making it imperative that India reaches ‘out in as many directions as possible and maximise its gains’ without binding itself too closely to anyone else (Jaishankar 2020: 42). Multipolarity has not yet emerged, however, partly for reasons beyond India’s control, but partly because India has arguably been forced—by lack of relative power and by immediate security concerns—to take actions that may have slowed or stymied its creation. Today the challenge of managing actual and potential security threats from China is pushing New Delhi to align India with other major powers, as it did during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese challenge drove an oftenreluctant India to seek American support. In the 1970s and 1980s, it pushed a more willing India towards the Soviets (Madan 2020). And since the mid-2000s, Beijing’s growing power and unclear intentions have prompted India to form strategic partnerships with the US and its allies that have deepened in recent years as Chinese pressure along the LAC and elsewhere has grown (Hall 2021). Whether India’s dream of a multipolar order will continue to be frustrated, however, is debatable and dependent on several factors, some within New Delhi’s control, and some not. It is likely that the relative power of the US will continue to decline, as it has since 1945, and that Washington will look to shift burdens and reallocate responsibilities to

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allies and partners, including India, in the Indo-Pacific. It is possible that China may emerge as a truly global power within or outside that order, but it is equally plausible that it will struggle to escape the middle-income trap or suffer some other setback that limits its power and influence. Russia could emerge from the Ukraine war a battered but still disruptive force or perhaps a chastened power, less prone to threaten and attack its neighbours. Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and many others could also play significant global roles in upholding or challenging the rules-based order over the next decades. These developments could well deliver India the multipolar order it wants, without New Delhi compromising its prized freedom of action.

Notes 1. On the concept of soft balancing, see Pape (2005), and on the effects of India’s nuclear ‘leap forward’, see Mohan (2003). 2. Arguably, the best study of the logic of nonalignment remains Rana (1976). 3. In what follows, I adhere to the convention of calling Indira Gandhi by her first name, to distinguish her from Mahatma Gandhi, to whom she was not related. 4. On India’s involvement in the creation of Bangladesh, see Raghavan (2015). It should be noted that Raghavan argues China’s decision to stand aloof during the conflict was probably not influenced by the Indo-Soviet Treaty (184–204). 5. In 2005, India and the US concluded both the 123 Agreement that put safeguards on India’s nuclear industry and opened the way to trade in nuclear technology and a ten-year Defence Framework Agreement. 6. See especially Jaishankar (2020). Jaishankar served as Foreign Secretary (the top civil servant in the Ministry of External Affairs) from January 2015 until January 2018, then became External Affairs Minister in May 2019. Earlier, he served as ambassador to the US and to China, among others.

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PART III

Multilateralism and Regionalism

CHAPTER 8

The United Nations and New Multilateralism Hans d’Orville

The United Nations at a Crossroad 75 years after the creation of the United Nations, international cooperation is more important than ever. No period in modern history has been more peaceful or prosperous than the one since the United Nations was created. 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the United Nations. On this occasion, the United Nations General Assembly at summit level— convening via Zoom—adopted the Declaration on the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations (UNGA 2020). It

H. d’Orville (B) Institute for Public Policy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), New York, NY, USA

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_8

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proclaimed that “There is no other global organization with the legitimacy, convening power and normative impact of the United Nations. No other global organization gives hope to so many people for a better world and can deliver the future we want” (ibid.). The Charter of the United Nations is the cornerstone of international law. Every day, countries, citizens, the private sector, and civil society representatives use the UN platform to make life better for all of humanity. Yet anniversaries are not just about celebrating the past; they are equally about looking ahead. Globalization created a complex web of interdependence. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted our global interdependence, has exposed the fragility and vulnerabilities of the globalized system and has exacerbated pre-existing trends. COVID was like a moment of truth. The lesson was not that globalization had failed. The lesson was that globalization is fragile, despite or even because of its innate benefits. The speed with which COVID-19 spread across the world pointed to the need for a global response and global cooperation—meaning that multilateralism was more needed than ever. The global health crisis has demonstrated the importance of multilateralism and exposed the fallacy of a go-it-alone nationalism or isolationism. Over the past years and months, we also have seen a record number of people affected by heat waves, devastating floods, and some of the biggest wildfires in recent history, once again confirming the unprecedented threat posed by climate change. Only an organization that is inclusive and equitable will sustain the world for the future. As Resolution 75/1 further stated (ibid.): We need a new social contract within States and a new global deal between States. We need new global governance, rebalanced financial and trade systems, effective delivery of critical global public goods and decisionmaking guided by standards of sustainability….A renewal of multilateralism must be based on fair globalization, on the rights and dignity of every human being, on living in balance with nature, on taking account of the rights of future generations and on success measured in human rather than economic terms.

Multilateral action led by the United Nations has achieved an enormous amount since its inception, from decolonization, economic and social development, the outbreak of military conflicts and wars in many crisis areas, to eradicating smallpox and mending the hole in the ozone layer.

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The next decades are likely to bring multi-crises with unprecedented economic, political, social, health, and ecological upheavals; yet these crises will also bring opportunities. In the words of the UN General Assembly: [t]he world is plagued by growing inequality, poverty, hunger, armed conflicts, terrorism, insecurity, climate change and pandemics. Our challenges are interconnected and can only be addressed through reinvigorated multilateralism. Only by working together and in solidarity can we end the pandemic and effectively tackle its consequences. Only together can we build resilience against future pandemics and other global challenges. Multilateralism is not an option but a necessity as we build back better for a more equal, more resilient and more sustainable world. The United Nations must be at the centre of our efforts. (UNGA 2020)

In an article in Foreign Policy, Robert Muggah and Giovanna Kuele wrote: The world is at a historical inflection point. It faces cascading, interconnected threats that could undermine global stability—including a relentless pandemic, runaway climate change, deepening inequalities and economic insecurity, massive digital vulnerabilities, and the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons. Paradoxically, at precisely the moment global cooperation is most needed to meet these threats, international solidarity is in short supply. Confronted with a widening array of transnational risks, most governments are distracted, preoccupied with attending to domestic challenges. (Muggah and Kuele 2021)

The United Nations is a tailor-made platform for governments, business, civil society, and others to come together to formulate new protocols and norms, to define red-lines, and to build agile and flexible regulatory frameworks. The UN General Assembly is the world’s best forum to mobilize political will and incubate collective solutions to a or a series of juxtaposed global crises, but often time words outpace actions. Many questions have arisen in recent years: ● How might the system of international institutions be reimagined and/or reinvigorated to better respond to twenty-first-century security challenges, including those that threaten global health, climate, privacy, and civic well-being?

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● What are the pros and cons of different forms of multilateralism for different purposes, e.g. formal vs. informal, small vs. large, regional vs. global, like-minded vs. mixed, major powers only vs. a broader set of powers? ● How could international institutions adapt to better reflect and manage ongoing shifts in economic, military, and political power among global actors? ● What lessons could be learned from well-functioning regional organizations or mechanisms established for international accords? ● How might critical, yet underappreciated, geographic, economic, or technological, flashpoints be managed through multilateral approaches?

The Promise of Multilateralism Multilateralism is an indispensable form of international diplomacy. Nevertheless, it seems controversial. However, the controversy is not about multilateralism as a diplomatic procedure, but essentially about the question of which principles, values and organizations should determine the international order and thus shape international politics. What then is multilateralism? First, it simply means the coordinated diplomatic interaction of three or more states (or other actors) in international politics. “Multilateral” policy stands in contrast to bilateral or unilateral action. The multilateral order is based on one principle: the sovereignty of nation-states, established since the 1648 Westphalian Treaty. For an intergovernmental organization like the United Nations, Member States will always be central to its collective ability to meet global challenges. However, nowadays the dominating notion of sovereignty has become a fiction. As globalization developed, sovereignty crumbled. A more exacting definition of multilateralism would be a combined coordinated diplomatic interactions of more than two actors (Multilateralism 2022a) with the action within the framework of international organizations, oriented toward the principles and norms and carried out in accordance with the rules and regulations that underlie those organizations (such as, for example, the United Nations Charter). Accordingly, a multilateral foreign policy stands for a commitment to certain principles, substantive goals, and methods of foreign policy—and for an underlying set of values. Beyond, multilateralism may refer to “appropriate” answers

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to current global problems and thus it may stand for effective world governance. But even where there is broad agreement on principles, values, and goals, we have necessary but not yet sufficient preconditions for effective multilateralism. Multilateral cooperation within the framework of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is demonstrating this: while it is based on common principles, standards and procedures, multilateral climate policy is far from slowing global warming to the desired extent (UN 2015). Today’s world certainly is multidimensional and multipolar. Its heterogeneity implies also conflicts of values. For multilateralism to work one needs a minimum of agreement on principles. Institutions might well function, but they are an empty shell if there is a growing disconnect between declarations and the actions taken. If there is one thread linking the greatest challenges facing our society, the world economy and the planet, it is the tension between short-term and long-term thinking. We witness that multilateralism is diminishing, if not deteriorating at the international level. This is caused by a weakness of the UN system and regional groupings, such as the EU, which all act in a disperse manner. The paralysis of the UN Security Council in recent years and its incapacity to resolve conflicts or wars—most recently with regard to Ukraine—has undermined the very notion of multilateralism. We have entered a vicious circle: a weak multilateralism confronting challenges ever more global, disjointed national responses and a lamentation about the inefficiency of the multilateralism. Nowadays, nationalism is resurgent, rivalries among countries are deepening—and attacks against the rules-based order are intensifying. Nevertheless, multilateral cooperation is both possible and imperative. It would be wrong to signal the end of multilateralism. Multilateralism is still our best tool for tackling big global challenges. Global cooperation is already transforming and has achieved remarkable successes, such as the Paris Climate Agreement and its series of Conferences of States Parties (COPs) thereafter, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UNGA 2015) as a globally accepted yardstick for a more sustainable future, the establishment of GAVI (2022)—the global vaccine alliance or COVAX (2022)—its global COVID-19 vaccine arm. Civil society has gone global, multinational companies exercise considerable leadership and the role of international organizations has indeed grown. Solidarity, multilateralism and international cooperation remain the most important characteristics for future global leadership.

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We must ensure that the present multilateral order is equipped to search jointly for common solutions to shared challenges which no actor can resolve alone. Some of the current global challenges may be of existential importance for the future of humankind—from climate change and health to the manifold destructions of our ecosphere, from the opportunities and risks of new technologies to the abiding danger of nuclear war. Progress or the development of options on a global scale often appear possible only when many actors work together through new forms of interaction or in broad coalitions bringing together not only states, but also non-state actors such as international organizations, civil society actors, the science and technology community or private companies. However, the problem-solving capacity of multilateralism seems quite uncertain with some 200 State members of the United Nations and a rapidly, sometimes exponentially growing universe of governmental and non-governmental organizations, civil society actors, and transnational corporations. International politics will continue to be determined by the absence of hierarchy and a broad distribution of power. This is due on the one hand to generally accepted principles of the current order, in particular the principles of territoriality and sovereignty of nation-states, and on the other hand to the large number of state and non-state actors involved. We need to modernize the way we build coalitions. That means forging non-traditional partnerships across regional lines, bringing together cities, the private sector, foundations, civil society, and social and youth movements.

Multi-Crises and New Global Challenges The years until 2030 have been designated as the Decade of Action to Deliver the SDGs (UN 2022a). It will be the most critical decade of our generation to build the future. It will be central to achieving a fair globalization, boosting economic growth, and preventing conflict. To this end, we need a strong United Nations development system and effective collaboration between the United Nations and a whole range of other actors. The twenty-first century has brought new governance challenges that have often been triggered by globalization. New global governance models with institutional innovations are needed at all levels to keep up

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with the changing and deteriorating global environment—locally, regionally, and globally. These models must be more networked and inclusive, providing for cooperation not only across borders but also across the whole of society. An active and effective multilateralism requires flexible formats and tools. Tactically, foreign policy should make a vigorous effort to make multilateral processes as efficient as possible. Here, a distinction must be made between the output (the formal results of multilateral processes), their outcomes (i.e., their implementation), and finally their impact (the actual effects on the problem context). Multilateral institutions, which provide the platforms for putting multilateralism into action and which are the basic architecture underpinning multilateralism, should have their authority and effectiveness safeguarded. The United Nations system still holds a leadership role in the multilateral arena but it needs to change as well in order to meet today’s needs and live up to tomorrow’s expectations. How can the UN be made fitter for future purposes? It must become more inclusive and engage with all relevant stakeholders, including regional and subregional organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society, the private sector, academia, and parliamentarians to ensure an effective response to our common challenges. The UN system must also steer the needed paradigm shift in methods and modalities through international cooperation. The strengths and weaknesses of multilateral diplomacy in dealing with global challenges seem obvious. Multilateralism is more protracted and costly than bilateral agreements or a unilateral action by fiat. While the results of multilateral agreements are generally broad and weighty, they are characterized by compromises and the lowest common denominators. More legitimacy may have to be bought at the price of reduced effectiveness, more effectiveness at the price of reduced legitimacy. The same applies to the temporal dimension: negotiation outcomes that reflect broad-based multilateral participation may take longer, but they will probably last longer and thus be more sustainable. Conversely, urgent problems requiring rapid action can be better tackled by a small number of actors who are willing and able to move forward. The implementation of multilateral agreements is generally left to the parties involved. In general, it is difficult to sanction violations of international agreements. Nevertheless, observation, monitoring, and review mechanisms can be set up to improve the chances of successful implementation. International assistance can also be provided for corresponding

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national implementation measures where such possibilities exist and the support is accepted. Wise and effective political leadership is essential. However, the international community is demonstrably failing to protect the most crucial global commons: the oceans, the atmosphere, outer space, biodiversity, and Antarctica. Nor is it delivering policies to support peace, global health, the viability of our planet, and other pressing needs. In early 2020, the UN Secretary-General perceived “four horsemen” in our midst—four looming threats that endanger twenty-firstcentury progress and imperil twenty-first-century possibilities. These four horsemen—epic geopolitical tensions, the climate crisis, global mistrust and the downsides of technology—can jeopardize every aspect of our shared future (UN News 2020). As the Secretary-General warned, “We are at risk of losing pillars of the international disarmament and arms control architecture without viable alternatives” (UN 2020). The threat or reappearance of the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war highlights this challenge long thought behind us. In the national security domain, countries nowadays need to work together to develop what are essentially novel treaties for cyberspace, data governance, artificial intelligence, and bio-engineering. Such agreements should prevent a dangerous race to weaponize new technologies, while encouraging innovation that boosts human well-being and security. As we build multilateral approaches, we need a roadmap for cooperation affecting digital technologies that are profoundly transforming society. Data permeate all aspects of work, and their power is critical to the global agendas. Shaping a shared vision on digital cooperation and addressing digital trust and security must be a priority as the world is now more than ever relying on digital tools for connectivity and socio-economic prosperity. Technology can turbocharge recovery from COVID-19 and the achievement of the SDGs. Despite enormous benefits, new technologies are being abused to commit crimes, incite hate, fake information, oppress and exploit people and invade privacy. We must cope with a new type of clandestine cyber-interference. And we also need a common effort to ensure artificial intelligence is a force for good with a solid ethical footing. On climate change we have already seen the emergence of a new type of multilateral mechanism, a “network of the willing”. Far more ambitious policies are needed to achieve the global target—enshrined in the 2015

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Paris Climate Agreement—of net-zero emissions by 2050 and to keep global warming well below 2 degrees centigrade, aiming ideally at 1.5 degrees (UNFCCC 2016). To this end, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. Following the November 2021 COP26 in Glasgow, UK, Governments must deliver at the 27th session of the Conference of States Parties to the Climate Change Convention COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022 the transformational changes our world needs and that people demand, with much stronger ambition for mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The issue of compensation for losses AND DAMAGES SUFFERED by developing countries due to climate change has become a hot new item on the COP27 negotiating agenda. Those countries that contributed most to the crisis upon us must lead the way. We need multilaterally modulated and coordinated measures. Likewise, the world’s ocean is under assault, principally from pollution and overfishing. Plastic waste is tainting not only the fish we eat but also the water we drink and the air we breathe. We must protect the ocean from further abuse and recognize its fundamental role in the health of people and planet. The Global Ocean Alliance (GOV.UK 2022) is an innovative tool proposed by the United Kingdom to expand the protection areas from 7 to 30% of all oceans until 2030. This may require the elaboration of the very first Treaty for Regulating the Preservation and Sustainable Use of Biological Diversity of the High Seas. On another front: biodiversity is the basis for sound ecosystems—and critically important for the production of healthy food. Yet, the rate of species loss is exponentially higher than at any time in the past 10 million years. One million species are in near-term danger of extinction. Living in harmony with nature is more important than ever. The fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-5), published in 2020 (GBO 2020), stated that the increase in loss, degradation, and fragmentation of forests and other biomass continues to be high, especially in tropical areas rich in biodiversity. The main causes of this loss are the production of food and agricultural production. The challenge to multilateralism is to provide a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework with ambitious goals and effective implementation mechanism, expected to be adopted at the 2021 meeting of the CBD States Parties (CBD 2021a). The designation of the period 2021–2030 as the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration (UNGA 2019; CBD 2021b) signals a sustained commitment to a major comprehensive effort. It aims to prevent, halt

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and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. It can help to end poverty, combat climate change, and prevent a mass extinction. Science is universal, as it crosses national, cultural, and mental borders and draws on a whole range of disciplines from natural sciences to social sciences and the humanities in the quest for a sustainable world. Science, technology, and innovation (STI) is a key engine for human progress and a powerful weapon in tackling many global challenges, bringing about the social and economic transformations required to meet the diverse challenges for sustainable development, above all poverty eradication. Indeed, science will be crucial for in building a global eco-civilization. We must strive for an open, fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory environment for scientific and technological advancement that is beneficial to all and shared by all. STI can be a game changer, benefitting also from reinforced science education and capacity-building. The SDGs must be pursued through an integrated scientific approach. The potential of science to federate different knowledge systems, disciplines, and findings and to contribute to an integrated understanding and knowledge base must be leveraged. Drawing lessons from the COVID19 tragedy, we must build a new global research architecture so as to strengthen and organize interdisciplinary and transnational scientific collaboration in a transparent and accountable manner. It should be capable of coordinating effectively enormous datasets, fill data gaps, improve knowledge management and understanding, organize equitable distribution and sharing, be it through public, private, or academic laboratories. States need to create enabling environments for the international networking of scientists. Strengthening science diplomacy provides further opportunities to build scientific cooperation on issues that no single country can address alone. Biotechnology is another area which has advanced rapidly. It deals with a set of capabilities to decode and manipulate DNA. It allows the development of completely new products. To harness the benefits and reduce any downside negative risks, countries need to develop scientific capabilities, tools, and expertise. The mid-2021 call by a WHO panel for a UN summit on global health security (WHO 2021) to prepare for and respond to future health emergencies may be a suitable response to design new global governance mechanisms and tools.

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New global multi-stakeholder partnerships—like the InterAcademy Partnership (InterAcademies 2022)—can highlight the role of scientists in developing and sharing innovations for the benefit of all. Academies can lead the breakdown of disciplinary and geographic silos by shifting from competitive, isolated communities to collaborative, integrated ones, from working for society to working with society, openly and inclusively—across national borders. All these challenges place a severe burden on multilateralism. International organizations have grown in importance and breadth of mandate, but the institutional landscape remains fragmented and faith in governance institutions is diminishing. Declarations of intent and peer pressure will not be enough. Real multilateralism and mutually binding commitments will be essential. To this end, we must continue to make the United Nations fit for the challenges of our age and secure a peaceful future for all. Building a new multilateralism won’t be easy; but not trying is not an option.

A Greater Role for the United Nations Upon assuming the post of Secretary-General in January 2017, Antonio Guterres penned an article in Newsweek about his vision for revitalizing the UN. In it, he noted that the greatest shortcoming of the international community was its failure to prevent conflict and maintain global security. In his view, preventing conflict means going back to basics— strengthening institutions and building resilient societies. Where wars were already raging, mediation, arbitration, and creative diplomacy were needed, backed by all countries with influence. He called to broaden the circle of action to include governments, bilateral and international organizations, and international financial institutions. “Partnerships with civil society, the business community and others are critical to success” (Guterres 2017). He continued that the UN system needed to be reformed and united to provide the development support to Member States in order to achieve the SDGs. For the UN to achieve its full purpose and potential, it must change and reform the way it works through greater coherence and consistency by creating a continuum from conflict prevention and resolution to peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and development. The UN’s internal

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management also needed to be reformed through simplification, decentralization, and flexibility. The UN must much more focus on delivery and not so much on process. Just re-elected for a second term, the UN Secretary-General—together with many world leaders—called for a renewal of multilateralism. On 10 September 2021, he presented a report entitled “Our Common Agenda.” Guterres laid out a blueprint about how he envisages to secure a breakthrough for humanity through a series of choices in order to avert a historical breakdown of societies, and instead realize a “greener, safer, better” future (UN 2022b). The report proposes actions to advance the 12 commitments made by world leaders in September 2020, at the UN’s 75th anniversary, all of which require reinvigorated multilateralism. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Leave no one behind, Protect our planet, Promote peace and prevent conflicts, Abide by international law and ensure justice. Place women and girls at the center, Build trust, Improve digital cooperation, Upgrade the UN, Ensure sustainable financing, Boost partnerships, Listen to and work with youth, and Be prepared.

The report had been drafted on the basis of consultations involving over 1.5 million people in 193 countries on how to build a better future. The report was also informed by discussions with national and city governments, impact investors, young people, and civil society groups, including outreach with over 1,500 thought leaders from 147 countries in 2021. The consultations found that the expectations and hopes of women, men, girls, and boys around the world were surprisingly similar. People wanted better access to basic health care, sanitation, and education. They also wanted to see more solidarity with those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and those living in poverty. The main long-term concern of respondents was the twin crisis of climate change and the accelerating loss of biodiversity. Almost 90% of

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them believed that global cooperation was essential to face the current challenges. In addition, a majority believed that the pandemic had made international cooperation even more urgent. Virtually all contributors agreed that more, not less, international cooperation was needed. The agenda lays out two possible futures: one of breakdown and perpetual crisis due to pandemics, rising temperatures, massive job losses, and growing protests, and another in which there is a breakthrough to a greener, safer future. The UN Secretary-General concentrated in his road map on achieving global consensus. To avert the outbreak of interstate and civil wars, he recommended that nations establish a new agenda for peace to revitalize conflict prevention, reduce the risks of cyberattacks and nuclear confrontation, and lay out rules to prevent the militarization of outer space. He also urged the creation of a global digital compact to mitigate digital divides and ensure that new technologies, including artificial intelligence, are used for positive transformation. Notwithstanding its flaws, the UN is still the only genuinely representative multilateral organization to tackle such issues. “Our Common Agenda” proposed an urgently needed reboot of the global system that incubates inclusion and takes into account the needs of future generations. It kicked off a process to reinvigorate multilateralism and sought to make the UN more relevant in global economic governance and other global public goods. The main challenge now will be whether the world’s countries can translate the blueprint into action. Under the title “We can and we must breathe new life into multilateralism” the Presidents of Costa Rica, South Africa, and Senegal, as well as the Prime Ministers from New Zealand, Sweden, and Spain supported the Secretary-General’s “Our Common Agenda.” In an article in “Le Monde” (2022), they called for the creation of a more agile, more efficient, and more accountable multilateral system. hey argued that the threat of collapse should be seen as an opportunity for innovation. For this reason, they committed to strengthen the support of their countries for the Secretary-General’s efforts to give substance to the ambitious United Nations program. They stated that the COVID-19 pandemic had sent a particular message: We live in an interconnected and interdependent world. To take forward the recommendations of “Our Common Agenda” and guide Member States’ deliberations on them, the Secretary-General

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appointed a High-level Advisory Board. An eventual high-level, multistakeholder Summit of the Future is slated to advance ideas for governance arrangements, based on preparatory events and consultations. This is scheduled to take place during the UNGA in September 2023. In September 2021, the UN Secretary-General issued a further report, this time on the relationship between the UN and the private sector. Entitled “Enhanced cooperation between the United Nations and all relevant partners, in particular the private sector,” it offered four recommendations to enhance the impact of the UN system’s partnerships with businesses, and better measure and communicate their impacts (UNGA 2021). The report responded to resolution A/73/254, in which the UNGA had made recommendations for enhancing this type of cooperation. The five pathways suggested to accelerate impact were: ● moving away from donation-based partnerships and building more strategic business relationships; ● shaping more innovation-based partnerships that leverage core private sector competencies and technologies; ● increasing the focus on multi-stakeholder partnerships, which agencies expect to more than double in number in the next three to five years; ● connecting and convening wider ecosystems of actors; and ● expanding opportunities for engaging micro-, small and mediumsized enterprises for greater local impact. The September 2021 report found that, following substantial progress to implement those recommendations, further efforts were required to “realize more networked and inclusive multilateral cooperation.” Other observations in the report included that: partnerships with the private sector throughout the UN system were becoming more strategic, with a focus on innovation, scalability, and impact; there remained “significant untapped opportunity” to mobilize a more diverse range of actors and mobilize new coalitions; corporate interest had increased in allocating resources to the SDGs through partnerships; the UN system had experienced “noticeable growth” since 2017 in engagement with national and local-level companies; across the UN system there were at least 3200 private sector partnerships under way, an estimated two-fold increase from

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2017. Bilateral partnerships continued to dominate. The report proposed increasing efforts to advance partnerships that engage multiple partnerships and last for a long period, which can “more systematically capture results and learnings.” Among its recommendations, the report suggested that: ● Member States embrace multi-stakeholder partnerships to address current and potential life-threatening crises, in particular to tackle challenges that cross borders, such as climate change and the protection of the oceans. ● The private sector prioritize the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions and negative biodiversity impacts across its entire value chain while maintaining the highest standards of environmental integrity. ● Member States can encourage responsible innovation and leveraging of technology for sustainable development. The report also recalled that the UN Global Compact had developed a strategy for 2021–2023 to pursue five “strategic shifts” (UNGC 2022): stronger corporate accountability; balanced growth of local and regional networks for global coverage; measurable impact anchored by the Ten Principles; harnessing the collective action of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a targeted and cross-cutting program for such enterprises that leverages digital tools and value chains to reach scale; and strong and active engagement with the rest of the UN system. The Compact is expected to introduce a new version of its reporting tool for participating companies, which will be more ambitious and enable an aggregate view of impact. The Secretary-General’s report noted that this strategy would require the support of Member States, including at the country level, to galvanize the private sector to align its business models with the SDGs. The UN General Assembly (UNGA) closed its 75th session (2020– 2021) and opened UNGA 76 (2021–2022) on 14 September 2021. The President of UNGA 76, Abdullah Shahid of the Maldives, said his Presidency would focus on embracing hope and initiating a new narrative. He said the Assembly can either “fall back on the … United Nations machinery that fills our days, or we can choose to push forward and turn the page.… Let us dare to dream and let us dare to hope” (UN 2021).

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Citing “collective anxiety” around the world due to climate change, disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflict and instability, Shahid said “the narrative must change.” He highlighted five “rays of hope”: ● vaccinating the world; ● rebuilding sustainably from the COVID-19 pandemic; ● making the UN “once again” a forum for all, namely civil society and youth; ● climate action, with UNGA 76 to be a “super session for nature”; ● gender equality.

New Forms of Multilateralism We need a stronger sense of solidarity and an inclusive political platform for networked exchanges between all stakeholders—from governments, civil society and intellectuals, international organizations, science and research institutions, to multinational companies, and the finance community. The Yearbook of International Organizations calculated that there were 213 such entities in 1909 but more than 70,000 some 110 years later (UIA 2022). The number of think tanks had grown dramatically in the last 20 years, over half of them located in North America and Europe, while Asia registered the fastest growth. This expansion created new dynamics of global interconnectedness. These entities were expected to define new means of global cooperation and activate networked problem-solving, drawing on technological speed and intensity. Many proposals have been advanced to reinforce or complement multilateralism. Alternatively, a new global order could be structured geopolitically as “one world, many systems,” where partnerships are an integral part of the balance of power, while serving as guarantors for a set of global public goods. In a way this calls for polylateralism, in which the actors of global civil society and subnational governments are taking up the slack of faltering nation-states. Some have proposed a non-monolithic Third UN (Carayannis and Weiss 2021), denoting a network of supportive non-state actors—intellectuals, scholars, consultants, think tanks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), philanthropies, the private sector, and the media—that interacts with governmental representatives and international civil servants to

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formulate and refine ideas and decision-making for intergovernmental public policy. To strengthen and give new momentum to multilateral action, another initiative is the informal “Alliance for Multilateralism” (Multilateralism 2022c)—launched by Germany in cooperation with France. It aims at preserving functioning segments of the current international order, renewing and strengthening fragile areas, and drawing hitherto inadequately regulated parts into the existing multilateral order. The Alliance is designed as a flexible and pragmatic multi-stakeholder network of committed States, institutions, and non-state actors to collaborate on specific themes in order to defend the rules-based international order and to reform it, where necessary. By now, the Alliance network consists of 70 participants, among them some fifty states. Several initiatives have already been launched by the Alliance, like the Alliance against Impunity (Multilateralism 2022b) in the area of violations of international law or the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace (Paris Call 2022), which promotes collaboration to enhance stability in cyberspace, supported by 80 States, some 400 representatives from NGOs, research institutes, universities, and civil society as well as more than 700 private sector actors. A new Coalition for the UN We Need (C4UNWN 2022), formerly UN2020, co-chaired by former UNGA President Maria Fernanda Espinosa and Daniel Perell, is another initiative for a new kind of multilateralism. It seeks generosity, true partnership, and mutualism—based on justice and the fulfillment of promises made—among all in society. Such a paradigm shift cannot be expected from governments alone—nor from any pillar of society independently. It is a whole of society endeavor and must carry with it an ethic of genuine partnership including a strong role for all non-State actors (IISD 2021). “We the peoples,” invoked in the Preamble to the UN Charter (UN 2022c), serve as key protagonists in creating global systems commensurate with today’s global reality. Civil society is not only a voice of criticism, nor is it solely the conscience—it is, in a real sense, the guide that dictates the way governments must go. The Coalition for the C4UN wants a global order and a multilateralism that truly delivers for “the peoples.” Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd presented yet another proposal for a rejuvenation of multilateralism in a 2020 article in The Economist (Rudd 2020):

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● There should be a three-fold architecture: global institutions of plurilateral cooperation, a partnership of rivals between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, and a complementary coalition of the willing to salvage valuable parts of the present multilateral order. ● A core group of powers among the G20 should act to reform, fund, and politically defend the central institutions of global governance for the post-COVID era. These should include the WHO, the WFP, and the FAO, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the World Trade Organization. ● Such an effort could be led by Germany, France, the European Union, Japan, Canada, and possibly the UK. They could be joined by others committed to maintaining an effective multilateral order as a global public good in its own right, rather than as a vehicle for the realization of narrow national interests. ● This group could be called the “Multilateral 7” (M7). It “should become the collective intellectual, policy and political secretariat of a multilateral rescue mission … They should pool the diplomatic and financial resources necessary to advance unapologetically an agenda of keeping as much of the current multilateral system as functional as possible for as long as possible, until global geopolitics achieves a new equilibrium.” The diffusion of power throughout the international system is creating a nonpolar world. New actors increasingly compete with states. Violent non-state actors are no longer just minor players. Ethnic groups, warlords, youth gangs, terrorists, militias, insurgents, and transnational criminal organizations—all are redefining power across the globe. These changes are producing a world marked by entropy. A world populated by dozens of such power centers will prove extremely difficult to navigate and control, presaging a constellation of global disorder and internationally a series of messy ad hoc arrangements devoid of a true multilateral spirit. Planetary realities—combined with the growing fragmentation of identities within nations and the newfound connectivity that links those identities beyond borders—suggest the emergence of something new: a distributed form of governance in which diverse constituencies from across the world with common interests and values can act effectively alongside creaking sovereignty. In effect, what we are seeing is the beginning of a reversal of the whole Westphalian notion that political and

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cultural life could, and must, be contained within designated territories (Gardels 2021). Others argue that the nation-state will remain the main actor, notwithstanding the devolution of “formal legitimacy” to subnational units of governments so they have the legal status to act globally makes sense. The capacities of subnational governments, civil society, and business with international organizations and nation-states could be joined in “impact hubs” to address planetary issues. “What’s key is to get people away from thinking strictly in terms of ‘international,’ which connotes governmentto-government interaction and state versus non-state, and instead to think in terms of the interconnected global” (Slaughter 2022). Alternatively, a new global order could be structured geopolitically as “one world, many systems,” where partnerships are an integral part of the balance of power, while serving as guarantors for a set of global public goods.

Conclusion The United Nations is the heart of the international system. The fact that the world came together seventy-six years ago to create an organization that “achieves international cooperation to solve international problems” is extraordinary in itself. But what is even more striking is that this organization has endured despite its challenges, recurrent conflicts, and shortcomings. It shows that the path to a better, more peaceful, and more sustainable future is paved with cooperation—not competition or zero-sum approaches. However, international organizations around the world have been built primarily to resolve interstate issues and not issues that transcend borders, such as financial crises, pandemics, terrorism, criminal networks, threats to our oceans, or the climate change. We must therefore modernize our multilateral institutions, adapt them to our objectives and better equip them to face the global and intergenerational challenges we face. Multilateral organizations must be given the means and the mandate to make a difference on the ground. Undoubtedly, the multilateral system needs to be more open and inclusive for the voices of young people, civil society, the private sector, academia, parliamentarians, scientists, and others. As part of the agenda of the UN Secretary-General, the global community must take bold steps to strengthen its capacity to fight poverty and inequality, ensure inclusion, equality of participation, and justice, stem

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the climate crisis and the acceleration of biodiversity loss, and equip itself with the necessary means to fight against future pandemic threats. We must strengthen our collective capacity to anticipate, prevent and manage complex risks such as epidemics, new wars, massive cyber attacks, environmental disasters, or other unforeseen events. We need a UN 2.0 that can offer more relevant, systemwide, multilateral and multi-stakeholder solutions to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Solutions to today’s challenges equally depends on action from civil society, the private sector, and others, particularly young people. Together, the world can and must breathe new life into rules-based multilateralism, embodying a stronger and more inclusive United Nations.

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CHAPTER 9

East Asian Multilateralism: A Glass Half Full T. J. Pempel

East Asia has become steadily more regionally interconnected through ever-deepening networks of transportation, communication, travel, trade, investment, and supply chain production. Such interconnections held out great promise to many. In one observer’s somewhat hyperbolic summation: “Dazzling flows of capital, information, ideas, and people moved across national borders and helped create something of a dreamland for the future” (Qin 2020). The bulk of these connections was for long the result of actions by non-state actors, most notably corporations and financial institutions. Governments within the region were slower to forge corresponding institutional linkages among themselves, leaving the region open to the widespread charge that it is “under institutionalized.” Nonetheless, state actions creating such institutions have picked up considerably in the

T. J. Pempel (B) University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_9

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past two decades. Still, even recent state-led moves toward regional multilateralism have been criticized more often than applauded. They indeed have their boosters (Calder and Ye 2010; Stubbs 2000, 2002). Yet, far more frequent have been castigations of their limitations, the most recurring of which center on their prioritization of process over substance. As a consequence, the critics argue that most regional institutions have demonstrated little tangible progress in shifting state policies toward the alleviation of the numerous pan-regional problems and deep fissures that beset the area. Most tangibly, they have shown little capacity to resolve the region’s multiple military threats and competing sovereignty claims (Camroux 2012; Kahler 2011). Nor have any of these institutions done much to stem the tide of environmental pollution and the ecological disaster of global warming. Even where state-led multilateral institutions have been most prolific and assertiver, namely finance, investment, and trade, as one critic argued there is little evidence that they have played more than a marginal role in influencing the behavior of states or the private sector actors most central to the East Asian economic success story (Beeson 2003, 2016). Similarly, Ravenhill (2009) assessing regional trade pacts asks rhetorically whether the pharynx of new agreements created since the Asian financial crisis (1997–1998), have been moving in ways that actually deepen regional ties. He concludes “For the most part, the available evidence suggests not.” Valorizing process over substantive policy shifts favors informal organization and voluntary cooperation as opposed to hard rules and tough penalties designed to advance targeted goals, Such norms are, indeed, pervasive across most East Asian regional bodies. Thus they become what Khong and Nesadurai (2007) argue, too often result in “talk-shops, lowest common denominator agreements, [and] defection and cheating.” Assessing an array of regional bodies, (Pempel 2010) also concludes “ … hardly [any] represent institutions radiating deep levels of mutual trust, a common agenda, and a willingness to sacrifice large measures of state autonomy in pursuit of a common purpose. Instead, they reflect the underlying wariness of their members about one another as well as their collective reluctance to surrender substantial national sovereignty to such regional bodies.” Notwithstanding the central validity of such critiques, this essay advances three counter-claims. First, the problem-solving expectations for such institutions are unrealistic. Second, in several non-trivial areas

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regional multilateralism has achieved substantial successes. Third, criticisms of soft institutionalism and loose rules downplay the long-term potential inherent in such bodies. On the basis of that assessment, the essay concludes that while many view multilateralism in East Asia as a glass half empty, a more realistic perspective reveals a glass half full. This essay proceeds in five parts. First, it examines the concept of multilateralism, highlighting some of its difficulties and limitations. A second section examines early East Asian multilateralism, noting that it primarily involved participation in global, not region-specific, institutions. A third section examines moves toward regional multilateralism, most especially advances in several economic areas. The fourth section examines the contrast with East Asia’s limited security multilateralism, while noting a few promising successes. The essay concludes by offering some optimistic as well as pessimistic thoughts on the long-term potential for East Asian multilateralism.

On Multilateralism The demands of multilateralism are significant. Most basically, a multilateral approach requires acknowledgment that certain problems cannot be dealt with effectively within a nation’s own boundaries. Costs and benefits spill into the external arena, often being so great that domestic goals cannot be accomplished without coordinated multilateral action (Caporaso 1992). Yet, recognition of national limitations remains but a first step toward the more demanding embrace of the alternative multilateral approach. Multilateral participants must be prepared to renounce temporary advantages and the temptation to define their interests narrowly in terms of national interests, as well as forgoing ad hoc coalitions and policies based on situational exigencies and momentary constellations of interests (Ruggie 1992; Caporaso 1992). If multilateralism is not easy, nor is it a “best” approach. There is a creative tension between collective regional solutions and individual national sovereignty. For example, what the leaders of several regional regimes may see as self-evident regional solutions to some particular issue could well strike leaders of other countries essential to the solution as dangerously detrimental to other regional necessities. Regional cooperation on global warming, for example, can conflict with economic growth and trans-border efforts at anti-terrorism could well undermine crossborder religious harmonization. Many would applaud the EU’s collective

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moves against autocracy in several eastern European countries, yet those same people would almost surely oppose investigations by the multilateral UN Human Rights Council, whose multiple autocratic members choose to ignore one another’s human rights violations in favor of targeting far more sketchy cases. With this perspective in the background, it is clear that many expectations for East Asian multilateralism set too high a bar. With the distinct exception of the European Union, as Pekkanen’s extensive dataset on regional institutions shows (Pekkanen 2016), regional institutions throughout the rest of the world favor informal structures and soft rules. The EU has, in contrast, established itself as a body with strict rules and substantial leverage over rule violators. As well, the EU has forged a distinctive security community, i.e., a region in which war among members is essentially unthinkable (Alagappa 2003, 2018; Pouliot 2006; Williams and Neumann 2000). Such an integrative approach has fueled shared prosperity and social advancement and has allowed Western Europe to move collectively in addressing a variety of pan-regional and global issues. The EU, for example, has made far more collective progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions than any other collective region in the world (National Geographic 2019). Nevertheless, even the EU’s stronger institutions and commitment to collective action failed to prevent civil war in the Balkans or the Russian takeover of Crimea from Ukraine, let alone the full-scale invasion begun in February 2022. Should more be expected of East Asia? Unlike the culturally, economically, and politically compatible Western European countries that banded together in NATO and the ECSC, and eventually the EU, East Asia is a region comprised of countries manifesting tremendous eclecticism culturally, economically, geographically, and strategically. They lack the built-in binding agents and common targets that would foster a surrender of sovereignty in favor of a regional approach predicated on strict rules of enforcement. The countries of Northeast Asia, for example, following World War II, rather than sharing a unified view of some common security threat(s) were divided into two mutually confrontational camps allied against one another. A limited number of pro-Western regimes forged bilateral hub and spoke security and economic ties with the U.S. (Calder and Ye 2010; Yeo 2019) rather than a collective body such as NATO (Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002). In opposition stood an alternative bloc of interdependent communist regimes drew together in the Council for Mutual

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Economic Assistance (CoMEcon) and the Warsaw Pact. East Asia’s bifurcation did not begin to dissipate until the early 1980s, bequeathing institutional legacies that still shape regional interactions and constrict multilateral possibilities. Security relations of most countries in Northeast Asia countries, for example, continue to be shaped by historical animosities and unresolved issues of sovereignty (Pempel 2021). Complicating big power bipolarity in the region, virtually all of the countries of Southeast Asia emerged from colonial legacies that left them with institutional linkages, socio-economic legacies, and economic confinements that constricted their future options. Most of those emerging from colonial rule sought to distance themselves from entrapment by either of the two blocs even as domestic territorial along with ethnic, and religious divisions forced virtually all post-colonial Southeast Asian leaders to scramble simply to forge a common sense of national identity among their citizenry. That the original founders of ASEAN were able to overcome such impediments reflects a major leap of collective faith based on their common fear of being engulfed in the bipolar contests of the Cold War (Ba 2009), a collective anxiety analogous to the fear of domestic and external communism that helped forge the bonds of unity among European countries that allowed them to move past a century of fighting, including two world wars. Yet, ASEAN in its early phases also opened a wide gap between northeast and southeast Asia. Beyond such historical and institutional hurdles impeding regional multilateralism in East Asian, it is critical to remember that many problems do not lend themselves readily to regional approaches. It is true that certain environmental issues, for example, the massive dust storms caused by the desertification of large swaths of China and Mongolia, or with Southeast Asian haze caused by illegal forest burning generate highly visible pollution within geographically proximate countries and have consequently stimulated regional multilateral responses (Campbell 2005; Reimann 2016). So too have such disproportionately regional pandemics as SARS or avian flu; both spurred quick and coordinated regional recognition and action that saw relatively smooth short-term cooperation to organize the outbreak response (Lukner 2014). Yet, the bulk of the most serious environmental issues, such as global warming, or pandemics such as COVID-19 of HIV-AIDS, do not lend themselves to region-specific approaches. Unconstrained by any geographic boundaries, they demand global solutions. Thus, any blame attached to multilateral inadequacies lies with global, not regional, responsiveness.

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With such caveats in mind, it is important to set more realistic expectations about what East Asian multilateralism should be capable of solving when in fact the unresolved persistence of such problems in other regions of the globe suggests that East Asia’s limited problem solving is far from singular.

East Asian Multilateralism: From Global to Regional Institutions That the states of East Asia did not forge regional multilateral bodies in the immediate aftermath of World War II should not be surprising. Yet, they did participate in multilateral institutions; however, such engagement was with global, rather than regional, institutions. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. and Western Europe created a web of institutions that established a global international order that has largely prevailed until today (Ikenberry 2000, 2004). The United Nations was the most inclusive of these; the bulk of the remainder were, with the conspicuous exception of the communist bloc countries, also global in character. Key examples include the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as well as its successor the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the security arena, by way of contrast, U.S.-created institutions were region-specific. In some parts of the world, the U.S. helped to forge regional multilateral bodies, such as NATO; however, as noted above, in East Asia it relied on a patchwork of bilateral hub-and-spokes alliances (Ikenberry 2004; Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002; Park 2011; Yahuda 2012). That said, for much of East Asia, participation in global multilateral institutions provided a context conducive to increasing cross-border economic linkages and rapid improvements in GDP, driven largely by private corporations. Such growth both benefitted from, and further fostered, a diminution of state-to-state conflicts. Economic growth and reduced security tensions in East Asia eventually created a reinforcing virtuous cycle. Kathryn Lavelle (2020) argues that twenty-first-century multilateralism is under powerful counter pressures from three major forces: (1) job losses due to globalization of production; (2) terrorist attacks and US unilateralism that undercuts the role of major global institutions; and (3) the waves of migration due to climate change and war. These forces have been

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far less pervasive in East Asia, most of whose countries have been beneficiaries, rather than victims, of global production expansion. Nor have waves of occupationally disruptive migrants appeared. Rather the foremost challenges to East Asian multilateralism are a resurgent nationalism and reanimated irredentism. While continuing to participate in global institutions, numerous Asian governments forged additional region-specific forms of multilateral cooperation as a way to concentrate policymaking energies on regionally particularistic concerns, including efforts to address interests, needs, values, and priorities they believed were inadequately dealt with at the global level. In particular, many were clamoring for a greater voice in the Bretton Woods institutions, where the United States and European countries have long called the shots (Pekkanen 2012). East Asia’s earliest moves toward regional multilateralism gained their greatest impetus from actions by non-state, rather than state, actors. A revolution in corporate production processes allowed for the modularization of complex production systems. Taking advantage of asymmetries in national economic systems numerous corporations began retaining the most profitable portions of their operations e.g., product development, planning and design, near corporate headquarters, while moving the more labor intensive, low value added, tasks such as assembly, packaging, and distribution to locations with lower operating costs and/or easy access to transportation or communication hubs or to final market destinations. Companies from North America and Western Europe, as well as the richer countries of Northeast Asia began to “move the product, not the factory.” As has been well-catalogued, numerous countries throughout East Asia became ever more deeply enmeshed in such global and regional production networks, the primary result of which was expanded intra-Asian trade and investment to the collective propulsion of the “East Asian economic miracle” (World Bank 1993). The non-state multilateralism that began to envelop the region initially depended extensively on reginonally exogenous multilateral institutions and were largely pan-Pacific in character. The major regional exception was ASEAN. Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank (formed in 1966) drew heavily on the rules of, and coordinated many of its programs with, the World Bank. Both the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC; established in 1989) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF; established in 1994) were pan-Pacific and sought goals

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strongly resonant with existing global multilateral bodies, e.g., trade liberalization, smoother investment, economic development, and enhanced security confidence. As a consequence, until the Asian Economic Crisis (AEC) of 1997– 1998, most governments across the region were content to reap the benefits of rising corporate investments, cross-border trade, and panPacific institutions. Regional prosperity and reduced security tensions minimized any impulses to challenge the status quo from which East Asia drew cornucopian benefit. Domestic leaders and their supporters drew considerable legitimacy from the rapid economic enhancements. Few perceived serious tension between regional and global interests sufficient to search out overlapping national interests with those of their neighbors that might propel regionally specific institutions. Beneath this placid surface of global and regional harmonization, rapid East Asian expansion began to open a widening gap between patterns of East Asian national development and those embedded in global institutions. The AFC unmasked such divergences and dramatically scrambled existing incentives. The AFC revealed that rapid capital movements into and out of the region, propelled by private financial institutions operating behind the norms endemic to laissez faire economics, the IMF, and the Washington Consensus, presented a common threat to East Asian economic development.. There have been numerous detailed analyses of the events surrounding the AFC and its aftermath (Haggard 2000; Pempel 1999; Radelet et al. 1998). At base, rapid economic successes across East Asia attracted considerable cross-border capital flows fueling soaring local stock markets, currencies, and short-term government and corporate borrowing. Past Asian successes held the promise of mounting riches for such investors. Nonetheless, a double mismatch in exchange rates and duration of loans led to the rapid exit of vast foreign sums that devastating many local economies. Thailand, South Korea, and Indonesia all sought IMF bailouts and Malaysia only avoided doing so by freezing its capital outflows. IMF conditions for the bailout funds came straight from the institution’s longstanding playbook: tighten government budgets; cut public employment and subsidies; raise taxes. That “solution,” however, bore little correspondence to economic realities in the affected countries, none of which needed budgetary supervision so much as a temporary capital infusion; however, the affected countries had little alternative but to comply with

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the brutal terms. Unemployment soared and local currencies fell triggering a collective East Asian reexamination of the merits of enhancing regional as opposed to global multilateralism. Suddenly, many East Asian leaders saw a shared region-specific incentive to confront a common external threat that made them more amenable to collective institutional actions not automatically in accord with global institutional rules and practices. Instead, they offered an institutional mechanism to “soft balance” against such external threats. Without terminating their participation in existing global institutions, numerous Asian governments added various region-specific forms of cooperation to the totality of their multilateral engagements. These focused on regionally specific issues (and protecting regionally-specific economic paradigms) as well as addressing those interests, needs, values, and priorities perceived as inadequately accommodated at the global level. The relatively new ASEAN + 3 (APT) took the lead in creating an intraAsian currency swap arrangement (Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralism) and an Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI). In addition, CMIM established a regional surveillance mechanism called the Economic Review and Policy Dialogue, while, in conjunction with CMIM, China, Japan and Korea agreed to provide technical assistance and training for the monitoring of capital flows among some of East Asia’s less advanced financial systems (Hamilton-Hart 2008; Henning 2009). The collective goal was to reduce the vulnerability of regional countries to currency manipulation, the sudden reversal of capital flows, or the need to engage with New York or London to finance infrastructure projects, all distinctively endemic to global multilateralism. These institutional moves proved to be harbingers of what subsequently become a transformation of the region’s institutional landscape in which an increasing number of regional institutions challenge existing global bodies (He 2019; Kahler 2011; Pekkanen 2012; MacIntyre et al. 2008). The division between global and regional multilateralism widened further following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC, 2008–2009). Then, as Michael Mandlebaum (314) noted, a reversal of global economic fortunes weakened the existing world order. The strongest adherents to that order’s dictates and norms, namely the U.S. and Western Europe. These adherents did less well at generating prosperity, less buoyant and politically and consequently less inclined to assert themselves on its behalf. In contrast, East Asian economies less wedded to those dictums and

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norms, weathered the GFC far better, due at least in part, to their distinctive economic paradigms and their regional and national buffers against unrestrained global capital flows and broad scale deregulation (Pempel and Tsunekawa 2015). Further catalyzing East Asian acknowledgment of common regional goals was the unwillingness of existing global institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, to accommodate those countries that were accounting for ever-increasing proportion of global GDP, most notably those within East Asia. As well, in the area of trade, regional multilateralism gained impetus from the foundering of the WTO’s Doha Round on reducing trade barriers.1 The response was an explosion of regional trade multilateralism. Numerous governments in East Asia, anxious to reduce barriers to their cross-border trade moved to forge a nexus of bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). To date, virtually all countries in the region have signed at least a dozen such bilateral agreements, China leads the way with 47, followed closely by Singapore (44), South Korea (44), Malaysia (35), and Japan (34) (Asia Regional Integration Center 2021). The coverage ratio of such pacts continues to expand (Pempel 2019). Bilateral agreements found complementarity in several larger collective FTAs, including ASEAN’s internal ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Regional Cooperation and Economic Partnership (RCEP). This last, involving only Asian economies, is arguably the largest free trade agreement in history. The cumulative result of such bilateral and multilateral FTAs was to usher in a sweeping and collective set of government commitments to a more regionally liberalized trade regime (Elms 2014; Froese 2016). Regional multilateralism in finance and trade has been complemented by a legalized regime of “investment multilateralism” (Pekkanen 2012). Investment facilitation is integral to the deepening of economic bonds across the region and there East Asian governments have taken steps to formalize and legalize investment provisions in terms of the precision, obligation, and delegation of rules in discreet chapters within their FTAs. Thus, Chapter 9 of the CPTPP lays out extensive legal mechanisms for arbitration of disputes between an investor and the host country. Although the RCEP does not specify any dispute settlement mechanism between investor and the host state, Chapter 19 creates an all-purpose state-to-state DSM allowing any aggrieved party to request

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their home state to espouse their claims by way of diplomatic protection, and subsequently the home state may bring a claim against the host state. Complementing such multilateral agreements, explicit bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have exploded among Asian countries with a sweeping deepening of regional legalization and formalization. China now has 128 with other states clearly pursuing the same path; South Korea has 87, Indonesia has 59, Thailand adds 44 with Malaysia (68), the Philippines (36), and Japan (22) also actively in the mix (International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes 2021). These data demonstrate the rising levels of formalized and legalized multilateral connections in trade, financial, and investment that belie assertions that East Asian regional institutions remain generically soft, informal, and consequently ineffective. Multiple governments have demonstrated a willingness to surrender elements of their long-prized sovereignty in favor of cross-border cooperation. Economic success has become the most powerful touchstone for most regimes in East Asia and all of the region’s economic success stories are heavily dependent on crossborder trade, investment, and production networks. In addition, common perceptions of collective interest are bolstered by the ways in which global multilateralism has become less supportive of, if not openly averse to, the economic paradigms of East Asian regimes (Pempel 2021). Increasingly, global multilateral bodies in critical economic venues present more of a threat than an impetus to continued East Asian prosperity. Enhanced intra-regional interdependence has been the result.

Multilateral Successes Beyond Economics Regional multilateral cooperation in economic areas represents the highpoint in a long trajectory of deepening non-state-led finance, investment, and trade activities that have subsequently been reinforced by an array of state-led agreements, many spurred by growing frustration with existing global multilateral bodies. Collective endogenous benefits and a common exogenous opposition facilitated regional multilateralism, and promising positive sum benefits to those who join hands. The most striking contrast to intra-regional economic cooperation continues to lie in the realm of security. There intra-regional security threats continue, exacerbated by the paucity of pan-regional institutions designed to alleviate them. Rather, most early postwar security arrangements have continued despite the end of the Cold War. Meanwhile, newer

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security bodies such as the so-called Quad or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ultimately do more to reinforce earlier security divisions than to bridge them. Even today, as Michael Yahuda (2012) has underscored, “The defenses of most East Asian countries are directed against one another.” Nevertheless, in at least two areas with powerful security overtones, cooperative regional multilateralism has achieved some notable success. The first involves the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS 2021) headquartered in Seoul and staffed by officials and non-state actors from all three countries. Given the longstanding historical and security distrust among these three countries, the very creation of TCS was an achievement; however, TCS has consistently worked to address nearly thirty distinct functional problem areas spilling across national borders. These go beyond such “easy” issues as tourism, educational exchanges, or economic cooperation and include harder issues such as security, foreign policy, policing, counterterrorism, all of which are endemic to national security. As the most visible of its activities, TCS has coordinated summit meetings among the leaders of all three countries, along with a host of functionally specific meetings and fora that regularly bring together ministers and non-state actors with responsibilities in each respective area. While the leaders’ summits have often been postponed in reaction to various bilateral diplomatic fallings out, more telling is their subsequent resumption and the steady stream of conferences, meetings and a, all of which demand substantial top-level government attention to finding areas of possible cooperation. Nor are these meetings all about photo ops. Thus, congruent with other regional investment agreements, the three countries in 2012 signed a Trilateral Investment Agreement, Article 15 of which has specific dispute settlement mechanisms in place based on the nature of the alleged breach of existing investment rules.2 More explicitly salient to security per se has been a series of agreements on fisheries, an issue area that remains fraught with security tensions in the waters involving Southeast Asia and the South China Seas. In contrast, within Northeast Asia, such fisheries problems have largely been resolved. This is the result of a series of agreements among China, Japan, and Korea that have forged three way regional cooperation on fisheries resource management. Provisions include agreed quotas for allocating the amount of fish caught by fishermen from each state as well as joint

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committees to manage and monitor the agreements along with mechanisms for conducting joint monitoring, surveillance, and inspection of fishing vessels (Reimann 2016). A second area of regional security “success” concerns the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum (NPCGF). Established in 2000 by the Coast Guards of Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States, and subsequently expanded to include Canada and China, NCPGF has been a venue designed to foster multilateral cooperation among the members through sharing of information and establishing best practices in the North Pacific Ocean. National delegations of 8–15 senior Coast Guard military officials meet several times per year and have set common priorities on enforcement of rules for fishery enforcement, maritime security, illegal trafficking, joint operations, and emergency response activities. As noted by Canada, the host of the 2017 forum, “NPCGF events allow participants to strengthen relationships through formal activities such as plenary meetings and working group discussions…. They [also] allow for member countries to experience first-hand the operational and administrative contexts of the host countries and thus build better understanding of each other’s differing imperatives and constraints” (North Pacific Coast Guard Forum 2017). Since its inception, the main accomplishments of the Forum have included tabletop and on-water training exercises in response to disaster assistance; search and rescue practices; marine security boarding, and illegal fishing scenarios, as well as coordinated patrols to combat illegal fishing in the Pacific Ocean; agreement on common communication protocols for dealing with “vessels of special interest;” the creation by Russia of an information exchange system; and ongoing exchange of information on illegal drug and migrant activities (North Pacific Coast Guard Forum 2017). It would be facile to dismiss such activities as trivial, since the North Pacific remains a region rife with multiple, and increasing, security tensions, many of which are being directly addressed by NPCGF. Moreover, many of these Coast Guards come into close and dangerous contact, and often their missions, such as boarding suspicious ships, risk misinterpretation by security agencies and easy escalation. NPCGF is a strong buffer designed to minimize such risks.

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Concluding Comments The central goal of this essay has been to highlight some of East Asia’s regional multilateral successes as a counterweight to criticisms that East Asian regional institutions have failed to solve some of the region’s and the globe’s most pressing problems. That many such problems remain is not the issue; they do. However, expecting East Asian multilateralism and regional institutions to solve them is unrealistic. To date, as noted, various combinations of states in the region have succeeded in sustaining substantial levels of economic development through both state-led and non-state-led cross-border cooperation that have taken a variety of forms. Looking forward, one additional merit should be noted: regular meetings facilitated by permanent fora serve a positive purpose, even when the tangible “deliverables” appear miniscule. Institutionalized meetings force a concentration of top-level policymakers’ time and attention. Moreover, as a series of multiple repeated games, they press players toward greater cooperation (Keohane 2005). As well, they provide a vehicle for mutual understanding at a minimum as well as a vehicle toward collective socialization and convergence on approaches to certain problems over time (Ba 2006; Johnston 2014). This can be particularly true when the cooperation involves technical experts whose common expertise gives them a shared set of tools and a common vocabulary with which to address cross-border problems. All the same, as noted earlier, multilateralism per se is not automatically to be applauded. Particularly worrisome in East Asia is the risk of what Frost (2014) aptly labeled “rival regionalisms,” and He (2019) sees as “competitive multilateralisms,” i.e., sets of regional institutions designed to counter, rather than to complement, one another. Such institutional competition arose in debates over how best East Asia should regionalize in the aftermath of the EU and NAFTA. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir sought an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), derisively labeled a “caucus without Caucasians.” In contrast, other states, including the US favored APEC as a pan-Pacific body in which it would be a leading member. A similar debate arose concerning APT and the EAS and shades of the same membership competition exist in CPTPP versus RCEP. In space exploration, two potentially competitive regional bodies are headed respectively by Japan and China, namely the Japan-led Asia– Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum and the China-led Asia–Pacific

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Space Cooperation Organization. The Japanese-centered body blends both state and non-state participants with considerable informality while the China-led organization is more formal in design. These two internally cooperative institutions mask what many see as a straightforward space race (Pekkanen 2021; Suzuki 2013). Similar rival regionalisms exist with the Quad versus SCO or with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Japanese and Korean efforts to offer competing infrastructure loans insisting that their aid will insure higher quality projects with greater recipient benefits. This is not the place to analyze such rival regionalisms. It is simply valuable when assessing East Asian multilateralism to recognize that while certain multilateral moves have redounded to reduced intra-state tensions and closer cooperation with few negative spillovers, other regional multilateral moves risk exacerbating longstanding fragmentation and heightening cross-border tensions. Thus, East Asian multilateralism shows a glass half full from some perspectives but a glass half empty from others. Looking ahead, a driving question will be whether the regional multilateral glass will gain additional and nutritious liquid or suffer from evaporation or, even worse, being filled with dangerous and undrinkable fluids.

Notes 1. Japan specifically confronted such global multilateral failures. It was anxious to join a 1995 OECD proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment but that had collapsed by 1997. As well, Japan sought to advance a Multilateral Investment Agreement through the WTO but when this too fell short, it negotiated a second generation BIT with ROK and another with Vietnam (Hamanaka 2017). 2. For a complete list of specific meetings, fora, summits and their activities, see Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (2021) at https://www.tcs-asia.org/ en/cooperation/summary.php.

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CHAPTER 10

ASEAN’s Strategic Response to the US–China Competition Chew Yee Ng and Mingjiang Li

Since the late 2000s, the strategic competition between the United States (US) and China in East Asia became gradually apparent. However, such competition is not new to ASEAN as ASEAN was founded partially in response to the great power competition in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. In the great power competition of the Cold War, ASEAN’s main objectives were to resist “balkanisation” of the region by external powers and prevent the founding states from losing their freedom and sovereignty (Flores et al. 2022). Similarly, ASEAN’s main political objectives in the US–China strategic competition in the contemporary era are to engage both powers in the region while preserving the unity of the region, avoid being perceived to take sides and lose its autonomy (Kuik 2018). These objectives are clearly demonstrated in ASEAN’s response

C. Y. Ng · M. Li (B) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_10

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to the US–China strategic competition in regional security and economic development. Two themes have emerged from our observations and analysis of ASEAN’s response to the US–China strategic competition involving South-East Asia and in the broader geographic area, namely a hedging strategy and ASEAN Centrality. The two themes are not mutually exclusive. ASEAN’s hedging strategy is to engage the US and China without being perceived as taking sides and lose its autonomy, while seeking resources and security commitment from external partners on behalf of all member states and prevent any external partner from dominating the region. To achieve such a strategic outcome, ASEAN Centrality as a source of “institutional power” asserts indirect influence over external partners through the rules and procedures of the institution (Barnett and Duvall 2005). Although one can argue that individual ASEAN member state lean towards either the US or China, ASEAN Centrality has ensured that (1) ASEAN member states are bound to the common causes of the organisation; and (2) ASEAN remains a relevant regional power as an institution in engaging the two major powers (Shanmugam 2011, 2012; Acharya 2017; Koga 2018; Balakrishnan 2019). Hence, the relationship between hedging and ASEAN Centrality is one that complements each other to achieve the political objectives of ASEAN. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how hedging strategy and ASEAN Centrality work in tandem to achieve ASEAN’s political and strategic objectives in the US–China competition. First, the chapter will present the concept of ASEAN’s hedging strategy and ASEAN Centrality. It also discusses how hedging and ASEAN Centrality help maintain ASEAN’s importance in the region and safeguard the interests of its member states. Next, the chapter will trace the timeline and analyse key ASEAN documents to establish ASEAN’s position and strategy in addressing external powers’ strategic competition in two domains— regional security, regional development and economy. In the domain of regional security, the focus will be put on ASEAN’s role in the South China Sea disputes and ASEAN’s response to the US’ “free and open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP). Meanwhile, our discussion on regional development and economy will explore ASEAN Connectivity agenda, which ensures ASEAN’s relevance amidst the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and FOIP competing agenda; the US–China competition in 5G Network adoption, which is looming; and ASEAN’s role in Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiation. These five points of

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interest are focused on as they are areas of intense competition that has the potential to divide ASEAN member states. At the same time, it can be observed that ASEAN’s response to the US–China competition, hedging and ASEAN Centrality, remain consistent in these five points of interests.

Hedging Strategy and ASEAN Centrality Hedging strategy can be understood as seeking a middle way, whereby multiple policy options are being pursued in a highly uncertain and high-stakes international environment to produce mutually counteracting measures and balance security, economic and political risks (Kuik 2008, 2016). Differentiating hedging from either end of the balancing and bandwagoning spectrum, hedging is an ambiguous and diverse response that has elements of power acceptance and power rejection simultaneously. Kuik (2016) highlighted that the aim of the contradictory actions from hedging is to achieve maximum returns from different powers in good times, while offsetting long-term risk in possible sour of relations. As such, three foreign policy elements in hedging need to be present concurrently: (a) avoid taking sides in strategic competition; (b) adopt measures to maximise returns; (c) adopt opposite measures as contingency against risks (Kuik 2016). Similar to hedging on the state level, an institution’s hedging seeks to avoid choosing one side at the expense of another and achieve degrees of strategic ambiguity regarding great power alignment (Goh 2016). Furthermore, the institution will aim to constrain a target’s behaviour with institutional norms and rules by including the target as a member or partner (Koga 2018). Therefore, ASEAN’s hedging strategy is aimed at safeguarding regional autonomy and stability. At the same time, it is targeted at securing resources for development and economic growth and security commitment from external partners—state or multilateral institution—on behalf of all member states, while preventing an external partner from dominating the region (Koga 2018). In comparison to balancing and bandwagoning, hedging allows ASEAN to engage the US and China through its established mechanisms amidst their strategic competition while preserving the unity of the region, and avoiding being perceived to take sides and lose its autonomy. ASEAN has not only sought the optimal policy in the changing security environment, but it also has established an institutional division of labour through ASEAN-led mechanisms and the emphasis on ASEAN Centrality.

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Despite the lack of material power, ASEAN derives its “institutional power” from ASEAN Centrality. It frames ASEAN as the core element of Asia–Pacific regional affairs and without it, the construction of any wider regional mechanism, will not be possible (Acharya 2017). As such, ASEAN will be at the helm of South-East Asia matters, setting the agenda for the region. Although the concept of ASEAN Centrality may seem direct and clear, how it is translated into practice is less so. Scholars have identified five ways in which ASEAN Centrality is established from the perspective of leadership: regional leader—intellectual leadership with the ability to balance the power within the region, and the ability to implement its stated aims thereby presenting itself as the legitimate leader of the region; regional convener—providing forums and acting as a neutral broker in regional affairs through its ties and creation of network clusters with external partners; regional hub—provision of a link to all regional stakeholders, thereby creating networks that connect all countries through ASEAN; the regional driver of progress—implementation of plans and aiming to achieve its goals as stated in ASEAN concords and roadmaps; and regional convenience—providing a formal leadership in the region while enabling other stakeholders to lead from behind (Mely 2014; Acharya 2017; Mueller 2019). Regardless of the type of leadership that ASEAN provides, being recognised as central in regional affairs allows it to set the agenda, and conduct meetings and processes in accordance with ASEAN practices (Mely 2014). Furthermore, ASEAN’s engagement in a range of ASEAN-led mechanisms—ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF); ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) and East Asia Summit (EAS)—requires member states to accept ASEAN’s norms and principles in order to participate. The norms and principles of ASEAN ensure ASEAN’s privileges of chairpersonship, agenda setting in ASEAN-led mechanism and consensusbased decision-making, where each ASEAN member state has veto power (Koga 2018). As such, ASEAN Centrality prevents any external powers that are participating in the ASEAN-led mechanism from hijacking the agenda. ASEAN is made up of individual states that have their own national interests to consider, and not a unitary actor. Therefore, individual ASEAN member states do not have a uniform foreign policy towards China and the US, and they each have the power to veto ASEAN’s agenda. However, regional autonomy and neutrality remain the common interests of ASEAN member states. It is observed that there is a common

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consensus that ASEAN should hedge between China and the US to extract as much security and economic returns as possible, while maintaining its neutrality and autonomy from great powers (Seah et al. 2021).

ASEAN and the South China Sea Disputes In the South China Sea disputes, ASEAN consistently hedges between the US and China. Its hedging is aimed at maintaining ASEAN’s regional autonomy while securing political support in upholding international law in Southeast Asia. This section will discuss to what extent ASEAN has achieved its strategic objectives in various periods of significance in the development of the disputes, with the emphasis on ASEAN Centrality and ASEAN-led mechanisms. These two central themes are critical in ASEAN’s hedging strategy in the South China Sea disputes. This section will also present the chronological evolution of the South China Sea disputes: how it started as a regional dispute to a strategic competition between the US and China. The South China Sea disputes came into ASEAN’s focus only between 2009 and 2010 when diplomatic tensions and physical confrontation arose. Prior to which, the most significant milestone in the South China Sea disputes was a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which was signed between ASEAN and China in 2002. The DOC was signed in a strategic environment whereby the US’ focus was not on East Asia. Although the DOC is not legally binding, it served as a guiding path to a peaceful resolution in the South China Sea and kept tensions low before a settlement is reached. In the DOC, all parties committed to respect the “freedom of navigation in an overflight above the South China Sea” in accordance with UNCLOS; “exercise selfrestraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes”; build trust and confidence amongst claimant states and work towards a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC), which will be legally binding (ASEAN Secretariat 2002). The commitments set out in the DOC were largely abided to until 2009. Perception of China’s diplomatic assertiveness started to take hold amongst the US media and analysts between 2009 and 2010, claiming that China’s rhetoric and foreign policy behaviour had substantially changed. One area that fuelled this perception was scepticism towards China’s intentions after Chinese vessels were perceived to have harassed

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a US naval ship in 2009, and China’s alleged more expansive claims in 2010, labelling the South China Sea as a China’s “core interests” similar to that of Taiwan and Tibet—a term that only entered Chinese foreign policy lexicon in 2013 (Johnston 2013; Koga 2018; Zhao and Zhang 2019). In response to the former incident, the US stated that “freedom of navigation” in accordance with UNCLOS allowed military vessels to conduct non-threatening activities to operate in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), without permission from littoral states. However, China’s interpretation differs to that of the US. It stated that foreign states conducting military activities within China’s EEZ must seek permission from China (Koga 2018). Coupling China’s subsequent deployments of its largest and most modern patrol ship to the South China Sea and labelling of South China Sea as China’s “core interests”, the perception of China’s assertiveness was reinforced and the US began to address the dispute in the South China Sea more directly. The escalation of diplomatic and military tensions set the stage for the US and China strategic competition in the South China Sea. In Southeast Asia region, claimant states’ policies towards the resolution of South China Sea disputes started to shift. The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) submission, concerning “coastal State intending to establish the outer limits to its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles”, was due in 2009 (United Nations 2012). This motivated claimant states to officially stake their claims in the South China Sea by making a submission to the commission or passing domestic laws. Firm intentions to defend territories and strengthen air and naval capabilities were also declared by Southeast Asian claimant states. In response, China rejected the claims made by Southeast Asian claimant states and made counterclaims (United Nations 2009). The actions taken by all claimant states during this period escalated the tension in the South China Sea. The development in the South China Sea disputes and regional shift in the power distribution led ASEAN member states to reassess the feasibility of the 2002 DOC implementation, and the effectiveness of existing regional arrangements to induce China’s self-restraint. Simultaneously, the US presented a strong interest in re-engaging East Asia and willingness to join the EAS, as it observes China’s assertiveness in the region (Emmers 2011). As such, ASEAN member states considered the expansion of EAS membership in 2010 to external partners with the aim to balance against China’s assertiveness in regional affairs (Emmers 2011).

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Meanwhile, the establishment of ADMM-Plus—a mechanism with a security and defence focus, also gained momentum. In 2009, the Concept Paper on ADMM-Plus Principles for Membership was adopted, opening the door to ASEAN’s engagement with external partners in regional security (ASEAN Secretariat 2007b). The earliest onset of ASEAN’s institutional hedging between the US and China in the South China Sea disputes was most notable between 2010 and 2011. The consideration behind the inclusion of external partners into the regional mechanisms is without a doubt to counter China. However, the theme of ASEAN Centrality was also observed from the discourse of EAS and ADMM-Plus statements and documents. The emphasis on ASEAN Centrality had two objectives. First, the establishment of ASEAN’s central role and along with it, the legitimacy and authority in setting the agenda for the region. Second, to constrain the conduct of the US and China in the region with the rules, procedures and consensus-based decision-making of ASEAN-led mechanisms. The first objective of ASEAN Centrality was largely met in 2010 as the central role of ASEAN and the agenda of EAS and ADMM-plus were set out. The Chairman’s Statement of the 5th East Asian Summit expressed its formal invitations to Russia and the US to participate in EAS from 2011. In the same statement, ASEAN’s central role in EAS was emphasised, while EAS’ “important role” in maintaining regional “maritime security and safety” and “peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law” was underscored (ASEAN Secretariat 2010b). Concurrently, ADMM-Plus was established, consisting of ASEAN member states and eight dialogue partners, including China and the US. The “Concept Paper on ADMM-Plus Modalities and Procedure”, which was adopted in 2010, states that the ADMM is the driving force of ADMM-Plus. Hence, the “Chairmanship of ADMM-Plus shall follow the Chairmanship of the ADMM” and the “ADMM shall determine the areas and levels of interaction with defence establishments of extra-regional countries” (ASEAN Secretariat 2007b). Although the ADMM is in the driver’s seat, ADMM-Plus has the authority to establish Experts’ Working Group (EWG)—co-chaired by an ASEAN member state and a Plus country to “address specific security issues of mutual concern affecting the region” (ASEAN Secretariat 2007a, 2010a). Therefore, the leadership of ASEAN in these mechanisms reinforces ASEAN’s legitimacy and authority in setting the agenda for the region.

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The second objective of ASEAN Centrality was largely achieved as the rules of conduct and agenda of EAS and ADMM-Plus were becoming clearer in 2011. Following the official participation of the US and Russia, the “Declaration of the East Asia Summit on the Principles for Mutually Beneficial Relations” laid out the guiding principles for EAS participating countries’ behaviour. It includes respect for international law; renunciation of the threat of use of force or use of force against another state; settlement of differences and disputes by peaceful means (ASEAN Secretariat 2011b). In the same EAS session, cooperation in “maritime issue” once again appeared in the Chairman’s Statement of the East Asian Summit (ASEAN Secretariat 2011a). On the other hand, since the 5th ADMM Joint Declaration in 2011, the South China Sea disputes were repeatedly mentioned explicitly in ADMM Joint Declarations. The ADMM Joint Declarations reaffirm ASEAN member states’ commitment to the full implementation of the DOC and work towards an adoption of a COC in the South China Sea with adherence to international law (ASEAN Secretariat 2011c). In effect, the declarations permanently placed the South China Sea disputes in the agenda of ADMM-Plus with accordance to ADMM-Plus Modalities and Procedure. ASEAN hedging between the US and China in 2010 and 2011 can be described as clearly calculated and systematically executed. The expansion of ASEAN-led mechanisms membership amidst the differences and competition between the US and China mitigated the risk of ASEAN being perceived to take sides, while preventing either party from dominating the regional institution. Furthermore, the repeated emphasis on ASEAN Centrality by exercising its authority in setting agenda and rules of conduct further asserts ASEAN’s lead in regional maritime issues. The next significant development in the South China Sea disputes came when the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) returned its ruling in the South China Sea Arbitration on 12 July 2016. The Tribunal’s ruling was largely seen as in favour of the Philippines’, as it “concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’” (Permanent Court of Arbitration 2016). The Tribunal had also ruled that China’s interference with the Philippines’ fishing and petroleum exploration; artificial islands construction and failure in preventing Chinese fishermen from fishing in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), were a violation of the Philippines’ sovereignty. The ruling escalated tension within the region between China, claimant states and the US—who had begun freedom of

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navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea since 2015 to challenge China’s claims (Freund 2017). The 49th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, held on 24 July 2016, received great attention given that it is the first gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers following the Tribunal’s ruling (Jane Chan and Liow 2016). According to reports, the Philippines and Vietnam wanted the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting communique to “refer to the ruling and the need to respect international law” (Mogato et al. 2016). However, Cambodia opposed the proposed wording on the South China Sea, thereby delaying the release of the joint communique. Although the final communique made no mention of the tribunal ruling, it attempted to diffuse tension in the region by making room for negotiations and cooperation. In the communique, ASEAN focused its priorities on the freedom of navigation in and over the South China Sea; the peaceful resolution of the disputes in accordance with international law; implementation of the DOC and work towards an adoption of a COC expeditiously and observance of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) and the undertaking of confidence building and preventive measures (ASEAN Secretariat 2016c). The EAS, held in September 2016, also had great significance because of the presence of China and the US. Despite the tension over the South China Sea disputes, the Chairman’s Statement of the 11th East Asia Summit made no mention of the Tribunal ruling. Instead, the statement reiterated the freedom of navigation, peaceful resolution in accordance with international law, effective implementation of the DOC and work towards the conclusion of a COC (ASEAN Secretariat 2016a). The message and intent were consistent with the statement from the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in July 2016, in which ASEAN continues to engage all parties in dialogues and seek cooperation on the matter. It also gave ASEAN diplomatic room to use EAS to ensure stability in the South China Sea (Koga 2018). During the Trump administration, the South China Sea disputes became part of the US’ FOIP strategy (refer to the next section). As such, the strategic competition between the US and China in Southeast Asia expanded beyond the South China Sea disputes. In sum, ASEAN’s responses to the US and China’s competition in the South China Sea remain consistent since 2009. ASEAN continues to hedge between the two powers by including and engaging both powers in ASEAN-led mechanisms, thereby maintaining ASEAN’s lead in discussions and its neutrality. In the discussion of the South China Sea disputes,

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ASEAN constantly focuses on areas of common consensus—such as freedom of navigation, peaceful resolution and the implementation of the DOC—to work towards cooperation in concluding a COC and observance of the CUES. Furthermore, the emphasis on ASEAN Centrality has reduced tensions in the South China Sea during periods of significance. This was achieved through constraining the conduct of the US and China in the region with the rules, procedures and consensus-based decision-making of ASEAN-led mechanisms.

The US’ and ASEAN’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” The Indo-Pacific concept was first proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2013 in a speech that was scheduled to be delivered in Jakarta, Indonesia. In which, it was articulated that with Japan’s national interest in maintaining Asia’s seas open and free, and the US’ strategic focus shift to the Indian and Pacific Ocean, Japan believes that the Japan– US alliance can create a network that encompasses security and prosperity in the regions of the two oceans (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2019). However, it was only in 2017 that the US National Security Strategy by the Trump administration clearly presented the vision of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”. In the US National Security Strategy, the geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region was framed as a “competition between free and repressive visions of world order” (The White House 2017). It also identified China and its actions in the region as attempts to restrict the US in the Indo-Pacific region and a threat to regional order and stability. As such, the security and economic priorities for the US in Indo-Pacific are to counter China’s actions in the region directly. These priorities include (1) ensuring freedoms of the seas, and peaceful resolution of territorial and maritime disputes in the region are in accordance with international law; (2) encouraging transparency in infrastructure financing, pursue bilateral trade agreements and strengthen cooperation with allies on infrastructure; (3) maintaining a military presence in the region to deter and defeat adversaries; and (4) strengthening relationships with the alliance and regional partners in Indo-Pacific (The White House 2017; Harding 2019). The US National Security Strategy in 2017 and the National Defense Strategy in 2018 explicitly singled out China as a strategic competitor and its revisionist actions as threats to international order. These two documents also signalled the US’ subsequent shift in the region’s foreign and

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security policy. The policy shifts had seen a greater focus on the region’s maritime space; increase military interoperability with the US’ regional allies and partners; strengthen the rule of law and transparency of governance and economic development led by the private sector (Harding 2019; Choong 2019). The objectives of these foreign and security policies focus are to end what the US deems as China’s “predatory and coercive” policies in the region; and for the US to balance against the regional order increasingly dominated by China, to one that is shaped by the US (Harding 2019; Choong 2019). The role that ASEAN and its institutions play in achieving the US’ FOIP was recognised as central by senior US officials attending highlevel regional meetings (U.S. Department of Defence 2018). This is despite members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)—namely, Australia, India, Japan and the US—being the drivers of FOIP. ASEAN’s strategic location—between the Pacific and Indian Ocean—meant that its support was geopolitically and geoeconomically important. Furthermore, ASEAN-led mechanisms—ARF, ADMM-Plus, EAS—which have been inclusive and perceived as neutral, are valuable platforms to gain wide support from Southeast Asian leaders and promote the US’ FOIP agenda. However, it was observed that the US’ engagement with ASEAN was skewed towards the security element of FOIP, while economic cooperation had largely been direct with ASEAN member states. On the other hand, ASEAN framed the shifts in the Indo-Pacific geopolitics as an opportunity for cooperation in regional development, and also, a potential of deep mistrust and zero-sum game behaviour (ASEAN Secretariat 2019a). In the “ASEAN outlook on the IndoPacific” (AOIP), ASEAN signalled its interest to lead and shape the region’s economic and security architecture, and also act as a “honest broker” of competing interests that will arise in Indo-Pacific. Given that Southeast Asia lies between the Asia–Pacific and Indian Ocean region, ASEAN would not be immune to the geopolitical and geostrategic prospect of Indo-Pacific region. Hence, ASEAN Centrality was reemphasised as the fundamental principle to deepen cooperation in existing ASEAN-led mechanisms in areas such as, maritime dispute and sustainable management of marine resources; support of existing Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 2025; achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and economic and other possible areas of cooperation (ASEAN Secretariat 2019a; Balakrishnan 2019).

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The theme of ASEAN Centrality and hedging can be seen from how ASEAN framed its role in the Indo-Pacific strategic environment, offering ASEAN’s existing mechanisms and frameworks for cooperation in IndoPacific. The discourse of cooperation in the AOIP strikes a neutral and balanced tone. In emphasising ASEAN Centrality, the AOIP blunts the competitive tone of the US’ FOIP strategy by presenting how the aims of the strategy align with ASEAN principles with the potential for inclusive cooperation. The AOIP also charted out how ASEAN will hedge between the US and China, by working selectively with the US and China, maintaining its neutrality and navigating the middle course. While the AOIP speaks of resolving maritime disputes in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it also invited cooperation and support in regional connectivity, and proposed possible deepening of economic cooperation in the form of “supporting the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025 and other free trade agreements including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership” (ASEAN Secretariat 2019a). In maintaining ASEAN’s long-held time position of upholding international law in the domain of maritime, ASEAN once again showed that it welcomes engagement with all parties despite the strategic competition. This includes engaging with the US in the region as the Trump administration’s foreign policy behaviour in the region casted doubt over its commitment. While the AOIP seems to align with the US in regional security, the AOIP placed a strong emphasis on cooperation with ASEAN on economics and development issues (Singh and Tsjeng 2020). The AOIP highlighted that cooperation is not a zero-sum game or an “either-or” choice for ASEAN. The mention of ASEAN Connectivity and economic cooperation signals that ASEAN is willing to engage any external partners that benefit regional development and stability, and ASEAN’s commitment to facilitate wider cooperation. The significance of ASEAN Connectivity and economic cooperation will be discussed in the later sections of this chapter. Although the AOIP articulated ASEAN’s position and desires for Indo-Pacific, the responses of ASEAN member states towards the US’ FOIP cannot be neglected in the calculus. It was observed that many of the principles expressed in the FOIP are attractive to ASEAN member states, but FOIP had not been fully embraced. Instead, most member states adopted a “wait and see” or sceptical attitude (Tan 2020). It was also observed that the views expressed by member states on FOIP publicly

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can be categorised as remain silent, member states avoiding the discussion of Indo-Pacific out of concern that ASEAN Centrality or their foreign policy position might be compromised, and propose their version of IndoPacific concept—in the case of Indonesia—to resist having to take sides. Hence, it can be concluded that the consensus amongst member states on the engagement in the US’ FOIP is out of concern for the region’s autonomy and neutrality.

ASEAN Connectivity Agenda, the Belt and Road Initiative and Free and Open Indo-Pacific The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a cumulation of two proposals from the Chinese government in 2013, “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st-Century Maritime Silk Road”, aiming at promoting connectivity of Asian, European and African continents. Five areas of cooperation were highlighted: national policies coordination, infrastructure and facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, integration of financial systems and enhancement of people-to-people and cultural exchanges amongst states in Eurasia, Africa and Oceania (The State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2015). Specifically in relation to South-East Asia, the Maritime Silk Road proposal seeks to link China’s coast through the South China Sea to the South Pacific and develop a transport route in the China–Indochina Peninsula and Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar economic corridors. In engaging the region to further the BRI cooperation, the Action Plan on the Belt and Road Initiative identified ASEAN Plus China (ASEAN+1) as the regional mechanism and China–ASEAN Expo as a regional forum to strengthen communication and participation in Southeast Asia. There are three main driving forces, which are a combination of economic considerations and geopolitical ambition, behind the launch of the BRI in Southeast Asia. The first driving force came from China’s desire to build a China–ASEAN “community of common destiny” and reviving connectivity between China and Southeast Asia (Li 2020). The second was to ease the industrial overcapacity crisis facing the Chinese economy, through financing infrastructure projects outside of China. The third was China’s interest in using its economic influence to strengthen political relationships with its neighbours and counter the US’ participation in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in late 2008. Given the driving

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forces behind the BRI and the geopolitics and geoeconomics implications in Southeast Asia, it was no surprise that the BRI was seen to pose a formidable challenge to the US’ interests and strategic position in Asia, leading to a negative response from the US. A closer look at the focus of the BRI and TPP—the US’ most significant regional economic engagement in East Asia in the same period—revealed that their substances were not directly at odds with each other in terms of promoting regional development and economy. The BRI was about infrastructure building, trade and people-to-people connection, while TPP focused on free trade and governance. However, when the US withdrew from TPP and launched FOIP, the competition in Southeast Asia became acute in infrastructure building and trade, given that one of FOIP’s priorities was to encourage transparency in infrastructure financing, pursue bilateral trade agreements and strengthen cooperation with allies on infrastructure. Hence, the analysis of ASEAN’s response to the US–China strategic competition will focus on the period after the launch of FOIP. Before the articulation of the BRI, ASEAN published the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2010 (MPAC 2010) that sets the regional development and economic integration agenda. In 2016, MPAC 2010 was superseded by the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 (MPAC 2025). Both Master Plans envisioned a regional integration of transport, energy and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure; linking international or regional agreements and protocols to support trade and movement of persons in the region and peopleto-people connection (ASEAN Secretariat 2009, 2010c, 2016d). On the strategic level, the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity established ASEAN Centrality by providing leadership and setting the agenda in regional development and economic integration. Externally, it asserted a development agenda to ASEAN’s external partners, placing ASEAN at the centre of negotiations and facilitating the inflow of external resources (Mueller 2021). The Master Plan also seeks to reduce the risk of contestation by external powers directly or the use of multilateral institutions (He 2019; Bisley 2019). Given the resources required—sustainable infrastructure alone would need more than US$110 billion annual investment—to achieve the strategic priorities set out in MPAC 2025, the BRI was welcomed

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by ASEAN but ASEAN maintained its agenda setting and negotiating role (ASEAN Secretariat 2016b, d, 2017). In 2017, ASEAN– China Strategic Partnership committed to enhance regional connectivity through supporting the implementation of MPAC 2025; the discussion of potential projects for infrastructure connectivity under ASEAN–China Connectivity cooperation; “fully utilize the Silk Road Fund and special loans for infrastructure cooperation between ASEAN and China, and encourage the participation of multilateral financial institutions such as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank Group, etc. in the development and construction of relevant infrastructure projects” and encourage information exchange and sharing of best practices (ASEAN Secretariat 2017). The strategic partnership was further deepened in 2018 with the ratification of the “Protocol to Amend the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Certain Agreements” (ACFTA Upgrading Protocol) and the completion of the “Review of Product Specific Rules” (PSRs), which will support two-way trade and investments (ASEAN Secretariat 2018a). In 2019, ASEAN announced the launch of the “Initial Rolling Priority Pipeline of ASEAN Infrastructure Projects” under MPAC 2025. The priority pipeline identifies economically viable infrastructure projects in ASEAN member states that complement and strengthen the existing economic and transport corridors (ASEAN Secretariat 2019b). In essence, the priority pipeline centralised screening, assessment, scoring and ranking infrastructure projects on the ASEAN level, before seeking external partners’ (states or multilateral institutions) commitment and facilitating ASEAN member states bilateral action. The negotiation between ASEAN and external partners has been observed to take place in existing ASEAN bilateral relationships (ASEAN+1) (Mueller 2021). The priority pipeline has also encouraged China to actively support the development and financing of ASEAN infrastructure projects, promote regional connectivity and explore further collaboration between MPAC 2025 and the BRI. On top of which, there is great importance placed on expanding cooperation between ASEAN and China in digital innovation and digital economy (ASEAN Secretariat 2019b). Meanwhile, at the inaugural Indo-Pacific Business Forum in 2018, the US launched new initiatives to spur investment of private sectors in infrastructure, energy markets and digital economy in the Indo-Pacific. It was a direct competition with the agenda of the BRI. However, the US’

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initiatives focus on promoting good governance—evaluation and procurement process—and having private sector as the main driver. Although senior US officials recognised the central role that ASEAN plays in the US’ FOIP and expressed support for ASEAN’s economic integration (ASEAN Secretariat 2018b), cooperation under these initiatives within Southeast Asia is on a state-to-state basis, without ASEAN playing a negotiating or facilitating role (The United States Department of State 2019). The inclusion of connectivity in AOIP saw ASEAN’s gradual manoeuvre to establish its relevance and ASEAN Centrality, linking the agenda for FOIP economic element—infrastructure, energy markets and digital economy projects—with MPAC 2025 (ASEAN Secretariat 2019a). Given the resources required in MPAC 2025, ASEAN’s response to FOIP also sends a clear welcoming signal to regional initiatives that complement and support MPAC 2025 (ASEAN Secretariat 2019c). Despite ASEAN’s manoeuvre to establish ASEAN Centrality in negotiating and facilitating investments from external partners, and to reduce the risk of contestation amongst these partners, it faces potential pitfalls that can undermine its efforts and cost it its relevance. It has been noted that the same resources available to the priority pipeline are also accessible by individual member states directly from external partners. Hence, member states or external partners have the option to bypass the priority pipeline and undermine ASEAN’s central role in negotiating and facilitating investments. This also undermines ASEAN’s effort to prevent any external partners from dominating the region’s geopolitics and geoeconomics, as member states are forced to hedge between external powers (Mueller 2021). In turn, the relevance of ASEAN in regional development and economy is brought into question.

Looming Competition in 5G Network Adoption Under the Trump administration, fierce competition between the US and China over 5G network adoption and rollout emerged, as the US warned of potential cybersecurity risks and backdoor espionage in integrating Chinese 5G technology into national information and communication infrastructure. The US urged for “all countries to take a risk-based approach to evaluating technology vendors, including those that might be subject to control by or the undue influence of foreign powers” (The United States Department of State 2019). Meanwhile, 5G is projected to “add 6 to 9 percent to consumer revenues and 18 to 22 percent

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to enterprise revenues by 2025” in Southeast Asia (Venkataramani and Dobberstein 2019). The development of digital infrastructure, including 5G network, is vital to the region reaping the benefits of smart cities and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Hence, the 5G network adoption can be seen as high stakes to the development of Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the US and China are external partners in developing Southeast Asia’s digital infrastructure and digital economy, therefore, competition between the US and China in digital infrastructure has geopolitical and geoeconomic implications. Unlike responses seen in previous sections, there is a lack of ASEAN Centrality in ASEAN’s response to the 5G network competition. Instead, ASEAN upholds the principle of technological neutrality, where countries are free to choose the technology that fits their needs (Anuar 2020). From ASEAN’s perspective, the possibility of backdoor espionage looms, regardless of the US or China’s 5G network solution. Currently, ASEAN has yet to standardise compliance and diversify risks arising from 5G network adoption (Martinus 2020). Hence, individual ASEAN members are free to define their information and communication infrastructure needs and manage the standards and risks of adopting 5G network solutions. In 2019, the partnership trend of all ASEAN member states, except for Vietnam, was receptive of Chinese 5G technology and included Chinese vendors in the 5G network infrastructure bidding process. However, the announced partnership between various ASEAN telecommunication providers and 5G vendors in 2019 and 2020 presented a diverse set—a mix of Chinese and European 5G vendors dominating the region’s 5G equipment market. According to “The State of Southeast Asia: 2020” by ISEAS—Yusof Ishak Institute, its survey of respondents from all ASEAN member states in late 2019 found that the public of all ASEAN member states, except for the Philippines and Vietnam, preferred Chinese telecommunication providers over that of the US. Although the US’ telecommunication companies were preferred over Chinese telecommunication providers in the Philippines and Vietnam, they have no significant presence in those 5G equipment markets or in the wider region (Martinus 2020). On the other hand, the Chinese company, Huawei, remains proactive in building ecosystems for the region’s digital economy and assists Southeast Asian countries in achieving smart cities aspirations, despite not dominating the region’s 5G equipment market.

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The state of 5G network adoption in Southeast Asia is still in its early stages to conclude how ASEAN would formally respond to the US–China strategic competition in 5G network adoption. However, it should come as no surprise that ASEAN seeks to maintain its principle of neutrality and “commitment to open, fair, and competitive market” (Martinus 2020). Specifically in addressing data security concerns and cybersecurity governance, existing ASEAN frameworks and mechanisms—such as the ASEAN Framework for Digital Data Governance and ASEAN Cybersecurity Coordination Mechanism—will assert ASEAN Centrality in managing the geopolitics of cyberspace. Furthermore, individual member states have and still are coordinating capacity build against 5G-related cybersecurity risks.

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Negotiation Frameworks aimed at regional economic integration in the Asia–Pacific region were set in motion between the last 2000s and early 2010s. Three driving forces were at play in the creation of various frameworks, including RCEP and TPP: (1) the perceived competition over regional leadership between Japan and China; (2) the US’ desire to have a stake in the region’s economic integration and (3) retaining ASEAN’s influence on regional integration process (Oba 2016). However, as tension in the South China Sea between China and other claimant states intensified and the US shifted its focus to Asia–Pacific in the same period, the perception of RCEP and TPP as rival frameworks began to form. The TPP was viewed as an economic tool of the US to contain China’s influence over the region. The geopolitical interests of the US in Asia under Obama administration became clear when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton articulated that, “Asia–Pacific has become a key driver of global politics” and the US’ commitment to the region then was essential as the region was building security and economic architecture (Clinton 2011). Meanwhile, the TPP was framed as an opportunity for the US to write the rules in Asia–Pacific and prevent China from doing so (Obama 2016). Since 2015, the TPP’s geopolitical importance took centre stage in the US’ engagement in Asia–Pacific (Cook 2017). Similarly, the RCEP was seen as China’s attempt to take the central position of a regional economic integration framework that is agreeable with its importance in the region (Oba 2016). Such perception was and still is fuelled by China’s increasing

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presence in Southeast Asia geopolitics and economy. Coupled with the US’ rebalancing in East Asia against China, the TPP and RCEP quickly became competing regional economic integration frameworks for regional influence. While not all ASEAN member states became signatories of TPP, RCEP was negotiated by ASEAN and its free trade agreement (FTA) partners—Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand since 2012. In 2020, ASEAN and all its FTA partners, except for India due to its domestic politics (Gupta and Ganguly 2020), became signatories of RCEP. Hence, with regard to ASEAN’s response to the perceived US–China strategic competition in the regional economic integration framework, it is only fair to focus on RCEP, where ASEAN along with three members of the Quad—the drivers of FOIP—were involved. In the negotiation of RCEP, ASEAN Centrality in the regional economic integration process remains the consistent theme throughout, in terms of the guiding principle of the process and the role ASEAN played. First, ASEAN Centrality is enshrined in the “Guiding Principles and Objectives for Negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership” that was agreed upon by all parties at the start of the negotiation. This is apparent with the ASEAN+1 FTAs forming the foundation in the negotiation. For example, mindful of the unequal level of development across different negotiating parties, the flexibility built into the agreement will be consistent with ASEAN+1 FTAs, while technical assistance and capacity-building provisions are built upon the ASEAN+1 FTAs. With ASEAN as the common factor of all ASEAN+1 FTAs, ASEAN effectively asserted itself in the central position of setting the direction of the RCEP negotiations. Second, ASEAN broke the stalemate between China and Japan over their respective visions of regional order and leadership. ASEAN achieved this by being a convener in RCEP negotiations, providing the platforms and forums that brought different parties together. In 2005, China began examining the idea of an East Asia Free Trade Area (EAFTA) at a non-governmental level, following the final report of the East Asian Vision Group (EAVG) in 2001. The following year, the Japanese government proposed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia (CEPEA) as a counter to China’s concept. The two opposing visions were considered in parallel at the various EAS and dialogues with ASEAN and its FTA partners, but no viable path to unify the two visions was in sight until 2011, when a compromise was reached (Oba 2016). At the

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ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting in 2011, an agreement was reached to create a regional bloc consisting of ASEAN member states and six of its FTA partners. The plan was adopted at the 19th ASEAN summit the same year along with the ASEAN Framework for Regional Economic Partnership—a merger of EAFTA and CEPEA. ASEAN’s platforms and forum played a key role in bringing different parties into the negotiation, and in turn, established ASEAN’s leadership in RCEP negotiations. It can be concluded that the early establishment of ASEAN Centrality and leadership in RCEP negotiation was critical in the fruition of the agreement as geopolitical environment evolved. The agreement gave signatories market access to 30 percentage of the world’s population and nearly 28 per cent of the global trade (ASEAN Secretariat 2020). This is significant for ASEAN members states’ economic development, opening doors to investments and new markets. Meanwhile, the norms and rules set at the beginning of the negotiation stemmed the potential of China or members of the Quad from dominating the negotiation agenda, as regional geopolitical and geoeconomic competition intensified. It also gave ASEAN the legitimacy to set the agenda, thereby reducing the influence from other external partners.

Conclusion In sum, this chapter has presented how ASEAN hedged between the US and China, with ASEAN Centrality playing a vital role. ASEAN’s hedging strategy was aimed at engaging the US and China without being perceived to take sides and lose its autonomy. To which end, seeking resources and security commitment from the US and China on behalf of member states and preventing either partner from dominating the region. This strategy as shown in this chapter was applied to both security, and development and economic domain. At the same time, ASEAN Centrality is front and centre in achieving the strategic outcome of hedging. ASEAN Centrality has given ASEAN the institutional power to assert rules and procedures over the US and China as they participate in ASEAN-led mechanisms. Furthermore, ASEAN’s leadership demonstrated through the emphasis of ASEAN Centrality gave ASEAN its relevance in regional affairs and legitimacy to set the agenda for the region. Both of which prevented either partners from hijacking or dominating the institution. Despite individual ASEAN member states having their foreign policy preferences, regional autonomy and neutrality remains a common

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interest of ASEAN member states. There is also common consensus that ASEAN should hedge between China and the US to extract as much security and economic returns as possible, while maintaining its neutrality and autonomy from great powers. The chapter has also traced the timeline and analysed key ASEAN documents relating to the South China Sea disputes; the US’ “free and open Indo-Pacific”; the Belt and Road Initiative; the looming the US–China competition in 5G Network adoption and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiation. ASEAN Centrality was observed to be a constant key feature of ASEAN’s hedging strategy. Regardless of the external partners—state or multilateral institute, ASEAN’s approach and response to the external partner engaging the region is consistent. Therefore, the hedging strategy and ASEAN Centrality is posed to remain key themes of ASEAN response in the US–China competition.

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CHAPTER 11

Regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean Juan Ignacio Dorrego Viera

Introduction Latin America and the Caribbean experience a complex geoeconomic and geopolitical transition process shaped by dramatic changes in the international context, the reconfiguration of the regional political map and the exhaustion of the regionalization attempts of the past two decades. At the same time, China increments its presence in the region while a series of global and regional systemic factors seem to drive the Latin American subcontinent towards strengthening an interregionalism with the Asia–Pacific zone. This article addresses a number of different features of the global transformation in progress, as well as its impact in Latin America and the Caribbean. It attempts to summarize recent efforts of regionalization across the region while highlighting some peculiarities of

J. I. D. Viera (B) LIUC University, Varese, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_11

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novel initiatives. In conclusion, it is stated that in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the future of Latin America and its regionalism, it is important to go beyond particular efforts of regionalization, the redefinition of the external policies of its country members as a result of electoral changes, or the redesign of its internal ties. It needs to be analysed taking into consideration the dynamics imposed by a changing international environment, where the crises of globalization, advances in global governance, multilateralism and the international liberal order are combined with the reconfiguration and diffusion of power worldwide, within the framework of a series of developments plagued with uncertainties and risks for the region. Section “The Triple Crisis: The Crisis of Globalization , Global Governance and the International Liberal Order” will discuss the so-called “triple crisis” of globalization, global governance and the international liberal order. Then, the emergence of the new world order will be analysed in section “Reconfiguration and Diffusion of World Power: The Emerging Order”. Section “Disclosing Geopolitical Narratives” will summarize geopolitical narratives while sections “The Emergence of Regionalism” and “The Experience of Regionalism in Latin America” address issues on regionalism and its expressions in Latin America and the Caribbean respectively. Section “Looking for a Destination for Latin America” highlights future alternatives for the region in terms of international integration. Later, in section “China and América Latina”, the role of China is discussed at the time that interregionalism of Latin America and the Caribbean with the Asia–Pacific zone is approached. Finally, some conclusions are stated in section “Conclusions”.

The Triple Crisis: The Crisis of Globalization, Global Governance and the International Liberal Order The international system is undergoing a complex transition, with high levels of uncertainty and accelerated transformations. These “technical changes” imply displacements and reconfigurations at the global level in geoeconomic and geopolitical terms. Latin America and the Caribbean is unequivocally affected by this transition. It demands additional efforts to understand its dynamics, the impacts on the region and the formulation

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of responses from the region. According to (Buelvas and Castro 2018), this transition is articulated around the overlapping of a series of axes. One of these axes is configured by the crisis of the globalization process, the global governance models implied, and, in particular, the hegemonic liberal order that sustains both of them (Sanahuja 2017). Precisely, the existence of the current global governance is still explained by the economic context in which it has been developed. Indeed, as the globalization process intensified, generating a process of denationalization and transnationalization that began in the 1970s, a significant economic interdependence was created, marked by asymmetries and inequalities. Globalization implies risks and opportunities for actors in the international system (Heine and Thakur 2011). Accordingly, asymmetric interdependence and unequal distribution of its benefits have produced winners and losers in this process (Bremmer 2018). At the same time, the levels of poverty increased and deepened (Sanahuja 2017). However, as the (ILO 2004) points out, the main problems do not reside in globalization itself, but rather in the deficiencies of its governance. With the end of the Cold War, global governance emerged as a possibility of ordering and managing worldwide affairs in a multilateral way both in the economic sphere—in particular with the Organization World Trade Organization (WTO) as a referential instance, but also with the Bretton Woods institutions (International Monetary Fund [IMF] and World Bank)—as in the sphere of security with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and in the international political sphere with the United Nations (UN) and its promotion of a universal and complex multilateralism. In this sense, global governance referred to a concept of governance without government, as an intermediate state between the management of global problems through traditional interstate politics and the attempt to operationalize one world government (Kacowicz 2018). The absence of a central authority in the international system implied the need for collaboration and cooperation between various actors to develop objectives, common norms and practices in dealing with global issues (Gordenker and Weiss 1996; Legler 2013). On the one hand, the effort to encourage global governance has materialized an agenda marked by Western-promoted values: the creation and consolidation of international institutions and norms in accordance with the international law, the endorsement of human rights and democracy and economic liberalization It has been developed within a Westphalianlike conception of an international system (Kissinger 2014).

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On the other hand, globalization itself was underpinned by the development of transnational corporations which, since the 70s contributed to promote economic liberalization and transnationalization. It has been partially done in opposition to or above the interests of the State and the national sovereignty (Held et al. 1999; Serbin 2002). The sustained growth and development of emerging economies, with some expressions of non-liberal capitalist development model and new power relations weakening multilateral institutions were clear features of the nineties. This resulted in what some analysts began to conceptualize as the return to rivalries between the major powers and geopolitical competition (Kissinger 2014). In this framework, the globalization promoted by the United States began to primarily benefit China, which progressively began to dispute the benefits of this process (Kissinger 2014). The emergence of new actors and the dispute over the benefits of globalization, brought into question the power relations established since the Second World War, challenging the stability of the international system and the geopolitical design established up to the moment. New coalitions are being woven into this entanglement such as the BRICs— Brazil, Russia, India and China (Cervo 2010; Nolte 2012; Pfeifer 2012); IBSA, India, Brazil and South Africa, among others (De Moura 2009; Föhrig 2007). The legitimacy of the rules and values of global governance began to be questioned with the emergence of new institutions (BRICS, Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank [AIIB], BRICS Bank) and rules that did not necessarily respond to those established by the international liberal order developed by the West. Actors such as China and Russia, among others, began to offer alternative models to liberal democracy, while economic growth in the developing world was accelerated on the basis of alternative policy closer to various variants of the State than to liberal democratic models (Stephen 2017). This transition made a particular impact on Western conceptions of sovereignty and human rights, by imposing concepts such as hard sovereignty that questioned the liberal cosmopolitan approach to the supremacy of human rights over the prerogatives of national sovereignty across internal affairs (Serbin and Serbin Pont 2015). The articulation of a series of trends associated with the emergence of new powers gave rise to a struggle for leadership in shaping global governance. It has affected liberal social conceptions, paralyzing the multilateral institutions and increasing their fragmentation and informality (Stephen 2017).

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Luce (2017) argues that the new order is characterized by multilateral projects in competition, with different objectives and leadership that generate new forms of geoeconomics contention, intensifying the international liberal order crisis. Therefore, the international system becomes more diverse and polycentric at the institutional level, with greater potential for conflict (Stephen 2017). Consequently, we move towards a more regionalized order, in the emergence of a multipolar system. In this context, a fragmented economic, political and social development unfolds in regions. It affects the integration and global interdependence originally fashioned by globalization. In this sense, the reinvigoration of various forms of regional cooperation—particularly intense in the Global South since the end of the last century—incremented the seek for bilateral, subregional and regional agreements in economic and security issues. As a result, the global order seems to be reshaped by regional governance (Kacowicz 2018). It has filled the public agenda with ongoing debates on the crisis of globalization, the post-globalization era, the need for deglobalizing, a post-globalization with different features, globalizations alternatives or post-Western globalization (Stuenkel 2016) with Sinocentric emphasis (Oropeza García 2017), but with proactive participation of emerging powers and remerging (India, Iran, Russia and Turkey) (Serbin 2018a). None of these States denies the benefits provided by the globalization. However, in essence, the process raises the possibility of a contradiction between globalization developed in terms of the exchange of goods, services, people and ideas in a framework of growing interdependence and deglobalization that unfolds through regional fragmentation, overlapping normative orders and multiple dependencies. Moreover, it expresses a confrontation between the established international liberal order and a potential new Eurasian order. A new order that does not respond to liberal political values, and aims to shape new forms of less universal and more fragmented global governance (Stephen 2017). Most analysts agree that this process, although it challenges institutions, rules and norms of the globalization governance, it does not imply the reversibility of globalization as it has been developed in recent decades. Conversely, it advocates for its transformation, with greater emphasis on regional dynamics (CRIES 2017; Serbin 2018a). Paradoxically, the revisionist and protectionist measures adopted by President Trump’s administration opened opportunities for China and other actors to push for an international order less liberal, based on illiberal normative models. In essence, globalization does not seem to be in

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doubt (Hu and Spence 2017), although there are serious challenges to the global governance promoted, as well as norms and values associated with the liberal global order.

Reconfiguration and Diffusion of World Power: The Emerging Order Every international order faces, sooner or later, two challenges: the questioning of its validity and, consequently, the redefinition of its legitimacy; and a significant change in the distribution of power that unbalances the existing system of checks and balances (Kissinger 2014). In addition, in terms of its validity, the current world order faces major challenges and questioning in its long process of universalization, which denotes a marked turning point of inflection. There is no universal consensus on the validity of its key institutions and values, such as international law, global governance architectures, democracy and human rights. The diversity of interpretations of the fundamental norms of that order is expressed factually, on the one hand, in the growing non-compliance of many international actors with such principles and, on the other, in the emergence of regional orders that relativize them. In addition, the Middle East, Africa (North and South) and Central Asia have seen the implosion of regional orders. As for the second challenge, as we have seen, the distribution of global power has changed substantially over the past decades, whereby the unipolar structure of the contemporary world order is being transformed into a multipolar one (Flemes 2013). According to Serbin (2018b), these processes are associated with the consequent and concomitant reconfiguration and diffusion of world power and the emergency of a new geopolitical board with new relevant actors (Oropeza García 2017). These actors give rise to new global visions and narratives, eventually in competition, which help to promote new forms of governance and new international norms. The old rule makers of the West are beginning to be questioned or displaced by some actors that before, and especially after the Second World War, were assumed as rule takers in the international system (Hamilton and Pelkmans 2015). Keohane (2001) cites China as an illustrative case, but Latin America and the Caribbean are too. It acknowledges a new spectrum of emerging rule makers and, finally, of rule shakers (Gao 2011). The multipolarity that consequently unfolds, especially in

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this phase, is prone to policy errors, geopolitical values and tensions, something that Turzi (2017) has characterized as world dis-order. This new world order responds to a multiplex world (Acharya 2018), where multiple actors reflecting cultural diversity and unequal distribution of relative power compete at various simultaneous levels. These actors include not only national States of relative power in the international system seeking to restructure the global power balances, configure zones of regional influence and promote their own interests but also international organizations, transnational corporations, non-state actors of diverse order and geographic influence with a certain level of institutionalization (Hurrell 2009). This complex network of actors does not reflect the interests of a superior hegemonic power, not even from a group of powers with the sufficient capacity to impose their will in a sustained way. It makes it difficult to identify who will determine the new rules of the game prevailing in the system, particularly if the weakening of the hegemonic power of the United States advances globally in the face of China’s emergence or/and the re-emergence and new assertiveness of Russia, Turkey, Iran and India, among other actors. In turn, the complex multilevel relationships being developed demand new forms of conceptualization within the framework of multidimensional chess (Brzezinski 1997) that consent to novel modalities of regional articulation (Huntington 1996). In addition, China’s vertiginous rise is quantitatively and qualitatively superior to that of the other emerging powers. For this reason, it is argued that China’s rise as a great power—and possible superpower at the turn of this century—represents a challenge comparable to the one posed by the rise of Germany for the world order of the twentieth century (Friedberg 2012; He 2015). Indeed, in many of the studies carried out in Latin America the concern about American hegemony seems to have been displaced by a benevolent vision of China’s global projection, with a strong Sinocentric emphasis (Serbin 2018d). Undoubtedly, the crisis, fragmentation and recomposition of the American elite throughout the Trump presidency and the personality of this president himself, with all its contradictions and ambiguities, contrasted with the coherence of the Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (De Graaff and Van Apeldoorn 2018), or of the autocratic model imposed by Vladimir Putin (Lee Myers 2017). Furthermore, it also shows that not only that the United States’ experiences a transformation—internally and in terms of its global projection—but the whole world is also processing

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changes to the order established by 1945 (Kochin 2017). In fact, these changes put at stake the stability of the world order and the legitimacy of the established norms (Kissinger 2014). The multipolarity of the twenty-first century has some particular characteristics. First, its geographic scope has expanded beyond the European or Western concert that predominated in past centuries. As an effect of economic globalization, the new order is much more global, with its poles extending to Africa, Asia and Latin America. Second, the patterns of behaviour and forms of action of foreign policy in the international system have changed dramatically. Wars between great powers and clashes between superpowers are no longer the dominant mechanisms leading to major changes in world power structures. In the past decades, transformations have occurred in the structures of international politics through both formal and informal negotiation arenas, as well as through the establishment of intergovernmental foreign policy networks. Third, the diplomatic culture has changed radically, resulting in more informal multilateralism, in the context where very particular political coalitions determine the results of global negotiations (Flemes 2013). Furthermore, the imbalances of the twenty-first-century world order reveal the absence of certain elements that could prop up its structure. Pastrana Buelvas and Castro (2018) highlight four main elements to be considered. First of all, the very nature of the State has suffered major transformations due to the impact of globalization processes. Consequently, States have created new collective forms of regional governance based on shared sovereignty. Secondly, the cross-border nature of the challenges they face has led them to establish collective management mechanisms within the regionalization framework. Thirdly, economic globalization is expressed through a single world market. Never before has such a degree of interconnection and global densification of financial networks, trade and investment, intertwined in a network of interdependencies on a planetary scale. The global economic dynamics, because of their cross-border nature, exceed the capacities of global regulation and management of the States in this matter. While the economic actors move in a global space with a horizon cosmopolitan, States remain trapped in the frameworks of territorial politics with their national gaze (Beck 2004). Therefore, the political structure of the world continues to be based on the nation state, and in concepts such as the national interest (even more after the current world pandemic), which prevents the States from exert a counter-power to the overwhelming forces of the world market

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(Pastrana Buelvas and Castro 2018). This hinders their ability to successfully deal with periodic financial crises that affect global structures. Finally, the absence of a world deal between great and emerging powers endowed with a political dialogue mechanism to agree, coordinate and manage global issues of great relevance (Hurrell 2009; Nolte 2012; Pastrana and Vera 2012). Hence, in order to build new global governance structures two major reforms are required: (i) the collective security system needs to be addressed, while (ii) the international economic-commercial system is re shaped (Amorim 2010). In this order of ideas, we are witnessing the emergence of a multiregional system of international relations (Nolte 2012) building a regionalized multilateral world order (Farrell et al. 2005). Accordingly, from the premise that the regions will play an important role in understanding the future world order, analysis of international relations must go beyond the traditional levels towards an analytical model that includes four levels: national, international, regional and interregional (Betz 2012).

Disclosing Geopolitical Narratives At the global level, there were a number of different narratives that prevailed in previous decades: a bipolar narrative during the Cold War that reflected the balance of forces between the United States and the USSR; a unipolar tale after the disintegration of the USSR and the consequent imposition of the United States as the hegemonic power; and most recent, a multipolar one. In the framework of this last narrative, the respective elites have developed new plots that emphasize, frequently, the importance of the nuclei of regional dynamism, without abjuring the processes of globalization and opening the way towards a regionalized globalization (Serbin 2018b, c). Narratives themselves constitute roadmaps for the pursuit of strategic objectives of these elites—political, economic and military—in a world in transformation. In this way, in the face of the so-called Atlanticist narrative consolidated over more than three centuries, an Asia–Pacific narrative has emerged. This novelty, with outstanding elements such as the ascending and predominant role of China as an agent of change—“the Chinese way”, “the Chinese dream”, “the Chinese solution and wisdom”—in the region. It has also emphasized the concept of “An Asia for Asians” which has caused its own tensions and conflicts; various versions of a Eurasian

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narrative based on different cultures and identities elements but based on shared values and strategic aims. The emerged Asia–Pacific narratives appear to be somehow divergent from China and Russia’s interest in the region. IN addition, some analysts argue that the concept of Great Eurasia has been installed as a benchmark of geopolitical dynamism and relevant geoeconomics, updating Mackinder’s ideas (Mackinder 1904). In this context, the emergence of a new multipolar and polycentric post-Western world order, showing, as it was discussed before, multiflex dynamics is perceived (Serbin 2018b). In fact, there is a transition process towards a genuinely multipolar world—not only in economic terms but also geopolitical—within a global agenda that is not yet clearly reflected by the multilateral agencies (Stuenkel 2016). Furthermore, this new world order is being configurated as a mixed system in which centrally planned economies coexist with economies more open, which generates a more diversified social order that operates in different ways in different regions and countries, establishing a wide variety of priorities and issues on the global agenda (Mazzar 2017). Despite the questioning of the globalization process promoted by antisystemic social movements at the beginning, and paradoxically, being currently driven by protectionists and nationalists, globalization continues to be perceived positively, in particular through the impetus given to new free trade agreements and the creation of new institutions and regulations. Thus, globalization (and its various narratives) does not seem exhausted, but on the contrary, acquires new forms with the appearance of emerging actors of various kinds, who would redefine rules and norms of the international system, based on novel or differentiated values (Serbin 2018c). In sum, the institutional and political crisis of Atlanticism and its aspirations to establish the rules that oversee global governance while consolidating a liberal international order gives rise to changes in the rules of the game for both the world economy and the security system due to the appearance of new actors; redesign of the relationships and balances of power between various relevant actors; acceleration of the regionalization process and transnationalization of international relations.

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The Emergence of Regionalism Regionalism is largely accepted as an overarching concept (Hurrell 1995). According to Nye (1968), it indicates to, respectively, “the formation of interstate associations or groupings on the basis of regions; and in the doctrinal sense, the advocacy of such formations”. It is the expression of a regional consciousness that arises from a substance of identity of countries situated in geographical proximity, which encourages them to cooperate to accomplish common goals or to confront political, economic, strategic and other practical challenges (Van Klaveren 2017). Regionalism has become an essential aspect of world politics in a multipolar international system, as exhibited by the advancement of numerous regional cores in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Southern Africa, the Maghreb, the Gulf nations, etc. On the one hand, as Börzel (2016) argues, globalization is a key external driver for regionalism. On the other hand, regionalization is one of the fundamental dimensions of global restructuring. Katzenstein (2005), for instance, claims that we are approaching a “world of regions”. Likewise, Acharya (2007) refers to “the emerging regional architecture of world politics”, and the construction of “regional worlds” (Acharya 2014). Cantori and Spiegel (1970) acknowledged a number of characteristics to define certain region such as geographical proximity, common bonds (historical, social, cultural, ethnic and linguistic), a sense of identity and international interactions. Even though Börzel (2013) advocates for differentiating between regional cooperation and regional integration, it is possible to theorize about regional integration as a particular type or subset of regional cooperation or regionalism (Nolte 2014). According to Van Klaveren (2017), regions are porous entities without well-defined boundaries where the relationship between Latin America and the Caribbean offers a suitable example of the porosity of regionalism. It has happened that both alignments are merged and act jointly, as in the United Nations, where they founded the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC). Nevertheless, advocating for the need for differentiated treatment, the Caribbean countries form their own separate group when it comes to trade issues. Evidence of diverse regional organizations take place in most regions across the globe. Although these organizations are complementary and accomplish different functions usually, they can also overlap, not only in their membership but also in their mandates.

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In this frame, interregionalism can be understood as an additional phase in the theorizing of regionalism (Häangi 2006). Hettne (2007) argues that interregionalism could be a consequence of the policy of the European Union (EU) of creating and relating to regions as selected counterparts in the international system. In that sense, European-Latin American relations deliver an example of that policy. However, it can also be seen as an example of its limitations and problems, especially when there is an asymmetry between a highly regionalized partner, such as the EU, and a diverse and less structured counterpart, as is the case of Latin America in any of the regional formations through which it acts (Van Klaveren 2004, 2017). More recently, regionalism theorization has arrived at the concept of transregionalism, something that may be seen as a paradox (Ribeiro Hoffman 2014). It refers to relations that have a special density or singularity, and which transcend regions (Van Klaveren 2017). Typically, they are constructed on components of like-mindedness, as is the case in trans-Atlantic relations. However, transregionalism can also be developed on cultural and historical bonds, as is the case for the Commonwealth, Francophonie and Ibero-American Community. Finally, it is also a relevant category for Latin America, which goes beyond the case of the Ibero-American Community, reaching those countries of the region which participate in Pacific Basin groupings like Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

The Experience of Regionalism in Latin America The idea of regionalism in Latin American is intricated in its own history. In fact, regional integration in Latin America is an idea as old as the region’s States themselves, and it has retained its status as a persistent characteristic of the international relations of Latin America, starting in the early nineteenth century (Van Klaveren 2017). Simon Bolívar, José de San Martín, José Gervasio Artigas and Andrés Bello, among other founding fathers and intellectuals played key roles in the struggle for independence and consolidation of the new countries, as well as in the efforts to create a league of Republics, with common political, defence and commercial institutions, including a supranational parliamentary assembly. Their visions never succeeded, but the idea of regional cooperation has survived until now. Consequently, the struggle for independence in the early nineteenth century was pursued under a sentiment

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of unity, leading subsequently to regional conferences and plans for unity that were expounded with different levels of assertion. Integration attempts in Latin America have experienced ups and downs. However, real progress in integration has remained elusive. Latin American attempts at regionalism after the Second World War have been chased through different waves, which have been largely associated with peculiar economic and political models adopted by joining States. The territorial limits of these attempts have also varied, which has resulted in separate blocs and overlapping projects. The more recent waves of regionalism in Latin America have been associated, respectively, with structuralist, neoliberal and post-liberal economic and political experiments in the region (Van Klaveren 2017). In the 1950s Structuralist regionalism was inaugurated, remaining until the 1970s. It was followed by open regionalism in the 1980s and 1990s, which was swapped, to a certain extent, by post-liberal regionalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, the limits, if not demise, of post-liberal experiments in the most important economies of Latin America posed several unanswered questions for the future of regionalism. In this changing situation, several challenges arise. In a theoretical arena, economic integration scholars have a propensity to describe the integration process as the journey from less intense or demanding forms of intergovernmental cooperation to the actual union of economies (Van Klaveren 2017). According to Balassa (2013), the economic union’s track includes successive phases such as a free-trade area, a customs union, a common market, an economic community and an economic and political union. Nevertheless, due to its complex and disorderly integration pattern, this linear approach is not applicable to Latin America. Accordingly, integration strategies in the region are neither trailed in a careful chronological sequence nor necessarily stuck to a logical order (Mattli 2013). Börzel claims that an integration process “involves the setting up of supranational institutions to which political authority is delegated to make collective binding decisions (2013: 508). Taking this definition as valid, there would be no example of a successful scheme in Latin America. Though, following De Lombaerde (2011), who assumes integration as synonymous with regionalism or regionalization, the picture that materializes is more nuanced. Despite all of its deficiencies, Latin America displays significant grades of “interaction between political units (subnational, national, or transnational) provided by actors sharing common

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ideas, setting objectives and defining methods to achieve them, and by so doing contributing to building a region” (Dabène 2009: 215). Although intentions remain, the concrete results of these interactions are less than satisfactory in economic and political terms (Nolte 2014) among other authors have engaged with this phenomenon through the concepts of cooperative or segmented regional governance. Currently, the situation in Latin America seems closer to segmented regionalism. Van Klaveren (2017) states that it is still unclear how the regional architecture will move forward and are going to be the consequences of overlapping regional organizations and projects. Undoubtedly, Latin America will continue experiencing new initiatives and new efforts to overhaul existing schemes. However, institutional disorder does not imply absence of regional regimes across Latin American. Indeed, a good example of this is the sharing of common values and norms regarding peace and security that many Latin American countries preserve. Additionally, the same can be said for its common norms for the protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In sum, a considerable degree of “regionness” in Latin America ruled by common norms and shared practices is presented despite all of the confusion and limitations of its regionalism. Aligned with the challenges for understanding Latin American regionalism also lie in the fact that no institution in the region has qualified for regulating and/or governing this regionness (Van Klaveren 2017).

Looking for a Destination for Latin America In Latin America, after the deployment of post-liberal regionalism (Sanahuja 2012) or post-hegemonic (Riggirozzi and Tussie 2012) as strategic instruments in the definition of new development models within a favourable context marked by the boom of commodities and the rise of leftist and populist governments, the new situation has been marked by two major trends: the reconfiguration of its political map and its current difficulties of growth and development on the one hand; and some exogenous factors that can condition its evolution such as the international orientations of Trump’s administration in the United States, the transformations taking place in Europe and the global rise of China, on the other. In addition, Latin America is also affected by the reconfiguration of novel centres of economic and military power at a global level. It would

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be crucially important for Latin America and the Caribbean in its attempt to insert itself into the world as a region, especially at this stage marked by low growth, low integration, weak leadership, lower levels of agreement and higher levels of pragmatism. In a more atomized region with limited convergences, sui generis regionalism previously developed is now seriously questioned (Comini and Frenkel 2017; Serbin 2010). Paradoxically, while the narrative of post-hegemonic or post-liberal regionalism privileged intergovernmental political agreement, the role of the State over the market and the search for new development models, most of the greatest actors in the emerging global market, tends to privilege the restoration of neoliberal policies imposed by the West. The Latin American narratives that have developed in recent decades— from open regionalism to post-liberal regionalism or post-hegemonic— have crystallized into weak institutional forms with limited scope in its capacity to generate real integration in the international system, within the framework of what has been called a sui generis multilateralism (Serbin 2010). However, beyond their critical views, most of these narratives, paradoxically have not questioned the liberal international order, as evidenced by the systematic alignment of the majority of the Latin American and Caribbean countries with the Western powers in the voting at the UN. In essence, most of the governments of the region do not question the Western values of the existing international order—particularly referring to democracy, human rights, international regulations and economic liberalization—taking part in the global governance bodies that emerged from this liberal order. Latin America has developed a series of endogenous norms that pose it as a rule maker, and that could eventually be projected towards a broader scope if it were able to achieve regional consensus over initiatives oriented to global governance. According to Kacowicz (2018), despite its peripheral situation in global matters, Latin America and the Caribbean has managed to build a highly developed and sophisticated system of institutions and international law, including a series of regional norms that have regulated both its internal and international affairs. In this sense, the tectonic movements taking place at the world order can be seen as an extraordinary opportunity to build—both bilateral as well as multilateral—potential consensus for a new Atlantic framework and for a more active collective participation at a global level. At the same time, it needs to be understood as an occasion for the construction of common spaces that can become platforms based on an agenda of cross-cutting issues that

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go beyond the conventional ones—technological innovation, connectivity and infrastructure—taking advantage of the diversification of relationship patterns with the various actors of the international system, beyond the Atlantic framework. In essence, strategic incorporation of the region to global markets confronts both the need to manage the ongoing globalization, as a proactive collective attitude in governance and global agenda, and with a unifying narrative. Consequently, the need to generate conceptual inputs is imposed in order to contribute to the recomposing and articulation of a strategic vision to insert Latin America into the changing scenario of international system. Regionalism in Latin America is still in a construction phase, with a high degree of dependence on changes in the international system while dealing with permanent changes in the internal politics of the countries most committed to regional governance.

China and América Latina Within the changing Latin American geopolitics it is important to consider that, while the United States has lost political and economic influence in the region, other actors have renewed or strengthened their positions: Russia has renewed its geostrategic interest in this region, whereas China and India have also deepened their relationships, although the latter on a smaller scale (Nolte and Wehner 2015). In this context, the growing presence of China in Latin America and the Caribbean is the “natural consequence” of its global rise as power and the relative decline of the United States in both the international and regional arena. The rapid expansion of the former could increase the possibilities of competition and eventually confrontation between the two giants. However, at the global level, the bilateral confrontation is essentially political and economic, but not military (Serbin 2018a). However, if an interplay between levels is to be considered, the intensification of China’s presence in the Latin American region may be partially a counterbalance response to the increasing presence of the United States in East Asia, something that has amplified military tensions between the two powers. These hypotheses are close to what neorealism points out, although the reality seems to be more complex (Pastrana Buelvas and Castro 2018). A series of different studies show that China’s recent presence in Latin America “is getting political” and it is not “just business”, as in previous

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decades (Pastrana Buelvas and Castro 2018; Serbin 2018b). It could add more ideological divergences to a region that is already very heterogeneous politically, making inter-American consensus even more difficult. For example, the political dialogue platform included in the agreement CELAC-China will have eventual repercussions for the negotiations over some specific issues such as infrastructure or energy production, and may bring multilateral problems, at a time when the United States is desperate for partners. In addition, there is evidence of the increase in the convergences of voting in the UN between China and those countries of the region which are most financially and commercially committed to the Asian superpower. In terms of security, it is important to mention that the type and quantity of military equipment provided by China to the region do not have a strategic nature of offensive or projection type, being eminently logistical (Serbin 2018a). Even more, Chinese personnel have focused on humanitarian missions, the support to MINUSTAH with a small police contingent in Haiti and in the exchange of experiences. Students from a wide variety of countries such as Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay have participated in courses at the Institute of Defense Studies of China, the School of Army Command, Naval Command School and the Institute of Naval Research. Additionally, China has carried out several donations in military supplies to different countries such as Bolivia, Guyana, Colombia and Peru (Ellis 2020). In accordance with it, under the current circumstances marked by the world pandemic, China has increased its presence in the region and deepened its relationships with relevant actors in Latin America by providing access to COVID-19 vaccines. This role may be a possibility for the Asian giant to gain a more positive image not just among decision-makers, but also within the local public opinion. It is the case even for countries ruled by governments on the right, as it is the case for Uruguay, which may not be an economic power of the region, but it constitutes an important symbolic milestone. In addition to this, there is a “political renewal” taking place in the region that would surely affect the region’s foreign affairs strategies. The recent electoral victories of a resurgent left in a number of countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Perú, Chile, Colombia and lastly Brazil, may affect their relationships with China. As a preliminary conclusion, there is still unclear of a connection between a number of events that have been discussed such as (i) the

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apparent change in the status of China and the United States at the international level, (ii) the security dilemmas intensified at the regional level in Asia and (iii) the competitive game played by these two global giants at the Latin American regional arena. Even though there is a window of opportunity that has been opened for China’s economic penetration, the geopolitical chessboard in the region is still in progress. Latin American governments that are more critical of the United States administration may have benefited the most from a greater presence of China in the region. However, it is hard to speak of ideological implantation or even the development of simultaneous military positions. Finally, there are also significant internal electoral changes within partners of China that could affect their political commitments to it.

Latin America and the Caribbean and Its Interregionalism with the Asia–Pacific As it has been discussed, Latin America and the Caribbean are configured as one of the spaces of geostrategic competition between China and the United States. In fact, both actors had entered the logic of competition through the creation of wide regional alliances. On the one hand, the Obama administration has promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), of which Brunei, Singapore, New Zealand, United States, Australia, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Canada, Japan and South Korea are part of it. On the other hand, China is promoting the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), which involves the ten nations member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. In this sense, it is evident that the countries of the Pacific Alliance (AP), except Colombia, are part of the TPP, which seemed to place Latin America and the Caribbean in the middle of a competition between wide regional alliances, balancing it towards the United States side. However, with the United States’ withdrawal from the TPP that was carried out by President Trump’s administration as one of his first acts of government, it was expected further strengthening of China’s economic influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, and at a global level as well. Within this turbulent context, China has become the great promoter of free trade, while the United States begins a commercial retreat, marked by protectionism and a possible isolationism.

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China has not only counterbalanced the position of The United States in Latin America and the Caribbean, but it has also commercially displaced the European Union as the second trading partner of the region. The economic crisis that the euro zone suffered in 2008, and from which it still cannot be fully recovered, contributed to the decline of its presence in the region. However, within the framework of the last European Union-CELAC summit, in 2015, both parties left clear the importance of mutual relations, so that prioritized new forms of interaction and expanded areas of cooperation. For their part, Latin America and the Caribbean countries have also experienced a series of changes in the transition path to a new world order. In the last decades, the region has projected greater autonomy at the regional and global levels, thereby avoiding to some extent the interference of extra-regional powers, such as the United States. In the regional scenario, the interest in providing a joint solution to the Problems affecting the region have been expressed in anti-hegemonic establishment schemes such as UNASUR, CELAC and, a little more radicalized in ALBA, excluding the United States and Canada from the three mentioned spaces. Likewise, political coordination mechanisms have been sought as regional in nature, as an alternative to the traditional scenario shaped by the Organization of American States, within which Latin American States can manage regional affairs and seek solutions to crises without the aegis of the United States. In addition, there has been some consensus of Latin American and Caribbean countries regardless of the ideological orientations of their current governments, to demand the United States return of Cuba to the inter-American stages and the end of the embargo. In addition, most of the States in the region implemented a diversification of their commercial relations with extra-regional actors, especially the Asia–Pacific, in order to adapt their strategies of international incorporation to the growing multipolarity. In particular, most of them have benefited from the strengthening of their relations with China. In this vein, the consolidation of a more autonomous role of the Latin America and the Caribbean States, within the framework of the transition towards a new world order with a multipolar structure, coincided also with various domestic factors of a sociological and political nature. These include the rise to power of movements or political parties of the socalled new left in many countries in the region (the so-called pink tale); the replacement of elites and, consequently, a certain transformation of the political system in large part of the States of Latin America and the

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Caribbean, and the expansion of the middle class. In short, the conjunction of systemic factors—noted above—and the domestics elements that have just been listed have contributed to the political and economic elites of the countries of the region to be aware of the search and consolidation of a more autonomous role, according to such transformations. For this reason, this new awareness of autonomy and greater self-esteem is reflected, regardless of the nuances of the left or the right, the variety of national development models, or the international integration projects, in pursuit of new business partners, for example, in Asia–Pacific and in the different regionalization initiatives without the presence of the United States. The Pacific Alliance (PA) emerges in the context of an increasingly multipolar global economy. According to (Serbin 2018a), given the progressive dismantling of the strategy of open regionalism and the absence of a response from the post-hegemonic regionalism to its interests of international commercial participation, its members have responded with a strategy of two edges. First, with the creation of a regional institution whose institutionality facilitates the circulation of goods, capital, services and people, while not restricting them in their tactics of economic internationalization through the signing of bilateral FTAs, as well as attracting foreign investment (minimalist regionalism). In addition, it allows them to coordinate strategies to project themselves towards the region with the highest growth rate and economic expansion in the world: Asia–Pacific. Second, they have implemented a strategy of crossregionalism, which consists of signing bilateral trade agreements with States from other regions. It makes them less dependent on a single business partner and allows them greater manoeuvrability in negotiating the conditions of the agreements (Garzón 2015). Although initially the PA caused scepticism and friction with the participants in other regionalization processes, its members have shown that although they want to differentiate themselves from ALBA and MERCOSUR, they are not interested in making a “counterweight” to those organizations. Contrarily, spaces of convergence with the latter have been sought, and PA States have continued to participate in posthegemonic regionalist organizations such as UNASUR (Castro 2014). Hemispheric and global transformations, especially the withdrawal of the United States from the TPP, have allowed the PA to become the new platform for the articulation of States that want to form a megablock of free trade between Latin America and Asia–Pacific. This is how the

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Viña del Mar dialogue can be interpreted, where the signatory States of the TPP plus China, South Korea and Colombia took part. From that Dialogue, a fundamental agreement emerged that established the creation of the Associated State category in the PA. There are a number of TPP’s signatory countries which have already applied such as Canada, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, and the remainder States are likely to apply in the next few years (Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam). In addition, States that are not part of the TPP that attended the meeting in Viña del Mar such as China and South Korea (the latter is already seeking to obtain this category) were interested in joining it. In this way, the PA starts to become the articulating axis of Asian and Latin American States, among other possible regions, who are defenders of free trade in the face of the return of nationalism, protectionism and populism at the head of the American superpower. Consequently, the PA countries may react by consolidating an interregionalism post-TPP, which combines two forms of interregionalism (Häangi 2000): (a) the relationship between institutions from different regions, which has been manifested mainly through the links between the PA and ASEAN (an agreement between two regional blocs; and (b) the hybrid interregionalism that occurs between a regional institution and a State (an agreement between a regional bloc and one particular state), which is how you can categorize the negotiation of agreements that are taking place between the PA and its “Associated States”. Another relevant effect of the United State withdrawal from the TPP has been materialized by the fact that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has entered into force since 1 January 2022. Australia has already signed it, while Chile and Peru, all member States of the TPP (and the last two are also part of the PA), have expressed their interest to take part in the RCEP following the abandonment of the United States from this last agreement (Cech 2016). In the meantime, the signatory States of the TPP have relaunched this treaty, with adjustments, as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which officially entered into force in Perú in 2021 and became another articulating and deepening axis of the interregionalism between Asia and America. However, it is also important to consider within regional internal political shifts, the novel electoral results that are going to reshape its foreign affairs. The recent decline of right-wing projects in Bolivia, Peru and Argentina are now shacked by the victory of a broad left-wing coalition

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in Chile. The presidential election taking place in Brazil in 2022 will have Ignacio Lula Da Silva as a front-runner, something that mark a change in the geoeconomic dynamics of the region, tilting it back towards the left of the ideological spectrum. That transformation can have a especially important impact on the rapprochement of MERCOSUR to the PA and the reconfiguration of other forms of regionalism.

Conclusions Every international order face, sooner or later, challenges to its legitimacy. The way in which this occurs is studied by different approaches such as power transition theory, which has observed that in recent centuries these changes have taken place in a warlike way, with the rise and decline of great powers. However, one of the characteristics of the transformations that are taking place in the new world order is that the nuclear threat and the profound economic interdependence that exists between the great powers, among other factors, are seen as a dissuasive factor of the armed conflict between them. Instead, the transition of power occurs through the emergence of new poles of political and economic power, competing economically and politically with the established ones, especially, reducing the United States’ hegemony. However, rather than subverting the liberal international order, the novel competitors try to insert themselves into it, promoting reforms at what is known as the “secondary institutions” such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations among others, but not challenging its primary institutions such as free trade, sovereignty, etc. These powers also pursue the improvement of their position in the hierarchy of the international order as well as their capacities to set the international agenda. For instance, it is addressed by foreign policy networking; while strengthening their position in their respective areas of influence, through the creation of regional institutions that exclude the United States and that represent their own interests, ideas and values. Accordingly, regionalism has become a crucial expression of world politics across this multipolar international system, as exhibited by the advancement of numerous regional cores. Globalization is a key external driver for regionalism, at the time that regionalization is one of the fundamental dimensions of global restructuring. In this framework, integration attempts in Latin America have experienced delusive results. However,

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real progress in integration has persisted elusive These regionalist attempts have been pursued through different waves, which have been largely associated with peculiar economic and political models adopted by the participating States. The more recent waves of regionalism in Latin America have been associated, respectively, with structuralist, neoliberal and post-liberal economic and political experiments in the region. However, the limits, if not demise, of post-liberal experiments in the most important economies of Latin America posed several unanswered questions for the future of regionalism. In this changing situation, several challenges arise. Another symptom of the multipolarization process of world power is the growing influence of emerging powers in regions where their presence had historically been limited. In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, the United State strategic withdrawal has been accompanied by the renewal of Russia’s geopolitical interest in the region, while simultaneously China and India, the latter to a lesser extent, have been increasing their economic and political exchanges with the region (Pastrana Buelvas and Castro 2018). Thus, the Latin American and Caribbean region has increased, mainly, their economic and commercial and, to a certain extent, political relationships with Asian States, especially those of Asia–Pacific. In response to that trend, and with the intention of connecting even more with the States of that region, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico created the PA. The PA promoted the creation of the Associate State category which prompted negotiations with New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and Australia among others. In this framework, this institution acquires a particular geoeconomic importance, by becoming (together with the CPTPP) one of the articulating axes of a post-TPP interregionalism between Asia–Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean countries. Finally, novel electoral results within Latin America, especially in the south of the region, may have important effects in reshaping its foreign affairs. Left-wing governments in Bolivia, Peru and Argentina are now joined by the recent elected leftist government of Chile and Colombia. The consolidation of this back to the left track in the region may have its highest expression after the presidential election that took place in Brazil in 2022 and the return to power of Ignacio Lula Da Silva. That political shift may have especially important effects over the adjustment of MERCOSUR and the PA while resuming the reconfiguration of other forms of regionalism.

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PART IV

Future Prospects

CHAPTER 12

Contours of a Future World Order Kishore Mahbubani

Charles Dickens famously said that “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This is true of our time too. On the one hand, we have made greater improvements to the human condition in the past 30 years than we have in the past 3000 years. Thanks to China and India, we have exceeded the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving global poverty. On the other hand, we continue to face grave challenges. Many people feel a deep foreboding about the future, especially in the face of major global challenges like COVID-19 and climate change. I deliberately begin with this paradox because if we want to understand how to create a better future world order, we have to resolve three major paradoxes. These are the three paradoxes. The first paradox is this: the current benevolent world order is a Western-inspired and Western-created world order. Yet, it is the West which has been weakening it and undermining it.

K. Mahbubani (B) Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0_12

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The second paradox is this: even though the West is weakening and undermining the current world order, the West is going against its own long-term interests when it undermines this world order. The third paradox is this: if the West changes course and decides that it is in its long-term interest to strengthen the current world order, it only has to return to some fundamental Western principles to strengthen the world order. I will try to explain each paradox as briefly as possible.

The First Paradox First, let me explain how the current world order is Western-inspired and Western-created. If you have any doubt about this, just read the UN Charter and, say, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The principles that shine through these documents are Western-inspired principles. This is a natural result of the fact that even though there were a few non-Western drafters of the original UN documents in San Francisco in 1945, most of them were drafted by Western statesmen. Let me add here that these original UN documents, including the UN Charter, are beautiful documents. If we had to convene a global conference today to draft the documents for a new world order, we would never be able to draft documents as beautiful as the UN Charter. The very first sentence of the UN Charter says that the key goal is “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.” In this regard, the UN Charter has succeeded. It has prevented World War III. Indeed, the Harvard Scholar Steven Pinker observes that “today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on Earth.” He adds, “global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2008, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2000 per year this decade” (Pinker 2007). What is true in the world is also true in the field of development. Billions are leading better lives since the 1945 Western rules-based order was created. Given the enormous success of the post-1945 rules-based order, the natural thing for the Western countries, led by the US, to do would have been to celebrate the success of the UN and the UN family of institutions and strengthen them further. Instead, the West, led by the US, has been

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weakening the UN institutions. They have been doing so by starving the UN of money, especially money that comes from assessed compulsory contributions. I can make these claims with great confidence because I served as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN twice, from 1984 to 1989 and from 1998 to 2004. I saw with my own eyes how the West tried to cut funding to the UN. But let me also share some data to back up this claim. Professor Kelley Lee has written a book on one of the most important UN organization, the World Health Organization. In this book, she describes in painful detail how the WHO was weakened. This was primarily done by starving the WHO of reliable long-term funding which it could have used to strengthen the administrative and scientific capabilities of the WHO. This is what happened: In 1970–1971, the WHO received 62% of its budget from Regular Budget Funds (RBFs) and 18% from Extrabudgetary Funds (EBFs). By 2006– 2007, the ratio had reversed to 28% from RBFs and 72% from EBFs. Why did this shift damage the WHO? The WHO can make longterm plans only from RBFs. EBFs can disappear overnight, at the whim of Western donors. The Western donors therefore engineered this shift to ensure that they could control the short-term agenda of the WHO even though they represented only 30-odd members out of 192 member states. (Mahbubani 2018: 98)

The Western states used the same method to weaken other UN organizations, including, surprisingly, organizations that clearly serve Western interests and concerns. One good example is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In theory, the Western countries are very worried about nuclear proliferation. Hence, to fight nuclear proliferation, the West should have steadily strengthened the scientific and institutional capabilities of the IAEA to carry out inspections. Instead, I was shocked to learn that the West has been doing the opposite. I discovered this when I accepted an invitation in December 2007 to join the Commission of Eminent Persons to review the future of the IAEA under the leadership of the former President of Mexico, Emilio Zedillo. In my book, The Great Convergence, I demonstrate how the West weakened IAEA: In regard to IAEA, one of its key roles is to inspect all nuclear power stations to ensure that they comply with international standards and to verify that there is no diversion of nuclear fuel for weaponization purposes.

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To fulfill this role, IAEA needs to keep on its regular payroll a strong and large team of dedicated nuclear inspectors. The best inspectors will stay with the IAEA only if they can be guaranteed good remuneration and good lifelong careers in the organization. IAEA can provide these good terms and conditions only from the funds it gets from reliable and predictable annexed contributions. It cannot guarantee good pay and careers from voluntary contributions because they come and go and are therefore unpredictable. Hence, to serve Western interests of having a strong team of nuclear inspectors, the West should be increasing the assessed contributions, not the voluntary contributions. Instead, amazingly, the West has been doing the exact opposite and thereby shooting itself in the foot. (Mahbubani 2018: 106)

It’s important to emphasize that all these efforts to deprive an organization like WHO and IAEA of long-term funding are part of a concerted push to weaken almost all UN-affiliated organizations. Even though the UN General Assembly effectively serves as a Parliament of the world, the West has tried to marginalize it because it doesn’t want to listen to the views of the 88% of humanity who live outside the West. Similarly, even an organization like the World Trade Organization, which serves Western interests, has been weakened by the US since the US has been blocking of new judges to the WTO Appellate Body. So why is the West weakening the UN? An honest answer was given to me by a senior American official during a bus ride at a conference in the early 2000s. Having heard me expound on the virtues of multilateralism, a cause I deeply believe in, he retorted, “I can understand why a small state like Singapore supports multilateralism. It enhances the influence of small states. However, for a great power like the US, multilateralism is a great constraint.” I deeply appreciated the brutal honesty of this senior American official who once served as chair of the National Intelligence Council of the US. Superficially, it makes sense for the US, the world’s strongest power, to weaken multilateral organizations since they constrain US power. But I have never been able to figure out why the European Union countries—whose interests are served by stronger multilateral institutions and processes—have been complicit in supporting the efforts by the US to weaken the UN system. The next paradox will explain how the EU countries (and indeed, including the US) are working against their own long-term interests by undermining the UN family of institutions.

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The Second Paradox There is no doubt that the West has been systematically weakening global multilateral institutions, especially those in the UN family, in recent decades. However, by doing so, it has actually been undermining its own long-term interests. It has been going against its own interests in three ways. Firstly, the West needs to understand that the world has shrunk enormously. The common global challenges that humanity faces today, from COVID-19 to climate change, demonstrate clearly that all 7.8 billion people now live in a small interdependent global village. In this small interdependent global village, 12% of the population (i.e., the Western world) live in comfortable, affluent homes. The remaining 88% (the rest of the world’s population) live in less comfortable homes. Indeed, many of them envy Western homes and want to walk into them. This is no abstract analogy. This is what is happening each day in the borders between Europe and Africa and between the US and Mexico. This is why I emphasize in The Great Convergence that “the primary security threats to the West in the future will no longer be military. No armies of tanks are poised to invade any Western country. Instead, the main threats to the West, both in America and Europe, will be nonmilitary: from illegal immigrants to dangerous viruses (sic), from new forms of economic competition to cultural isolation. In this dramatically changed strategic environment, it would be absolutely foolish for the West to continue spending more on defense and less on global village councils. Yet even though this strategic folly becomes clearer every day, there is virtually no major voice in the West advocating a major change of course (Mahbubani 2018: 93).” The second way that the West, especially the US, is going against its interests is in not recognizing that as we move into a world where Western power will inexorably diminish and where the West can no longer dominate the world, it would actually be in Western, especially US, interests to strengthen, instead of weaken, a global rules-based order. The one man who expressed this wisdom well was the former President of the US, Mr. Bill Clinton. In a speech he gave at Yale in 2003, he said: If you believe that maintaining power and control and absolute freedom of movement and sovereignty is important to your country’s future, there’s nothing inconsistent in that [the US continuing to behaving unilaterally].

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[The US is] the biggest, most powerful country in the world now. We’ve got the juice and we’re going to use it. … But if you believe that we should be trying to create a world with rules and partnerships and habits of behavior that we would like to live in when we’re no longer the military political economic superpower in the world, then you wouldn’t do that. It just depends on what you believe. (Clinton 2003)

The key point that Bill Clinton was trying to make in this paragraph was both subtle and obvious. He was essentially saying that if the US was going to be the number one power forever, it could continue behaving unilaterally forever. No power would be strong enough to hold the US accountable for its unilateral behavior. However, if the US was destined to become the number two power in the world (and most projections indicate that this will happen in a decade or so) then it would serve US interests to strengthen multilateral “rules and partnerships and habits of behavior” that will then constrain the next number one power, which is likely to be China. Hence, the key point that Bill Clinton was trying to make in a subtle fashion was that if the US created loopholes in international law (like not ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea), it would be creating loopholes that future emerging powers, like China and India, could also take advantage of. Hence Bill Clinton was wisely advising his fellow Americans to strengthen, not weaken, multilateralism. He gave this advice eighteen years ago. Sadly, his advice has neither been heeded nor taken up by any other American leader. The third way in which the West is undermining its own long-term interests is in not recognizing that its domestic democratic political systems are also threatened if the West fails to use global multilateral institutions to solve global problems. After Trump and Brexit, we now know that the Western democratic political systems are now clearly threatened by populism. This populism is leading to the election of populist leaders like Donald Trump in the US (who may return as President in 2024) and Victor Orban in Hungary. The political reasons for this surge in populism are complex. However, in their book entitled, “The Light that Failed,” the two co-authors, Krastev and Holmes (2020) argue that the liberal elites in Western societies have only taken care of the interests of their own affluent classes and ignored the interests of their working classes, who feel threatened by the surge of migrants from poor developing countries. What is the best way to address the concerns of these working classes? The answer is to work with global multilateral organizations to promote

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development and growth in poor developing countries. Therefore, by undermining these global multilateral development organizations (whose job is to promote development in poor developing countries), the West is only undermining its own long-term interests. Any surge in migrants from poor regions in Africa and Latin America will spur populism in developed Western countries. The great tragedy that the West faces today is that it lacks big strategic thinkers who can look at this big global picture and explain clearly to Western audiences, especially the masses, that the policy of the Western societies in keeping multilateral institutions weak has actually damaged key Western interests. Hence, even though my remarks may seem to be critical of Western policies on multilateralism, I want to emphasize that my goal is to help long-term Western interests, not undermine them. The next paradox will explain how the West can reverse course in an intelligent and thoughtful fashion.

The Third Paradox The third paradox, therefore, is that if the West reverses course and decides that strengthening multilateralism is in its core long-term interest, then all it has to do is to return to some fundamental Western principles to do so. One fundamental principle of the West is the principle of democracy: to give equal weight to the voice and interests of each human being. However, instead of only giving equal weight to the voices and interests of each human being within our national borders, we give equal weight to the voice and interests of each human being on planet earth, all 7.8 billion of us in 2021. Wikipedia makes an interesting observation about the historical origins of the word “democracy.” It notes that the term appeared in the fifth century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek citystates, notably Classical Athens, to mean “rule of the people” in contrast to autocracy, meaning rule of an elite (Wikipedia 2022). Today, all Western thinkers and philosophers praise the virtues of democracy and condemn all forms of autocracy. Hence, it is hugely ironic that it is the Western states who have created and protected the autocratic features of our global multilateral order. There are three key leading examples of autocracy being embedded in our global multilateral order. Firstly, the two key deliberative organs in the UN are the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the UN Security Council (UNSC). The UNGA

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is the more democratic representative body. It represents the views of all 7.8 billion people. However, it is toothless. It can only make recommendations, which are often ignored in practice. The UNSC functionally represents the views of the five great powers, US, China, Russia, UK and France (three of which are Western, even though the West only provides 12% of the world’s population). Yet, the UNSC, which represents essentially an “autocracy” on the world stage, has “teeth” and can make decisions that are binding and mandatory for all 7.8 billion people. To make matters worse, the five permanent members listed above have “veto” rights. A veto right is an autocratic privilege since the voice of the majority can be overridden by the voice of a tiny minority. The second example of an autocratic feature of our global multilateral order can be found in the two leading global multilateral economic organizations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These two organizations are essentially autocratic because the rich countries have more voting rights than poor countries. In a democracy, you give equal weight to each human being. In the IMF and World Bank, the spirit of decision-making is to give equal weight to each dollar. The voting shares of the IMF and World Bank are distributed not according to the size of a country’s population but according to the size of a country’s GNP. As a result, the Western countries (US, EU, Canada Australia and New Zealand), which represent 12% of the world’s population, control 50–55% of the voting share of the IMF. There is another feature of the management of the IMF and World Bank that makes it even more autocratic. You can only become a ruler in an autocratic society if you are born into an autocratic family. Similarly, you can only become a leader of the IMF and World Bank if you are a citizen of the tiny minority Western community. Hence, 88% of the world’s population, who live outside the West, are disqualified from leading the IMF or the World Bank. It is sheer hypocrisy for the Western countries to claim that the leadership of the IMF and World Bank is open to all societies. When the Western countries were feeling desperate and demoralized after the global financial crisis of 2008/9, they agreed at the April 2009 G20 meeting in London that future leaders of the IMF and World Bank would be selected on “merit.” The Communique read, “we agree that the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent, and meritbased selection process.” Twelve years have passed since this promise was made to essentially “democratize” the leadership of the IMF and World

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Bank. Nothing changed. All subsequent IMF and World Bank heads continue to come from Europe and the US, respectively. All these examples powerfully demonstrate how the “democratic” West is determined to preserve an “undemocratic” global multilateral order. The third example of the autocratic feature of our world order lies in the refusal of the entrenched Western members of the UNSC (especially UK and France) to make way for new great powers in the UNSC. Even though the “veto” powers of the P5 members of the UNSC are essentially undemocratic, they serve a useful purpose in entrenching the great powers within the UN system and therefore keeping it alive. The League of Nations collapsed because the US refused to join it. The UN has survived because the US has refused to leave it because it doesn’t want to lose the veto. Indeed, the only reason why the US doesn’t allow its unpaid dues to the UN to exceed two years of unpaid arrears is because it doesn’t want to lose its role (and therefore its veto) in the UN. Hence, if the veto serves the useful purpose of entrenching great powers in the UN system, it should be retained. However, the veto power can only be useful if it entrenches the great powers of today and tomorrow in the UN system, not the great powers of yesterday. Unfortunately, for complex reasons which I have spelled out in great length in my book, The Great Convergence, the current UNSC system entrenches the great powers of yesterday, not tomorrow. I have therefore proposed an alternative 7-7-7 formula for reforming the UNSC (Mahbubani 2018: 244). These three examples of the “autocratic” nature of our global multilateral system explain well what is wrong with our global order. At the same time, the potential solution for each of these “autocratic” features of our global order can be found in the description of the problem. Here are the solutions.

The Three Solutions Firstly, if the UNGA is clearly a more democratic organ than the UNSC, the West should, out of respect for its own fundamental democratic principles, treat the UNGA functionally as the Parliament of the world. Hence, it should pay greater heed to the views and the decisions made by the UNGA. Just as democracies are stable because they give equal voice to all their citizens, our global order can also become more stable if they give equal voice to all 7.8 billion citizens of planet earth, not just the 12% who live in the West.

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The West should pay attention to a key historical fact in giving greater weight to the UNGA. From the year 1 to 1820, the two largest economies of the world were always those of China and India. The past two hundred years of Western domination of world history were therefore a major historical aberration. All aberrations come to a natural end. Hence, in the twenty-first century, we are moving from a monocivilizational world of Western domination to a multi-civilizational world, with many thriving civilizations. The only place where the voices of these new thriving civilizations can be heard is in the UNGA. Hence, the world would become a more stable place if the West, representing 12% of the world’s population, could learn to listen to the voices of the remaining 88%. Listening to this 88% could save the West from a lot of grief. In this century alone, the West has fought a lot of unnecessary wars, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, just to name a few countries. In launching these unnecessary wars in Islamic countries, the West didn’t try to listen to the views of 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. Nor did it listen to the 1.4 billion Chinese, 1 billion Africans, 1 billion Hindus, 500 million Buddhists and other similar non-Western voices. If they had listened to the voices of this vast majority of the world’s population, through debates organized in the UNGA, the West could have also saved a lot of Muslim lives. The Brown University Watson Institute estimates that almost 400,000 innocent Muslim civilians have been killed in Western-initiated wars. The West therefore has paid a heavy price and generated global instability by ignoring the UNGA and refusing to treat it as the functional global Parliament. The second obvious solution is for the West to stop insisting that the heads of the IMF and World Bank must be Western citizens. There are many brilliant and highly qualified economists in the rest of the world, including from Asia. They should be given an opportunity to lead these two organizations. Symbolically, this would also lead to a greater share of the world’s population feeling that they are stakeholders in the IMF and World Bank. Related to this, the West must also stop insisting that the 12% of the world’s population must retain majority voting shares in the two organizations. As stated above, the Western countries, not including Japan, own 50–55% of voting shares. In theory, there should have been a natural slide downward of Western voting shares as their share of global GNP has been decreasing. Instead, the Western countries, especially the European countries, have fought through a series of rear-guard actions, to stop the

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natural dilution of these shares in the IMF and World Bank. As Jeffrey Sachs has argued: US officials have traditionally viewed the World Bank as an extension of United States foreign policy and commercial interests. With the Bank just two blocks away from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, it has been all too easy for the US to dominate the institution. Now, many members, including Brazil, China, India and several African countries, are raising their voices in support of more collegial leadership and an improved strategy that works for all. From the Bank’s establishment until today, the unwritten rule has been that the US government simply designates each new president: all 11 have been Americans, and not a single one has been an expert in economic development, the Bank’s core responsibility, or had a career in fighting poverty or promoting environmental sustainability. Instead, the US has selected Wall Street bankers and politicians, presumably to ensure that the Bank’s policies are suitably friendly to US commercial and political interests. Yet the policy is backfiring on the US and badly hurting the world. Because of a long-standing lack of strategic expertise at the top, the Bank has lacked a clear direction. (Sachs 2012)

The third solution is to immediately make India the sixth permanent member of the UNSC. This would immediately make the UNSC decisions more democratic because the views of another sixth of the world’s population would be added to the decisions made by the UNSC. One immediate objection to this suggested solution is that there should be comprehensive reform of the membership of the UNSC so that the views of the other unrepresented sections of humanity, including the Africans, Muslims and Latin Americans could also be included. In principle, I agree with this argument. This is why in The Great Convergence I have proposed a comprehensive new 7-7-7 formula to reform the UNSC. In brief, the proposal is to have seven permanent members (US, China, Russia, EU, India, Brazil and Nigeria), seven new semi-permanent members, chosen from the next 28 most powerful countries (who will serve automatically on the UNSC one every eight years) and seven elected members from the rest of the world. This 7-7-7 formula has the merit of including the great powers of today and tomorrow as well as being more democratic in having a larger percentage of the world’s population represented in the UNSC.

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Yet, having served twice as the Singapore Ambassador to the UN, I also know that any comprehensive reform of the UNSC is not politically attainable at any time in the near future. Indeed, the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council was set up in 1992. Almost thirty years have passed. Let me provide a precise estimate of the progress made by this highly active Open-ended Working Group. The progress made is zero. Hence a more realistic move to make the UNSC immediately more “democratic” is to have a one-off expansion of the UNSC to include India as a permanent member. In today’s geopolitical context, India has the advantage of being trusted by the West since it is the world’s largest democracy. Yet, its views in the UNGA also reflect the view of the Third World, not the First World. Hence, the West should propose the immediate addition of India. In short, reforming the global multilateral order to make it more representative of our new world order is not rocket science. A few wellestablished Western principles, especially the principle of democracy, will guide the path of reform. If the West can take the lead in pushing these Western principles, it would lead to a more stable future world order which will benefit both the West and the Rest.

References Clinton, William J. 2003. Transcript of ‘Global Challenges’: A Public Address Given by Former US President William J. Clinton at Yale University. YaleGlobal Online. https://archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/transc ript-global-challenges. Accessed 15 Nov 2022. Krastev, Ivan, and Stephen Holmes. 2020. The Light That Failed: Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy. New York: Pegasus Books. Mahbubani, Kishore. 2018. The Great Convergence. New York: Public Affairs. Pinker, Steven. 2007. A History of Violence: We’re Getting Nicer Every Day. The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/64340/history-vio lence-were-getting-nicer-every-day. Accessed 15 Nov 2022. Sachs, Jeffrey. 2012. A World Bank for a New World. Project Syndicate. https:// www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a-world-bank-for-a-new-world-201 2-02. Accessed 15 Nov 2022. Wikipedia. 2022. Democracy. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dem ocracy. Accessed 3 Nov 2022.

Index

A anti-hegemonism, 32, 34 appetite, 13–15, 20, 21 Aristotle, 15, 16, 20 ASEAN Centrality, 180–183, 185, 186, 188–192, 194–199 ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), 189, 190, 194 Asia, 34, 35, 44, 45, 103, 106 Asian Economic Crisis, 166 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 120, 122 autocracy, 57, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65, 68 autonomy, 179–183, 191, 198

B Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 125, 180, 191 Biden administration, 73, 83 biodiversity, 142, 143, 146, 149, 154 Bretton Woods institutions, 207

C capitalism, 31, 32, 42 China, v, 5, 7, 31–40, 42–46, 55–59, 62–69, 73–88, 99, 103–108, 112–118, 120–127, 152, 179–188, 190–199, 205, 206, 208–211, 213, 220–223, 225, 227, 235, 240, 242, 244, 245 civil society, 6, 136, 137, 140, 141, 145, 146, 150, 151, 153, 154 climate change, 6, 105, 106, 136, 137, 140, 142, 144, 146, 149, 150, 153, 235, 239 Cold War, 5, 33, 37, 41, 43, 50, 82, 85, 87, 111–114, 117, 118, 124, 126, 163, 169, 179 collective action, 162 colonial, 4, 32, 34, 38–40, 43, 45 colonialism, 38–41 post-colonial resentment, 4, 32, 34, 38, 39, 43, 45 a community of shared future for mankind, 62–64

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Zhang (ed.), Pluralism and World Order, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9872-0

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INDEX

competition, 20, 179–181, 183, 184, 186–188, 190, 192–199 Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), 183 cooperation, 6, 135–137, 139, 141, 142, 144, 146–148, 150–153 Covid-19, 101, 136, 144, 146, 147, 163, 235

D deep pluralism, 3, 4, 29–32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41–45, 47, 49, 50 democracy, 31, 42, 56–58, 60, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 241, 242, 246 developing countries, 36, 37 development, 98, 100, 103, 107 sustainable development, 31, 36–41, 43, 47–49 diplomacy, 138, 141, 144, 145 discourses, 20, 22 diversity, 5, 56, 62, 63, 66, 69

E East Asia, 6, 159, 161–169, 172, 179, 182–184, 186, 187, 191, 192, 197 elites, 22 equality, 14, 15, 18, 19 Europe, 103, 106 European Union, 103, 162, 238

F fairness, 14, 15, 18, 19 fear, 15 free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), 180, 187, 189, 190, 192, 194, 197 freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), 187 free trade agreements, 168

G Gandhi, Indira, 113, 117, 127 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 113 Global Financial Crisis, 167 global governance, 206–210, 213, 214, 219 globalization, 4, 30, 31, 38, 41, 43, 46, 49, 50, 99, 108, 109, 136, 138, 140, 206–209, 212–215, 220 global order, 55–59, 61–66, 68, 69 global society, 3, 4, 29 global warming, 160, 161, 163 government, 23, 24 grand strategy, 112, 114, 116, 119 great power relations, 2, 4, 8 great powers, 4, 31–37, 44–46 Guterres, Antonio, 145 H hedging, 180, 181, 183, 185, 186, 190, 198, 199 hegemony, 34, 35 hierarchies, 14, 15, 20, 21 honor, 14, 19–21 Human Rights Council, 162 I ideal type, 15, 18 India, v, 5, 99, 105, 111–127, 235, 240, 244–246 Indo-Pacific, 75–78, 80, 83, 126, 127, 188–191, 193, 199 institutionalism, 6, 161 institutions, 6, 8, 36, 43, 45, 47, 137, 138, 141, 145, 150–153, 159–162, 164–169, 172, 173, 236, 238–242 interaction capacity, 3, 29, 30, 46 interdependence, 136, 207, 209, 226 interest

INDEX

common interest, 31, 36, 45 intermediate zone, 74, 87, 88 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 237 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 164, 242 international order, 1–4, 8 international society, 3, 30, 33, 36, 62, 63, 66, 67, 69 international structure, 73 interregionalism, 7, 205, 206, 216, 222, 225, 227

J justice, 2, 16, 18, 21, 22

K Kashmir, 115, 116, 118, 120, 122, 125 Kissinger, Henry, 98

L Latin America, 205, 206, 210–212, 215–224, 226, 227 leadership, 139, 141, 142 legitimacy, 33, 36, 42, 43 liberal, 31, 35, 39, 40, 42 liberal order, 31, 35 liberal internationalism, 56, 57, 60, 61 liberalism, 31, 46 liberal order, 56, 57, 59–61, 206–209, 219

M Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2010 (MPAC 2010), 192 modernity, 30–32, 34, 35, 38–40, 42, 46–50 Modi, Narendra, 124

249

multialignment, 122, 124 multilateralism, 2, 6–8, 103, 136–141, 143, 145–147, 150, 151, 154, 160–165, 167–170, 172, 173, 238, 240, 241 multipolar, 5 multipolarity, 6, 31, 35, 41, 111–113, 119, 124, 210, 212, 223

N national interests, 161, 166 nationalism, 136, 139 national rejuvenation, 59, 64, 67 NATO, 77, 79, 80, 83, 98 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 113, 117 neoliberalism, 31 neutrality, 182, 187, 190, 191, 195, 196, 198 nonalignment, 112, 113 non-state actors, 30, 32, 41, 42, 107, 108, 140, 151, 152, 159, 170 norms, 2, 17–19, 21–23 North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, 171

O order, 2, 3, 5, 14, 16–26, 97–102, 106–109 bottom–up, 3, 17–20, 22, 23, 25, 26 political order, 16, 17, 26 postwar order, 14 top–down, 17–20, 22–26

P Pakistan, 114, 116–118, 121, 123, 125 pandemic, 101–103, 106 Paris Climate Agreement, 103, 139, 143

250

INDEX

partnership(s), 140, 145, 146, 148–153 peace, 100 pluralism, 1, 3, 29–32, 37, 38, 41–46, 49, 50 consensual pluralism, 31 contested pluralism, 31 deep pluralism, 31 pluralistic, 4, 56, 65, 66 populism, 240 power, 3, 29–37, 39, 41–45, 49 practices, 2, 20–23, 26 primary institutions, 29, 47, 49 principles of justice, 2, 14, 15, 18, 20–22 private sector, 6, 136, 140, 141, 148–151, 153, 154 prosperity, 5, 56, 62, 66, 69 Q Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), 74–80, 125, 126, 189 R raison d’etat , 3, 30, 37 raison de système, 3, 30, 36, 37 Rao, P.V. Narasimha, 119 realist, 31 reason, 13–17, 26 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), 180 regionalism, 2, 6–8, 206, 215–219, 224, 226, 227 regionalization, 7, 32, 43, 205, 212, 214, 215, 217, 224, 226 regional powers, 34 Rudd, Kevin, 151 Russia, 30, 31, 33, 35–38, 44, 45 S securitisation, 33, 34

security, 17, 18, 21, 22 security community, 162 self-esteem, 15, 17, 22 Sino-Russian relations, 83 Sino-US relations, 112 society, 2, 13–15, 19–21, 23, 24, 26 solidarity, 2, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 26 South China Sea, 180, 183–187, 191, 196, 199 Southeast Asia, 163, 170, 179, 183, 184, 187, 189, 191, 192, 194–197 sovereignty, 138, 140, 152 Soviet Union, USSR, 5, 98, 111–113, 116–119 spheres of influence, 35, 44, 45 spirit, 15, 21 states, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40–43, 46, 47 structure, 29 structure of world politics, 86 superpowers, 4, 31–35, 43–45 sustainable development, 49 T the Caribbean, 205, 206, 210, 215, 219, 220, 222, 223, 227 thumos , 15, 20 Tibet, 115, 123 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 191, 222, 224, 225 transregionalism, 216 Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat, 170, 173 Trump Administration, 81 U UN Charter, 236 UN General Assembly (UNGA), 241 unipolar, 5 unipolarity, 31

INDEX

251

United Nations (UN), 6, 62, 67, 100, 135–138, 140, 141, 145, 147–149, 153, 154, 164, 207 United States, USA, 55, 57–61, 64–69, 73–77, 79–82, 85–88, 98, 99, 106, 111, 152, 179, 188, 194, 208, 211, 213, 218, 220–226 UN Security Council (UNSC), 241

wealth, 3, 29–32, 34, 35, 39, 41–43, 45, 48 West, 7, 31, 32, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 46, 235–244, 246 World Bank, 102, 242, 244, 245 World Health Organisation, 237 World Trade Organization, 238

W Wæver, Ole, 32, 44

Z zhongyong , 46, 48