When a country with a huge economy and a huge population crosses the line between developing country and developed country, it causes a real thump that rattles the crystal around the world. China is steadily nearing that line and it's accepting the challenge with wary determination.
Size has always mattered when it came to China. Even when it was relatively poor and backward, it was acknowledged with a permanent seat - and veto - on the United Nations Security Council. It adopted the Marxist-Leninist model of the Soviet Union but, unlike the Soviets, it avoided collapse by maintaining political communism while relinquishing economic communism in order to embrace capitalism.
The shift from a communist to a capitalist economy was a springboard to the rapid rise of the Chinese state. If it's not a full-fledged 'superpower' yet, it probably will be before very long. Just what sort of superpower China will emerge to become isn't clear.
The Western nations will play an important role in shaping this new China. We are, after all, China's inevitable rival although India may join the mix at some point. But it is largely our decision as to how much edge will be on this relationship.
This rivalry will be tempered by the bonds and interdependence of the two worlds. The West and China need each other. That means that Soviet-era, Cold War-style confrontations will carry a heftier price tag if they develop between China and the West.
A controversial US Defence Secretary put it best when he said, "Democracy is messy." It is messy and always shifting between left and right. This invariably means that democratic capitalism is also somewhat messy. By contrast, communism is much tidier. The government speaks with one voice and what it says is final. Because of this clarity, communist capitalism can also have the advantage of being tidier - so long as the political decisions are taken wisely.
We have to realize the extent to which our cherished freedoms carry a real price tag in this economic rivalry. For example, political swings left to right often usher in changed policies that the corporate world, in turn, is forced to change to accept. Likewise democratic capitalism is confronted with a myriad of labour, environmental and trade laws that usually vary from one Western state to another.
Chinese capitalism isn't nearly as vulnerable to political swings. Change is more likely to be introduced gradually. Labour, environmental and trade laws can be homogenous throughout this market of 1.3 billion and can be crafted by the one-party state to more usefully advance the mutual interests of the political and economic sectors. The whole business is tidier, more predictable.
The advantages of Chinese or communist capitalism may become a source of conflict in areas of direct rivalry such as competition for resources. Nowhere is this more likely than in the oilfields of the Persian Gulf.
American influence in the Gulf is in decline. After driving Soviet influence out of the Middle East, the region has served as a captive to US hegemony. It was powerful enough to allow the US to retain its influence over the Arab world while, at the same time, backstopping Israel. That has caused problems and will continue to be troublesome but that it happened at all speaks for the power that the US has wielded in the Middle East.
Now China has come courting and in a decidedly friendlier, less judgmental fashion. China has no need to back Israel because its interests in the region are a secure supply of oil to feed its burgeoning industrial needs. Once again this gives Chinese capitalism a demonstrable advantage over Western capitalism. This reality has already caused a shift in American foreign policy.
Over the past few years, the US has quietly moved to forge powerful links to India. Washington has set aside its anger over India's nuclear weapon ascendancy as the price of cementing a political and military alliance intended to give the Chinese fits. It is a deliberate provocation.
Why India? Although it trails China's rise, India too is an emerging economic and political superpower. It too has a thirst for oil to feed its rapid development. But India also has something the US needs - location, location, location.
India sits astride the Bay of Bengal to the west, the Arabian Sea to the east and the Indian Ocean to the south. Oil headed for China (and the rest of Asia) is transported by ship. These tankers transit through waters dominated by the Indian navy.
Both India and China have been working hard in recent years to develop substantial 'blue water' navies. About a week ago I wrote of India's plans to modernize and expand its navy from an article from the Times of India:
"The Indian Navy is ramping its force and surveillance levels as it gears to protect the country's energy security assets in a wide swathe ranging from the Sakhalin Islands off Russia's east coast to South America.
"Toward this end, it is in the process of acquiring 42 state-of-the-art ships, including two aircraft carriers and six submarines, eight maritime reconnaissance aircraft, a dozen rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as also enhanced radars and satellite-based technology, navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said on Saturday."
So, India intends to secure its sea lanes as far west as the Sakhalin Islands. Why? Perhaps because it completely blankets China's coastline. It's the very range one would want to command in order to blockade China or to confront China with such a capability.
A move such as this can only be taken one way in Beijing and, quite predictably, the Chinese are growing their own blue water fleet by leaps and bounds. China is also modernizing its army and air force as well as moving to establish some military presence in space. The New York Times carried this assessment:
"...critics say China is prepared to emerge in a less amicable fashion, if necessary. The Central Intelligence Agency says that China’s military spending may be two or three times higher than it acknowledges and that it allocates more to its military than any other country except the United States.
"Beijing has cultivated close ties to countries that provide it with commodities and raw materials, regardless of their human rights records. Sudan, Myanmar and Zimbabwe have all escaped international sanctions in large part because of Chinese protection.
"China’s increasing international engagement has also stimulated a more robust academic discussion about its global role and the potential for tensions with the United States.
Yan Xuetong, a foreign affairs specialist at Qinghua University in Beijing, argued in a scholarly journal this summer that China had already surpassed Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and India in measures of its economic, military and political power. That leaves it second only to the United States, he said.
"While the military gap between China and the United States may remain for some time, he argued, China’s faster economic growth and increasing political strength may whittle down America’s overall advantage.
Who gains what from this pact between the US and India? Washington gains a strategic ally, one that can assist the US to isolate China. India gains recognition and security as well as enhanced commercial ties with America. China? It's feeling isolated but it is also moving to secure its ties with the Middle Eastern states, offering them an alternative to US domination. At the same time, China is going where the West has shown little interest - Africa and its abundance of natural resources.
There's bound to be some shoving and elbowing as China and India push their way to the top but Washington plays a dangerous game by pitting them against each other.
We do, however, need to sort out the dynamics of communist capitalism. If the disparities between democratic and communist capitalism aren't worked out it doesn't bode well for any of the players.
Every nation that has an interdependence with China has a stake in this problem, Canada included. We can't turn our back on China, especially not for some shallow, political posturing. We all need a say in how the West will deal with China. There's too much at stake to leave this one to Washington.
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