CHINA RISING, U.S. ROTTING

CHINA RISING, US ROTTING?

America was once considered the world’s lone superpower. Now, China—a growing threat to America’s international power—may be taking the top spot.

WORDS BY LUKE CLAUSEN | ART BY RACHEL HARTLEY

It’s been a talking point among politicians and commentators for years: The rise of China is a threat to America’s international power, and something must be done about it. Most Americans are conscious and aware of the fact of China’s rise and what that means for them at a personal level. However, how China got to this place in world politics and to what extent America helped China’s rise is not as well known. The relationship between China and America is not as dichotomic and adversarial as some may make it out to be. As with all relationships, whether interpersonal or international, there is a level of complexity that needs to be understood.

The Breakdown of Power in a Global System

When experts or others talk about “American hegemony,” they are talking about America having international political supremacy within the international system. Two other important concepts to keep in mind: fi rst, the idea that world power is thought of as being concentrated in “poles”, which are held in diff erent countries at diff erent times. Types of polarity include unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, and nonpolarity. Second, the idea of complex interdependency between countries, such as economically, socially, and politically, is crucial to understanding international relations, especially U.S.-China relations.

Hegemony is the term used most of the time when an individual is talking about America’s place in the international system. When experts or others talk about “American hegemony,” they are talking for China to enter global superpower status. Prior to both eras, there was a multipolar world where the major poles of power were colonizing countries and empires such as Britain, France, and Germany. Finally, there is also the possibility of a nonpolar, or “G-Zero,” world, where there is no identifi able state with a signifi cant amount of power, one that many experts believe we are currently heading into.

One of these experts is Jeff Weiss, an international relations professor at DMACC. According to DMACC Urban Campus’s student newspaper, Urban Vibe News, Weiss has taught at Grand View University, Upper Iowa University, and DMACC’s Ankeny and Urban campuses. He also served as the Peace Educator Director for the American Friends Service Committee and teaches on foreign policy and war and peace issues.

“A G-Zero world is the idea that ‘when it

about America having international political supremacy within the international system. The other important concept to keep in mind is the idea that world power is thought of as being concentrated in “poles”, which are held in diff erent countries at diff erent times. Types of polarity include unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, and nonpolarity. “Unipolarity” means that there is one pole of global power within the current international system. From the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 until about the present day, we have been living in a unipolar world with America as the world’s lone global power pole. This contrasts with the bipolar Cold War era, which started as soon as World War Two ended, in 1945, and lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991.In this case, the two poles belonged to the Soviet Union and America. Importantly, the collapse of the Soviet Union gave a space

comes to the large political questions of the day, climate change, nuclear proliferation, etc., nobody is driving the bus,’ are the words that Ian Bremmer used in a book that he wrote about a decade ago,” Weiss said. “He’s an international fi nancial analyst, but he essentially makes the argument that Pax Americana [another term for American hegemony] is over. At least the height of Pax Americana is certainly over, where at the end of World War Two the United States controlled 25-30% of the global economy.”

A diff erent lens, complex interdependency, in short is the idea that countries tend to be at peace when their economies and societies are dependent on each other in complex ways, like in a network. William Winecoff , professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington, is an expert in structural power in the world economy and believes that complex interdependency is a better lens to look at Chinese-American relations through than polarity.

“When you have network analysis, you have some entities that end up very clearly at the core of the network and others that are very much in the periphery. The United States is at the core global networks and Botswana isn’t, right?,” Winecoff said. “I start from the point of view that I don’t want to understand whether there’s one pole or two poles or no poles or four poles. I just want to know these patterns of interdependence and what they look like and how they change over time. Then we can look at that and say, ‘Okay, this country appears to be more structurally prominence in a network sense than this other country, at least on this dimension.’ It doesn’t mean that either one of them is a pole or not a pole, it just means that this is where they’re at in terms of their position within the international system of structural interdependence.”

Some experts believe that the threat is overblown. Dr. Jeff Schroeder is an international relations professor at Des Moines Area Community College and formerly ran Fritz Companies, one of the largest customs brokerage fi rms in East Asia, which has since become a part of UPS. Schroeder now actively consults global logistics projects on top of his teaching.

“I think we, the media, everybody, both political parties, have bought into this narrative that the Chinese are promoting that they’re this great power, and they’re not…When you go, ‘Oh, wow, their GDP is as big as ours,’ I would actually answer, ‘So what? We’re built.’ We build new things, but not the way China’s building new things. On an annual basis, they’re building infrastructure that we already have.”

ON AN ANNUAL BASIS, THEY’RE BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE ALREADY HAVE.

DR. JEFF SCHROEDER, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR AT DES MOINES AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

The History of the Superpowers

America, in its own eyes at least, is seen as the greatest country in the world. While that may be true in an overall or relative sense, and it may have at one point been the greatest country in the world, the consensus among public opinion and experts points to a decline in American power and prestige, even if the U.S. has not lost its number one spot quite yet. How did China get to the place it is presently? What does the future look like in terms of both America and China’s place on the world stage?

President Nixon normalized trade relations with China in 1972, catalyzing the intertwining of the American and Chinese economies. Though signifi cant, it was not as important to the current state of aff airs as in 2000, when President Clinton conferred permanent normalized trade relations with China. This status, and admittance into the World Trade Organization the same year, allowed China to play in the international arena, in part giving the country the economic and political power it has today. China became America’s largest foreign creditor in 2008 and two years later became the second largest economy in the world in 2010.

During the Obama administration, tensions between the countries began to rise and only continued to get worse, particularly over trade. Xi Jinping became the leader of China in 2012, beginning a new era of Chinese domestic and foreign policy which includes the famous Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. President Trump’s approach to China started with diplomacy, but in the later part of the Trump administration, tensions between the two countries soared, only made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China. The Biden administration has maintained Trump’s America First stance regarding trade and designation of China abuse of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang province as a genocide. Recently, Biden said that America would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from China, reigniting old tensions from before the two countries were competitive global superpowers.

What’s Next?

Keeping this historical context and tension in mind, one may wonder what the future holds. The future, in large part, depends on the Americans, according to Schroeder.

“It depends on US internal politics,” Schroeder said. “We are the source of stability in the globe right now, and Russia and China have demonstrated no interest in stability.”

According to Weiss, American’s attitudes could be their downfall.

“There’s a great Chinese statement… ‘We don’t care if you call a cat black or white, as long as it catches the mice.’ We don’t care if you call it state capitalism, as long as it works, and that’s very Chinese,” Weiss said. “In some ways, maybe China’s able to sort of adapt more in a real diverse, globalized world of nation states. Whereas we tend to be as ignorant and arrogant as the Romans, you know, in so many respects, and it doesn’t appear that we want to learn.”

Essentially, it’s up to Americans. A republic is only as strong as its representatives and democracy only as strong as the those who participate in it.

“I think that we have a political culture that is unstable and that produces real risks, not just for American power internationally, but for domestic stability, political stability, and even the persistence of democracy,” Winecoff said.

WE ARE THE SOURCE OF STABILITY IN THE GLOBE RIGHT NOW, AND RUSSIA AND CHINA HAVE DEMONSTRATED NO INTEREST IN STABILITY.

DR. JEFF SCHROEDER, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR AT DES MOINES AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE