Rising china in a changing world: power transitions and global leadership 1st edition jin kai (auth.
Power Transitions and Global Leadership 1st Edition Jin Kai (Auth.)
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Flex The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World Jeffrey Hull
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P REFACE AND A C KNOWLEDGEMENT
As a young scholar who served in the People’s Liberation Army for ten years, and who has been studying and researching China’s politics and its diplomacy for a long time, I have good reasons to cheer for, but also have concerns about, the rise of China and its far-reaching implications, particularly with regard to a prospective power transition between the United States and China.
I understand that while China is a major power undergoing a historic rise, it is still more or less a developing country in the East Asian region, rather than a truly global superpower. Although I have mostly stayed in South Korea for the past twelve years, I frequently visit China during holidays. I have seen how fast China has developed, how diverse Chinese society has become, and how dynamic its economy has become. The cities I had lived in simply have changed so much that even after a few years’ absence I could hardly recognize the neighborhoods I used to stay in. I was even more surprised to see rush hours with serious traffic jams every single day in the small town where I was born, even though the city has invested a great deal into the construction of infrastructures to accommodate growth, or more specifically the “explosion” of private cars. However, this is just one side of China’s glorious story. There are obvious issues with its fast-growing national economy, there are serious problems with its regional and social disparities, and there is still much to be improved with its public services. But at the end of the day, the true rise of China will have to be the rise of the Chinese. An American friend once told me about his understanding of the rise of China, when were talking about how China had significantly overtaken Japan and become the
world’s second-largest economy at the end of 2010. He argued that the most striking thing about China’s emerging as a real great power would not be how economically powerful it would be or how strong a military force it would have, but how much potential China’s large population had for further development. I agreed and believed that was an absolutely appropriate and pertinent argument, since it clearly pointed out the internal driving force for China’s continuous rise. It is in this regard that rise of China, therefore, starts from within its own land and people, and there is still a long way to go.
Regionally or globally, China’s rise has been an even more complicated issue. For example, regional states may have very different or very mixed attitudes and perceptions of China’s rise and its policies in the given region. South Korea, for instance, has become increasingly dependent on China’s fast-growing economy and its vast domestic market, whereas the SeoulWashington alliance has remained firm or even been strengthened as an alliance based on common values and mutual trust with bilateral, regional, and global scope. Naturally the rise of China in the region has created a geopolitical dilemma for South Korea. On one hand, South Korea may truly welcome a rising China, but on the other hand, it may find China’s rising power a threat to its traditional ties with the United States.
Other concerns regarding China’s rise come from its recent assertive policies regarding its maritime disputes with its neighbors in the East and South China Seas (although China’s assertiveness has mainly been reactive). Nevertheless, the fundamentally important question remains: How the rise of China can be peaceful?
This monograph, which I started in 2008, is based on but not limited to my Ph.D. dissertation, which specifically talks about the rise of China mainly from a perspective of Power Transition theory. In 2010, I made a significant change to focus of my Ph.D. dissertation from economic interdependence (between the United States and China) to institutional engagement; and I believe that the international discussion on China’s regional policy regarding two incidents in the Korean Peninsula in 2010 partially contributed to this significant shift. I now believe the decision I made in 2010 was a good one. Economic interdependence has been important, but it surely does not explain the evolving power interactions between the United States and China in the bigger picture.
Meanwhile, once I started to write for The Diplomat as a columnist in late 2013, I began to refine some of my arguments made in my previous Ph.D. research and update some of the key chapters with new ideas and
new materials. I found this process to be a very efficient and effective way to recast my ideas, since I could clearly and constantly organize my viewpoints and put them together in relatively short pieces and collect constructive feedback from readers, including my seniors, colleagues, friends, and even my students, who sometimes gave me very interesting feedback and comments. There are of course not-quite-constructive or even very unfriendly comments from the readers. But I understand that people may have very different opinions, particularly when it comes to the rapid rise of China in the still U.S.-led world system.
Nevertheless, as I continued my research on the subject of China’s rise and its implications for a perceived future power transition between the United States and China, I gradually realized that there are actually several very important issues that I had not particularly emphasized in my previous research, such as the institutional “nature” of the rise of China, the historical “nature” of Chinese politics and its political values, and the structural “nature” of U.S.-China conflicts or discords. Hence, I became more convinced that cognitive divergence, for example, between China and the West, may have played a much more important role in the world’s complex views on the rise of China than people may have expected. Following this logic, I described U.S.-China conflicts as more than a power game between great powers driven by national interests, and actually the result of “pride and prejudice” on both sides.
The related discussion may be a bit more intangible and personal. I particularly compared the “Chinese Dream” and the “American Dream” in the conclusion, in hopes that it would encourage readers to abandon some traditional but useful patterns of analyzing interactions among great powers temporarily, and visualize two different dreams pursued by the people of two different great powers. Why are their dreams different? How different are they? And maybe more interestingly, do they share some common ground?
At the same time, the debate and discussion on the rise of China and it implications for U.S. leadership also needs to be very serious and rigorous. Therefore, theoretical review is also an element of this research. I am not a Game Theorist, but I do believe that certain methods employed in Game Theory may provide us with a theoretically ideal environment, one which is simple and pure, to test possible strategic choices the United State and China may have. This is a somewhat less detailed part of my book, and I hope it will not appear too cursory, but rather serve as a means to stimulate further discussion.
This is my first book, and it has come a long way. The very first difficulty or issue with this project was how to take my stand. How would people expect a Chinese young scholar who had served in PLA for a long time to talk about the rise of China? This is also an issue for me in my teaching and research that is at once neither too big nor too small. In fact, there were times when I strongly felt that the rise of China would never be peaceful, simply because all norms, rules, regulations, common values, and institutions, however respected among a majority of states, are actually subject to a single determinant—“power.” As China rises up, why would it choose to break this “law of the jungle?” It came to me that describing China’s rise as violent was actually helping me to “defend” China’s policies, whether rational or irrational. Later I found that the key somehow inhered in “power” itself, meaning that power has been diffused across state borders. To put it simply, I should not view the rise of China merely from a Chinese perspective, as a Chinese would naturally do, but more often from a regional perspective, because, as the proverb says, “bystanders see more than gamesters.” And this is actually a dynamic pattern, which means that I have to place myself and my perspective “inside” and “outside” China constantly. Obviously, I have to step inside China when I try to understand issues like “what is China” and “what makes China ‘China,’” whereas I have to step outside China to have a clearer vision of “where is China heading to and where should it go.”
My second concern is with the idea of sharing some of my thoughts on future scenarios. It seems to be popular or even fashionable for people to talk about the rise of China and its relations with the dominant United States. Strictly speaking, I do not expect that my research will give some precise analysis on the future of China’s rise and the possible power, or even leadership, transition with the United States, although some findings in my research may suggest certain prospects. In the final part of this book, although I shared some of my visions for the future of China’s rise in the U.S.-led world system, I concluded, however, that some of the main reasons or causes driving whatever will happen in the future, be it peaceful co-existence or violent conflict, remain unknowable at this point in time. I hope this may draw attention to the root causes of any future peace or war rather.
In sum, China’s rise has been one of the most significant and important issues in contemporary world politics. Its rise often arouses anxious reactions from its neighbors, and especially the still-dominant superpower— the United States—which anticipates a probable power transition with
China. But when we discuss a possible power shift, we must bear in mind that China has come a long and somewhat different way—China is culturally and structurally different from the dominant Western powers and other former emerging great powers. Is the world ready to accept a powerful China as a regional and later global great power? Can the United States find a way to peacefully coexist with a powerful China? Will it choose to do so? Why has China’s rise been so complex and why should the United States allow and even encourage China’s involvement in international institutions? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, and there can be a myriad of different opinions and answers.
I am sincerely grateful to my parents, who have supported me without reserve through all these years when I mostly have lived apart from them. This has not been easy for them, as Chinese parents that expected much from their son. When Chinese newspapers and magazines translated some of the pieces I had published overseas, my father carefully collected them, read them thoroughly, and talked with me when I went back and stayed at home briefly. Deep in my heart, I know I could never have finished this book without the silent but powerful understanding and support I got from my parents. My gratitude also goes to my mentor, Consul General and also Professor at Yonsei, Dr. Sukhee Han. I have had constant discussions over the rise of China and its regional and global implications with Dr. Han since I started the research on this subject, and I have truly benefited from his sometimes different and even critical perspectives. His consistent support and encouragement were also important when miscellaneous issues sometimes disturbed me.
In this book I presented many interpretations of findings and arguments made by other scholars, and I am sincerely grateful to them for their works, without which my research could have never been carried out. At the same time I take full responsibility of the contents of this book.
Seoul, South Korea
Jin Kai
L IST OF F IGURES
Fig.
Fig. 3.3 Power transition between Great Britain and the United States in the 1940s
L IST OF T ABLES
Table 6.1 The simple outcome matrix
Table 6.2 The developed matrix with preferences
162
163
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
China’s rise has been historically unprecedented in many respects, and the world’s views on it have never been so complicated, as this giant seems to have emerged from a most remote edge of the international community after decades of enduring humiliation from the West, turmoil within its own borders, and ostracism from the outside world. After more than three decades of economic reform and development, China now stands as the world’s second-largest economy, and it is still growing. What makes China’s emergence of such interest? Perhaps it is because some see rising China as a chubby panda, while others view it as a furious fire-dragon. Some welcome China’s participation on the world stage and its emerging leadership in an increasing number of regional and global affairs, while some worry that China might seek revenge for the past humiliations it received at Western hands. Still others, however, believe that China is not “rising” but “returning”—it is simply regaining the predominance it used to have, particularly among its East Asian neighbors, who held it in high regard for its cultural superiority. Indeed, during much of its long history, China regarded the rest of the world’s nations merely as “outliers” to its central civilization.
The world today is no longer China’s world or Tianxia ( , “land under heaven”), even though some say that twenty-first century will be a “Chinese century.” The United States currently dominates the world order, and U.S. leadership and the norms, rules, values, and institutions it upholds still prevail, even if this system is facing a series of problems
K. Jin, Rising China in a Changing World, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0827-6_1
1
and challenges not only from the rise of China, but also from the relative decline in the United States’ global influence, and the rapidly spreading cross-border issues throughout the world, such as terrorism, climate change, refugee crises, and nuclear proliferation issues. As the lone superpower in the world, the United States has to cope with all these issues, with or without participation and help from a rapidly emerging China. The question is, Should the United States empower China in this increasingly complicated and intertwined world?
More specifically, are China and the United States enemies that mistrust each other? Or do they see each other as friends? Does the United States wholeheartedly welcome China’s emergence and involvement in the international community, including its taking a more active role in rule-making processes? What actually are the issues between an incumbent dominant United States and a rapidly ascending China that may either help to hold these two “quarrelsome partners” together or prevent them from being “true lovers”? More importantly, in what way can China maintain the momentum of its unprecedented rise in the world order without recklessly and unintentionally challenging the predominance and particularly the pride of the United States? These are some of the questions the author particularly intends to answer in the following chapters of this book.
The complexity and, of course, the significance of China-U.S. relations quite often draw people’s attention to a more phenomenological analysis or critique of the ongoing issues between these two giants. But the fact is that in the world order, which the United States still dominates, China so far has been a newcomer. Its emergence certainly creates uncertainties, however, with respect to the current system and the prevailing patterns that have long existed (and which have been respected by a majority of nations for decades). Instead of analyzing China as a “possible threat” to the world order under U.S. leadership, exploring the sources of the current estrangements, distrusts, and even misperceptions between China and the United States from a psychological or emotional approach may help us to better understand the current state of affairs.
1.1 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: THE DRIVERS OF CHINA-U.S. CONFLICT
When China and the United States concluded their seventh Strategic and Economic Dialogue and sixth Consultation on People-to-People Exchange in Washington, D.C., in June 2015, distrust and discord were
hardly resolved between these two great powers with regard to a series of problems, such as maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas and cybersecurity issues. In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping particularly expressed his concern about strategic misunderstandings between China and the United States to his counterpart, President Barack Obama, through this dialogue. While, verbally at least, the two sides seemed to have reached a consensus on cooperation—the same kind or level of consensus has been reached and more-or-less shelved many times in the past.
From a certain point of view, China-U.S. conflicts are of course structural in nature. In an analysis of power dynamics between the largest two economies—and top two military spenders—in the world, power parity provides the structural conditions for conflict and as well as cooperation. The question is, Why is the incumbent superpower, the United States, so concerned and anxious when the rise of China has yet to fundamentally change the power structure? The most popular explanation involves the “Thucydides trap,” a psychological tendency for the dominant power to take the initiative to act against a perceived opponent. Drastic structural changes may bring about significant or even violent changes to the existing system, although war is not always inevitable, as the peaceful shift of leadership from Great Britain to the United States in the late 1940s shows.
Looking at the historical precedents of the original Thucydides trap, China has not become a truly competitive “empire” as Athens was, particularly given that Athens had a group of allies ready to take its side in a violent confrontation with the Peloponnesians. Instead, the United States could be more concerned about the emerging institutional challenges such as China’s founding the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) rather than compromising with the current U.S.-led financial system. Washington may see such moves as humiliating, as they may be perceived as signs of weakness by traditional U.S. allies.
China-U.S. structural conflicts may be comprehensive in some respects, spanning politics, economics, and security. However, the Chinese economy has long been an indispensable part of the world economy, even though discords have accompanied China-U.S. economic relations for decades. Meanwhile, political cooperation has become more frequent between China and the United States with regard to a number of regional and global issues. Though the “honeymoon” of military communication and cooperation that took place in the 1980s has long gone, a certain level of bilateral exchange never completely disappeared. In fact, current structural conflicts are being delicately managed on both sides, although there have been moments of discord and even clashes, especially with regard to the South China Sea issue.
What truly hinders total reconciliation between China and the United States for the moment is probably less structural than psychological— pride and prejudice, so to speak. The U.S. pride may come from America’s unprecedented success in political and social developments, even though the country is not perfect. The prejudice, however, comes from America’s persistent demands for worldwide homogenization according to a universal standard of fundamental American values. The United States has an almost spiritual mandate—to spread and support democracy—that represents these fundamental values. In the past decades, the United States has welcomed and supported China’s economic reform and its international involvement, and has actually anticipated and tolerated certain consequent structural changes that China has made to the U.S.-led global power structure. But all this has not brought about the political changes the United States wants to see in China, which seems to be rather difficult for the United States to accept. When U.S. pride and prejudice collides with the Chinese people’s comparable or even more tenacious pride in their history and culture, clashes are inevitable and will not go away easily. In a sense, China-U.S. conflicts are being driven by national pride on both sides. Samuel P. Huntington has already proposed a solution to this problem in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order: “In a multi-civilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities.”1 This is particularly true regarding the China-U.S. conflict.
1.2 THE RISE OF CHINA: IS IT A THREAT?
The fact is that as long as the strategic distrusts and major differences between China and the United States persist, a true friendship can only be achieved with significant concessions on both sides, and thus the estrangement may continue for a long time. Hence, it is not a big surprise that the Chinese realize that their country’s rise can be viewed as a kind of threat to the United States, although they do not agree with this view and constantly claim that China’s rise is and will continue to be peaceful. Meanwhile, no matter how the United States views China’s rise in East Asia, the Chinese will never reduce their pace to realize their dream of “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” even when such “rejuvenation” might draw much concern from their Asian neighbors. As a result, it is no wonder that certain Chinese behaviors and policies on regional issues have been regarded as threats to the existing norms by other states in the
region. Thus, the rise of China is quite often linked to the “China threat” theory, which engenders increasing anxieties among China’s neighboring countries and the international community.2 Regarding China’s rapidly expanding economic power and its ever-growing military capacity—which remains somewhat non-transparent like the rest of its authoritarian political system—the China threat theory sees China as a potential adversary to the regional order and the current dominant Western system that underlies universal values, norms, and principles which China at times rejects or opposes. However, we should ask ourselves the following questions: Has China been acting completely unilaterally? Have China’s policies been extremely militaristic? Isn’t there any rationality behind China’s behaviors in its ongoing disputes with some of its neighbors? Nowadays, with the increasing evidence of potential clashes with, and intervention by, “third parties,” such fears and concerns have virtually turned into a kind of “China-phobia” in the regional and international community, which unfortunately could limit opportunities for real dialogue between a rising China and all other concerned parties.
1.2.1 The Emergence and Dangers of “China-Phobia”
China has many problems and issues to cope with both domestically and internationally, and thus China’s emergence also raises some serious issues that must be handled very carefully. But that does not mean that China is a monster. To a certain degree, concerns and even fears over the rise of China have become a kind of “China-phobia” in part of the regional and international community. This is understandable considering the fact that in eyes of other countries and including the United States, China’s growing ambitions and its territorial claims in the East and South China Seas and its “perceived” attempts to break down and possibly reconstruct the U.S.-led world financial system have been very evident. Meanwhile, a relatively tolerant or even welcoming attitude by some states toward Japan’s somewhat revisionist or right-wing policies provides a striking contrast to accusations of China’s allegedly “dangerous” and “irresponsible” behaviors in disputed waters. As another example, on historical issues relating to the Imperial Japanese invasion, the Chinese government’s attitude has often been characterized as nationalist propaganda intended to either mobilize public support or transfer domestic pressure outward, while the same criticisms and comments are rarely heard when South Korea’s government takes a similar stand on the same issues with Japan.
When rational concerns and constructive criticisms become a farreaching “China-phobia” that targets almost all policies, claims, and suggestions from China, no matter what they are, there is not much room for concerned states to resolve international problems—not even China itself, since it may find itself being pushed into a corner.
Fortunately, the situation has yet to become that gloomy, but a storm is gathering, particularly around the South China Sea. The question is, Has China truly become so powerful and militaristic that it deserves all the blame and accusations being heaped upon it? China’s policies and somewhat reactive behaviors may naturally draw concerns from other claimants in the South China Sea; but the United States, for example, claims to takes no position on the sovereignty claims, saying its main concern is to protect the freedom of navigation. Has freedom of navigation actually been obstructed by Chinese fleet in any cases?
An interesting fact is that the United States was not always so vocal about opposing China’s claims in this area. As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has pointed out, after World War II, Chinese troops actually went on board U.S. military vessels on their voyage to Nansha (the Spratly), which had been occupied by the Japanese. Wang said the Chinese troops reclaimed China’s sovereignty over the islands after the end of the war, with the support of the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation—and the United States.3 China today is not a monster. Rather, it is sometimes a “bull in a china shop.” It is a “returning” major power in the region, and must constantly find ways to merge into the prevailing world system, which is full of rules and regulations to which China is (and will continue to be for some time) a newcomer. Meanwhile, the most complicated, challenging, and significant task for China in dealing with its territorial disputes is to find a balance (or possibly a connection) between its historical justifications and contemporary institutional or legal regulations. Fortunately, negotiation is still an option for all states involved, including China.
To quote Susan Shirk, China is still a “fragile superpower” in some ways, most obviously when it comes to China’s domestic transformations. It is neither a mighty hero that will soon take over global leadership from the United States, nor a truculent monster that will turn its friends into enemies. It is rising and expanding externally and naturally is the object of suspicion and criticism as it protects its national interests, just as any state would.
This is not to reject the concerns China’s policies and behaviors may have sparked in the international community. However, the way we see and understand China alters the way we deal with it—in ways that are more consequential than we might expect.
1.2.2 Is China Still a True Threat in the Big Picture?
In spite of concerns, worries, and even fears among the international community, China’s rise continues. Beyond the imbroglios over regional territorial disputes and other contradictory issues, the possible power shift or transition between a dominant United States and a rising China has also been repeatedly discussed with numerous arguments being advanced against a larger backdrop. Many scholars in the field claim that China’s rise will not be peaceful simply because China’s ever-expanding national power has been built on a totally different political and ideological foundation than that of the dominant Western system. Meanwhile, however, others, claim that China has been cautiously adjusting its tactics to match changing regional and global circumstances, so the rise of China will probably be less violent than some expect.
In view of Power Transition theory, China has been regarded as the only potential rival to the United States, which is still in the dominant position in the world’s hierarchical system. The United States can be regarded as “the powerful and satisfied” actor that enjoys the largest proportion of power resources, whereas in some cases China seems to be “the powerful but dissatisfied”4 one that poses a significant challenge to the United States and the West.
Power parity, however, is a very important structural condition in the related discussions found in the literature. Since China is still on the rise and the United States is still the only incumbent superpower and controls the largest proportion of power resources, many believe that there will not be a genuine power transition in the near future. Sukhee Han claims that the true power transition from the United States to China per se is still premature at the moment and even in the foreseeable future.5 Steve Chan also concludes that the available evidence does not support any claim that China is overtaking the United States, since the qualifying “condition” (i.e., that the challenger be at least 80% as strong as the hegemon) is not met.6
But China is rising rather ambitiously. It has been observed that “bankers and economists in Beijing are saying that the Washington Consensus is dead.”7 Joshua Cooper Ramo also claims, “What is happening in China at the moment is not only a model for China, but has begun to remake the whole landscape of international development, economics, society and, by extension, politics.”8 Joseph E. Stiglitz, however, offers a more balanced and critical view by claiming that “if there is a consensus today about what strategies are most likely to promote the development of the poorest countries in the world, it is this: there is no consensus except that
the Washington Consensus did not provide the answer. Its recipes were neither necessary nor sufficient for successful growth, though each of its policies made sense for particular countries at particular times.”9
The above discussion of “consensus” reveals one aspect of people’s mixed reaction to the rise of China, which, as many believe, will not be naturally peaceful in a conventional way. A report conducted by United States Intelligence Council as early in 2008 defined China as a threat to the United States: China threatens the security of the United States of America and the well-being of its citizens. This is not an overt threat like the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, or an immediate threat like the current wave of terrorism, but one with long-range goals.10
Similarly, John Mearsheimer repeatedly claims that China’s rise does not seem to be peaceful at all, explaining, “Why should we expect the Chinese to act any differently than the U.S. did?”11 There are concerns or fears that a rising China will not, naturally at least, bring peace to the world, particularly given its territorial disputes with an increasing number of neighboring countries and its ever-increasing defense budget, which is (and, many believe, will remain non-transparent).12
The above provides a quick look at the international concerns over the rise of China. However, other scholars have provided somewhat different opinions.
Alastair Iain Johnston claims that China “is more status quo-oriented relative to its past…is necessarily a more benign or less violent actor in international politics than before.”13 To support such arguments, certain criteria have been used to examine the degree of China’s satisfaction with the status quo. For example, Sheng Ding points out that China’s involvement in pushing its charm offensive will “allow for China’s smoother transition to the position of status quo power.”14 Scott L. Kastner and Phillip C. Saunders have examined travels made by Chinese leaders as a new data set to be used as an empirical indicator of foreign policy priorities and claim that “results are more consistent with a status quo conceptualization of China, though there are some important exceptions such as willingness to travel to rogue states.”15
David C. Kang claims that the rise of China will be peaceful, since in recent decades, China’s rise has been relatively benign, and neighboring countries have made constant strategic adjustments in response to China’s signals, which likely proves that the rise of China will be peaceful.16 G. John Ikenberry emphasizes that the Western order has a remarkable capacity to accommodate rising powers, and in the age of nuclear deterrence, war-driven change has been abolished as a historical process.17
While it is true that G. John Ikenberry’s argument does not imply that the rise of China will definitely and automatically be peaceful, it may indicate that there is probably an alternative approach for China to rise and survive within the dominant Western system which is different from that of Nazi Germany or Meji Japan, both of which went to war with the thendominant regional or global powers to change their status quo.
So is the rise of China a threat or not? Naturally, the tremendous concerns involved have led people to speculate on a series of new challenges and potential threats posed by China to the United States and its allies, especially those in the Asia Pacific region.18 Historical analysis of formerly emerging great powers also proves that the rise of China is culturally and structurally different and thus brings up many uncertainties. China is also showing a certain degree of dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, including recent maritime disputes. Therefore, many tend to believe that the probability of violent conflict between the United States and China will rise, and that China does stand as a certain threat to the U.S.-led global power structures if it continues its rise without being engaged by the dominant system. It is in this regard that China’s behaviors as a newcomer must be addressed and engaged by the United States and its allies, since they (including the reacts from the United States) are some of the main driving forces that might drag these two powers and consequently other states into a destructive war. Hence, the rise of China can be a threat in an extreme scenario when the United States, the still-dominant power that controls the largest power resources in the world system, chooses not to engage in dialogue.
1.3 MAIN FOCUS: DEGREE OF SATISFACTION BASED ON SHARED PREFERENCES
In the discussion of power interaction among great powers, the degree of satisfaction of each party should be particularly emphasized and regarded as an important goal of foreign policy for both the United States and China.
War among great powers is a result of failed foreign policies and an extreme consequence of misjudgments and misconduct by at least one side. Power Transition theory explains that the probability of war is higher when there is power parity between the defender and the challenger, and at least one side becomes significantly dissatisfied. This has been proved empirically by major wars since the late nineteenth century: “In those
cases where the defender fails to accommodate during the overtaking and the challenger continues to be dissatisfied, the probability of war is very high….The choice now facing the United States and China is to avoid the trap of dissatisfaction and transition, which greatly raises the probability of war.”19
Hence, “it is the responsibility of the current dominant power and its allies to spread satisfaction among the emerging powers so there is no future conflict.”20 Therefore, the degree of satisfaction obviously is an important and practical variable to be addressed in the discussion of the rise of China and the suggested U.S. engagement, especially considering that the previous peaceful power transition between Great Britain and the United States truly indicates that a high degree of satisfaction can be built on a wide range of shared preferences over various global and regional issues if they are examined with a constructivist approach.21 Such shared preferences obviously should be built within the global and particularly the regional order that is directly affected by China’s rapid emergence.
However, China’s perception and its attitude toward the postwar order created by the West and particularly the United States can be a very delicate issue. Some may believe that China can choose to overthrow the current world and regional order and replace it with a new one. If this is true, building shared preferences (for example, between China and the United States) could indeed help with China’s growing ambition in seizing regional and global leadership, but ultimately may turn out to be insufficient to maintaining the current regional and global power structure. Given the current tensions between China and its neighbors regarding their maritime disputes, the possibility of creating such shared preferences can be and must be tested by examining China’s true attitude toward the postwar regional order which was built after World War II under U.S. leadership.
1.3.1 Is China Threatening or Defending the Postwar Regional Order?
China’s rapid rise has continued for decades and shows no signs of coming to an end, at least in the near future. As it rises, China has been involved with a number of ongoing disputes with its neighbors, particularly in the East and South China seas. China also opposes some of the U.S. policies in the Asia-Pacific region, and it seems to believe that the United States never truly welcomes its rise in the region. As a result, the international community and a number of major Western media outlets have constantly
questioned China’s role in the Asia-Pacific region as the country’s rise continues and its disagreements with the United States remain an international issue. A popular view describes China as a violator of, or threat to, the regional order that has existed for decades. For example, shortly after China declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, an article in The National Interest talked about “China’s war on international norms” and denounced China’s “unilateral attempt to alter the regional status quo.”22 Such articles obviously imply that China is a threat to the regional order.
Meanwhile, China has been trying to present itself as a defender of the postwar regional order. For example, during Premier Li Keqiang’s first government work report (delivered to the National People’s Congress in 2014), he included a new reference to China’s determination to “safeguard the victory of World War II and the postwar international order.”23 As 2015 marked the 69th anniversary of the Potsdam Declaration, Chinese media took advantage of the opportunity to revisit the end of World War II and the new regional order that emerged after the war. These reports, like one in Xinhua, describe the Potsdam Declaration as “an important document which helped establish international order after World War II.”24 These articles argue that Japan is violating the Potsdam Declaration and thus the postwar international order in important ways (for example, by pursuing remilitarization). China’s opposition to these moves, then, makes China a staunch defender of the postwar order.
These differing media analyses from China and the West pose a fundamental question: Is China a threat to, or a defender of, the postwar regional order in East Asia?
It is hard to find a definite answer to this question, since China’s rise has been truly unprecedented in terms of its speed and significance. Plus, historical analogies, as Zheng Wang, a columnist to The Diplomat argues, carry inherent limitations and risks.25 We must not make a hasty judgment and accuse China of being a threat to the current order based on aligning China’s behaviors with the aggressive moves made by history’s previous emerging great powers. On the other hand, some of China’s actions (like the declaration of an ADIZ) have inevitably caused concerns among its neighbors and other great powers in the region, especially given China’s size and geopolitical location.
Therefore, China’s attitude toward the postwar regional order is complicated. However, China’s high-profile commemoration of the Potsdam Declaration provides a window to understanding how the Chinese view the present regional order and how they are trying to defend it.
As one of the three signatories (along with Britain and China), and as the enforcer of the postwar order, the United States originally believed that the Potsdam Declaration (and its restrictions on Japan) helped secure U.S. national interests in the Asia-Pacific. But with China’s rapid rise, things have changed. The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in January 2014 made it clear that China is regarded as the primary threat to the United States in the East Asian region. Washington now believes that the previous regional order and structure (particularly Japan’s role) will not help sustain U.S. regional dominance. Hence, Washington’s polices have changed, and today the United States actually encourages military expansion in Japan to balance the challenges posed by the rapid rise of China.
Therefore, the Chinese position is as follows: The United States ostensibly tries to maintain the postwar order, but actually intends to make strategic amendments to the regional status quo in order to ensure its continued hegemony. China, though often viewed as a potential challenger or even a threat to the regional order, is actually trying to defend the postwar regional order, particularly with regard to the role of Japan.
Interestingly, this position is not limited to Chinese scholars. In an interview with CCTV, Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University in Washington DC, also challenged the view that the United States is a selfless enforcer of the postwar order. He points out that U.S. enforcement of international law came “when it was convenient… but it’s no longer convenient for the United States to hold Japan to those (postWorld War II) agreements.” Kuznick continues, “In fact, it is Obama who is pushing much of the worst things that Japan is doing now. Obama is encouraging the Abe administration to rearm, to undermine Article 9, and that’s what countries do in the world of realpolitik. The treaties and the declarations and the agreements often say one thing, and the actions say something very, very different.”26
The above discussion may indicate that China believes that it is defending, rather than upsetting, the post WWII regional order. Although it does not necessarily offset concerns with China’s rise and its recent policies and acts in the region, there is a true possibility that China may find a way to, on the one hand, justify its rise and expansion and, on the other somehow avoid directly challenging or overthrowing the existing regional order. Where there is a possibility, there is a hope and probably a feasible solution.
1.4
A BRIEF
REVIEW OF RATIONALES: RULE OF LAW, ENGAGEMENT, AND CHANGES OF POWER
Why should the United States engage with a rising China? How could it realize such an engagement when there are still substantial disagreements and areas of distrust between these two rivals? Wouldn’t a tougher policy with China be more direct and more convenient for the United States? There are actually three main rationales for the United States, however, to engage with China.
The first rationale is the rule of law. This is not a doctrinaire belief. Rather, it is a very important argument of Power Transition theory. Interestingly, Power Transition theory has been quite often referred to in the discussion of the rise of China and the attendant concerns of the international community—particularly the possible threat it may bring to the dominant system. Some believe that this theory deals with the rise of China from a very realistic perspective that highlights terms like power, conflict, confrontation, and war—one in which the dominant power stands as a hegemon that will use whatever means necessary, including war, to suppress any rival. However, Power Transition theory does not view the dominant power as a hegemon, and neither does it see itself as a realist or idealist theory. Rather, Power Transition theory is a rationalist theory,27 and accordingly it views the dominant nation as controlling the structure by emphasizing the institutions, rules, and laws that most benefit the dominant power and is allies.28 Such a position provides an institutional environment for the dominant power to invite and engage the rising power in the process of extending the range of shared preferences, since “every time China signs an international treaty, based on commonly held international ideas, be it trade or regional discussion (ASEAN), it signs up to limits on its own discretion and in effect buys into the international system created by WWII.”29
The second rationale lies in the concept of engagement itself. In the years of extreme opposition during the Cold War, engagement among great powers was naturally limited and thus was relatively insignificant. However, in an increasingly globalized and intertwined world, most countries, including great powers like the United States and China, rely on mutual interdependence. At the strategic level, violent conflicts and even war may occur most probably because of misjudgments, political adventures, and brinkmanship policy by certain politicians. In this regard, Power Transition theory claims that in those scenarios when the dominant power fails to accommodate the emerging power, the probability of war becomes
extremely high.30 Hence, there must be contact, communication, and reconciliation among great powers and especially between the dominant power and the perceived “emergent.” In this context, engagement is obviously a more practical and precise term than accommodation. Rather than accommodate or even appease the emerging power, the dominant power should engage the rising power by implementing a socialization or learning process within the dominant system with the emerging power. The prevailing dominant system should focus on a convergence process with rising powers within this system, rather than allowing or even creating a dangerous process of divergence.
The third rationale is power diffusion, or changes of power. Power has always been a core term in world politics and is naturally fundamentally important in the discussion of relations among great powers like the United States and China. Conventionally, people often regard power as “brute power,” which is regarded as something static that cannot be shared. The fact is that power is always changing, just as the world situation has always been changing. When a realistic view of power prevails in world politics, a wave of globalization and international cooperation interconnects all states more closely than ever before. As Joseph Nye describes, there have been two fundamental modes of power change in the twenty-first century—power transition and power diffusion. The former describes how power moves among states, while the latter describes how power moves out of traditional state actors to non-state actors, such as international institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and even individuals. Examples of the second kind of change particularly affect cross-border issues like climate change, terrorism, and cybersecurity. Power diffusion, obviously, creates extended opportunities for states and especially great powers to engage and reconcile with one another in the process of possible power transitions, for example, between the United States and China. Regarding contemporary world politics, we have good reason to believe that “on many transnational issues, empowering others can help us to accomplish our own goals.”31
1.5 CHOOSING CRITERIA
A rather complicated but very important issue with regard to the analysis of great power relations is to define and measure the degree of countries’ satisfaction, which can be a very intangible term and thus difficult to describe. Organski describes satisfaction as a “relative term,”32 which implies how difficult it can be to assess a country’s degree of satisfaction.
However, we may still apply different approaches to assess and evaluate the general degree of satisfaction of a certain country with its status within the dominant world system by choosing certain appropriate criteria with regard to this state’s international behaviors.
For example, territorial disputes may bring about military expansion. Hence the degree of satisfaction of any country involved in certain territorial issues with its neighboring countries may be measured by the growth rate of its defense budget in a particular period of time in contrast with that of its neighbors. Evidence can also be collected based on the criteria of an emerging state’s attitude to international rules and regulations or its reaction to trade disputes with other states. Other possible criteria may include the rising power’s policies and its involvement in regional cooperation issues, global developmental issues, regional economic integration, or collective security cooperation.
It is virtually impossible to examine every aspect of a rising power’s international behaviors in order to find an explicit description of its degree of satisfaction toward the current regional and global order. However, finding a particularly important aspect with regard to this rising power’s international behaviors may help us to understand the power’s general attitude toward the dominant system.
In general, the current world order and particularly U.S. leadership are probably maintained through two sub-systems, the alliance system and international organizations or institutions. Since the United States and China are not allies, China’s attitude toward international organizations or institutions is particularly important for us in order to study China’s general satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the current world order and the U.S. leadership. More importantly, the international organizations and institutions are exactly the larger circumstances or environment in which engagement (with a rising China) has been practiced (and will be practiced in the future). How does China view the dominant world system, the international organizations, and the international institutions created and led by the West and especially the United States? Has China been generally retreating from or joining the international institutions? Why has China joined many of these international institutions even though it has had no role in creating them? These are some of the important questions to be addressed in the following chapters.
Again, a possible way of assessing China’s degree of satisfaction is to examine its changing attitude toward the international community and especially its role in the dominant system led by the United States. More
specifically, this criterion refers to China’s involvement, participation, or its membership in international institutions and especially Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs), particularly since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when China started to join international organizations on a larger scale.33
However, there is an important difference between China’s attitude toward the international system and its attitude to the reforms it has advocated in the institutions within the international system. Simply, China’s advocacy of reforms in a number of international institutions does not necessarily indicate that China is truly dissatisfied with the international system as a whole; rather, it exactly proves China’s respect for and dependence on it. The fact is that for many years, China’s economic and social developments have greatly benefited from a large number of aid and cooperative programs provided by various international organizations and institutions such as United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO). The Chinese are well aware that the rise of China could have never happened without its policy of opening to the international community and especially to the West and the United States. Recently, the creation of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) seems to be a case showing China’s growing dissatisfaction with the United States; but actually and more accurately it proves China’s dissatisfaction with the lagging reform processes of the current world financial institutions. More importantly, it shows China’s perception of its shared responsibility as a “responsible” great power in the world system—a perception that the United States has actually encouraged, diplomatically at least.
NOTES
1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1996), 318.
2. For discussions of China threat theory, please see Khalid R. Al-Rodhan, “A Critique of the China Threat Theory: A Systematic Analysis,” Asian Perspective, Volume 31 (2007): 41–46; Craig K. Elwell, et al., “Is China a Threat to the U.S. Economy?” CRS Report for Congress (January 23, 2007), http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33604.pdf (accessed April 9, 2012); “Red China Threat Seminar,” presented on April 8, 2008 in Washington, DC, United States Intelligence Council, http://usintelligencecouncil.org/ PDF/Chinaseminar04082008.pdf (accessed May 2, 2010); Graham Richardson, “The China Threat: Myths, Realities, and Implications for
U.S. Foreign Policy,” Potentia (2010): 55; Jiang Ye, “Will China Be a ‘Threat’ to Its Neighbors and the World in the Twenty First Century?” The International Studies Association of Ritsumeikan University: Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, Volume 1 (2002): 55–68.
3. China Radio International’s English Service, “China’s Position on Nansha Islands Consistent,” http://english.cri.cn/12394/2015/06/29/4083 s885029.htm (accessed August 5, 2015).
4. In Power Transition theory’s view, “the challengers, for their part, are seeking to establish a new place for themselves in international society, a place to which they feel their growing power entitles them.” And the most dangerous scenario would be a challenger’s gaining power parity while the dominant player expects an approaching danger especially when there is no accommodation or engagement. Conflicts could occur as there is a probability that the challenger will try to change the rules by using non-peaceful means. For more discussion on Power Transition theory and power parity, see A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1958); A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980); Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke, Parity and War (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1998); Jack S. Levy, “Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China,” in China Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics, ed. Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008); Douglas Lemke and Ronald L. Tammen, “Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China,” International Interactions, Volume 29, Number 4 (2003): 269–271; Ronald L. Tammen, et al., Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century (New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2000); Woosang Kim, “Power, Parity, Alliance, and War from 1648 to 1975,” in Parity and War, ed. Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1998), 103; Ronald L. Tammen and Jacek Kugler, “Power Transition and China-US Conflicts,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, Volume 1 (2006): 46.
5. Sukhee Han, “China’s Pursuit of Peaceful Power Transition,” International Area Review, Volume 12, Number 3 (Winter 2009): 29.
6. Steve Chan, China, the U.S., and the Power-Transition Theory: A Critique (New York: Routledge, 2008), 121.
7. Laurence Brahm, “China thinks the Washington Consensus is dead!” Pacific Forum CSIS (September 29, 2009), http://csis.org/files/publication/pac0965.pdf (accessed November 29, 2009).
8. Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Beijing Consensus (London: the Foreign Policy Centre, 2004), 3.
9. Narcís Serra and Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (New York: Oxford University Press 2008), 41.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The time-raider
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The time-raider
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Illustrator: Hugh Rankin
Release date: July 9, 2022 [eBook #68483]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 1927
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TIMERAIDER ***
The TIME-RAIDER
By EDMOND HAMILTON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October, November December 1927 and January 1928.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"He dangled helplessly in the thing's embrace."
CHAPTER 1
THE CANNELL MYSTERY
In beginning this account of our great adventure, it must be understood that I attempt no complete history of the matter. There will be gaps, many gaps, in the continuity of my story, for that story
remains, after all, simply a record of my own contacts with the Raider, and with those people whose lives he entered and darkened. So that my tale here is necessarily one of personal experience, except for a few places where I have summarized general knowledge.
Besides this history of what I may term the more human side of our experience, Dr. Lantin has dealt with its scientific aspects in his epochal work on time-displacement and in our joint monograph on electronic acceleration. Although several salient features of the affair have been omitted, for reasons that will figure later, yet the two works mentioned and the present record give a broad outline of the whole matter, from the beginning.
From the beginning! But where was that beginning? Ages back in the past, or ages ahead in the future? To place the true beginning of it all would be to know much about it that we do not know. So I start at the point where the matter definitely entered my own life and world. And that point, that event, is the Cannell Mystery, as it was then termed. You will find it in the newspapers of the day, the bare facts wrapped in clouds of speculation. Professor Ferdinand Cannell, of New York, disappearing inexplicably in the jungles of Indo-China, vanishing from the world of men as though blotted out.
At that time, Cannell was undoubtedly one of the very greatest of living archeologists. Nominally attached to a great New York museum, he was really a free-lance student and excavator, roaming about the world in search of proof for his numerous and startling theories. His first fame had been established by his researches into the Dravidian remnants in lower India, and he had followed that brilliant achievement by another as great, the monumental Warren Society investigation into the walled ruins of Zimbabwe, in South Africa.
With two such successes behind him, Cannell then boldly proposed to make the subject of his next researches the mighty ruined city of Angkor, in the heart of the Cambodian jungle. Angkor has long been a colossal challenge to modern wisdom, a gigantic, towered metropolis of gray stone, once noisy with the life of swarming
millions, but silent and dead now, unutterably dead. A thousand years the huge ruin has lain in the jungle, wrapped in silence, inhabited only by snakes and bats and tigers. Its past, the history of its builders, has been a vast enigma always, which Cannell had determined to solve.
So he sailed for Hongkong, and Dr. Lantin and I were on the dock when his ship cleared. My own acquaintance with Cannell was recent, but Lantin and he had been close friends for years. Their friendship dated back to their university days, and had continued after they diverged into different lines of work, Cannell's taking him to the remnants of past peoples, while Lantin's interest in radiochemistry had brought him to the great New York laboratories of the Downe Foundation, with myself as his laboratory assistant.
For all their warm friendship, there was a strong contrast between the two men. Cannell was the younger by a few years, a blond giant of thirty-five or thirty-six, with snapping blue eyes and a habit of talking with machine-gun rapidity. Altogether the antithesis of Dr. Lantin, who was dark, medium of stature and quiet of manner, with friendly gray eyes that could take on the glint of steel, at times.
Together we had waved farewell to Cannell and a few weeks later had received a cable from Saigon, in Indo-China, briefly announcing his arrival. He had then proceeded up the Mekong River into the wilderness of the interior, and finally over a network of winding creeks to Angkor itself. The latter stage of the journey was made in canoes, some seven or eight natives poling along Cannell and his outfit, but no other white man was in the party.
No more was heard of the venture until a week later, when the natives of Cannell's party straggled into a little up-river village, without him. They explained, volubly, that on the third night after reaching Angkor, the white man had been seized and carried away by the devils of the ruins. None of them had actually seen this but they had heard his scream, from a distance, and when they conquered their fears enough to search the ruins, had found no trace of him. It was clear that the powerful spirits of the dead city were angered, and had snatched away the white man who dared to
disturb them, so the terror-stricken natives had at once fled from the place with all speed.
On hearing this tale, several French planters made their way to Angkor, forcing the unwilling natives to accompany them, but they found no trace of Cannell, who seemed to have vanished completely. His tent and outfit were found, quite undisturbed, which tended to corroborate the natives' story regarding their sudden flight.
So when the little search-party returned, it was advanced as its opinion that Cannell had been seized and carried away by a roving tiger, his scream and disappearance being interpreted by the natives as a visitation of demons, since they were known to be extremely superstitious in regard to the dead city. While this explanation was faulty enough, it seemed the only rational one available, and was accepted by the authorities at Saigon.
And so the matter rested. Cannell's only relatives had been distant connections, and except for Lantin he had had scarcely one intimate friend, so after the first shock of surprize his passing caused little stir. The newspapers speculated briefly, and the archeological journals expressed regrets, referring to his splendid achievements. But that was all. New stars soon rose to fill his place in the scientific firmament. And Cannell was forgotten.
Time drove on. Days ... months ... years....
CHAPTER 2
CANNELL'S STORY
I pass to that June night, over three years after Cannell's disappearance, when my own part in the drama may be said to begin. Lantin and I were working late in our laboratory at the Foundation, when we were interrupted by the telephone bell. We had reached a critical point in our experiment, and as Lantin hurried over to the instrument, I heard him muttering threats to have it removed. I
did not catch his first answer, but after a minute's silence he flung out a single word, in a strange voice, that startled me.
"Cannell!"
At once I hastened over to his side, and as I did so, he turned toward me a face eloquent of astonishment, still holding the receiver to his ear. "I'll be there in ten minutes!" he shouted into the instrument, then hung up and turned to face my excited questions.
"Good God, Wheeler," he cried, "it's Cannell!"
"What?" I asked, stupidly, dumfounded by the assertion.
"Cannell," he repeated, "at my apartment. He says to meet him there at once. Where could he have been, these three years?"
But I was already reaching for my hat and a moment later we were on the street outside, hailing a cruising taxi. Lantin's bachelor home was in the west 70's, a little roof-bungalow set on top of a big apartment building, and we sped up the avenue toward it with the highest legal speed.
Lantin did not speak at all, on the way. He was plainly highly excited, but my own agitation was fast calming. After all, I thought, the thing might be a stupid practical joke, though an unforgivable one to perpetrate. Still, if Lantin had recognized the voice—Before I could ask him about that, the cab stopped, and we hastened into the building, to the elevator.
When the cage stopped at its highest point in the building, Lantin was instantly out and striding eagerly across the foyer of his apartment. He flung the door open, then stopped short. Standing behind him, I peered over his shoulder into the room inside. There was a man there, a man who jumped to his feet and came quickly toward us. It was Cannell, I saw at once. Cannell—but changed.
His face was drawn and haggard, and instead of his former impatient, challenging expression, it bore the impress of an unearthly fear. A fear that showed even in the tense, half-crouching position of his body, as he came across the room toward us, searching our
faces with his burning eyes. He came closer, gripped Lantin's hands, struggled to speak.
"Thank God you came, Lantin!" he cried, chokingly
We stood speechless, and with a sudden reaction of feeling he stepped back and sank wearily into a chair, running his hand tiredly over his eyes. Lantin found his voice then for the first time.
"Where have you been, man?" he shouted. "Three years! For God's sake, Cannell, what happened to you? Where were you all that time?"
Cannell gazed up at us, strangely, somberly, a brooding darkness settling on his face. "All that time?" he repeated, musingly. "Three years? Three years to you, perhaps, but not to me. But not to me."
A sudden glance flashed between Lantin and myself. Was the man mad? Did that account for his strange disappearance?
Cannell saw and interpreted that glance. "I know what you're thinking," he told us, "and sometimes I think you're right, that I really am crazy. I would be better off if I were," he concluded, darkly. But before we could comment on his strange words, his mood changed abruptly and he motioned us to chairs beside him, bending toward us in sudden eagerness.
"But you two," he said, "I can tell you what I saw, what happened. I could not tell others—no! They would never have believed, and it may be that even you will not. But it is all truth—truth, I tell you!" And on the last words his voice rose to a high-pitched, ragged scream. Then, mastering his shattered nerves with an effort, he went on.
"You know why I went to Angkor, what I planned to do there. I went up the Mekong by steamer, then hired natives to take me the rest of the way in canoes. Up winding waterways they took me, through narrow creeks and old canals, and out over a great lake, in which a forest lay submerged. Then up another creek and finally by bullockcart to Angkor itself.
"There is no use trying to describe the place to you. I have seen most of the great ruins of the past and the great buildings of the
present, but Angkor towers above them all, the most magnificent thing ever built by the hands of men. It is a vast city of carven gray stone, a city whose lacelike sculptured walls and crenelated battlements have looked down for a thousand years on nothing but the jungle that hems it in, and the silence and death that lie incarnate in itself. Literally acres of ruined buildings, square miles of crumbling stone, and set in the heart of that great mass of remnants, the palace, Angkor Thom, a great ruin whose courts and walls and terraces lie as desolate and broken as the city around them.
"A deep moat surrounds the city, and out over it leads a great causeway, built of huge blocks of stone, a wide, level highway that leads through the jungle for a short distance to the supreme glory of the place, Angkor Wat, the gigantic temple. Unlike the palace and city, the temple has not fallen into ruins but remains nearly the same as it must have been when the city was living and splendid. It towers up to a tremendous height, its dark, frowning walls looming far above the green jungle around it. When I walked into it for the first time, the mighty grandeur of the place was so awesome and compelling that I felt presumptuous—ashamed. The stifling, brooding silence seemed to flow down on me like a tangible wave, humbling me, dwarfing me.
"I spent my first two days in a superficial exploration of the palace and city, wandering through the miles of crumbling streets and fallen buildings. But I pass over that to the third day, when I started my examination of Angkor Wat. All of that day I spent in the temple, alone, for the natives feared to venture into it. Along its marching walls life-sized figures were carved in exquisite relief, warriors, kings and elephants, battles and ceremonies, literally miles of lavished, delicate sculptures. I lingered with them, absorbed, until the sun had set and the swift tropical darkness was descending, then abruptly came to a realization of my surroundings and started for my camp.
"Through the deepening shadows of the temple's halls I went, stumbling here and there against fallen stones, and finally came with a slight sensation of relief to the stone-paved courtyard in front of the edifice, from which the great causeway led back to the city and to my camp. It was quite dark, now, but I stopped for a moment there, since the moon was just rising and the scene was one of perfect
beauty—the calm moonlight flooding over the silent ruins, the dark, looming walls behind me, the black shadows that lay across the silver-lit courtyard. For minutes I stood there, fascinated, but finally turned to go.
"I walked across the courtyard, then stopped abruptly and looked up. A strange sound had come to my ears from above, a sound that was like distant, shrill whistling. It hung for a moment, faint and eery, then grew much louder, like a score of men whistling piercingly in different keys, varied, tumultuous. I half expected to see birds passing above, but there were none. The air had been heavy and still for hours, but now a puff of wind smote me, a little, buffeting breeze that changed suddenly to a hard wind and then to a raging gale that whipped the sun-helmet off my head and nearly twisted me from my feet. And with that sudden change, the whistling chorus above had changed also, had waxed to a raging tumult of wind-shrieks, piercing, tempestuous! Abruptly, now, there flashed into being in the air forty feet above me—a thing!
"It was a swirling mass of dense gray vapor, looking in the moonlight much like a drifting cloud of steam. But this smoky mass was alive with motion of its own, spinning and interlacing, and from it came the shrill chorus and the raging winds. And, too, I saw that somewhere inside those shifting mists glowed three little circles of green light, one set above the other two, three tiny, radiant orbs whose brilliance stood out even in the mellow moonlight.
"Abruptly, as I stared up at the thing, those three circles of vivid green luminescence changed to purple, no less brilliant. And at the same instant, there came a change to the spinning mists around them. Those mists seemed to contract, to shrink, to solidify, and then they had vanished and in place of them hung a thing of solid matter, a mass of what seemed to be gray, resilient flesh, and at the center of which hung steadily the little triangle of purple lights. Nor was this solid mass any more unchanging than the misty one had been, for it seemed to have no one form, flashing with incredible speed through
a myriad half-glimpsed shapes. It folded and unfolded, contracted, elongated, spun and writhed, a protean changing of shapes that my eyes could scarcely follow. But always the three little orbs of purple hung unchanged at its center.
"Scarcely more than a minute had elapsed since the thing first had appeared above me, and now as I gazed up at it, stupefied, I sensed dimly that the whistling sounds and the winds had died away. Then, before my dazed mind could fully comprehend the strangeness of the creature that hung in the air above me, that creature floated swiftly down beside me, so near that I could have touched it. And out from the changing, inchoate mass of it reached a long, twisting tentacle, straight toward me!
"I staggered weakly back, and screamed. But that arm circled and gripped me, then pulled me in toward the central mass of the thing. It was cold to the touch, an utter, numbing cold, like the chill of something from outer space, utterly alien to our earth and life. That cold shock stabbed through me and paralyzed me, and I dangled helplessly in the thing's grip, while at its center, seen, somehow, through the mass of the thing, the triangle of purple orbs seemed to watch me.
"All this had been enacted in a few moments, and now the inexplicable thing that held me began to rise again, to float up some distance above the ground. It still gripped me tightly, and now the purple orbs changed again to brilliant green, while again the solid, twisting mass of the thing changed, expanding and swirling, until it was again the drifting, spinning mass of vapor which I had first glimpsed. I floated in those mists, gripped as tightly as ever by their unseen holds, and now began again the shrill, piercing whistling, from all around me, while a rising torrent of wind roared around the thing that held me.
"At the same time, glancing up, I saw the moon racing across the sky above with incredible speed, bounding across the zenith like a shooting star and sinking down in the west. Hardly had it disappeared when there was an up-gush of gray light from the eastern horizon, and then the sun leapt up, red and flaming, and
hurtled across the sky with even greater speed. I caught a glimpse of Angkor beneath, bathed in tropical sunlight. And a half-minute before it had been deepest night!
"A deadly sickness seized me, and while I strove against it the sun raced down into the west and it was night again, with the shining moon again flashing across the sky with nightmare speed. Again it disappeared and again the sun sprang up and rocketed headlong across the zenith. And for the first time there came to my numbed brain some realization of what was happening.
"This inexplicable thing that held me—this being of changing mists and vapors—was taking me on through time. It was whirling me on into the future, with some undreamed-of power of its own.
"The sun was racing across the sky with comet speed, now, a streak of golden light, and day and night followed each other like the flipped leaves of a book, faster and faster. In a few minutes they had become indistinguishable, had merged into a green twilight in which I could see but dimly the ground below. And even as we thus sped on through time, with ever-increasing speed, the thing that held me began to move through space also, and I caught a glimpse of ruined Angkor sliding away from beneath me.
"The thundering roar of the winds grew even louder as we moved simultaneously through time and space. I caught fragmentary glimpses of land flashing by beneath, with tremendous speed. And all the while I hung there in the grip of the thing, held by the smoky mist-spirals, swinging helplessly around and around the three circles of radiant green light at the thing's center.
"With a sudden surge of desperate courage, I tried to move in the remorseless grip that prisoned me, endeavored to raise my right hand to my belt, putting all my force into the effort. Slowly my hand came up, inch by inch, struggling against the unseen grip of iron that grasped me. It came up, with infinite slowness, until it was high enough to grasp the automatic in my belt-holster. I clasped the pistol's stock and threw off the safety catch, then, with another great effort, swung up the pistol until it pointed directly at the triangle of radiant orbs, and pulled the trigger.
"The report snapped out thinly above the thundering of the winds. And instantly the grip of the unseen, vaporous arms around me relaxed, releasing me utterly, and I plunged down through space.
"Down I fell, all of a hundred feet, and struck water, sinking down and down into it, ever more slowly, then hurtling up to the surface again, gasping for air. It was night, and above was no sign of the thing that had held me, so I judged that it had gone on into time. The water I swam in was salt, and I knew from the long, easy swells that I was in the open sea. There was no shore in sight, nor any sign of one, so I wasted no effort in swimming but strove only to keep afloat.
"For over two hours I floated, treading water easily, and had just decided that it would be best to give over my useless efforts and sink down to rest and peace, when a spark of light showed on the horizon, a spark too low to be a star. It grew larger, coming nearer, until I could make it out as one of the upper lights of a ship. In the course it was following, it would pass me at some distance, so I struck out in a direction that would bring me across its path.
"My hours in the water had told on my strength, though, and my progress was so slow that the ship had nearly passed me when I came within hailing distance of it. There were few lights on its decks, and no answer to my frantic cries. But when it had passed a little beyond me, I heard voices shouting and the rattle of a boat's tackle. I knew then that I was saved.
"The ship proved to be an oil-tanker, bound from Hongkong to Galveston. And as I found out, it had picked me up in the open Pacific, at a spot some three hundred miles east of Manila. The thing that held me had carried me that far, in space.
"I represented myself as the sole survivor of a wrecked trampsteamer, and was not questioned overmuch. I dared not tell my story to those sailors, lest they prison me as a mad-man. I asked them a few discreet questions, though, and received an answer to one that staggered me. For I was no longer in my own year, the year in which
I had been seized there at Angkor I was in a year three years later! Three years! And it had seemed only a few minutes to me. I had been carried on, that far, into time.
"I took my place as one of the crew, on the voyage to Galveston, and worked my passage, though I was hard put to it to uphold my assertion that I was a seaman. We sailed on, forging across the Pacific and heading toward Panama. A night came when we were only a few hundred miles west of the canal. I was stretched in a forecastle bunk, vainly trying to sleep away the haunting fears that still filled me. The night was quite calm, with only the throb of the engines and the slap of waves on the hull breaking the silence. Then, faint and far, but sounding to me like the thunder of doom, came a distant, eery whistling, a piercing chorus that I knew well.
"It grew, it waxed to a tumult of roaring winds, while I lay crouched in the bunk, trembling. It seemed to swoop down on the deck above, and there rang out a great scream, a shriek of horror that burned into my brain. The roaring winds began to lessen, to draw away. I ran up onto the deck and looked wildly around. To the north, a little above and beyond the ship, was a hazy mass that I glimpsed vaguely in the moonlight, and that suddenly disappeared, still heading straight north. And the whistling chorus of winds died away.
"I sank down on the deck, sick at heart. For I knew what I had seen, knew that half-glimpsed thing to be the thing that had seized me at Angkor, and from which I had freed myself. Two of the watch, the only men on deck at the time, were missing, and all around me the sailors who had poured up onto the deck were speculating as to their disappearance, and the cause of the sudden, roaring winds. But I told them nothing. I knew well that the thing that had snatched me away before had come again to seize me, tracking me down, God knows how, perhaps by some mystic mark or brand that its grip had sealed upon me. I knew that it had come for me, and not finding me, had taken the two men on deck at the time. But I said nothing.
"It was finally agreed by the ship's officers to report the event as the loss of two sailors, swept overboard by a sudden gale. It went down
in the ship's log, thus, and we sailed on. But the crew was fearful, whispering....
"The ship came safe to Galveston, though. The wages due me as a seaman were enough to get me to New York. I came at once to your apartment, and the rest you know.
"What is that thing that seized me, that enigmatic Raider through time? God alone knows, if even He is aware of its existence. But I know that it swept down on me through time and seized me, that it flashed with me through those three years in almost as few minutes. And I know that it has marked me for its victim and will come for me again, maybe in pure revenge for that shot of mine that released me.
"Where is there refuge from a thing like that, that can speed through time and space at will? Twice I have escaped it, but I fear I can not escape it again, when it comes to claim me. And sooner or later, it will come!"
CHAPTER 3
THE RAIDER
A silence hung over the room when Cannell ceased to speak. I drew a long breath and turned to Lantin, my brain awhirl, but already he was calmly questioning the archeologist.
"This thing you call the Raider," he began; "I don't understand your description very well, Cannell. Do you mean that it was just misty gas or vapor, able to change into solid form at will, and change back? And, withal, a living, intelligent thing?"
"I mean just that," Cannell told him. "The thing is undoubtedly a sentient, living being of extraordinary intelligence and powers, able to assume either a solid or gaseous form. The phenomenon of the three shining orbs, changing from green to purple and back, is connected with that change in form, I assume. And at the same time
