Jahangir's World Times First Comprehensive Magazine for students/teachers of competitive exams and general readers as well.
China is working to revive the ancient Silk Road trade routes from Asia to Europe under its transnational megaproject called the Belt and Road initiative. With a monumental US$900bn worth of planned investments to build railways, ports and other infrastructure in 65 countries along the routes, the OBOR is historically the biggest foreign investment strategy by any single country in the world history. Beijing’s new Silk Road plan has gained increased attention as opposition to free trade and open borders has increased in Western countries amid the UK’s Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election as the US president. China has responded to this by defending the benefits of globalisation and multilateralism, and by promoting its own economic initiatives, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Asia-wide RCEP free trade deal and, above all, the Belt and Road initiative.
Only some years ago, the United States, the sole superpower of a unipolar world, was the only gravitational centre of the world, having monopoly over punitive force as well as the soft power. However, today that world looks like a historical relic. China looms large not only in Asia but everywhere, and seriously threatens American hegemony. One sign of how the script has changed in recent years resides in an informal proposal, broached over a decade ago, that visualises a cosy relationship between the US and China, the world’s two biggest economies or the Group of Two (G2). Even though it is still in the process of implementation, just as a potential future, it sends waves of nervous anticipation—filling a host of US allies in different Asian capitals with a vague sense of dread.
As a concept, the G2 formalises what everyone acknowledges regarding the global distribution of power: we are living now in a bipolar world. G2, if it ever comes to pass, will seek to bring the world’s two most powerful nations, the United States and China, closer so they could address and look to resolve all major challenges together. The idea has been endorsed by several leading American foreign policy practitioners since 2005, when it was first floated. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were smart enough to keep the proposal on the table while dealing with China, without really putting it into force. However, with Donald Trump in the White House, can we expect that things are about to change?
The G2 concept is a pragmatic response to the changed reality that the era of US hegemony is over. It, in effect, will mean that the US has been forced to make space and rearrange the political order because greater advantage may lie in non-conflictual cohabitation.
The US’ relative decline has been talked about since the 2008 global economic crisis that began in America and spread to other western states. China, one of the world’s fastest growing economies for nearly four decades, became the natural source of vitality for an ailing global economy. Today, its role seems more pronounced. Trump’s advent and his ‘America First’ slogan – protectionist moves to insulate the world’s largest economy from global competition and to withdraw from multilateral trade deals with restrictive policies to safeguard American jobs and markets – have ceded more space to China.
In a sense, it’s inevitable. With the rise of China, the US, as the pre-eminent power, will have to accommodate and make adjustments to that. The US is ceding ground to China in Asia not by design but because China’s military advancement itself makes enduring US primacy in the region and the world at large unsustainable. And, interestingly, Chinese president Xi Jinping had reminded the US diplomats at the UN of the Thucydides Trap – a destructive war when an old power becomes wary of a new one.
But, there still is a tinge of multipolarity to the new world. Several other powers, like India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brazil, too, have been rising. Their rise may not be as spectacular, but they too affect the broader transition of power we witness today.
