Prem Shankar Jha worries about whether China is going to use its growing economic strength to alter the global political agenda. His worry concerns reflect three main factors. First, that China has been reluctant to co-operate with the international community, and has refused to accept international inspection of the greenhouses gas emissions targetted at Copenhagen last year. Second, that China responded in only a half-hearted manner to international calls for the appreciation of its currency. And third, that China decided to hold a military exercise in the East China Sea as a counter to the joint U.S.-Korean military exercise.
But the arguments that Prem Shankar Jha uses to support his concern are unconvincing. With respect to global warming, it is the developed countries that have had greatest influence on climate change because of the huge amounts of carbon emitted by their industries ever since the days of the industrial revolution. As a developing country, China’s per capita carbon emissions are much lower than those of a developed country despite the present surge in its economy. And although China has made enormous efforts to address climate warming, the emissions targets set by the western countries are completely beyond its capacity given the difference in living standards. If China were to follow the emissions targets set by the West, its economy would slide into recession and living standards would fall by an unfair degree.
The issue of the Renminbi’s appreciation also relates to the stable development of the Chinese economy. China has in fact already taken steps to appreciate its currency, but the developed countries have, in pursuit of their own interests, urged the Chinese government do more radically and more rapidly. But, again, if China were to comply with theses demands by the world’s richest countries, its own economy would suffer huge losses, and that would be irresponsible behavior on the part of the Chinese government. And it's worth reminding ourselves that when the Chinese economy has problems, the interests of other countries including the West will also be impaired. We all live in the era of globalisation.
Turning to point three, it strikes me as completely normal that China should hold military exercises in the East China Sea when the situation in Northeast Asia is so unstable in these days. And if the United States and Korea can conduct a joint military exercise, why can’t China do likewise? China’s military exercise in the East China Sea was in the interest of its national security and did not target anyone else.
The rise of China’s economic might, of course, means that its political influence in the world will grow. Prem Shankar Jha may rest assured of that, and also that the rise of China is inexorable. But China is completely different to other rising powers in history. China has long disapproved of zero-sum games in geopolitics, where there are winners and loser. Instead it has put forward a new security concept that advocates win-win results. It has also proposed the concept of building a harmonious world, which some might perceive as an Utopian ideal that can never come true. Yet we should never forget that many of the most glorious ideals of humankind seemed beyond our reach at the beginning.
Perhaps there are some who will argue that China’s idea of building a harmonious world is no more than a smokescreen, saying that once it becomes strong it will want to exert hegemony in the world. Yet a better understanding of Chinese history and culture would change peoples' minds on that. The Chinese are a peace-loving nation, and particularly cherish the value of peace after suffering foreign invasions in their recent history. The late Deng Xiaoping made a bold commitment to the UN General Assembly in the early 1970s when he said China would never seek hegemony, because if one day it were to do so, people around the world both would and should unite to defeat her. It was a commitment that reflected – then and now – China’s love of peace.