In the past few years, much attention has focused on the so-called Thucydides Trap, the thesis first postulated by Graham Allison that, in heavily unipolar skewed international systems, the dominant hegemonic power is reluctant and often unable or unwilling to acquiescence and accommodate the rise of a revisionist power, creating pressures leading to open conflict. This does imply there is an inexorable outcome of war, but that the risk of conflict is heightened significantly under these circumstances. In Allison’s analysis, of the 16 case studies he reviewed, 12 resulted in conflict, the most recent (and applicable to our current relationship with China) being Germany’s rise, from unification following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the eve of August 1914. China’s path is different from the German Empire, but there are certainly enough similarities to give pause and reflection among policymakers and planners.
In this post, rather than focus on the forces attendant in the rapid rise and displacement effects of an ascendant global power, I’ll focus on some commonalities across non-democratic states preceding their eventual collapse. Global systems are more conducive to accommodation when both the ascendant power and the incumbent hegemon are democratic political systems sharing similar values with respect to rights, freedoms, and the role of the state in society. The British Empire, with a constitutional parliamentarian democracy (albeit one that had not yet allowed for women’s suffrage) was far more able and willing to accommodate the rise of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as both nations were democratic systems. Can the same be said about the U.S. and China? And is China a stable enough economic and political system to be up to the task of peacefully displacing the U.S. in the Asia Pacific?
Throughout history, at least over the past 300 years, autocratic regimes that fell to revolutions often exhibited a set of attributes. These include, in specific order:An origin mythology and/or rationalizing mythology that serves to legitimate the ruling party or system. Examples include the Bourbon Monarchy’s claims as the Sun Kings under an absolutist rulership, or historical tradition and the rights of rulership in Iran under the Shah or Russia under the Tsars.
Sovereign financial distress created by expensive state projects, such as the funding of a war or foreign war, leading to a crippling of state finances and need to extract new revenues from the elite.
Economic distress caused by financial distress, such as inflationary pressures caused by debasing domestic currency to pay foreign debts.
A fissure among the elite or aristocrats, often times over whether they should allow the monarch or ruling party to extract further revenues.
A vast censorship apparatus that prevents the spread of information and opinions that may light a fire in the populace, giving otherwise apolitical, milquetoast-minded individuals a new set of organizing principles to direct their frustrations.
A ruling elite that have long ago lacked charismatic leadership and cult of personality individuals to offset other growing countervailing pressures on the regime.
Lastly, oftentimes an exogenous event, be it a pandemic, famine, reluctant participation in a war, economic collapse outside the boundaries of the sovereign state in question, or other external, unanticipated event that forces a potentially cataclysmic chain of events.
China under the CCP seems to sit conveniently in each of these categories. The origin myth is the role the CCP played in liberating China from the 100 years of humiliation, first through (and couched in) the ideological confines of communism, and later as the proclaimed steward of China’s continuous economic rise; that China cannot reclaim its self-proclaimed position as the most powerful country in the world, economically and militarily, without the CCP at the helm.
Financial distress leading to economic distress. Though this has not yet materialized, it may in the near future. China’s model of economic growth is sufficiently different from Western-style capitalism comparisons seem less useful. But the extensive, still largely poorly understand, pervasiveness of bad, non-performing debt in the economy and the sustained, persistent shifting of economic power from households, as savers, to the state industrial sector, as borrowers, continues to create gross imbalances and distortions that may become increasingly difficult to unwind. The return on assets—a measure of profitability—of state enterprises continues to be well below that of private sector businesses, and yet these often gargantuan state enterprises claim the lion’s share of state bank lending, crowding out lending to more efficiently run and managed private businesses.
Censorship. China maintains a highly sophisticated state apparatus for controlling the flow of information, as has been well documented and reported outside China.
To be continued in a future post…
Spencer Cohen PhD 柯西本 