Friedberg, Ikenberry discuss China’s global role at lecture

Wilson School professors Aaron Friedberg and John Ikenberry debated the rise of China and its implications for the United States’ hegemony and foreign policy in the Whig Hall Senate Chamber on Thursday night.

Ikenberry opened the discussion with a recognition of China’s increasing importance in the world order and the challenges it will pose for American leadership.

Noting that China is seeking to transfer its growing economic power into international political influence, Ikenberry said that this move into the political arena has frightened smaller Asian countries and represented a new rivalry with the United States.

Though he said that the United States will need to take this competition seriously and “put China at the center of its grand strategy,” Ikenberry emphasized that the Asian nation will need to build its global presence within the confines of an existing, liberal order that has been developing for the last 60 years. This international order, organized around a set of ideas such as open trade, democratic solidarity and human rights, is easy to join but difficult to change.

Like India and Brazil, China was not present at the creation of this world order, so it will have to reconcile its differences with other nations and accommodate the order’s rules to integrate successfully.

However, “rising nations ... want a seat at the table,” Ikenberry said, and added that “the United States will have to give up some of its hegemony.”

Friedberg said that the competitive pressures between the two nations is “not the result of misperception and misunderstanding ... but rather they are the product of two fundamental forces at work.” One cause of friction is America’s long dominance in world affairs, which has created Chinese resentment and fostered their desire to help run the show. The second source of tension is China’s ideology, which, though no longer Marxist, is focused on the preservation and protection of the Communist Party. In China’s eyes, the United States is a “crusading liberal power” seeking to convert other nations to its own democratic model.

Both countries have developed distinctive strategies for coping with each other over the years, Friedberg explained. China’s strategy has three components: to avoid unnecessary confrontation with the United States; to build “comprehensive national power” by shoring up its economy, military technology and diplomacy; and to incrementally expand its international influence. He estimated that by 2050, China’s power would in many respects equal that of the United States.

Throughout this strategy China’s goal has been to preserve communist rule, Friedberg said, but also to make “the world safer for authoritarianism.” The nation will not feel safe, he said, until this transformation has been achieved.

Conversely, U.S. policy has consisted of two measures: engaging with China over issues of mutual interest such as education and technology, while reinforcing cooperation with Asian countries threatened by the nation’s rise. The United States has strengthened its ties in recent years with India, Vietnam and Japan to maintain the regional balance of power.

The goals of this strategy, Friedberg said, “have been to tame China ... but also over time to transform China,” by introducing it to more liberal, democratic practices.

He disagreed with Ikenberry’s belief in China’s eventual integration into the world order, pointing to China’s controversial actions toward Taiwan, its growing control over the South China Sea and frequent violations of human rights. “It’s too optimistic ... to argue that they’re simply going to be embraced by and embrace the existing system of norms,” he said.

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“The weight of China’s economy ... is exerting gravitational pull on all the countries around it,” Friedberg said when asked about China’s economic influence on surrounding countries. The economic connections China is building with other nations will cause them to think twice before taking steps that China doesn’t approve of, such as working with the West.

Ikenberry also pointed to this greater international attention on China’s economy. Other countries, he said, are “looking to the dragon for economics and to the eagle for security.”