THE CLOSING OF THE WEST: RISING TRADE BARRIERS NO SOLUTION
Following the collapse of the ‘Eastern Bloc’ culminating in the demise of the Soviet Union in 1990, the US political scientist, Francis Fukuyama made the confident claim that humanity had reached the ‘end of history’ with the triumph of the West, there being no other conceivable option for humanity other than the ‘Western liberal democratic model.’ Such rapidly became orthodoxy among the vast majority of Western intellectuals, self constrained in their analysis, in a type of ‘group think.’
Such Western confidence has now been revealed as arrogance. Rather than standing at the ‘end of history’ the global order is standing at a new beginning of history, or perhaps a return to history. While the West was resting on its laurels new fast-flowing currents were at work in the East, particularly in China, but also in India and much of South-East Asia.
Being unable to conceive of any other option than being ‘top dog,’ the West has conveniently bracketed the historical reality that its dominance over the past 300 years is but an interregnum from the usual dominance of the East. That interregnum which begun with the sailing of Portuguese caravels around the world in the 15th and 16th centuries, followed by the ships of Spain, Holland, France and especially England, is now at an end. The concluding of classical colonial power in the 1950s, following the draining of those nation’s strengths in World War II, was followed by the ascendency of another Anglo power, the US, projecting dominance not through classical colonialism, but rather through neo-colonialism centred on economic control.
This dominance, resting upon a teleological understanding, resulted in the West feeling a need to bring its ‘values,’ understood as benevolent, to the world. Still today the current Western power, the US speaks of itself as ‘exceptional,’ ‘having ‘a divine mandate.’
The West is unable to conceive of any other means of exercising power. China, however has always shown another way. A century before the Western conquest of the globe, the Yongle emperor Zhu Di under Admiral Zheng He commanded a fleet of 3,500 ships, like none the world would see for hundreds of years, some five times the size (120 meters long) of the Portuguese caravels. In a series of voyages these ships travelled to South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Never, however, did they assert any type of power later associated with Western colonialism.
Zhu Gaochi the emperor succeeding Zhu Di, under the influence of an aristocracy and court civil service, feeling under threat from an emerging merchant class, had the fleet destroyed, as China turned in on itself, something which proved disastrous.
Closing itself off from the sure sure of its self-sufficiency China gradually became enfeebled to the point that eventually the Western powers, particularly Britain, were able to run roughshod over it. The result was China’s century of humiliation, during which the nation lost territory, and forfeited effective control of its governance, being reduced to a vassal state.
That humiliation continued until, following the 1949 coming to power of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong, declared that, ‘the Chinese people have stood up.’
That ‘standing up’ gathered pace from the 1980s as China, reversing its closed door policy held since the Ming Dynasty, opened itself to the world. The result has been phenomenal. From a GDP of just $218.50 billion in 1978 at the commencement of the opening up, Chinese GDP now stands at $17,889 billion making it the world’s second largest economy, while in terms of PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) it is the world’s largest, some 20% larger than the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_China The opening up to the world initiated under Deng Xiaoping has borne great fruit, the greatest being the lifting of 800 million Chinese out of poverty.
Through its leadership in institutions such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, along with the Belt and Road Initiative, China is now taking that model to the world, something which has proved to be popular among many nations of the Global South, still freeing themselves from Western colonial and neo-colonial exploitative relations. China also has taken a lead in multilateral bodies across the globe, in the UN and its agencies, the IMF, World Bank, and WTO., many of these being agencies which the US especially increasingly distrusts as it withdraws into an isolationism.
Ironically while China is benefitting from this opening up, the West is moving into a new era of protectionism, ostensively centred around national security concerns, but often due to a realisation that they cannot complete with Chinese technology and innovation. Increasingly there is a resort to outright bans, as with Chinese telecommunications, and tariff walls against such Chinese exports as electric vehicles.
As with the reactive Chinese elites in the Ming dynasty, we are now seeing the same in the West, where economic elites are using their power to coerce their governments into policies designed to secure them an artificial advantage. As China found to its great cost, this is no way to prosper economically.
While the West, particularly the US, disengage from multilateral organisations, pulling up drawbridges, the words of Xi Jinping, appropriately using nautical images, are apposite, ‘If one is afraid of bracing the storm and exploring the new world, they will sooner or later get drowned in the ocean. Therefore, China took a brave step to embrace the market. We have had our fair share of chocking in the water encountered whirlpools and choppy waves. But we have learned how to swim in this process.. It has proved to be a right strategic choice…whether you like it or not, the global market is the big ocean you cannot escape from.’ https://america.cgtn.com/2017/01/17/full-text-of-xi-jinping-keynote-at-the-world-economic-forum