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In Honor of the Chinese New Year - Chinese Business and Politics

by polrick on February 9th, 2008

Everyone who thinks about either politics or business has an opinion about China. In the September 2007 edition of the top journal Perspectives on Politics, University of Virginia Professor Jeffrey W. Legro explains why he thinks most of these opinions are wrong.

In his article, “What China Will Want: The Future Intentions of a Rising Power,” Legro contends that China is currently a Status Quo Power, which means that China has no interest in seeking changes to the international economic or political system. Three big examples of China’s deepening integration are its membership in the World Trade Organization, its participation in G-8 meetings, and its cooperation with the US on anti-terrorist activities.

Yet many scholars and US policymakers think China is likely to become a Revisionist Power, the sort of country that wants to force big changes. They point to China’s dissatisfaction with external pressures to democratize and its displeasure with the Taiwan situation.
There are, Legro says, two dominant perspectives on China.

1. The Power Theory: Although China may truly believe that its rise to power will be peaceful, as it gains more political and economic clout it will inevitably seek changes in the international system. The other status quo powers of today must work to limit China’s power, or eventually China will try to challenge the current international distribution of power.
2. The Interdependence Theory: As China becomes more integrated into the international system, it becomes more interdependent, and hence more conservative. Other countries should continue to engage China, drawing it deeper into the current world order and making it more difficult for China to strike out on its own and challenge the status quo.

Legro argues that these two perspectives miss something of great importance - the power of ideas. People who focus only on GDP, military spending, and other concrete measures are prone to forgetting that ideas are as influential as power or economics.

By ideas, Legro doesn’t just mean the private thoughts of individual persons. He means “the collective beliefs of societies and organizations about how to act” … “embedded … in the collective memories, national symbols, government procedures, education systems, and rhetoric of statecraft” of each state. His point is that just as there are trends in fashion, there are trends in ideas about politics and economics. For instance, isolationism was a major intellectual trend in the US for decades. This isolationism, the idea that the US should not become entangled in international affairs, was so widespread that even after victory in World War I, rather than bursting onto the global stage as a major player, the US turned back in upon itself, shunning the leading international role that other countries assumed it would take. Everyone who followed the US rise to power during World War I thought the US would stay involved in global affairs, but they didn’t realize the importance of the idea of isolationism. Ideas mattered just as much as power.

Legro reminds us that at present, there are two major ideas in Chinese society that generate support for the international status quo:

1. The belief that integrating into the current global economic order provides the best avenue towards domestic Chinese economic development. This idea is so widespread that the legitimacy of the Chinese government itself rests not on socialist ideology, but on continued economic development. If Chinese economic development falters, its government is likely to experience a crisis of legitimacy.
2. Integrating into the existing international system enhances the sovereignty of the Chinese state. Dominant Chinese ideas consider territorial integrity and political independence the two most important aspects of sovereignty.

Therefore, Legro says, “the durability of China’s integrationist foreign policy … will depend on how results match social expectations related to economic growth and sovereignty.” A decline in China’s economic growth or increasing challenges to its sovereignty would violate the ideas the Chinese have about integrating into the status quo. Revisionist groups, those that want China to challenge the international order, would then likely increase in number and importance, changing Chinese ideas and leading China to pursue changes to today’s global economic and political order.

In order to help keep China a status quo state, Legro suggests that we be pro-active. We should not simply react to new developments in Chinese economics or politics, we should nurture groups in Chinese government and society that espouse integrationist ideas and help to marginalize groups with revisionist beliefs.

Overall, we in business and politics should become more aware of the power that ideas - shared, influential beliefs about proper means and ends - have over us all. China will only continue to support the international status quo as long as it believes that this system provides the best environment for the achievement of the goals that it thinks are best for it. Helping to manage Chinese ideas today will be far more efficient than reacting to Chinese actions tomorrow.

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POSTED IN: Democracy Elsewhere, New Research