Abstract
China’s interactions with the West are undergoing major power shifts. We show that increasing congruence of values leads to international and domestic cooperation while dissent generates the preconditions for domestic and international confrontation. Using value congruence between China, India, and United States we explore the likely path of international interactions among these three giants. China will become the preeminent nation in the next half-century. If current value trends hold, confrontation between these two giants will rise. Partial accommodation of values can lead to stable competition and a less likely reconciliation of values could lead to cooperation. If confrontation persists, India will be the key power that determines the shape of the future status quo.
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Notes
- 1.
King, G., Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696, in G.E.Barnett, ed., Two Tracts by Gregory King, Johns Hopkins (1936).
- 2.
Several indicators have been proposed to approximate global power or influence. A frequently used measure is the CINC index originally proposed by Singer et al. (1972). This index aggregates three relative components: population military and economic capabilities. Each component is estimated by two equally weighted indicators. Previous work by Kugler and Arbetman (1989) argues that CINC and total outputs are highly correlated. They differ when societies perceive threats or engage in conflict. The CINC presents these as far more powerful than GDP. When threats diminish, the CINC capabilities of such societies drop disproportionally while GDP reflects reality far more accurately. Alternate measures based on military capabilities alone reflect power preparedness. For an extended discussion lease see Kugler and Arbetman (1989); Kugler and Domke (1986); Tammen et al., 2018)
- 3.
Britain maintained a higher per capita income than the United States during their transition in the mid 1970s (Broadberry, 2003)
- 4.
A widely used alternative is the Correlates of War Composite Indicator of National Capability (CINC) composed of six equally weighted indicators—military expenditure, military personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population, and total population (Singer et al., 1972). In Bruce Russett (ed) Peace, War, and Numbers (McVicar, 1975), and Singer (1987). Previous work shows that this index is less reliable than GDP particularly when political controls are imposed in assessing outcomes of conflict (Kugler & Arbetman, 1989; Tammen & Kugler, 2012)
- 5.
Unlike practitioners concerned with current decision options and a short window to determine options usually after a crisis has emerged, we are interested in long-term measures of power. Knorr (1970) differentiated between actual and potential power. We are interested in potential power potential that is not responsive to short term crisis but can be mobilized in response to government demands. For this reason we exclude measures largely based on military capabilities as they can be actualized just prior or during conflict distorting relations between societies that at peace choose to minimize such resources (i.e EU or Japan). For that reason, we exclude measures that are based solely on military preparedness (Treverton & Jones, 2005).
- 6.
The number of ways proposed to operationally measure power are still evolving. After a systematic review we rejected the frequently used Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC) proposed by David Singer et al. (1972). This index combines demographic, military, and economic components into a single indicator. Assessments show that China overtakes the United States in the mid-1990s. In 2015, the last year available, the United States power was only 60% of that of China. This index further suggests that in the 1980–1990 decade, prior to the USSR’s collapse, the United States had only 80% of USSR’s power. We find such assessments not credible. A second indicator recently proposed by Anders et al. (2020) approximates the Surplus Domestic Product (SDP) of a society by GDP purchasing-power parity but excluding marginal populations whose income falls below the poverty line defined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Members of society fully marginalized do not contribute to economic status or presumably add to the ability of nations facing conflict (on this point we differ as marginalized groups constitute most civil war participants). SDP estimate indicates that China overtakes the United States in 2016. Very similar results and overtaking point are obtained using GDP measured by purchasing- power parity to correct for international differences in the price of similar goods. Both SDP and GDP correctly show that the United States towered over the USSR for the USSR had only 75% of US power in the 1980–1990 decade. Arvind Subramanian (2011) proposed a new way to evaluate the economic power of nations. His power measure combines the share of share of world trade, net capital exports and global GDP measured at both market exchange rates and purchasing-power parity. Subramanian assessments show that China overtakes the United States in 2018—2 years later than SDP and GDP. The final assessment that we favor is proposes that national power is an interaction between economic output – reflected by GDP purchasing-power parity and political performance measured by Absolute Political Capacity (APC). This newly developed political performance indicator advanced by Fisunoglu et al. (2020) more effectively reflects the absolute rather than relative political performance of nations (Organski & Kugler, 1980; Kugler & Arbetman, 2018; Tammen & Kugler, 2012) comprising two key subcomponents, (1) political extraction capacity and (2) life expectancy. The former is related to the mobilization of governmental inputs, while the latter is to the value governments return to society through the provision of public goods. As such, APC is intended to capture the product of the interplay between governmental inputs and outputs to assess the political capacity of governments to achieve desired goals. Assessments based on this power indicator; China reaches parity with the United States in 2020. The gap between the US and the USSR during the 1980 and 1990 decade is the largest as the USSR only achieves 48 percent of United States power. Political performance of governments drives these results.
- 7.
Balance of Power (BP) theorists that assume persistent anarchy in all international interactions suggest that parity ensures peace (Waltz, 1979). This argument does not fit with the empirical evidence provided above about power distributions. Indeed, modern “offensive” realists now contend that a conflict between the US and China is “inevitable” depleting the fact that a balance of power between these two contenders has now emerged.
- 8.
- 9.
A number of scholars focused on security arrangements reflected in alliances (Bueno de Mesquita, 1983; Morrow, 1991), others stress economic interactions that generate “interdependence” reflected by reciprocal effects among international actors produced by international transactions that include money, goods, reduces the likelihood of conflict (Keohane and Nye, 1998). Still others focused on military buildups that foreshadow the possibility of dyadic confrontations (Werner & Kugler, 1996). Others argue that both the security and the economic dimension need to be considered to anticipate levels of cooperation among competing nations (Benson and Jacek 1998) From a different perspective compilation initiated by Eduard Azar’s COBDAB data and his many followers use event data to account for the level of cooperation among nations.
- 10.
Value measures of satisfaction unlike alliance correlations, still the most widely used measure of satisfaction, frequently comingle robust alliances with fragile ones. Alliances like those between the United States and Britain are robust and built on long-term common values. Value differences also detect changes within alliances like NATO where changing values show that the Turkey-USA alliance is seemingly dissolving, but such changes are not reflected in alliance structures. Likewise, alliances like those between Saudi Arabia and the United States that hold antithetical values are fragile reflect only temporal economic and security concerns.
- 11.
Yeşilada et al. (2017) show that Brexit resulted from persistent difference in values between the UK and the rest of the EU members. As integration in the EU community strengthened and most large members were moving strongly towards Post-Materialist and Secular values now held by Scandinavian. British values shifted towards the Traditional—Post Materialist prior to Brexit generating a gap in values. China and Russia fall in the Materialist-Secular quadrant and are moving closer.
- 12.
We agree with Realist scholars that anarchy can be present in international interactions but reject the notion that it is the prevalent norm. Competition and even cooperation account for far more interactions than does confrontation. Moreover, political interactions at the domestic and international level are similar but only the frequency of behaviors vary. Interactions in failed states or those undergoing a civil war approach anarchy a behavior not different from that Germany and the United Kingdom engaged prior to World War II or the United States and the USSR during much of the long Cold War.
- 13.
To construct the satisfaction series the indicator distance from the US is used. The Secular- Postmaterialist index is weighted for democratic and authoritarian values using Polity V index. The distance between countries is calculated as
Weight = 1 + |distance from US|/(max distance from US)
Adjusted value distance = (value distance)*(weight)
Polity V indicates that on a scale of 1–10, USA is 10 but in wave 7 it becomes 8 (more authoritarian) The EU is represented by Germany or France for the period.
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Zeng, Y., Kugler, J., Tammen, R.L. (2023). A Chinese Century: A Stable or Unstable World?. In: Attinà, F., Feng, Y. (eds) China and World Politics in Transition. Global Power Shift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27358-2_3
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