The Political-Military Foundations of China’s Global Ascendency

Abstract

In recent years China has positioned itself as a global economic leader, working through its “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), to not only expand its global economic reach, but to organize and lead global economic relations. China’s rise is largely understood in economic terms, but the history of global power dynamics suggests that such leadership is built on both economic and political-military foundations. This paper explores the structural relationship between China’s economic and political-military relationships with other states over the period 1993 to 2015. Drawing on a wide variety of data sources, we present a multi-dimensional analysis that measures the changing size of China’s economic and political-military networks, their shifting regional distribution, and the degree of coupling, or decoupling of economic ties from political-military ties. In describing these patterns, we conduct a similar analysis for the United States. This allows us to situate Chinese trends in the context of the structures of U.S. global power. Our analysis points to ways in which China’s global rise has been shaped through navigating U.S. global power. Our analysis also shows that China’s growing leadership in the global economy builds upon a set of existing political-military relationships that, while their scope and form are quite different from those that the United States built to support its hegemonic ascendency, are nevertheless critical for understanding the mechanisms by which Chinese power and influence has grown in the global political economy.

Shades of Red

“…My findings, however, counter Stuenkel's 2016 thesis on emerging multipolarity as Beijing has been shown to best Johannesburg economically within the latter's purported periphery of SSA, thus possibly supporting scholarship on emerging Sino-U.S. bipolarity with China economically towering above other BRICS rivals in large areas of the periphery, especially as what little economic clout Moscow once wielded over central Asia has been declawed via sanctions. In addressing bifurcation, however, I further concur with Major and Luo (2019) on Beijing not neglecting its military capacities but weaving them into its BRI expansion through military institutions and shifting to sea power; possibly setting the stage for more pronounced armed assertiveness as has been witnessed on the African continent, its UN operations, and Pakistan (Wolf 2020). Moreover, along with the connectivity of markets and land through the BRI comes the connectivity between minds as media outlets proliferate across BRI participant-states run by Beijing-trained journalists, with Beijing attracting growing numbers of foreign states overwhelmingly from BRI participatory states, and weaving Mandarin into the BRI as its lingua franca.…”

“…Military institutions also have been established to support China within the BRI and give Beijing an increased role in security provision, which has been Washington's competency, such as regional defense agreements which also can facilitate political and economic agendas (Major and Luo 2019). These include the Forum of China-Africa Defense and Security Cooperation, meant to protect members in the event of an attack (Han and Paul 2020).…”

“…China has been increasing its participation in transnational military cooperation, frequently assuming leadership duties in UN Peacekeeping missions, proving its capacity and willingness to jwsr.pitt.edu | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2023.1184 lead on the global military level (Major and Luo 2019). In Africa, Chinese troop contributions to UN peacekeeping missions have grown in SSA from low hundreds in the 2000s to over 2,000 at present (Devermont 2020).…”

“…However, there are no specific states mentioned in Ikenberry's (2016) arguments and the recent fall of Kabul exposes the limits of sustaining Washington's security umbrella. Major and Luo (2019) counter bifurcationists by finding no evidence of Washington actively dissociating its economic relationships from its political-military apparatus as both have been expanding. This is further evidenced by the BRI incorporating its own military-industrial complex (Nakazawa 2018).…”