China’s plans to support global development not a ‘historic contest’ of us-versus-them
Print Edition
There is an expression that “a strange rock can produce jade.” This proverb is a way of saying that one should look first at the merits of others, rather than the flaws.
There are certainly many big mouths in China who aren’t afraid to denounce and deride anything Western. The truth though is that China has learned much from the West when it comes to transparency in trade, rule of law and urban planning. The West has learned much as well — taiji and acupuncture being two “exports” of traditional Chinese culture that come immediately to mind.
It was disappointing then to read the claim put forward by Francis Fukuyama that the West is at “risk of ceding the future of Eurasia and other important parts of the world to China and its development model.”
Fukuyama, a senior fellow at Stanford University and Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, was referring to China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative in an article titled “Exporting the Chinese model.”
At the beginning of his article, he defined China’s initiative as “an historic contest … over competing development models … between China, on the one hand, and the US and other Western countries on the other.”
His is a typical point of view tipping in favor of the “us-them” divide.
China does not believe it’s exporting any model. It has just focused on a niche market long overlooked by Western investors — public or private. And that niche market is infrastructure development in many parts of the developing world.
In fact, it could also be called a complement to other investment strategies.
Open to participation
More importantly, China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative is open to participation from all countries. The same is true for the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In exporting its infrastructure technology and capital, China does not seek to close the market to the West.
Indeed, Britain and some other Western countries have already become part of plans to fund infrastructure projects that will facilitate global trade and investment. Professor Fukuyama rightly says: “China’s development model is different from the one currently fashionable in the West.” But he may not have asked the right question when he wrote: “The big question for the future of global politics is straightforward: Whose model will prevail?”
Multiple models
The history of humanity shows that the world has always survived amid multiple ideas and models. It’s never been an either-or game, or a zero-sum game. The East and the West need to learn from each other.
Just as one should not ask whether dumplings will prevail over hamburgers, one should not pitch two development strategies against each other as if they are irreconcilable or incompatible. Let’s not focus on who will prevail, let’s focus on how we can do better together.
Professor Fukuyama further says: “If One Belt, One Road meets Chinese planners’ expectations, the whole of Eurasia, from Indonesia to Poland will be transformed in the coming generation… Polluting industries, too, will be offloaded to other parts of the world… And China’s form of authoritarian government will gain immense prestige, implying a large negative effect on democracy worldwide.”
China has polluting industries of course, but its high-speed trains and solar panels, to name a few, are among the world’s most efficient. To say China will offload its polluting industries to other parts of the world is too much of a sweeping statement.
So is the case of calling Chinese way of government “authoritarian.” The governance structure of AIIB and the way Chinese cooperate with foreign countries can be more democratic than some of the Western practices.
Every part of the world has its own problems, so does China. We should learn from the best of each other and stop labeling each other with sweeping statements.
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