Pax Americana Vs Pax Sinica

 Yuba Nath Lamsal

US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit virtually stirred a hornets’ nest inviting angry reaction from rival China further intensifying tension and tug of war between Beijing and Washington. The successive developments point to the possibility of escalation of conflict turning this area into a new flashpoint of conflict.  Pelosi is not an ordinary politician but third in US leadership position. As per the US order of succession, if offices of the president and vice president remain simultaneously vacant, the Speaker leads the Executive branch. Pelosi’s visit, therefore, is bound to have multi-faceted impacts in the region sending greater geopolitical ripples across the world.

The burgeoning tension between America and China is a clear illustration of rivalry between the existing superpower and the emerging superpower for the domination in global politics. United States has been the dominant power for over seven decades since the World War II. For a brief period, the world witnessed a bipolar order with Soviet Union emerging as a superpower challenging US domination. The bipolar order lived short with Washington again emerging as sole superpower in 1991 when the Soviet empire collapsed, which, according to Vladimir Putin, was ‘the worst geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century’. 

Waning unipolar world 

The US-dominated unipolar world is still a reality but seems to be crumbling with China coming up as a formidable power.  This marks the beginning of the end of five hundred years of Western domination in the world. Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, after Soviet Union’s disintegration, predicted that China would emerge as a challenger to the Washington’s dominant role in the new geopolitical scenario and said ‘US and China would view one another as competitors but not adversaries’. Unlike Lee’s prediction, the US and China view one another as adversaries. 

US tends to call the rivalry with China as ideological contest between liberal democracy and communist authoritarianism, while China portrays it as a civilisational clash exactly what Samuel Huntington prophesised in the ‘Clash of Civilizations’. China is the oldest continuing civilisation with history of over 5,000 years. The Western history is relatively short and US history is even shorter. Chinese admiral Zhen Ye had explored the oceans as far as western Africa in early 15th century — decades earlier than Christopher Columbus explored America. China was more advanced in various sectors including economy and discoveries than European countries, while America was an unknown land. 

China’s advance came to a grinding halt when a cynical emperor in 1433 issued decree to completely cease acts of exploration and ordered to destroy all ships and written documents concerning exploration. The emperor’s decision backpedalled China’s journey to modernity ultimately providing room for the Western countries to colonise China and stealing vast amount of Chinese wealth and resources. Instead Western countries continued their exploration, owing to which they could maintain predominance in the global power politics, which continues even today.  

However, the tide turned recently and Asia is rising fast and firmly of which China’s growth is more impressive than others.  The West and particularly the United States has taken China’s rise followed by its geopolitical assertiveness and strategic projection in the region and beyond as a formidable challenge describing it as an attempt to alter the rules-based international order laid down in the Westphalian and Breton Woods systems. The West, accordingly, devised a multi-pronged strategy including forming alliances to contain China, while Beijing, too, is responding with all possible tools at its disposal to counter the West. 

The recent Taiwan incident is just a symptom with possibility of a full blown conflict in the Indo-Pacific region in case of slight miscalculation and mishandling of the situation by any of the two sides. Alliances of countries are not a new phenomenon but dates back to prehistoric period. The Mahabharat war was not merely between cousins but between two sets of alliance. Kautilya in Mandala Theory says neighbour’s neighbour is friend and he talks about the need for making alliance with enemy’s enemy. 

Thucydides and Machiavelli, too, mention about alliances of nations. Alliances of different hues were constructed and deconstructed in Ottoman, Roman and Byzantine era too.  A grand alliance of major European powers defeated Napoleonic France in early 19th century. The notoriety of the War of the Triple Alliance is still fresh in Latin Americans’ memory. The World War I and World War II were primarily wars between two rival alliances of Europe. The security-based alliance system is the legacy of the Cold War. Alliances are in principle meant for creating deterrence against potential threat and maintaining balance of power.

 In practice, alliances are for controlling international system. The modern alliance system and world order saw a paradigm shift with disintegration of Soviet Union and disbanding of the Warsaw Pact. But the United States and the West kept their security alliance system intact with further enlarging and expanding the NATO in Europe. Enraged by NATO’s eastward expansion, Russia invaded Ukraine creating a renewed Cold War. If war in Europe goes beyond Ukraine, it may trigger World War III. 

Strategic contest 

China is annoyed by the increased US presence and its alliance system based on hub and spoke model accompanied by militarisation in part of the Pacific, and Indian Ocean. Beijing has angrily reacted with projection of its military power in Taiwan Strait and seas around it under the Indo-Pacific Strategy.

 The Indo-Pacific is not a geographic region but a geo-strategic construct encompassing different geographic regions i.e. East Asia, Oceania, South East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and part of Africa and South America. In this Pax Americana vs Pax Sinica rivalry, countries in the region are at odd facing ‘either with us or against us’ situation. Some powers have already joined the alliances but others countries including Nepal cannot afford to take side in this grand strategic contest. It will be wise to for them to stick to their long-held neutrality to stave off potential negative consequences. 

(The author is former ambassador and former chief editor of this daily. lamsalyubanath@gmail.com) 

Published in The Rising Nepal on August 17, 2022

https://risingnepaldaily.com/news/15474