With more than 70 countries in the BRI network already, why should China not be far ahead of all other countries in the global leadership game? China's potential world leadership elevates a different 'co-relationship of forces' than the United States. Though military and economic conditions can carry an egg-chicken (causal-effect) relationship, the United States made the military the egg component of its leadership equation, China the economic. Yet, the more China ascends that ladder, the more it resorts to the military. Whether this is a crucial debate, or a set of destabilising footprints, or indeed both, 21st century world leadership cannot but be more coercive than benevolent, given the growing competition. Followers, for instance, will have to pay more of the costs and expect fewer benefits from the hegemonic country. Donald J. Trump's demand that Europeans pay more for collective security than before might serve as the template of future US change. China is already imposing tolls. Its approach is far more nuanced.
'Not a shot fired' cannot be an exclusive Chinese leadership claim. Britain's 19th Century leadership began with free trade. If it 'ruled' the waves, it clearly did not rule the actual leadership playground, West Europe: its 'balancer' role presupposed comparable continental powers. Because of this limitation, Great Britain turned to the United States when its leadership role was threatened in the early 20th century. US leadership, contrariwise, began with World War II military domination (even though it was already the world's largest economy).
China's military resort began only recently, with the construction of islands to serve as military outposts and the reversion to politically manage BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) debts. Just as the US leadership climb was amid the severe 1930s economic depression (with the adoption of the first of its collective goods, reciprocal trade), so too did China's take-off with the 2008-10 Great Recession: it displaced Japan as the second largest economy eight years ago, and is predicted to do likewise to the largest economy, the United States, in as many years more (another severe economic meltdown might signal this). China's single-mindedly leadership pursuit began in 1979, drew attention but did not raise alarm, and no checks-and-balances were ever placed until it was too late.
Trade allowed it to exploit low-wage production. Backed by aggressive marketing in a very neo-liberal atmosphere, it racked up surpluses every year when other countries, especially competitors, were too engrossed in defensive action, not against China as much as economic shocks (the United States in the 1980s, Japan in the 1990s). Cutting a long story short, China's accumulating surpluses allowed it to (a) modernise its own military through unprecedented western arms purchases; (b) scoop up its vitally needed raw materials worldwide, in case of emergencies; (c) confront equally vitally needed energy imports with its infrastructure-building BRI investments in and across lesser-developed countries; (d) convert this BRI network into a string of military outposts, ostensibly to safeguard oil-supplies, but capable of front-line military engagements, if needed; and (e) lock borrowing countries into a debt-trap, guaranteeing their future followership while quashing any defection plans.
China's leadership philosophy evolved accordingly. Whereas the United States turned to multilateralism once fully safeguarded by the most secure military order that could be found (not just the atomic bombing of Japan even as Japan was close to defeat, but also a string of military alliances the world over), China's have remained as prosaic foreign policy principles. Kawashima Shin outlined three of them: national sovereignty, centrality, and internationalism ("China's foreign policy at a crossroads," Nippon, October 29, 2012, translated version, from: https:// www.nippon.com/en/in-dept/a008041). Unlike US multilateralism or a military order not having a domestic platform, these Chinese foreign policy principles were designed to forge global leadership traits: national sovereignty abroad only means a safeguard against regionalism or globalising forces; centrality abroad translates into China as the global headquarter; and internationalism thwarts mercantilist tendencies, not to mention dilute globalisation threats.
Building Confucian institute is integral to China's leadership efforts depicting 'culture' as a necessary part of China's leadership. Begun in 2004, China now has over 500 such 'educational' institutes, largely imparting the Chinese language and promoting Chinese culture. Shin argues Chinese leadership shifted from a soft to hard power pivot in 2006: China's 'development-first' strategy was replaced by a security-based priority. Not surprisingly, the BRI framework would toe this line from 2013: projected as an economic blueprint, it serves as the security vanguard of Chinese hegemony even as it is being dubbed (or sold) as a '21st Century Great Silk Route'.
It filled a gap anxious neighbours took too long to notice, replenish, or both. Of course, they could not match China's armament expansion for the sheer lack of funds that China alone can flaunt today. Instead, they have adopted a collective approach. Included in the grouping are Australia (the Asian locus of western interests, serving first as a British platform, then as a US partner); India (from simmering differences with China, softly from a century ago, but more bluntly from its humiliating 1962 defeat); Japan (the last country to invade China, as China likes to remind Japan every now and then today), and the United States (the country China hopes to replace, and the country that wants to prevent that from happening).
China's world leadership recalls prior historical instances when it alone ruled much of the known world, the only world-leading country to make that claim. It also shifts the leadership fulcrum outside of its traditional grounds, whether West Europe, the Atlantic, or Euroasia. If its commercial springboard revives elements of British hegemony, it also resurrects the naval component of world leadership from Alfred Thayer Mahan's 1890s thesis: though Mahan addressed his naval power to a United States looking for a fight with Spain, aerial power ultimately became the mainstay of US hegemony since World War II.
Perhaps the most distinguishing Chinese hegemonic trait is the absence of any collective goods. These are goods (like military security, free trade, foreign aid, currency, and so forth), fully paid by the leading country for the benefit of all other countries in the alliance network, and perhaps the inducement to help build that very alliance. Britain used portfolio investment and imperial trade, as well as an imperious navy; the United States foreign direct investment, multilateral trade, currency, foreign aid, and serve as a military umbrella for many countries. China supplies all of the above (or is set to supply them in the years to come), but taxes them in a way Britain and the United States did not.
This is the cutting-edge of Chinese leadership: champion LDC (least developed country) sovereignty so these countries could borrow money as needed from China to bridge the gap with DCs (developed countries); impose escalating interests and punitive measures upon LDC defaulters, with the 'stick' disguised by too many 'carrots' to be noticed by contract signatories; and, ultimately, intricately interlink LDC borrowers with China so tightly as to thwart easy extrication. With more than 70 countries in the BRI network already, why should China not be far ahead of all other countries in the global leadership game?
Dr. Imtiaz A. Hussain is Professor & Head of the Department of Global Studies & Governance at Independent University, Bangladesh.
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