China Open Source Observatory

Characteristics of the New Cycle in the Development of International Relations

Zhu Feng

March 3, 2019

国际关系发展新周期的特点

Introduction

‍ Note: The following translation is one of six entries in a roundtable discussion convened by two state think tanks in the spring of 2019. Participants were all eminent Chinese academics. Their task was to analyze the slogan “Great Changes Unseen in a Century.” A general introduction to the seminar and the slogan it discusses can be found here.

When Zhu Feng surveyed the international scene in 2019, he saw a world of unseen dangers, unstable orthodoxies, and uncertain futures. His contribution to this roundtable concedes that “in terms of the allocation of rights, wealth and interests” the “great changes unseen in a century” identified by the party leadership “are the result of China’s unprecedented advance toward the center of the world stage,” but this advance towards greatness does not ease his worries. He worries that China rises as the world fractures. Zhu fears that these once-in-a-century fractures might be enough to derail China’s journey to the center of a new world order.

Zhu’s contribution to the roundtable is preoccupied with the institutional and ideological failure of what Zhu calls “traditional liberal internationalism.” He tells us that “the United States’ most fundamental hegemonic value system… is at present encountering unprecedented challenges.” The developing world no longer “proceeds according to the Western model,” but has instead become a “site of experimentation in ideology.” China and Russia go further still, “holding high the banner” of anti-liberalism. But the most important developments have occurred within the West itself, as Americans and Europeans have turned their back on the path they pioneered. “As the transformation of the world commences,” Zhu concludes, “all that any country can do is to strengthen its own national power, [then] return to the cult of ethno-nationalism and a reliance on political strongmen.”

All of the entries in this roundtable were originally delivered as spoken comments at a seminar co-hosted by Nanjing University’s China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea and were subsequently published by Asia Pacific Security and Maritime Affairs, the center’s policy journal. For the sake of publication, most participants rewrote their comments as tightly argued essays. Zhu, who heads center, seems to have gotten away with publishing his comments as delivered. His piece is looser, less organized, and more informal than the other scholars’ arguments; it can be difficult to discern how Zhu’s many points cohere into a single whole.

The most likely connecting thread comes with the closing warning of Zhu’s piece: “[Our] problem is that we lack the awareness that our rise as a great power brings not only the prospect for glory, but even more so the specter of risk.” This comment bore the mark of its times: no intellectual would accuse the Beijing foreign policy elite of underplaying “the specter of risk” today. For the last three years both academic and official discussion of “great changes unseen in a century” have been paired with increasingly dire assessments of risk.1 As Xi stated in his report to the 20th Congress:

Great changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world… the once-in-a-century pandemic has had far-reaching effects; a backlash against globalization is rising; and unilateralism and protectionism are mounting… The world has entered a new period of turbulence and change… [where] external attempts to suppress and contain China may escalate at any time.

Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising… We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared for danger in times of peace, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms.2

When General Secretary Xi declared that the world was undergoing “great changes unseen in a century” for the first time, the phrase was tinged with triumph.3 No longer. Now Xi Jinping, like Zhu Feng before him, uses the slogan to describe his fears of once-in-a-century risks.

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— THE EDITORS

  1. ‍ 1 For an extensive discussion on this theme, see Taylor Fravel, “Testimony before the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, hearing on US-China Relations at the Chinese Communist Party’s Centennial,” 28 January 2021, pp.1-7; See also Sheena Chesnut Greitens, “Internal Security & Chinese Strategy,” Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, hearing on “The United States’ Strategic Competition with China,” 8 June 2021, pp. 3-4 and Greitens, “Xi Jinping’s Quest for Order: Security at Home, Influence Abroad, ”Foreign Affairs, 3 October 2022.
  2. 2 Slightly adapted from Xi Jinping, “Transcript: President Xi Jinping’s report to China’s 2022 party congress,” Nikkei Asia (18 October 2022). In Chinese the passage reads:
    ‍
    世界百年未有之大变局加速演进….  世纪疫情影响深远，逆全球化思潮抬头，单边主义、保护主义明显上升…. 世界进入新的动荡变革期… 我国发展进入战略机遇和风险挑战并存…. 我们必须增强忧患意识，坚持底线思维，做到居安思危、未雨绸缪，准备 .受风高浪急甚 至惊涛骇浪的重大考验。
  3. 3 See the introductory page to this roundtable for a translation of Xi’s original statement and a discussion of the context in which it was given.
Characteristics of the New Cycle in the Development of International Relations国际关系发展新周期的特点
Originally Written By
Zhu Feng
Translated By
Samuel George
Publisher
Asia Pacific Security and Maritime Affairs

The new configuration brought about by the “great changes unseen in a century” is expressed on two levels, which are linked by an unprecedented historical connection. As the world changes, China also changes. The intensity of China’s yearning for change was at its height during the forty years of Reform and Opening. The greatest transformation we have passed through was Reform and Opening. However, China’s Reform and Opening was a step-by-step, top-down process.4 Today, it is possible that China has started to enter a bottom-up process of transformation, which we can treat as an object of academic research. China’s transformation is, as Trump called it, a two-way process.5

I summarize the changes in the world into four categories.

The first is the structure of power and wealth, in which an unprecedented balance between East and West has emerged.

The second are alternatives to traditional political paths, such as so-called “universal values,” European Populism, the rise of right-wing forces, and so forth.

The third is the question of identity. We talk about the unprecedented fragmentation of globalization, worldviews, and ideologies. So what is the fundamental reason for the crisis of identity? It is an extremely simple and fundamental social phenomenon. On a certain level, societies adapt to certain concepts, certain organizational systems, and certain structures, but after a period of time develop internal tensions and contradictions and must undertake a new [round of] adjustment. Therefore, [this observation] offers a very simple perspective on our understanding of international relations: that it is a type of social organism, including all of the characteristics of a social organism.6

The fourth is the crisis of governance mechanisms. No matter whether [we look at] global governance, regional governance, or national governance, all are facing unprecedented challenges. In this context, the new trends, characteristics, and trajectory of the future—to return to research on international relations—are the consequence of the cyclical laws that govern all change and development in international relations. Now is the start of a new cycle. This new cycle has three very important characteristics that are worth noting.

The first is re-globalization. The very same favorable and affirming factors on which globalization originally depended are at the present moment being gravely challenged and repudiated. I remember going to Europe and the U.S. before 2008—particularly in Europe [this phenomenon] was very typical—and the post-industrialism they spoke of in Europe had become post-modernism, and there was another concept called post-urbanism. Europeans thought that a way of life [defined by] this type of supra-democracy would persist; today, it looks like it is unable to persist.

Another issue is the American dollar. We know that America is an exponent of financial capitalism, and the financial services industry makes up 80%.7 In the past 30 years, two countries have been the most successful: one is China and the other is America. In the past 30 years, the U.S. doubled its GDP and its real economy has not only not declined, but rather has continued to grow. But the U.S. has structural problems, including a clear division of labor between different social strata, and so populism is on the rise.

The second is the re-configuration of ideology. Traditional liberal internationalism, the United States’ most fundamental hegemonic value system, is at present encountering unprecedented challenges. Liberal internationalism is undergoing a major adjustment and the U.S. is again changing its strategic thinking in relation to its responsibilities and duties [on the one hand], and its balance of interests [on the other]. The United States is returning to the very simple grand strategy of Americentrism and the so-called “ethno-state.”8 This is not just happening in the economic realm, but is [happening] to an even greater extent in the security realm. This perspective is therefore the second characteristic of the new cycle. Indeed, the world’s mainstream ideology has already exhibited unprecedented diversification:

One variety [of this diversification] is that the U.S. has moved towards an unusual alternative ideology. Americans themselves all feel that things are not the same as they were before. As the American media says, the question of whether Trump is the mouthpiece for Russian interests is no longer simply an issue confined to the election or even to the political and economic career of Trump himself.

The second variety [of this diversification] is the centrality of new powers, represented by China and Russia; we [Russia and China] both hold this particular banner high. Liberalism has been weakened in Europe, which today is a major problem. “Brexit” is Britain’s ideological choice, and also a choice based on Britain’s interests. It is another novel political and social viewpoint of the present day.

The third variety is [seen in] the diversity of ideology in developing countries: the 92 year-old Mahathir won the election in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia is undertaking secular reforms, Venezuela’s socialist revolution has become a joke. The ideology in developing countries is unprecedentedly diverse. Vietnam is currently attempting democratic-socialist development.

Today, developing countries are the liveliest sites of experimentation with ideology in international relations. They are not simply proceeding according to the Western model and the Eastern model [of ideology] but are seeking models that suit their own situation.

The third is the re-emergence of nationalism. People have observed that [developments in] global governance and regional governance have clearly been deferred. We can see that this is the case in Asia and in the African Union; looking at the European Union, if Germany and Italy also choose to follow [the example of] “Brexit,” then the European Union will face the danger of dissolution. As the transformation of the world commences and a new cycle [in international relations] emerges, all that any country can do is to strengthen its own national power, [then] return to the cult of ethno-nationalism and a reliance on political strongmen. Japan is a textbook case.  Abe proposed to pursue a new national strategy. Since the end of World War II, Japan has never advanced a major power strategy, based on the consensus of all Japanese people, as openly as it does today. Turkey is also a textbook case, as Erdogan seems to be [seeking to] restore Turkey to the Great Power status it enjoyed under the Ottoman Empire. And to an even greater extent, India is exhibiting an unprecedented level of self-confidence.

The future of the world is not just a tale of gloom. But exactly what kind of improvements will the characteristics of the new cycle in world politics bring to world politics? On this point, questions remain.

The “great changes unseen in a century” that Chairman Xi Jinping speaks of cohere completely with the [proclamations of] the 19th Party Congress; that is, emphasizing the configuration [created by] China’s unprecedented entry onto the world stage. This is the most important interpretation of the “great changes unseen in a century.” From this perspective, the century’s great changes are the result of China’s unprecedented advance toward the center of the world stage in terms of the allocation of rights, wealth and interests. The problem, however, is that we lack the awareness that our rise as a great power brings with it not only the prospect for glory, but even more so the specter of risk.9 In the present era, this risk is not just a simple question of war and peace.

In the future of this new cycle in the world’s political development, will China be able to further reduce the gap between itself and the United States, or will it, like Japan in the late 1980s, experience a precipitous decline and fall even further behind the United States? From the perspective of the history of international relations, you can count on one hand the number of times a great power has truly succeeded in rising. It is possible that China will face unprecedented strategic setbacks in its rise as a great power once again. This is a potential problem that we must analyze.

  1. 4 Though this is a common understanding of Reform and Opening both inside China and outside it, careful scholarship has demonstrated that most of the process of reform was often driven from the bottom up. See, for example, Frank Dikotter, “The silent revolution: Decollectivization from below during the Cultural Revolution,” China Quarterly 277 (2016), 796–811; Ning Wang and Ronald Coase, How China Became Capitalist (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 112-133, 143, 149; Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance in China,” in Mao’s Invisible Hand, ed. Heilmann and Perry (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 1-30.
  2. 5 Center for Strategic Translation editors have not been able to locate the source of this quotation in either Chinese or English; it is likely spurious.
  3. 6 Rendered literally, the term would be “social life.” The point here is that international relations is a sociological and anthropological discipline: i.e., it is determined by the full set of material and spiritual conditions that influence human social relations. This description links to the anthropological phenomena he discusses throughout, such as identity crises, populism and so forth.
  4. 7 The original text does not make clear what the American financial services industry comprises 80% of.
  5. 8 This address was given in 2019 and refers to the major changes in American policy and ideology under Trump. In particular, this is a likely reference to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s 4 December 2018 address in Brussels titled “Restoring the Role of the Nation-State in the Liberal International Order.” A key passage in the speech reads:
    Multilateralism has too often become viewed as an end unto itself.  The more treaties we sign, the safer we supposedly are. The more bureaucrats we have, the better the job gets done. Was that ever really true?  The central question that we face is that – is the question of whether the system as currently configured, as it exists today, and as the world exists today – does it work? …Every nation – every nation – must honestly acknowledge its responsibilities to its citizens and ask if the current international order serves the good of its people as well as it could.  And if not, we must ask how we can right it.
    This is what President Trump is doing.  He is returning the United States to its traditional, central leadership role in the world.  He sees the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.  He knows that nothing can replace the nation-state as the guarantor of democratic freedoms and national interests. 
  6. 9  Since the publication of this piece assessments of risk have become an increasingly important part of the discourse surrounding “great changes unseen in a century.” For a larger review of Party conceptions of risk and their relationship to security, see Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor 73 (Fall 2022); Samantha Hoffman, “Programming China: the Communist Party’s autonomic approach to managing state security” (PhD diss, University of Nottingham, 2017).