10/11/22, 11:33 AM China wants to change, or break, a world order set by others | The Economist

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Special report | A new order

China wants to change, or break, a world

order set by others
It may yet succeed, says David Rennie

Oct 10th 2022

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F or most of human history, great powers and strong men have

been free to inflict horrors on the weak with impunity. For almost
eight decades, however, all but a few rogue states have aspired, or

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g g p
paid lip service, to a different world order.

This order was founded in revulsion at the industrialised, racially

justified savagery of the second world war. Guided by the ambition
“Never Again”, the winners, led by America, drafted conventions that
defined unpardonable crimes against humanity, and sought to
impose costs on those committing them. Recalling the economic
disasters and human miseries that paved the way to world war, the
framers of this order built the un and other international institutions
to promote co-operation and development.

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Some arguments were left unresolved after 1945. For decades

tensions between national sovereignty and the protection of
individuals lurked in the founding documents of this new order,
from the un Charter to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For years, access was also unequal. Too many people languished,
powerlessly, under totalitarian regimes or in colonial empires.

Yet this system was an advance on anything before. Although

hobbled by politics, the un and other international bodies follow
agreed rules when they monitor ceasefires and register refugees, feed
the hungry or fight pandemics. Largely in response to pressure from
liberal democracies, more help from multilateral bodies—whether
World Bank loans or missions by un peacekeepers—now comes with

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conditions attached. Recipient governments are pushed into higher
environmental standards or to protect the rights of vulnerable
minorities.

This order has been tested since 1945. The most alarming challenges
often involved large powers defying international law. Russia offered
a shameless example in February, when it used its veto power as one
of five permanent members of the un Security Council to block
condemnation of its invasion of Ukraine.

This special report will examine China’s challenge to the post-war

order. It is more subtle than Russia’s brazen defiance, yet more
disruptive. Under Xi Jinping, whose supreme leadership will be
extended this month for a third term by the 20th Party Congress,
China is working to reshape the world order from within. When its
efforts meet resistance, it pushes for vaguer rules whose enforcement
becomes a question of political bargaining. All too often, it seeks to
revive old, discredited ways of running the world that put states first,
at the expense of individual freedoms.

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Some Chinese points sound reasonable. Mr Xi’s China opposes a

“cold-war mentality” and those who divide the world into ideological
blocs. It says developing countries have a right to focus on feeding,

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housing and giving jobs to people, rather than fussing about multi-
party elections. Its officials liken Western powers to missionaries,

bossily imposing their own values, a trait they call particularly alien
to Asia, a continent that respects diversity.

Cleverly, Mr Xi casts his country as a defender of the status quo. He

pledges support for “true multilateralism” guided by the un Charter.
In 2017 he assured tycoons in Davos that he was a champion of free
trade. But observers should not be lulled. Chinese leaders want to
preserve elements of the current order that helped their country rise,
such as world trade rules that fostered their export champions and
encouraged inflows of foreign capital and technology. Principles that
do not suit China are undermined. Mr Xi’s calls for a “Global Security
Initiative” or “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind” are coded
complaints. Some are an attack on alliances, above all America’s
defence pacts in Europe and Asia. A “shared future” is another way of
saying “development first”, ie, rejecting any order guided by shared,
universal values.

When China says it opposes interference in the internal affairs of

countries, this is not rhetoric. In 2017 it joined Russia in wielding its
un veto to shield Syria from sanctions for using chemical weapons
against its own people. China does not gain directly when Syrian
children are gassed with chlorine. But it has an interest in blocking
un sanctions for any atrocities, in case similar tools are used against
it. China also seeks to redefine terms so that they no longer mean
much. In this way, Chinese officials claim that their country is a
superior form of democracy, respects human rights and operates a
market economy

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market economy.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia is often backed in un votes by a mere

handful of thuggish clients, such as Belarus or Venezuela. In contrast
China hates to be isolated, deploying diplomats to lobby and twist
arms to build support. Scores of countries now join resolutions
praising Chinese rule in Xinjiang, a western region where, in the
name of fighting Islamic extremism, China has demolished mosques,
jailed poets and textbook editors and sent a million Uyghurs to re-
education camps. Diplomatic success may make China seem less of a
wrecker than Russia, but it is more divisive.

Defenders of Chinese ambition argue that communist leaders have a

right to reshape global rules written decades ago, when they were not
in the room. This is a straw-man argument. It is of course natural for
a big country to want to see its views reflected in global governance.
The point is that anyone who sees value in today’s world order has a
right to fear what China has in mind.

Other analysts question how disruptive China will be. They talk of a
slowing economy making it harder for China to recruit supporters,
and note that China has never spelt out a complete, alternative order.
That is complacent. China does not need to replace every current rule
to change the world.

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China calls the very notion of universal values a Western imposition.

In 2021 Wang Yi, the foreign minister, criticised the Biden
administration for saying that the international rules-based order
was under attack. This was “power politics”, Mr Wang retorted: a bid
to “replace commonly accepted international laws and norms with
the house rules of a few countries”.
Nor does Mr Xi accept that the second world war created a mandate to
draw up a liberal order. A China/eu summit in April was clarifying.
The European Council president, Charles Michel, explained why
Europe’s dark past, notably the Holocaust, obliged its leaders to call
out rights abuses, from China to Ukraine. According to a readout
shared with eu governments, Mr Xi retorted that the Chinese have
even stronger memories of suffering at the hands of colonial powers.
He cited treaties forcing China to open markets and cede territory in
the 19th and early 20th centuries, and racist bylaws banning Chinese
people and dogs from parks in European-run enclaves. Mr Xi recalled
the massacre of civilians at Nanjing by Japanese invaders in 1937.
Such aggression left the Chinese with strong feelings about human
rights, he said, and about foreigners who employ double standards to
criticise other countries.

Many developing countries see nothing magic about the year 1945,
and have limited nostalgia for a time when the West dominated
rulemaking. China is ready to offer them alternatives. Seven decades
ago, at founding meetings of the un, Soviet-bloc delegates sought an
order that deferred to states and promoted collective rather than
individual rights, opposing everything from free speech to the
concept of seeking political asylum. In the late 1940s communist
countries were outvoted China now seeks to reopen those old

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countries were outvoted. China now seeks to reopen those old

arguments about how to balance sovereignty with individual
freedoms. This time, the liberal order is on the defensive. 7

The world divided

The world China wants

→ China wants to change, or break, a world order set by others

→ China seeks a world order that defers to states and their rulers

→ To show that it can follow global rules, China built its own
multilateral institution

→ China is exerting greater power across Asia—and beyond

→ Why America and Europe fret about China turning inwards

→ China has chilling plans for governing Taiwan

→ For Western democracies, the price of avoiding a clash with China

is rising

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