How Accurate Were Predictions of China’s Rise?

• In Event: Great Power Competition

Abstract

The rise of China is often depicted as one of the clearest, most predicted, and most predictable realities in a century of international politics. Rather than the result of a sudden shift like the decline of Britain after World War I or the rise of the Soviet Union after World War II, it has been gradual, widely foreseen, and was not the result of a conflict that transformed the world. As early as 1985, Carter’s former Deputy Head of State Warren Christopher wrote in the LA Times that “China is about to become a superpower.” Similar predictions have appeared throughout the Western academic-policy apparatus from Overholt’s the Rise of China (1993) to the anonymously authored Longer Telegram: Toward A New American China Strategy (2021). Yet there have also been frequent predictions that China would democratize (Wang 1998) or that it would collapse (Chang 2001). These predictions and recommendations from academics and policy circles matter because they transfer to popular discourse, politics, and government aciton, albeit haphazardly. Understanding what the predictions and recommendations were and how they have changed over time, therefore, is vital to explaining democratic responses to China’s rise.

Western discourse on China is so closely tied to domestic politics in Europe and America that inquiries into China’s rise are almost always biased by Euro-American perspectives (Martinez-Robles 2008). China is regarded as ‘different’ or ‘other’ because they do not subscribe to the same ideals prevalent in the West (Zhongyun, 1997) and the words ‘Orientalism’, ‘Oriental despotism’ and ‘authoritarianism’ have been progressively used to delineate a difference in beliefs, culture, governance, and ideology (Said 1978 & Yunyi 2021). We consider the impact of orientalist assumptions on predictions of China’s rise as an alternative reasoning model. Through empirical research on past academic and policy narratives on the rise of China, we examine the inclusion of Western orientalist notions in predictions of China's rise and its role in undermining accurate assessments. We conduct comparisons between western and non-western predictions of China’s rise, within academic and policy circles, to see if orientalist assumptions could have pushed forward the idea of a democratic China and a general underestimation of Chinese capabilities.

Another major way in which Western understandings of China are hampered is the presumption of a lack of evolution. J.G. Herder likened Chinese culture to “… an embalmed mummy” in historical times and this assumption, though somewhat evolved, has filtered down through generations (Martinez -Robles 2008. p.10). This concept of “oriental absolutism” (Yunyi, 2021) has caused the Western world to ignore the evolution of Chinese culture from its dynastic times. The most recent iteration of the narrative was that authoritarian China was incapable of innovation. Even as it overlooked the tremendous innovation that was already taking place in China, the narrative helped promote dismissive attitudes towards China’s ability to challenge Western technological dominance.

To empirically assess understandings of China’s rise and how they have changed, we have coded a sample of four decades of academic and policy predictions. Through this we produce empirical answers to three interrelated sets of questions: 1) How early and often was China’s rise predicted? 2) What were predicted to be the factors that could enable or prevent China’s rise? 3) Was China’s rise seen as a threat or an opportunity to the status quo, the Washington Consensus, and a monopolar world dominated by the United States? With the benefit of hindsight, we can assess whether predictions about China became more accurate as more information presented itself or whether self-interest, wishful thinking, the politics of the moment, orientalism, and other biases prevented clear-eyed and sober assessments. Because hard power is relatively abstract outside of actual conflict, we focus on the repercussions that understanding of China’s rise had for the country’s ability to build and project soft power, especially in developing areas like sub-Saharan Africa. Ultimately, we find that predictions of China’s rise have more to do with the politics and current concerns of authors, individuals, companies, parties, and states than the emerging reality of China’s rise.

We argue that these narrow and orientalist perceptions led to inaccuracies and biases in the way China’s potential was viewed, allowing it to slowly build its influence for decades when its efforts to build soft power could have been non-confrontationally countered by democracies. We hope this analysis and other similar work will lead to a more accurate and authentic assessment of China’s rise and its place in the world.

Author

• John Wagner Givens, Spelman College