Published on 11 April 2020 by the Asia Global Institute, the above Paper by Mark Beeson, Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia, traces the Rise of the West, including its ideas and values and the creation of a liberal, albeit hegemonic world order underpinned by US dominance and the Bretton Woods Institutions of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. This liberal world order has been embraced by and beneficial to most nations, including China.
The Paper also synthesizes the Rise of the Rest, especially an increasingly powerful and assertive China which seems to question and undermine American hegemony. At the same time, rampant America First exceptionalism is scattering to the winds much of the ideas and values that uphold the global commons. This poses the question whether the world will converge into a one-size-fits-all, Fujiyama's "End of History" model, and if not, what would become of the world order.
While the West largely understands what the world's current hegemonic superpower wants, not many outside China really understand what China wants. While "international collective-action problems" like terrorism and climate change may offer some grounds for cooperation between rival great powers, misreading and misjudgement, especially after the occurrence of the Coronavirus pandemic, are likely to translate into fear and a security spiral that may spin out of control.
If sad chapters of history are not to repeat themselves, it is timely and instructive to deconstruct The China Mirage.
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