China's Catch-Up Conundrum 


What role does ketchup play in the international politics of the 21st century? 

When China’s economy was opened to the wider world in the 1980s, its communist government returned to a long-standing albeit misunderstood policy of openness that Chinese emperors had perpetuated for centuries. Throughout the imperial dynasties, Chinese innovations were spread far beyond China’s traditional borders and into the Western world. Among these innovations, popular belief holds that ketchup finds its origins in China, having been used there long before it was ever applied to a single French fry. But whereas the proliferation of tomato ketchup has been fairly innocuous, a far more serious form of Chinese “catch-up” is quickly becoming a matter of great concern for many in the West, particularly in the United States. China’s rapid economic growth and aggressive forays into strategic diplomacy have prompted a serious discussion about whether or not China’s recent rise on the world stage poses a threat to America’s status as sole superpower. With an authoritarian regime bent on self-preservation, a workforce that is twice the size of the United States’ entire population and the worrisome rise of Chinese nationalism, the mentality by which China is now guided is one of expansionary catch-up in order to reach and eventually surpass the level of international influence and power achieved by the United States. 
 
Chinese President Hu Jintao currently presides over a one-party regime whose primary goal has been to produce extraordinary economic results through various means in order to maintain its exclusive power in the country. To maintain its extremely favorable trade balance with the United States, for example, the government, until recently, insisted on keeping its currency pegged directly to the US dollar at an undervalued rate, apparently ignoring the unsustainable rate of growth that this promoted.  Furthermore, the regime has sought to secure partnerships with other nations from whom it can easily obtain ready supplies of raw materials and energy to fuel economic growth. The government’s aggressive lobbying has paid off in Iran, Nigeria, and also in Europe, where the European Union’s arms embargo will soon be abolished, thus permitting less restrictive arms sales to China. China is expanding its sphere of influence in a manner that will rival that of the United States. Mr. Hu and the rest of the “Fourth Generation” of Chinese leaders have sought to expand and capitalize on economic growth to ensure the continuation of their power, and they do so to the detriment of America’s dominance. 
 
China’s tremendous supply of labor has further enabled its current rise. Out of a population of over 1.3 billion, China has a workforce of 761 million. With its massive quantities of export labor, China has been able to maintain a significant trade surplus with the United States. Assuredly, the vast majority of economic activity occurs in the urban and coastal areas (in Beijing, the Shanghai economic corridor and Guangdong province, among others), outside of which economic conditions are more reminiscent of Sudan than Singapore. The problematic disparities notwithstanding, this significant homegrown labor resource permits China to far exceed any other country’s supply of non-skilled labor. Skilled workers are also in high supply due to unprecedented government investment in education in recent years. Additionally, trends appear to indicate that foreign-educated Chinese are returning home more than ever before, further augmenting the quantity of skilled workers. With the help of China’s unparalleled labor supply, Chinese goods flood the international market and make the country a net creditor to many countries, including the United States. The fact that China possesses so much American debt in the form of US Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated assets only exaggerates this problem and gives China even greater leverage over American policy. 

Throughout its reign, China’s communist government has encouraged the development of nationalism among the Chinese people. This strategy has proved useful to the members of the politburo because it has aided in the achievement of their goals, but many Chinese of the current generation have taken the nationalistic ideal and made it their own. The long-term implications of this popular nationalism are such that once the rate of GDP growth slows, irrational outbursts of nationalistic tendencies may come to the forefront and impede economic, political and social progress. Although unlikely today, without continued economic success, a pressured Chinese government could launch an attack on Taiwan or even Japan to rally popular support. Either event would bring China into open warfare with the United States and threaten worldwide stability. 
 
Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the early 1980s, various motivations and conditions have enabled China to engage in a game of aggressive “catch-up” with much of the rest of the world. Through it, the country has witnessed great economic success and an enhanced position in world politics. The current success that China now enjoys is unsustainable, however, and problems associated with its present and future cannot be easily dismissed. The threat that China poses does not simply challenge America’s hegemony, but could also lead to an upset of the precarious balance of power throughout the world. Assuredly, a zero-sum competition between the United States and China would be disastrous, but such an outcome might be inevitable unless citizens of both countries come to affirm their mutual validity on the global stage. 
 
This essay is for my application for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Junior Fellowship Program. Special thanks to everyone who helped me craft this piece into a three-page beauty: Joachim Kurtz, Kevin Murphy, Ashley Moore, Will Randall and Arue Moore. Cross your fingers, everyone! 

Posted: Tue - November 15, 2005 at 12:31 AM          

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