THE RISE OF CHINA AND THE FUTURE OF THE WEST

Dr. G. John Ikenberry provides readers a quite rational road map for relations with China in a context of U.S.-led multinational institutions. His guiding premise is that bringing China into the established system of rules and regulations will likely cause it to follow the paths of post-WWII Japan and Germany and post-Cold War Eastern Europe rather than attempt to establish a competing hegemonic system.

Ikenberry cites China's seat on the UN Security Council and its WTO membership — with its attendant submission to transparency and regulation — as examples of China already working with and becoming more entrenched in the established order. So far, so good.

Where we must be cautious is with the assumption that the United States has a flagging leadership position and with a subtext of criticism of the United States for not folding in the face of pressures to conform to irrational and harmful policies and agreements simply for the sake of maintaining “international order.”

Kyoto and global warming, along with the Law of the Sea, are only the most egregious of these expectations. Continuing support of the IMF — without a purpose since the abandonment of the gold standard — and the World Bank — with its increasingly obvious culture of corruption and mismanagement — also come to mind.

The value of the international system in guiding participation of emerging economic and military powers is that it is not only “open and rule based” but that it is principle based. Admitting China to a system of wavering Western resolve on fundamental principles would simply invite manipulation for unilateral ends.

U.S. leadership in maintaining the “rules and institutions that can protect the interests of all states” and “the openness and durability of the order” can only be achieved by remaining steadfast to the principles and ideals that created that order and made it a beacon for all nations.