Encountering a new economic powerhouse

YY.Kueh’s study, thereby, offers a much needed and an extremely erudite analysis of China’s emerging international agency. The point of departure for Kueh’s comprehensive reconsideration of China’s external outlook is the suggestion that it is Beijing’s very ability to maintain consistent levels of economic growth that have allowed it to demonstrate an enhanced confidence and ability to fashion international relations. In particular, Kueh asserts that it is economics that underwrite the geopolitical clout of any actor. The claim then is that the global financial crisis rocking both the American and European segments of the allegedly ubiquitous Global North reveal not merely fissures, but profound underlying flaws of the Western models of development and governance. As Kueh presciently observes, this does not mean that the West should in any way be perceived as defeated or obsolete. In fact, according to him such vocabulary indicates problems with the way in which we have been schooled to observe, explain, and understand the changing patterns of world politics.

Instead, what Kueh has in mind is that while Western actors still maintain their primacy in a number of spheres of international life, a number of alternatives are springing up. And it is China, according to him, that offers one of the most exciting and innovative models. Labelled as “Pax Sinica”, Beijing’s model for domestic development and governance underpins what many perceive to be a gradual shift to the East in international life. Such “Pax Sinica” can therefore be seen as an eventual replacement of “Pax Americana”, which has dominated global affairs since the end of World War II, which in turn itself replaced the preceding imperial “Pax Britannica” that dominated the nineteenth century (p. vii). It is the elucidation of the content, scope and implications of this Chinese model that distinguishes Kueh’s prescient engagement of China’s global roles.

What “Pax Sinica”?

The term “Pax Sinica” is usually associated with what some used to call the Chinese world order dominating East (and large parts of Central) Asia from around the year 300BCE to about the mid-1800CE. “Pax Sinica”, therefore, was promoted as a type of normative order which maintained both Chinese influence and the Chinese worldview. This order was sustained through the complex institutional arrangement of a tribute system which ensured subscription to the centrality of China in international relations. For Kueh, “Pax Sinica” is not necessarily an institutional arrangement – neither formal, nor procedural. Instead, “Pax Sinica” is a set of practices. These practices span the military, economic, and cultural sphere. As a result, what emerges is a strategic intention framed by particular and contextual interactions. Therefore, “Pax Sinica” should not be perceived as something fixed and inflexible that others will have to comply with and abide by, but a fluid practice whose meaning emerges in the process of Beijing’s interaction with other actors.

Kueh reveals as a major oversimplification the tendency to interpret “Pax Sinica” merely as an ambitious and aggressive strategy for either regional or global domination through the establishment of a Sinocentric order. In fact he suggests that the tendency to read “Pax Sinica” as a modern-day Chinese quasi-imperialist vision of regional security governance reflects Western strategies of narrativizing historical experience. For Kueh, the reference to “Pax Sinica” infers a movement away from neo-colonial approaches to international politics that will “help sustain peace and prosperity in the Asia Pacific” (p. 371). In other words, “Pax Sinica” intimates socializing practices through which Beijing engages in informational, procedural, and symbolic transference and diffusion of its norms in the context of bilateral and multilateral interactions.

In this setting, Kueh suggests that Beijing’s global outreach reflects China’s attempt to construct itself as a responsible, as well as a reliable, international player that offers a viable alternative to existing models of global politics. It is for this reason that Beijing has generally resisted engaging in direct subversion of established institutions and international regimes, and has more often than not complied with their standards and/or has sought inclusion through membership of their organizational clubs. “Pax Sinica”, therefore, can be treated both as a shorthand for and a confirmation of Beijing’s insistence on its peaceful rise to international prominence.

Whither “Pax Sinica”?

Kueh is quite blunt that “it seems simply surreal to envisage Chinese superpower emerging in the foreseeable future to replace Pax American in its totality” (p. 371). Yet, such assertion should not be taken as an indication that “Pax Sinica” is not in the offing. The fact that it has not replaced practices that have come to dominate international relations during the last sixty years, does not mean that it does not exist or that it is not viable. Instead, as Kueh’s work demonstrates, alternatives need to be studied, engaged with, and understood. It is in the process of accumulating such knowledge that these alternatives become not only more comprehensible, but also less threatening. Kueh’s study of “Pax Sinica” seems to achieve for the case of the fledgling Chinese model. Not surprisingly, therefore, his book will be welcomed by students, scholars, and policy-makers alike.

Emilian Kavalski, University of Western Sydney, Australia  (e.kavalski@uws.edu.au)