Published in The Conversation on November 15, 2016 7.21am GMT

https://theconversation.com/after-trumps-win-can-china-dislodge-asian-nations-from-the-us-orbit-68584

It will be in Asia – the economic centre of the 21st century – where the future of Pax Americana (the peace that has ensued as a result of US hegemony) will be decided.

This continued existence of this peace will depend, to a significant extent, on Washington’s capacity to show that it remains a vital actor in the region despite China’s ascendancy. And, above all, that it is still the provider of security guarantees to several of China’s neighbours, such as Japan and South Korea.

If Beijing can bring its neighbours to accept its regional leadership (including its claims in the South China Sea), China could dramatically reduce US influence in a region that holds more than half of the world’s population.

That this desire would emerge in Beijing is far from surprising. No aspiring great power gains status or respect by ceding responsibility for security in its backyard to a far away foreign nation.

Chinese initiative and US pushback

To garner regional support, China has launched a series of high-profile initiatives that involve its neighbours in institutional setups: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Conference on Confidence Building Measures in Asia security architecture, and economic corridors through Pakistan and Myanmar to the Indian Ocean.

Beijing’s efforts have been derided as “chequebook diplomacy” and China has been accused of trying to buy friends. But if successful, the country’s endeavours will contribute to the creation of an increasingly Sinocentric Asia.

China’s most ambitious project is the New Silk Road Economic Belt, usually referred to as One Belt One Road. This proposed economic corridor will stretch across Eurasia to connect China not only to the Middle East and Europe but also embed it within the region.

One Belt One Road is said to involve Chinese investments of between US$800 billion and US$1 trillion, covering almost 900 projects in more than 60 partner countries – a truly monumental initiative. Several commentators have drawn parallels between the policy and the 1948 US Marshall Plan that helped rebuild postwar Europe.

The US reaction to China’s initiatives has been on two tracks. First, it sought to thwart the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, pressuring other countries not to join. This effort failed spectacularly when the United Kingdom, the most important US ally, became the first to break ranks. The bank now has 50 members, including many US allies from around the world.

US policymakers also promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement linking the United States, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru. If ratified by all participating countries’ legislatures, it will be the first real manifestation of President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, which has so far consisted of little more than rhetoric.

China, which is excluded from the TPP, responded by promoting the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which excludes the United States, and which would promote rapprochement between Beijing and Tokyo. The RCEP includes a vast array of rules concerning investment, economic and technical cooperation, intellectual property, competition, dispute settlement, and government regulation.

Exceptional allies

This jostling between the US and China for influence in Asia explains why alarm bells started ringing in Washington when the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced a “separation” from the United States. Indeed, quite a lot of Duterte’s rhetoric since his election has brought into question his nations’s decades-long partnership with Washington.

A month later, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak initiated what seemed like a rapprochement with Beijing when he announced the purchase of coastal patrol ships from China. This is the first substantial defense contract between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing and a significant signal, given the US had also hoped for a deal with Malaysia.

These moves were particularly surprising because both the Philippines and Malaysia are claimants to disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea. Washington had hoped that the tension there could be used to build an alliance to contain Beijing in the region and put international pressure on China.

The Philippines is the only South China Sea claimant that is also a US treaty ally. The two countries recently concluded the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, allowing Washington access to five Philippines military sites.

But there are several reasons why the Philippines and Malaysia can be seen as outliers. Their leaders have specific reasons to tilt towards Beijing that don’t apply to other US allies in the region.

Duterte’s controversial “war on drugs”, involving systematic human rights violations, has generated US criticism. And, in Malaysia, Najib has been under pressure after US investigations revealed a giant fraud committed by 1MDB, a state investment fund.

Where to now?

It’s important to also keep in mind that pro-China rhetoric doesn’t always match actions. Malaysia now conducts military exercises with Beijing, but its ties to the US are still stronger. With the exception of North Korea, Laos and Cambodia, China’s neighbours are all still closer to Washington than Beijin.

And the United States remains far more popular than China among Asian people, reflected by the far larger number of Asians who aspire to move to the United States than to the Middle Kingdom.

Nonetheless, the US plan to maintain strong political influence in Asia and build alliances to contain China faces significant obstacles. Many US allies not trust each other (Japan and South Korea, for instance). And this may lead to collective action problems, such as what’s know in international relations theory as “free-riding” – when actors benefit from public goods without making a contribution.

What’s more, many countries in the region are increasingly dependent on China’s economy, reducing their willingness to oppose Beijing. Even though, in principle, they are more likely to oppose China than support it, given its proximity and regional leadership ambitions.

As president-elect Donald Trump’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership is very unlikely, and with China’s initiatives entangling the region’s economies with its own, time is clearly on Beijing’s side.

Countries in the region will probably opt for a hedging strategy: maintaining the United States as a security ally, but benefiting from broader economic integration with China.

Some of these, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, could emerge as the greatest beneficiaries of this dynamic, provided they play their cards right. Duterte, for instance, may simply be trying to extract stronger security guarantees from the United States, while obtaining more Chinese aid.

While mounting tensions between the West and Russia and continued instability in the Middle East remain relevant and will require US attention, it’s in China’s neighbourhood where the future of global order will be decided.

Read more:

A Fractured West in a Post-Western World

What a President Trump would mean for Brazil

The Political Economy of China’s New Silk Road

Photo credit : Carlo Allegri/ Reuters

A impressionante vitória de Donald Trump gerou um pânico global sem precedentes, levando a uma miríade de análises sobre as implicações para os Estados Unidos (por exemplo, o excelente artigo de “A Time for Refusal”, de Teju Cole) e o mundo ("How the West may soon be lost", de Martin Wolf). Contudo, para compreender o que realmente significa uma presidência de Trump, é necessário analisar as consequências individualmente para avaliar suas probabilidades e articular maneiras de responder a elas.

1) Implicações para a democracia dos EUA

Na esfera doméstica, muitos acreditam que a eleição de Donald Trump representa uma ameaça real às instituições dos EUA e à sua democracia como um todo. Além de enfraquecer o tecido social da sociedade norte-americana e atacar as minorias não-brancas, vangloriando-se de agressões sexuais contra mulheres e zombando de pessoas com deficiência, os ataques verbais sistemáticos de Trump contra o Judiciário, suas ameaças de processar jornalistas e alusões à fraude eleitoral comprometeram significativamente a cultura democrática nos EUA.

Mesmo se Trump atenuasse sua retórica e governasse de forma moderada, a campanha já aprofundou divisões e os EUA levarão tempo para “curar as feridas“, como o próprio presidente eleito reconheceu após sua vitória. No entanto, apesar dos danos maciços causados, a democracia dos EUA provavelmente sobreviverá, considerando a robustez de suas instituições e um conjunto complexo de freios e contrapesos.

2) Implicações para a democracia em uma escala global

Tanto os governos como os cidadãos ao redor do mundo esperavam que os eleitores norte-americanos punissem Trump em 8 de novembro. Embora a campanha já tenha afetado negativamente o ‘soft power’ dos EUA, a vitória eleitoral de Trump reduzirá ainda mais a atratividade dos EUA de forma geral. Ainda que o ‘soft power’ seja difícil de medir e dependa de diversas outras coisas além do governo, uma consequência inicial será uma maior dificuldade de defender a democracia em outras partes do mundo. Vale ressaltar que o Brexit e Trump não ocorreram em países pequenos com visibilidade limitada. Pelo contrário, aconteceram nas duas democracias mais antigas e maduras do mundo, que – apesar de todas as críticas – desempenharam um papel extremamente importante para a democracia no mundo.

Em um momento em que os desafios globais multiplicam-se e um deslocamento de poder para a região da Ásia-Pacífico, Brexit e Trump são prejudiciais aos interesses estratégicos ocidentais, uma vez que reduzem o seu peso político e a sua capacidade de moldar os assuntos globais em um mundo pós-ocidental. A ascensão da política “pós-fato” e identitária ameaça minar a principal vantagem do Ocidente em relação a uma China em ascensão: sua ruidosa, mas, em última instância, moderada democracia estabilizadora, sua aceitação da diversidade e da globalização e sua capacidade de integrar migrantes de todo o mundo.

Democracias agora são vistas como fonte de mais imprevisibilidade do que regimes autoritários. Quanto mais tempo esse cenário durar, mais difícil será convencer outros países de que defender a governança democrática no mundo é tanto moralmente quanto estrategicamente vantajoso. Da mesma forma, quanto mais fortes as correntes anti-islâmicas tornam-se nas democracias ocidentais, mais difícil será reivindicar a superioridade moral e criticar governos na China, em Mianmar e em outros lugares pela forma como tratam suas minorias religiosas.

Populistas no controle de governos em Washington e Londres provavelmente fortalecerão políticos semelhantes em outros lugares. O impacto mais imediato pode tornar-se visível na França, onde Marine Le Pen é uma forte candidata à presidência. Sua vitória provavelmente significaria o fim da União Européia e, portanto, uma fratura completa da aliança ocidental criada após a Segunda Guerra Mundial.

3) Implicações para a ordem global

Diversos analistas apontam que o isolacionismo de Trump será o fim da ordem global atual. Como escreve Philip Stephens, no Financial Times:

O sistema global desenvolvido pelos Estados Unidos vem se desfazendo há algum tempo. Ele não sobreviverá ao afastamento da liderança americana. A crise financeira de 2008, a estagnação da renda, a austeridade e o desencanto com o livre comércio enterraram o consenso econômico liberal. Agora, Trump comprometeu-se a desmantelar os pilares políticos da antiga ordem. (…) Os riscos agora virão rapidamente. O quanto de uma Europa livre pode sobreviver à retirada do guarda-chuva de segurança dos EUA? A Rússia será autorizada a restabelecer sua influência sobre antigos Estados comunistas da Europa Oriental e Central? Os Estados em ascensão no leste e no Sul vão olhar agora para o autoritarismo, em vez da democracia como um modelo para suas sociedades? Quem vai manter a paz nos mares do leste e do sul da China? Quão seguro ou estável é um mundo organizado em torno dos interesses de, e conflitos entre, um punhado de grandes potências?

Várias dessas preocupações são válidas, e Trump pode se tornar uma fonte de instabilidade global se sua equipe permitir que ele tome decisões de política externa. No entanto, devemos ter cuidado para não ficarmos presos a uma narrativa paroquial centrada no Ocidente que assume cegamente que apenas as potências ocidentais podem tomar a liderança e fornecer bens públicos globais. Por mais de um século, uma extrema concentração de poder econômico permitiu que o Ocidente, apesar de representar uma pequena minoria da população mundial, iniciasse, legitimasse e defendesse com êxito políticas no campo econômico ou de segurança. Para a maioria dos observadores, os atores não-ocidentais raramente ou nunca desempenharam qualquer papel construtivo na gestão dos assuntos globais.

Nossa visão de mundo centrada no Ocidente nos leva, assim, a subestimar não apenas o papel que os atores não-ocidentais desempenharam no passado e desempenham na política internacional contemporânea, mas também o papel construtivo que provavelmente terão no futuro. Com potências como a China fornecendo bens públicos cada vez mais globais, a ordem pós-ocidental não será necessariamente mais violenta ou instável do que a atual ordem global.

Potências em ascensão, lideradas pela China, já estão silenciosamente elaborando os blocos construtores iniciais daquilo que poderíamos chamar de “ordem paralela”, que inicialmente complementará e, em algum momento, possivelmente substituirá as instituições internacionais de hoje. Esta ordem já está em construção; inclui, entre outras, instituições como o Novo Banco de Desenvolvimento do BRICS e o Banco de Investimento Asiático (para complementar o Banco Mundial), o Universal Credit Rating Group (para complementar o Moody’s e a S&P), o China Union Pay Visa (para complementar Mastercard e Visa), CIPS (para complementar a SWIFT), BRICS (para complementar o G7) e muitas outras iniciativas.

Nos últimos dias, a China adotou uma abordagem altamente construtiva. Como o Financial Times reconheceu:

Em um sinal de quanto o mundo mudou no reconhecimento da necessidade de combater o aquecimento global, Pequim – uma vez vista como uma força obstrutiva nas negociações climáticas da ONU – está agora liderando o impulso para o progresso, respondendo aos temores de que Trump iria retirar os EUA do acordo [climático de Paris].

À medida que o Ocidente hesita, novas parcerias emergirão, adaptando-se à mudança de poder. Por exemplo, conforme os EUA e a Europa são vistos como menos influentes por Déli e Tóquio, seus laços prosperaram.

Uma dinâmica semelhante se tornará evidente em outras áreas. A China já fornece mais forças de paz para a ONU do que todos os outros membros do P5 combinados. O país criou vários novos bancos de desenvolvimento para ajudar a Ásia a atualizar sua infra-estrutura. Podemos esperar uma liderança global chinesa em muitas áreas diferentes.

Na sexta-feira 11, em resposta a um tweet que postei com os líderes dos membros permanentes do Conselho de Segurança da ONU em caso de uma vitória de Le Pen na França, a resposta esmagadora foi choque e desespero. Mas um número considerável de twitteratis apontou que Xi Jinping era o líder dos P5 mais comprometido com a globalização, e que a China seria essencial para evitar uma onda de protecionismo. Com os EUA agora em recuo e o mundo à procura de liderança, a China enfrenta um mundo de oportunidades – podemos esperar apenas que Pequim esteja ciente de suas responsabilidades.

A hegemonia ocidental é tão profundamente enraizada e ubíqua que pensamos nela como algo natural, reduzindo nossa capacidade de avaliar objetivamente as consequências de seu declínio. Os receios sobre um caos pós-ocidental são equivocados em parte porque os sistemas passados e presentes são muito menos ocidentais do que, em geral, se supõe. E, embora a transição para uma verdadeira multipolaridade – não só economicamente, mas também militarmente e no que diz respeito à capacidade de definir a agenda – será desconcertante para muitos, pode ser, no final, muito mais democrática do que qualquer ordem anterior na história global, permitindo maiores níveis de diálogo genuíno, uma maior propagação de conhecimento e formas mais inovadoras e eficazes de enfrentar os desafios globais nas próximas décadas.

http://politike.cartacapital.com.br/um-ocidente-fraturado-em-um-mundo-pos-ocidental/

Leia também:

Política externa contra a violência (Carta Capital)

O Mundo Pós-Ocidental e a ascensão da ordem paralela (OBSERVADOR)

Entrevista: “Rússia é hoje um ator que não se compara com China ou EUA”

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr

Publicado no blog "Changing World" do ISCTE em Lisboa

Quando o presidente Duterte, das Filipinas, anunciou a saída de seu país da órbita dos Estados Unidos, questionando assim a parceria de décadas com Washington, a maioria dos analistas julgou se tratar de uma casualidade. Muitos acreditavam que Duterte provavelmente estava blefando e, mesmo que não fosse o caso, ele teria de se esforçar muito para convencer uma sociedade majoritariamente pró-estadunidense a aceitar laços mais fortes com Pequim.

Contudo, apenas um mês mais tarde, o Primeiro-Ministro da Malásia Najib Razak deu início a uma inesperada aproximação com Pequim quando anunciou a compra de navios chineses de patrulha costeira, o que representou o primeiro contrato substancial de defesa entre Kuala Lumpur e Pequim – um importante indicativo, já que tanto os Estados Unidos quanto o Japão tinham esperanças de um acordo com a Malásia. A estratégia é particularmente surpreendente para os analistas, porque tanto as Filipinas quanto a Malásia reivindicam ilhas e recifes disputados no Mar do Sul da China, um ponto de tensão que Washington pretendia usar para construir uma aliança anti-Pequim na região de forma a pressionar a China. Para piorar a situação, Manila é a única capital a reivindicar ilhas no Mar do Sul da China que também assinou acordos-chave de aliança com os EUA, e os dois países concluíram recentemente o Acordo Ampliado de Cooperação em Defesa, que permite a Washington o acesso a cinco bases militares filipinas. É perceptível, portanto, que a Malásia e as Filipinas estão seguindo uma tendência instituída pela Tailândia, que, em 2015, resistiu à pressão dos EUA para um retorno à democracia e comprou submarinos chineses em retaliação a Washington.

Estamos diante de um amplo processo de acomodação com a China na Ásia? É possível que essa seja a pergunta mais importante que os analistas de relações internacionais estão enfrentando atualmente, considerando as implicações profundas da resposta para a política mundial. É na Ásia – o centro econômico do século 21 – que será decidido o futuro da Pax Americana, e sua sobrevivência irá depender, em grande medida, da capacidade de Washington em demonstrar que ainda é um ator-chave e um fornecedor de bens públicos (acima de tudo, segurança) na vizinhança chinesa. Se, por outro lado, Pequim for capaz de convencer seus vizinhos a aceitar sua liderança regional (o que implicaria na aceitação da notória “linha de nove traços”, região substancial do Mar do Sul da China reivindicada por Pequim como parte de suas águas territoriais), terá tido sucesso em negociar uma redução dramática da influência dos EUA na Ásia. Isso explica a decisão de Barack Obama de articular a chamado “guinada para a Ásia” – uma iniciativa muito mais importante do que qualquer política externa estadunidense no Oriente Médio ou no Leste Europeu.

Há diversos motivos para ver a Tailândia, as Filipinas e a Malásia como pontos fora da curva. Seus líderes têm razões específicas para se aproximar à China, as quais não se aplicam ao Vietnã e a outros aliados dos EUA na região. As controversas políticas domésticas de Duterte, que envolvem violações sistemáticas de direitos humanos, geraram críticas por parte dos EUA. Na Malásia, Najib vem sendo pressionado depois que investigações estadunidenses revelaram uma fraude gigantesca cometida pelo 1MDB, um fundo de investimento estatal malaio. A junta militar tailandesa certamente fica mais confortável com uma parceria que se abstém de comentar questões internas do país.

Além disso, a retórica pró-China nem sempre coincide com políticas reais. No momento, Malásia e Tailândia conduzem exercícios militares com Pequim, mas seus laços militares com os EUA ainda são mais fortes. Com a exceção da Coreia do Norte, Laos e Camboja, os vizinhos da China ainda estão mais próximos de Washington ou Tóquio. Por fim, os Estados Unidos continuam muito mais populares entre os asiáticos do que a China, o que se reflete no fato de que muitos deles sonham em se mudar para os Estados Unidos e não para o ‘Reino do Meio’.

Contudo, o plano dos Estados Unidos de manter uma forte influência política na Ásia e construir uma aliança para conter a China enfrentará obstáculos significativos no longo prazo. Em primeiro lugar, muitos aliados dos EUA não confiam uns nos outros (Japão e Coreia do Sul, por exemplo), o que pode levar a problemas de ação coletiva, como atores que se beneficiam de certas medidas sem arcar com sua parte dos custos (os famosos ‘caronas’). Além disso, todos esses países dependem cada vez mais da economia chinesa, o que reduz sua disposição para se opor a Pequim (mesmo que, em princípio, seja mais provável que eles contrabalancem a China e não se alinhem, tendo em vista que o país é uma ameaça mais grave do que os EUA).

Como o apoio estadunidense à Parceria Transpacífica tornou-se improvável depois da eleição de Donald Trump, enquanto a China está criando cada vez mais iniciativas institucionais e de infraestrutura que irão ligar as economias da região com a da China – tais como o projeto “One Belt, One Road (Um Cinturão, Uma Estrada)” – o tempo está evidentemente do lado da China.

Por fim, dada a distância geográfica entre os membros da aliança, os EUA terão de gastar muito tempo e energia para coordenar uma estratégia de contenção da China. Países na região provavelmente vão optar por uma estratégia de prudente e flexível, mantendo os EUA como um aliado de segurança ao mesmo tempo em que se beneficiam de maior integração econômica com a China. Consequentemente, países como Vietnã e Filipinas podem emergir como os maiores beneficiários dessa dinâmica, desde que consigam extrair vantagens de ambos os lados. De fato, Duterte pode estar apenas tentando extrair garantias de segurança mais rigorosas dos EUA enquanto obtém mais auxílio chinês.

Enquanto a escalada de tensões entre o Ocidente e a Rússia e a continuidade da instabilidade no Oriente Médio continuam relevantes, o futuro da ordem global certamente será decidido na vizinhança da China. Depois de um breve período em que a história mundial esteve centrada no Atlântico Norte, estamos testemunhando o retorno de um mundo que gira em torno da Ásia.

Oliver Stuenkel foi recentemente convidado pelo CEI-IUL para proferir a conferência de abertura do Mestrado em Estudos Internacionais do ISCTE-IUL.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama, Photo by U.S. Embassy The Hague, CC BY-ND 2.0

Ler também:

Um Ocidente fragmentado em um mundo pós-ocidental

Política externa contra a violência (Carta Capital)

Entrevista: “Rússia é hoje um ator que não se compara com China ou EUA”

BY OLIVER STUENKEL | DECEMBER 5, 2016
Growing Chinese engagement in the region will test Latin America's ability to adapt.

http://americasquarterly.org/content/how-trump-benefits-china-latin-america

The timing was perfect, and the symbolism could not have been stronger. A mere week after Donald Trump’s upset victory stunned the world, Xi Jinping traveled to Lima for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and projected China as a bastion of stability, predictability and openness. With the U.S. increasingly skeptical of globalization, Xi promised that China would stand up for free trade. Faced with an emerging global leadership vacuum, Beijing was quick to recognize a window of opportunity. Compared with the abrasive U.S. president-elect, the Chinese president, with his avuncular charm, seemed to have a soothing effect on the gathering in the Peruvian capital.

No region in the world will remain unaffected by the unprecedented combination of the United States as a source of uncertainty and China as a potential stabilizer. The consequences for Latin America, however, are particularly important, as the recent political shift in the region has led to a growing consensus that greater openness to trade is a prerequisite to economic recovery. While trade negotiators in Brasília and Buenos Aires may have hoped for a deal with Europe or the United States, Beijing increasingly looks like the only partner offering a meaningful opportunity, building on already existing free-trade agreements with Costa Rica, Peru and Chile. Similarly, when it comes to attracting investors to modernize the region’s rotten infrastructure, no country offers as much as the Middle Kingdom. China, free to promote alternative trade deals now that Trump promised he would pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), faces a world of opportunities in Latin America.

This trend may be accelerated if U.S. policy toward the region resembles that of former President George W. Bush. During his presidency, more pressing short-term priorities elsewhere (such as the “war on terror”) caused Washington to largely turn away from Latin America, allowing China to boost its influence. Much suggests a similar scenario will materialize again over the next four years. Chinese trade with Latin America has grown more than 20-fold over the past fifteen years. Xi announced that Chinese companies will invest a quarter of a trillion dollars in the region over the next decade, diversifying from traditional industries such as mining, oil and gas to areas like finance, agriculture and infrastructure (energy, airports, ports and roads).

Yet for Latin America, Beijing’s growing engagement is a mixed blessing. As China increasingly focuses on value-added goods, it now purchases fewer commodities from Latin America but sells more to the region, causing Latin America’s trade deficit with China to increase. Countries like Brazil face a risk of deindustrialization and face direct competition as they seek to export to its neighborhood. Chinese imports are affecting, among others, industrial machinery, textiles, footwear and clothing, while copper, iron, oil and soybeans account for the greatest share of the region’s exports to China. Many new projects that China may finance (such as the Trans-Amazonian Railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean) would help integrate the region, but also enhance Latin America’s dependence on China, in addition to posing threats to the environment and creating relatively few jobs.

Lack of preparedness

China’s growing influence is remarkable, but it should not come as a surprise. Brazil's former Foreign Minister Azeredo da Silveira argued as early as 1974 that China "had consolidated itself as an emerging power," urging then-President Ernesto Geisel to normalize diplomatic relations with the country. And yet, particularly in Brazil, the lack of preparedness and knowledge about China on most policy-making levels is remarkable. During debates in Brasília, comments often reveal a worrying degree of ignorance of Chinese affairs. Yet governments are not the only ones to blame. Thinkers both left and right of the ideological spectrum are often stuck in a 20th century Western-centric worldview, still regarding the United States as the source of most good and evil. The left still regards U.S. meddling in the region as the most urgent concern at a time when Chinese clout in capitals like Caracas now exceeds Washington’s influence even in countries that are seen as pro-U.S., such as Colombia. Mostly through the China Development Bank, Beijing now lends far more to the region than the World Bank.

Oblivious to these trends, it is not uncommon to witness dinner party debates among left-of-center Brazilian intellectuals about whether the Lava Jato corruption investigation and former President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment are actually schemes by the FBI to destroy Petrobras (as a professor at USP, a leading university, recently argued in a newspaper interview).

All the while, Brazil’s Foreign Minister José Serra is said to have only a vague understanding of Asia, and was recently unable to name the members of the BRICS grouping during an interview. Add to that the absence of sinologists and Brazilian foreign correspondents based in China, the result is a disturbing unpreparedness for an increasingly Asia-centric world.

Designing a regional strategy

What is to be done? For starters, while Peru, Chile and others have already begun to adapt to new realities, foreign ministries in the region should coordinate their positions regarding China better to avoid competing for Chinese largesse, which will lead to a race to the bottom. That involves discussing and possibly aligning legislation regarding Chinese investments, transnational environmental rules for Chinese-financed projects that cross borders, and cohesive policies regarding bigger questions such as China’s role in the World Trade Organization.

This discussion should also include a broad debate, all ideological passions aside, about how the emerging global competition between Washington and Beijing can be used to the region’s advantage. That requires being as knowledgeable about domestic affairs in Beijing as in Washington, which, given the opacity of China, requires a far greater diplomatic presence than most countries possess today.

Considering the influence China already has on Latin American economics and politics (for example, the current situation in Venezuela is impossible to understand without making sense of China’s role as a lender), the lack of a regional debate over how to grapple with the implications of multipolarity is remarkable. The longer policy makers in the region wait, the smaller their capacity to learn to operate in the new environment.

Read also:

Brazil and Argentina should lead regional effort to address humanitarian crisis in Venezuela

The Brazil-Bolivia dispute, a decade on

Venezuela on the Edge: Can the Region Help?

Photo credit: Anderson Riedel/Michel Temer via Flickr

Review: China's Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. By Howard French. Vintage; Reprint edition (February 3, 2015). 304 pages. U$ 16.50 (Kindle, amazon.com)  

China's growing influence in Africa is, without a doubt, the most important event in African history since the end of the Cold War. Given the rapidity of events, our understanding of this complex phenomenon is still limited, and basic questions remain unanswered: What is Beijing's strategy and motivation on the continent? Do Africans benefit from Chinese investments? Will China spur economic development or deindustrialization? Will China integrate into today's aid regime, or will it disregard established structures such as the DAC, the Paris Declaration and the Working Party of Aid Effectiveness? What does this mean for the future of aid? Will China's activity in Africa undermine Western efforts to promote human rights, good governance and democracy? Given how tricky it is to obtain data and China's limited interest in being transparent about its activities and intentions in Africa, the discussion is often based on anecdotes, rough estimates and rumors. For example, there exists a general confusion about what constitutes Chinese aid, loans and investments, and these figures are often thrown together, creating an uninformed debate.

Several books over the past years have analyzed some of the questions above. Deborah Brautigam's The Dragon's Gift: The Read Story of China in Africa (reviewed here) provides an excellent analysis that demystifies a lot of the common narratives about China's role in Africa. Elizabeth Economy's By All Necessary Means is another highly readable, more recent contribution. In this context, Howard French, a former journalist for the New York Times, has written a very engaging account of China's growing role in Africa. His book is a mixture of essay and travelogue, and unlike Brautigam, which discusses nitty-gritty details about Chinese aid programs and loans, French looks at the China's role from a different angle: he traveled through a dozen Sub-Saharan countries and listened to the many Chinese people who have come to live in Africa, and Africans who shared their opinions about the Chinese. French possesses ideal credentials for such an enterprise: He has wide-ranging experience in Africa and speaks Chinese fluently, thus providing the reader with insights non-Chinese speakers would struggle to obtain. 

It is French's capacity to tell the reader about his encounters, rather than the book's grander narrative, that makes China's Second Continent so interesting. We learn about countless Chinese who emigrated to countries all over Africa -- like Namibia, Ghana and Mozambique -- and their ambitions, difficulties and their daily lives. What emerges is a complex picture and a sense that seeking to identify a narrative about China's role in Africa inevitably misses a much more nuanced picture. While debates at think tanks and universities often implicitly assume that Beijing articulates and executes a highly centralized Africa policy according to a grand master plan, French's book offers a powerful antidote in showing that thousands of Chinese come to Africa without any preparation at all, just trying their luck in an uncoordinated fashion. In Namibia, French speaks to a Chinese immigrant who entered Namibia twice, only to be deported each time, before entering a third time, finally amassing a modest fortune. The Chinese government's strategy, of course, is not entirely hands-off: evidence suggests that policy makers in Beijing exert pressure on African governments to allow more Chinese to settle on the continent, and to not prosecute and expel Chinese companies operating illegally in Africa — such as logging in environmentally protected forests or overfishing. 

Most of the book's chapters bring together discussions with local chieftains, diplomats, engineers and people French meets in the streets -- followed by a short and usually balanced debate about China's role on the African continent. French comes across as a connoisseur of both African and Chinese society, and his analysis does not suggest Beijing's influence on Africa is overall negative. Chinese diplomats are depicted as polished and dishonest, but French also gives voice to plenty of Africans who argue that it African elites, not the Chinese, who are to blame for the problems the continent faces. 

French points to the often shocking tensions between Chinese rhetoric of win-win cooperation (and the implication that the Chinese are better partners for Africa than Western those from Western countries) and the often blatant racism the Chinese migrants show when speaking about the locals. Very few are genuinely interested in integrating in local societies, although a few lean local languages. As a consequence, while Africa may benefit tremendously from an economic point of view from China's presence, the more than one million Chinese living in Africa today have done preciously little to promote Chinese culture.

Read also:

Book review: “The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa” by Deborah Brautigam

Who will make the rules in tomorrow’s world?

AIIB: China takes the lead

Photo credit : Christopher Herwi / REUTERS

As the Chinese government welcomes leaders from around the world for its Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, analysts will ask: is the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative a plan to overthrow the existing global order, by pulling Asian countries into its sphere of influence?

That may be the wrong question. After all, China has been very much supportive of existing institutions -- it has increased its financial support to the World Bank and the IMF, it is a permanent UN Security Council member, and it provides more troops to UN peacekeeping missions than all the other permanent members combined. Yet Beijing's strategy goes beyond merely supporting existing outfits. In addition, China is quietly crafting the initial building blocks of what we may call a “parallel order” that will initially complement, and later possibly challenge, today’s international institutions. This order is already in the making; it includes, among others, institutions such as the BRICS-led New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (to complement the World Bank), Universal Credit Rating Group (to complement Moody’s and S&P), China Union Pay (to complement Mastercard and Visa), CIPS (to complement SWIFT), the BRICS (to complement the G7), and many other initiatives. Of all these, OBOR, a vast plan of infrastructure projects to connect Asia, is arguably the most visible.

One important, though often overlooked key element of the China-led emerging parallel order is China UnionPay (CUP), which seeks to complement existing global actors such as VISA and Mastercard. CUP is China’s domestic bank card organization, the association for China's banking card industry and the only interbank network in the country, owned by around 85 banks. UnionPay cards can be used in more than 140 countries and regions around the world, making it the second-largest payment network by value of transactions processed after Visa. CUP is dominant in China: UnionPay is used by 80 percent of debit cards and accounted for 72 percent of total transaction value in 2014. In fact, there are almost as many UnionPay cards globally in circulation as Visa and Mastercard combined (4.5 billion cards since its founding in 2002), and UnionPay is projected to grow strongly in the coming years. Mainland consumers dubbed the bank card company “China UP”, having emerged as a new symbol of China's rising profile. Outside of mainland China, Union Pay issued 33 million cards as of the end of late 2014 and plans to "make a breakthrough" in the coming three years. In 2015, the Union Pay chip card standard was introduced to the local banks as the standard of Thailand's banking industry. Thailand was the first overseas nation to adopt Union Pay standard as its local uniform chip card standard. Global operators such as Visa and MasterCard, however, are now able to apply for licenses to clear domestic Chinese payments, so CUP may face increasing competition.

Challenging Visa and Mastercard does not, at first glance, look like a geopolitical enterprise. And yet, the topic is intimately related to international security. China’s willingness to strengthen China UnionPay must also be seen as an attempt to gain greater autonomy from the West in the case of future confrontation. This became particularly obvious after the adoptions of Western sanctions against Russia in response to the annexation of Ukraine. If Moscow can be targeted, policymakers in Beijing reasoned, China could be next.

Indeed, in response to Western sanctions, when both Visa and MasterCard blocked the accounts of cardholders at BankRossiya and SMF Bank, Russia embraced China UnionPay. As Russia Today (RT), a pro-government news outlet, wrote in late 2014, “Forget Visa and MasterCard. After the two American credit system payment companies froze accounts without notice in March, Russia has been looking for an alternative in China UnionPay.” 

While Western powers did not decide to cut off the entire Russian economy from Visa and Mastercard's network -- as is the case with Iran, Sudan and North Korea, where international credit cards cannot be used -- it still provides the United States with power to inflict tremendous damage on perceived wrongdoers. If CUP became a global actor comparable to the two giants in the field, targeted regimes could -- in theory -- continue being open for businesses, even without Visa and Mastercard. 

However, as the Financial Times recently pointed out, China Union Pay's global battle will be far from easy. As Alfred Shang, a financial services partner at Bain & Co in Beijing, told FT,

New technology and the availability of better data are changing how the global payments market operates, and new entrants such as UnionPay will have to provide something new in terms of pricing, service, technology or scale. UnionPay’s global expansion comes at a time when the entire market is ripe for disruption, so they need to consider their business model carefully. (...) If they just play a ‘me-too strategy’ with Visa and MasterCard, there’s really no point.

Read also:

The post-western order

Book review: “Post-western world: how emerging powers are remaking global order”

A Contest for Supremacy in Asia?

Book Review: China's Asian Dream. By Tom Miller. Zed Books, 2017.  256 pages. $21.16 (kindle, amazon.com)

Four years ago, at a talk at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that China would fund a New Silk Road Economic Belt (usually referred to as OBOR) across Eurasia to connect China with Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Media estimates investment in OBOR anywhere in between $800 billion and $1 trillion, covering 890 projects in over 60 partner countries — a truly monumental initiative. Several commentators have made parallels between OBOR and the U.S - sponsored Marshall Plan that aided in the reconstruction of postwar Europe. Indeed, as Tom Miller points out in his book China's Asian Dream, it is the President's signature issue, for which he would like to be remembered.

Xi's OBOR initiative serves a dual purpose. Domestically, he hopes that better transport links will promote growth in underdeveloped central and western regions such as Xinjiang, Gansu Province, Ningxia, Guangxi and Yunnan Province. That would not only boost overall GDP, but also reduce regional economic inequality, and thus migration into the coastal areas, a trend that may contribute to social tension. An economic boom in Xinjiang is also seen as the best way to combat the rise of Islamic extremism in the region.

From a foreign policy perspective, the most immediate goal of the OBOR initiative is to boost China's influence in Central Asia, a resource-rich region that no longer falls into Moscow's orbit. As a growing number of countries become dependent on Chinese transport and energy infrastructure, stronger economic ties will make it increasingly costly for Central Asian governments to oppose China. Miller's book analyzes not only initiatives in Central Asia, but in China's entire neighborhood, asking whether China will succeed in becoming a regional hegemon. The author is skeptical when it comes to Beijing's ambitions, pointing to resistance in many countries, including Myanmar and Vietnam. "Nobody wants to become a Chinese vassal", he argues.

Yet Miller also recognizes that China's financial firepower will allow it to make new friends, using a multitude of new institutions -- such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS-led New Development and the China Exim Bank, which disburses around U$150 billion per year, the equivalent of Bangladesh's entire GDP. Perhaps most impressive, this amounts to more than the world's seven major multilateral development banks combined. This raises an interesting point: China's initiatives such as the AIIB may be a multilateral façade, while most of Beijing's money is spent and negotiated bilaterally. That is particularly relevant given that most International Relations scholars focus on multilateral institutions, while development banks are less frequently studied, even though their importance -- as seen in the case of China -- is far greater. For example, it is through the Exim Bank that China lends more money to Latin America today than all other development banks combined, providing it with tremendous political influence.

Most of Miller's analysis is balanced, and he succeeds in steering clear of the anti-China bias so prevalent among many Western analysts. Granted, some parts of the analysis have a somewhat sensationalistic feel to it and suggest China's plans are dangerous. The author speaks of an "infrastructure arms race", a term may be misunderstood, given that roads and dams, in principle, benefit local populations -- in the same way that the United States poured millions of dollars into Western Europe after World War II to integrate Germany and others into the Western alliance system. In that sense, a more detailed comparison between China's plans and those of other hegemon's in the past would have helped contextualize Beijing's regional spending frenzy.

The author goes out of his way to show the inconsistencies between Chinese rhetoric -- such as the famous concept of "win-win", which Miller rightly questions. Yet government rhetoric is by definition an attempt to create a benign narrative that seeks to iron out contradictions, rather than an adequate and objective description of its strategy. Not only Chinese, but also US-American, German, Mexican or South African official rhetoric is full of inconsistencies, yet that does not necessarily mean they do not help achieve policy makers' goals. He says to succeed, "China must convince its neighbors that its grand initiative does not amount to a strategic push for regional hegemony" -- yet what does success actually mean, if not regional hegemony? Indeed, the most likely outcome is that China's influence will increase thanks to the projects, while neighboring countries will remain profoundly suspicious of Beijing's intentions -- just like Latin American countries remain suspicious of Washington's plans, even decades after the United States' more heavy-handed interventionism has ended.

Miller's accounts of his trips to Central Asia are interesting, yet his impression that China's influence in countries like Kazakhstan is "skin deep" may give the reader the wrong impression. After all, a visit to Caracas or Managua will leave visitors with the impression that China has no influence at all, while in fact it was long turned into the most influential outside actor in both countries. Given its peculiar nature, the United States was able to sweeten the package by exporting its culture, but that was never the decisive element in convincing its allies to support Washington. In the same way, Chinese policy makers may come to call the shots in Phnom Penh, Astana and Naypyidaw, while its inhabitants remain either suspicious our outright hostile to Chinese influence. As long as opposition politicians criticize China but then turn pro-Beijing once they are in power (as seen in several countries in Africa), Chinese policy makers are unlikely to care much.

The example of Myanmar, analyzed by Miller in a separate chapter, shows that in some cases, anti-China sentiment can end up hurting Beijing's strategic interests. Yet even though the author speaks of the "loss of Myanmar", he rightly points out that despite the resistance, Beijing remains Myanmar's key partner, and this is unlikely to change in the coming years. Simply put, China has become far too important economically, and no government can afford to be permanently on bad terms with Beijing.

Miller's policy recommendations are sensible. He says China's attempt to carve out a regional sphere of influence is inevitable, and anything but accommodation would lead to conflict.

All in all, China's Asian Dream offers an engaging and up-to-date analysis of China's regional strategy, with insightful country-specific chapters. The book is useful not only to Asia watchers, but also to scholars and policy makers in Africa and Latin America who think about articulating strategies of how to manage their growing dependence on China.

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China’s Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa

Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know

BY OLIVER STUENKEL | JUNE 5, 2017
China has invested more than $60 billion, giving it a huge stake in Maduro’s survival.

http://americasquarterly.org/content/venezuela-no-solution-without-beijing

For years, governments across the hemisphere have failed to halt Venezuela’s slow descent into strife-riven autocracy. This is partly because their discussions have overlooked an important element: Beijing’s key role as President Nicolás Maduro’s largest and most stalwart financial supporter. China as a political actor can no longer be left out of the search for solutions to Venezuela’s profound political and humanitarian crisis.

At a time when the government in Caracas is slowly turning into a pariah regime and several leading Venezuelan officials can no longer travel abroad due to international drug trafficking charges, Chinese investments have translated into tremendous political and economic influence. Opposition leaders have continuously promised to review the terms of Chinese loans, if they ever assume power, after Maduro adopted a series of questionable legal maneuvers to sign accords without congressional approval. Remarkably, these deals are no longer included in the yearly budget, making it impossible for the media or opposition politicians to assess them. Over the past few years, China has lent over $60 billion to Venezuela, most of which it pays back with oil shipments, and none of which includes policy conditions. The support does, however, provide privileges for Chinese companies in key sectors of the Venezuelan economy such as cars, telecommunications, appliances, and oil drilling, according to reports.

That is likely to further increase worries in China that an opposition victory in Venezuela would expose Beijing to the legal quagmire of having to renegotiate its deals. Indeed, while the public in Venezuela is largely unaware of China’s growing influence, that could radically change if the opposition came to power. The opposition in that scenario would be in dire need of external scapegoats while implementing painful reforms to overhaul the country’s distorted economic system. Creditors tend to be popular when they hand out cash in times of need, but less so when the debtor realizes the terms of the deal are too onerous. After all, Venezuela's highly controversial oil payments to China have risen in recent years, even as Venezuela's total oil output has been falling continuously for the past decade due to lack of maintenance and very limited new investments. In 2016, production decreased to a mere 2.5 million barrels per day, the lowest in more than two decades.

China, which contributed a staggering 39 percent to world economic growth in 2016, is extremely unlikely to play a visible role in any international effort to help Venezuela overcome its internal divisions. In most cases, such as those of Sudan, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and North Korea, where China has tremendous economic influence, policymakers in Beijing have resisted international calls to put pressure on authoritarian regimes. And yet the Chinese government, highly experienced in operating in difficult political environments, is known to have become more pragmatic when friendly authoritarian governments started to crumble. In an unprecedented move, Chinese diplomats met with Libyan rebels during the civil war in 2011, while Muhammar Gaddafi was still in power, to discuss future economic relations; Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi pointed out after the meeting that the opposition “has been increasingly representing the Libyan people.”

The fact that Beijing has not made similar comments about the Venezuelan opposition is a sign that, for now, it believes Maduro will be able to hold on to power. At the same time, rumors are rife that Beijing is increasingly impatient with growing delays in the shipment of crude oil – Caracas is said to be more than 3 million barrels behind schedule. Yet China will only stop supporting Maduro when it believes the cost – both economic and political – of doing so exceeds that of losing an ally in South America. Correctly assessing Beijing’s rationale – no easy task considering that Venezuela is one of the top ten oil suppliers to China – is indispensable to predicting how long Maduro will remain in power.

In this context, any high-level regional debate about the future of Venezuela should involve China – if not in the hope of active assistance, at least to better understand the views of all the key players involved in a crisis that has increasingly spilled into other countries, as seen by the growing number of Venezuelan refugees fleeing to Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. All affected countries should more actively discuss the Venezuelan issue in bilateral meetings with Chinese officials, and Brazil’s president should ask the Chinese government to include the topic in debates at the upcoming BRICS Summit in Xiamen.

This should be part of a broader strategy by Latin American policymakers to show China that its role in Venezuela matters to governments across the region, with potentially negative consequences for its image abroad – an issue Beijing cares far more about in Latin America after... 

continue reading here

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http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/06/13/opinion/1497316118_825241.html

Depois de anos de tentativas frustradas, fica evidente que atores regionais não têm a capacidade de ajudar a Venezuela a sair do fundo do poço. A crise política no país é mais profunda e complexa hoje do que em 2003, quando o grupo “Amigos da Venezuela”, composto por vários países latino-americanos, foi crucial para restabelecer o diálogo entre o governo e a oposição. Além disso, o vácuo de poder na América do Sul, acima de tudo devido à instabilidade política no Brasil, torna qualquer estratégia coordenada implausível.

Uma questão negligenciada nesse contexto é o papel fundamental da China, responsável por quase 40% do crescimento global em 2016. Há anos, Pequim se tornou o maior investidor e credor da Venezuela. É hoje um ator político que não se pode mais deixar fora da equação.

Em um momento em que o Caracas está cada vez mais isolada internacionalmente, investimentos chineses traduzem-se em uma enorme influência política e econômica. Desde que chegou ao poder, Maduro adotou uma série de manobras controversas para assinar acordos com a China sem a aprovação do Congresso, dificultando a análise de suas consequências para a economia. Ao longo dos últimos anos, a China emprestou mais de 60 bilhões de dólares à Venezuela. A maior parte dessa quantia está sendo paga em forma de petróleo. Os empréstimos não incluem condições políticas, mas há evidências de que preveem privilégios para empresas chinesas em setores-chave da economia venezuelana, como transporte, telecomunicações, energia, entre outros.

A oposição prometeu que, se chegar ao poder, revisará os termos dos empréstimos chineses. Isso tem gerado preocupações na China, pois o fim do chavismo forçaria Pequim a renegociar seus acordos, com possíveis perdas bilionárias. Pequim soube se aproveitar da busca desesperada da Venezuela por apoio financeiro, mas a população venezuelana desconhece em grande parte a crescente influência da China no país. Isso poderia mudar se a oposição assumisse o comando, expondo o verdadeiro preço do apoio financeiro chinês. Afinal, qualquer sucessor de Maduro precisará de bodes expiatórios externos na hora de implementar reformas dolorosas para colocar a economia nos eixos novamente.

Cabe destacar que os pagamentos em forma de petróleo da Venezuela para a China aumentaram nos últimos anos, embora a produção total do país tenha caído continuamente durante a última década devido à falta de investimentos e manutenção de instalações. Em 2016, reduziu-se para apenas 2,5 milhões de barris por dia — a menor quantidade em mais de duas décadas —, em comparação a 3,5 milhões diários em 1997.

É pouco provável que a China desempenhe um papel visível em qualquer esforço internacional para ajudar a Venezuela a superar suas divisões internas. Na maioria dos casos, como no Sudão, Zimbábue, Mianmar e Coreia do Norte, onde a China tem uma influência econômica extraordinária, Pequim resiste a pedidos internacionais para que pressione regimes autoritários. Ao mesmo tempo, o Governo chinês se tornou mais pragmático nos últimos anos quando ditadores amigos começaram a desmoronar. Em um movimento sem precedentes, diplomatas chineses se encontraram com rebeldes líbios durante a guerra civil em 2011 para discutir futuras relações econômicas — quando Muammar Gaddafi ainda estava no poder. Depois da reunião à época, o chanceler chinês, Yang Jiechi, apontou que a oposição "tem representado cada vez mais o povo líbio ".

Desde 2016, o governo chinês mantém um diálogo informal com a oposição em Caracas, sinal de que busca tomar providências para a possibilidade do colapso chavista. Porém, o fato de Pequim não ter feito comentários públicos sobre a oposição venezuelana — como no caso da Líbia — mostra que, por enquanto, aposta na permanência de Maduro no poder. Ao mesmo tempo, fontes chinesas admitem que Pequim está cada vez mais impaciente com os atrasos crescentes no envio do petróleo venezuelano. Atualmente, Caracas está com um atraso de mais de 3 milhões de barris.

No entanto, parece claro que a China só deixará Maduro entregue à própria sorte quando avaliar que o custo desses atrasos supera a perda de seu principal aliado na América do Sul. Antecipar corretamente o comportamento de Pequim — algo nada fácil, considerando que a Venezuela é um dos dez maiores fornecedores de petróleo da China — é indispensável para prever por quanto tempo mais Maduro ocupará o Palácio Miraflores.

Não há, portanto, como vislumbrar uma solução para a crise na Venezuela sem envolver a China — dificilmente como participante ativa nas negociações, mas talvez como importante interlocutora nos bastidores. Todos os países afetados — entre eles, o Brasil e a Colômbia, que recebem cada vez mais refugiados venezuelanos (quase um milhão no caso colombiano) — poderiam começar a discutir a questão em reuniões bilaterais com a China. Governos latino-americanos precisam deixar claro que acompanham de perto o papel de Pequim na Venezuela. O Brasil, por sua parte, poderia pedir ao Governo chinês que incluísse o tema na próxima cúpula do grupo BRICS, que ocorrerá na cidade chinesa de Xiamen em setembro deste ano.

Afinal, a presença da China na Venezuela revela uma tendência maior. O volume do comércio chinês com a América Latina se multiplicou por vinte nos últimos quinze anos. Empresas chinesas investirão 250 bilhões de dólares na região ao longo da próxima década. Portanto, para além da própria Venezuela, qualquer análise das dinâmicas políticas domésticas latino-americanas exigirá levar em consideração os interesses de Pequim.

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Reviews

"The role and importance of the so-called BRICS has been hotly debated for a decade, but it has not been studied in a systematic way until now. Oliver Stuenkel’s balanced and richly detailed work demonstrates that the BRICS are neither a coherent coalition seeking to overturn the global balance of power nor a passing fad of little importance. Instead, his analysis shows that cooperation among the BRICS seeks to foster the gradual emergence of a legitimate and rule-based multipolar order, and to press the United States and its allies to follow existing global rules more consistently. This nuanced and clearly-written book offers an illuminating glimpse into the future of global politics."

Stephen Walt, Harvard Kennedy School

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"This is the best book on BRICS written to date. It brilliantly analyzes the origins of the group, the nature and scope of intra-BRICS cooperation, and its impact on world order. It is required reading for anyone interested in the emerging trends in world politics."

Amitav Acharya, UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, American University

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"For academics and practitioners in the North, this very readable book is an excellent crash-course introduction to the quirks of emerging market foreign policy, providing more nuance and more context than can typically be gleaned from the pages of The Economist and the Financial Times." (International Affairs)

Sean Burges, Australian National University (ANU)

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"As a reference work, this book should go a long way in generating academic interest on a topic increasingly important to understand in a rapidly changing world." (International Studies Review)

Harsh V. Pant, King's College London

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"In detailing the evolution of BRICS from 2009 to 2015 and in covering a full cycle of meetings that would be completed when Russia hosts the summit in 2015, the book covers every milestone in the path traversed hitherto. More importantly, it makes some substantive political points, apart from the chronological narrative (...) BRICS is an illustration of the “manyness” in multilateralism reflecting a multipolar world with new powers and diverse interests. Its promise and prospects in the next decade are worthy of study and Stuenkel will be a good guide in doing so." (Indian Journal of Diplomacy)

B. S. Prakash, Former Indian Ambassador to Brazil

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"A very valuable guide to the BRICS as an international actor, and (...) the most informative account [on the topic] that I have read."

Ray Kiely, Queen Mary University of London

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"This book is the first to look at what the formation of the BRICS actually means in terms of geopolitics and economic opportunities." (Business New Europe)

Chris Weafer

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"This book is a must read for anyone interested in the BRICS and is highly recommended for undergraduate, graduate students, and faculty. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels."

CHOICE, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

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"Stuenkel [...] raises many important issues concerning the future of global governance, reform of the international financial system, perceptions of sovereignty in the non-Western world, and the political economy of inequality." (Jornal of Political Power)

Ekaterina Koldunova

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"Many Western scholars have been questioning the "BRICS countries" and the continued existence of the concept. Oliver Stuenkel's new book, "The Future of the BRIC and the Future of the Global Order," responds to these criticisms and doubts."

Lei Wang

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"Para aqueles que buscam compreender essas mudanças na ordem global e as nuances do comportamento dos países emergentes, o livro é ponto de partida obrigatório." (Mural Internacional)

Débora Coutinho Cunha

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"Stuenkel gives a detailed ‘under-the-hood’ assessment of the BRICS forum, which is a necessary corrective to simplistic conclusions of the forum’s potential or demise. (...) required reading for any scholar who wants to prepare for the year ahead and beyond." (Australia Outlook)

Akshay Mathur is the Director of Research and a Fellow of Geoeconomic Studies at Gateway House, India

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"This book is a plate-full of references allowing for further reading and research." (Modern Diplomacy)

Gabriela Pascholati do Amaral

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"A critical “historical biography" of the BRICS concept, making it suitable for a wider audience and satisfying both the needs of experienced researchers and readers in general." (Europe-Asia Studies)

João Mourato Pinto

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"O teor do livro incentiva os leitores a considerar outros estudos sobre o bloco no intuito de entender sua relevância e promessa." (Revista de Estudos Internacionais)

Wagner Martins dos Santos

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"O livro contribui significativamente para os estudos das potências emergentes ao corrigir visões e leituras generalistas sobre o tema." (Conjuntura Austral/ Journal of the Global South)

André Sanches Siqueira Campos

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Summary

The transformation of the BRIC acronym from an investment term into a household name of international politics and, more recently, into a semi-institutionalized political outfit (called BRICS, with a capital ‘S’), is one of the defining developments in international politics in the past decade. While the concept is now commonly used in the general public debate and international media, there has not yet been a comprehensive and scholarly analysis of the history of the BRICS term. The BRICS and the Future of Global Order offers a definitive reference history of the BRICS as a term and as an institution—a chronological narrative and analytical account of the BRICS concept from its inception in 2001 to the political grouping it is today. In addition, it analyzes what the rise of powers like Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa means for the future of global order. Will the BRICS countries seek to establish a parallel system with its own distinctive set of rules, institutions, and currencies of power, rejecting key tenets of liberal internationalism, or will they seek to embrace the rules and norms that define today’s Western-led order?

About the Author

Oliver Stuenkel is Associate Professor of international relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo, where he coordinates the São Paulo branch of the School of History and Social Science (CPDOC) and the executive program in international relations.

AJIL Unbound, Volume 111
January 2017 , pp. 236-240
Oliver Stuenkel, Associate Professor of International Relations, Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV).
COPYRIGHT: © 2017 by The American Society of International Law and Oliver Stuenkel
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2017.62

Published online: 05 September 2017 

Full access here.

Abstract

Over the past years, the Chinese government (along with other rising powers) has engaged in unprecedented international institution-building, leading to the establishment of, among others, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS-led New Development Bank (NDB). Providing services similar to existing institutions such as the World Bank, these new institutions profoundly alter the landscape of global governance. The existing literature has mostly debated whether such activism shows that China and others are embracing or confronting today's Western-led order. This discussion fails to capture a more complex reality, and the concept of international institutional bypasses (IIB) may help us gain a better understanding of China's complex institutional entrepreneurship. As will be explained, decisions by China and other countries to simultaneously support reform processes in existing institutions and also create new ones suggests that they seek alternative ways to overcome perceived dysfunctions in the dominant institutions by creating IIBs. Considering the initiatives in these terms allows for a more nuanced picture that transcends the simplistic dichotomy of integration versus rupture.

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/opiniao/2017/09/1921058-janela-de-oportunidade-se-fechou.shtml

Depois de numerosas tentativas frustradas ao longo dos últimos anos, fica evidente que governos da região não possuem a capacidade de ajudar a Venezuela a sair do fundo do poço. Há três razões pelas quais um esforço regional liderado pelo Brasil é implausível.

Primeiro, resta muito menos da democracia venezuelana hoje do que se via em 2003, quando o grupo "Amigos da Venezuela", capitaneado pelo Brasil, foi crucial para restabelecer o diálogo entre o governo e a oposição.

Enquanto a distribuição de forças entre o governo de Hugo Chávez (1954-2013) e a oposição estava relativamente equilibrada à época, criando um incentivo para o diálogo, hoje o governo Maduro e as Forças Armadas concentram quase todo o poder.

Agora, a Venezuela é uma mistura de ditadura civil-militar e Estado falido, com vários oposicionistas presos ou exilados.

O que resta da oposição deixou de ter um papel relevante na política venezuelana. A maior ameaça a Maduro não vem da oposição, mas do próprio chavismo. Portanto, os incentivos para ele negociar uma saída são baixos.

Maduro sabe que, ao aceitar a promoção de eleições livres -condição inegociável para a oposição-, uma possível derrota nas urnas levaria a maior parte dos líderes políticos e militares do chavismo à prisão por envolvimento com tráfico de drogas, corrupção ou abusos de direitos humanos.

Em segundo lugar, o governo brasileiro está consumido por uma crise interna da qual dificilmente sairá antes das eleições em 2018, dificultando a articulação de uma estratégia regional.

Mesmo um governo brasileiro mais estável teria dificuldades de estabelecer um diálogo com o ator mais importante na Venezuela de hoje: as Forças Armadas, cuja aprovação é necessária para que Maduro tome qualquer decisão.

Sem uma diplomacia paralela sofisticada entre as Forças Armadas brasileiras e venezuelanas, não há como promover um diálogo real.

Por fim, qualquer tentativa de o Brasil liderar um esforço regional seria pouco viável pelo fato de nenhum dos quatro atores mais influentes na Venezuela hoje -Cuba, EUA, Rússia e China- integrar a América do Sul.

O ator mais poderoso na Venezuela é Pequim, que se tornou o maior investidor e credor do país. Com empréstimos de mais de US$ 65 bilhões a Caracas desde 2005, a China é um ator político que não se pode mais deixar fora da equação.

O segundo ator-chave é Washington, que continua comprando em torno de 700 mil barris de petróleo por dia. Contudo, em razão das sanções econômicas, o país vem perdendo espaço, e o governo venezuelano já articulou um plano B caso Donald Trump opte por um embargo econômico: compensar as perdas vendendo mais petróleo à China e à Índia.

O terceiro ator mais influente é a Rússia, cujos investimentos em blocos de petróleo salvaram a Venezuela do colapso no ano passado. Há sinais de que Moscou está disposta a investir alto para dar sobrevida ao regime de Maduro.

Ler a íntegra do artigo aqui.

OLIVER STUENKEL, 35, é professor de Relações Internacionais da Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), em São Paulo

http://tv.cctv.com/2017/10/22/VIDEjZ3TyFV9yYU7Tt5kPPrv171022.shtml

央视网消息（新闻联播）：习近平总书记在十九大报告中提出，中国将坚持和平发展道路，推动构建人类命运共同体。国外专家学者认为，这为充满不确定性的国际局势提供巨大的稳定性，为全球治理体系改革和建设不断贡献中国智慧，提供中国方案。

巴西国际问题专家施廷克尔表示，当前世界经济逆全球化暗流涌动，十九大报告提到，推动形成全面开放新格局。这对世界经济意义非凡。

英国、德国、俄罗斯、韩国等国学者也认为，构建人类命运共同体理念开辟出一条合作共赢、共建共享的发展新道路。

If you're in China next month, join me for one of the book launches of Post-Western World, now available in Chinese (http://amzn.to/2ivnVdz):

Tsinghua University (Dec 11)
China Foreign Affairs University (Dec 12)
Nankai University (Dec 13)
Fudan University (Dec 14)
Tongji University (Dec 15)
Jinan University (Dec 18)
Sun Yat-sen University (Dec 19)
Renmin University (Dec 20).

http://hqtime.huanqiu.com/share/article/a-XCXO1CFB0F0D79A47EA160?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0

对于全球秩序的未来，如果你去西方国家的首都转一圈，就会发现它们现在是多么的沮丧和悲观。作为二战后世界秩序的缔造者和主要支柱，美国正将注意力转向国内，不再给世界带来稳定感或捍卫全球化。一些西方评论人士对中国等非西方国家的崛起抱怨连连，他们大多认为这些新崛起的国家没能致力于塑造一个开放、稳定、以规则为基础的全球体系。因此，来自华盛顿和伦敦的大多数主流国际关系观察人士认为，全球秩序最好的时光已经逝去。这套秩序以后不再受西方规则的支配，将会一片混乱，变得缺乏方向而且十分危险。

但在特朗普出人意料地在美国大选中获胜一年之后，现实看上去并没那么可怕：全球体系并不是仅仅依靠华盛顿，尽管美国开始扮演中性、某些情况下甚至是破坏性的角色，全球体系仍能茁壮成长。很显然，特朗普并没阻断全球化。相反，全球化可以在缺少华盛顿积极贡献的情况下继续前行，正如最近的金砖峰会、二十国集团峰会以及亚太经合组织峰会等一系列高层会议所展示的那样。

以中国为代表的许多其他国家，已经快步跟上，开始提供一些至关重要的全球性公共产品。这些贡献原本并不是新近发生的事，但颇具讽刺意味的是，正是由于美国总统特朗普的胜选和上台等引起诸多担忧后，西方才更多注意到了这些方面。例如，中国是联合国安理会常任理事国中派出维和人员最多的国家。在印度洋打击海盗的行动中，北京也做出了巨大贡献。与美国不同，过去多年以来中国没有欠联合国任何债务。现在，中国是拉美等全球诸多地区基础设施建设的主要信贷提供方，并领导着亚投行等机构。另外，中国正与欧盟一道建立“绿色联盟”，在应对气候变化的全球性行动中发挥领导作用。

这一切都不应该让人感到吃惊。同许多所谓主流分析人士的观点相反，新兴大国并没多少兴趣推翻或破坏过去几十年来建立起来的规则和机制。相反，北京、新德里、巴西利亚的决策者们，早就意识到积极维护全球治理和全球化的重大意义，这些国家也都从中获益良多。对于中国而言，提供更多全球性公共产品，对于确保其他国家以积极视角正确看待中国崛起至关重要，这与美国过去的做法很相似。就像华盛顿借助世界银行、国际货币基金组织等国际机构聚拢其他国家一样，中国以及其他一些非西方大国也在利用新设立的机构来巩固新产生的凝聚效应，强化与其他国家的经济关系，以便使新兴国家在全球决策过程中发挥更大影响。

可以想象，作为一个超级大国，中国将不得不习惯于担负由此带来的一些重大责任。鉴于它的经济在世界上愈发举足轻重，中国将越来越成为其他国家国内政治讨论的中心议题之一，无论在秘鲁、波兰还是巴基斯坦，都是如此，就像过去几十年来拉美国家的许多政治讨论都会提到美国一样。同时，中国也需满足许多需求，无论是调解其他国家国内的紧张局势，还是在关乎全球人民福祉的一些议题讨论中发挥引领作用，比如气候变化、恐怖主义或是自动化给全球就业市场造成的影响等。毫无疑问，如何适应这一全球性角色将是中国外交面临的一大挑战。

只要稍稍回顾一下历史就会发现，中国成为一个大国并非许多观察家所描述的那样“前所未有”。美国哈佛大学教授柯伟林(William C.Kirby)很有针对性地说，中国拥有世界历史上时间最长的不间断文明，过去就曾发挥过引领作用。现在中国的崛起也不仅仅是过去三十几年的结果，而是一个多世纪以来形成的。

纵观历史，大国通常会寻求将它们在国际机制中临时获得的超强力量以制度化方式固化下来。按照某种例外主义论调，这种做法最主要的辩护理由，就是维持霸权对于保持世界稳定至关重要。现在，这种论调仍被许多西方国家接受，这也是它们对以中国为代表的非西方国家崛起颇感担忧的原因。

但这种对后西方秩序的担忧至少部分上被误导了，因为过去乃至现在的全球体系都远没有人们所想象的那样西方化。非西方大国早就开始为全球规则和机制的创立做出重要贡献了，甚至已先于西方国家。现在，以中国为代表的非西方国家愈发希望也更有能力提供更多全球性公共产品。尽管面向真正多极化的转变(不仅经济，也包括军事以及议程设置能力等)让许多人不安，但后西方的多极化格局最终很可能比过去历史上任何秩序都更具包容性，不仅促进更大程度的开放性对话，更有利于知识传播，还将在应对21世纪的全球性挑战方面带来更有创新性也更有效的方法。(作者是巴西圣保罗热图利奥·瓦加斯基金会国际关系副教授，近著《中国之治终结西方时代》。本文由王晓雄翻译)

Review: China's Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. By Howard French. Vintage; Reprint edition (February 3, 2015). 304 pages. U$ 16.50 (Kindle, amazon.com)  

China's growing influence in Africa is, without a doubt, the most important event in African history since the end of the Cold War. Given the rapidity of events, our understanding of this complex phenomenon is still limited, and basic questions remain unanswered: What is Beijing's strategy and motivation on the continent? Do Africans benefit from Chinese investments? Will China spur economic development or deindustrialization? Will China integrate into today's aid regime, or will it disregard established structures such as the DAC, the Paris Declaration and the Working Party of Aid Effectiveness? What does this mean for the future of aid? Will China's activity in Africa undermine Western efforts to promote human rights, good governance and democracy? Given how tricky it is to obtain data and China's limited interest in being transparent about its activities and intentions in Africa, the discussion is often based on anecdotes, rough estimates and rumors. For example, there exists a general confusion about what constitutes Chinese aid, loans and investments, and these figures are often thrown together, creating an uninformed debate.

Several books over the past years have analyzed some of the questions above. Deborah Brautigam's The Dragon's Gift: The Read Story of China in Africa (reviewed here) provides an excellent analysis that demystifies a lot of the common narratives about China's role in Africa. Elizabeth Economy's By All Necessary Means is another highly readable, more recent contribution. In this context, Howard French, a former journalist for the New York Times, has written a very engaging account of China's growing role in Africa. His book is a mixture of essay and travelogue, and unlike Brautigam, which discusses nitty-gritty details about Chinese aid programs and loans, French looks at the China's role from a different angle: he traveled through a dozen Sub-Saharan countries and listened to the many Chinese people who have come to live in Africa, and Africans who shared their opinions about the Chinese. French possesses ideal credentials for such an enterprise: He has wide-ranging experience in Africa and speaks Chinese fluently, thus providing the reader with insights non-Chinese speakers would struggle to obtain. 

It is French's capacity to tell the reader about his encounters, rather than the book's grander narrative, that makes China's Second Continent so interesting. We learn about countless Chinese who emigrated to countries all over Africa -- like Namibia, Ghana and Mozambique -- and their ambitions, difficulties and their daily lives. What emerges is a complex picture and a sense that seeking to identify a narrative about China's role in Africa inevitably misses a much more nuanced picture. While debates at think tanks and universities often implicitly assume that Beijing articulates and executes a highly centralized Africa policy according to a grand master plan, French's book offers a powerful antidote in showing that thousands of Chinese come to Africa without any preparation at all, just trying their luck in an uncoordinated fashion. In Namibia, French speaks to a Chinese immigrant who entered Namibia twice, only to be deported each time, before entering a third time, finally amassing a modest fortune. The Chinese government's strategy, of course, is not entirely hands-off: evidence suggests that policy makers in Beijing exert pressure on African governments to allow more Chinese to settle on the continent, and to not prosecute and expel Chinese companies operating illegally in Africa — such as logging in environmentally protected forests or overfishing. 

Most of the book's chapters bring together discussions with local chieftains, diplomats, engineers and people French meets in the streets -- followed by a short and usually balanced debate about China's role on the African continent. French comes across as a connoisseur of both African and Chinese society, and his analysis does not suggest Beijing's influence on Africa is overall negative. Chinese diplomats are depicted as polished and dishonest, but French also gives voice to plenty of Africans who argue that it African elites, not the Chinese, who are to blame for the problems the continent faces. 

French points to the often shocking tensions between Chinese rhetoric of win-win cooperation (and the implication that the Chinese are better partners for Africa than Western those from Western countries) and the often blatant racism the Chinese migrants show when speaking about the locals. Very few are genuinely interested in integrating in local societies, although a few lean local languages. As a consequence, while Africa may benefit tremendously from an economic point of view from China's presence, the more than one million Chinese living in Africa today have done preciously little to promote Chinese culture.

Read also:

Book review: “The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa” by Deborah Brautigam

Who will make the rules in tomorrow’s world?

AIIB: China takes the lead

Photo credit : Christopher Herwi / REUTERS

The sanctions announced by the US government against Venezuela complicate the South American country's financial situation, but they are unlikely to lead to its ninth default since 1902. The new restrictions prohibit US-American citizens of companies to trade new Venezuelan bonds, making it harder for PDVSA to refinance its debt burden. Yet the sanctions fall short of a full embargo, which would have a far more profound effect on the Venezuelan economy, almost certainly causing more social instability and even more severe product shortages until Caracas would find alternative buyers of the 700,000 barrels of oil it sells daily to the United States.

What the sanctions do achieve, however, is a further consolidation of Chinese or Russian influence in Venezuela. With US rhetoric indicating that tougher sanction may follow soon, the Maduro regime knows that its capacity to hold on to power now completely depends on Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who have provided both Chávez and Maduro with ample financial support over the past years -- in China's case, around U$ 60 billion. Those who think China and Russia support Maduro merely to irk the United States overlook that Venezuela is a genuinely important partner to both Moscow and China. Venezuela reliably defends Russia in multilateral fora and buys Russian weapons, while it is the seventh-largest oil provider to China, making it almost as important to Beijing as Saudi Arabia is to the United States.

Provided that the Venezuelan regime will survive — and a lot suggests that it will, for the foreseeable future — US sanctions thus accelerate the emergence of a large South American country largely dependent on actors from outside of the Western Hemisphere. The United States remain, at this point, the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, but it is no secret that the Venezuelan regime is fully aware of the risk that it may soon have to replace it and sell more oil elsewhere — most likely to China and India. The geopolitical consequences of such a profound change occur in parallel to a growing Chinese economic presence in the rest of South America that has already tremendously diminished US influence. That will be particularly felt during Brazil's upcoming wave of privatizations, when Chinese investors will invest in airports, utilities and other companies still owned by the Brazilian government. None of this is bad news per se — but it underlines the urgent need to discuss how South America should operate in an increasingly Asia-centric world.

Read also:

What Russia gains by supporting the Venezuelan regime

Venezuela: No Solution Without Beijing

Mesa redonda: A crise política na Venezuela: Dilemas e impactos na América Latina 

The “Security Policy Forecast 2018”, yearly publication by the Austrian Ministry of Defence, includes Oliver Stuenkel's article on the post-western global order. [Die postwestliche Weltordnung]. The report includes pieces by, among others, Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard, Hal Brands and Walter Russell Mead on Europe's and the United States' geopolitical challenges. Available for free download here [in German].

Read also:

Brazil’s top 10 foreign policy challenges in 2017

Review of ‘Post-Western World’ in the New York Review of Books (NYRB)

The BRICS Leaders Xiamen Declaration: An analysis

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Global Times
Published: 2017/11/28

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1077670.shtml

The overarching sentiment felt nowadays in Western capitals about the future of the world order is one of gloom and pessimism. The US, creator and main pillar of the post-World War II order, is turning inwards and currently no longer projects stability or defends globalization. Commentators bemoan the rise of non-Western powers such as China, generally suggesting that they are less committed to an open, stable and rules-based global system. As a consequence, most mainstream international affairs analysts in Washington and London today believe that for the main players in today's global order, their best days have come and gone. The future world order - one no longer under Western rule - is generally seen as chaotic, disorienting and dangerous.

Yet one year after Donald Trump's shocking election victory in the US, the reality looks far less grim. The system does not depend on Washington alone, and it can thrive despite the US now acting as a neutral or, in several instances, a disruptive force. Trump has not stopped globalization. Instead, globalization will march on with or without Washington, as the outcomes of recent high-level summits (such as BRICS, G20 and APEC) have demonstrated.

Many other actors, above all China, have stepped up and are now key contributors in terms of global public goods. Such contributions are not new, but ironically, it took the rise of Trump to generate greater awareness of them in the West. China, for example, has more UN peacekeepers in the field than all the other permanent members of the UN Security Council members combined. Concerning the realm of anti-piracy in the Indian Ocean, Beijing is making significant contributions through its naval forces. Unlike the US, China has not accumulated any debt with the UN over the past years, and Beijing is now the primary provider of credit for infrastructure in many regions of the world, including in Latin America, and is a leading force in institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Also, together with the European Union, China is establishing a "Green Alliance" to lead the way in the global fight against climate change.

Yet none of this should come as a surprise. Contrary to what many mainstream analysts seem to believe, rising world powers have little interest in overthrowing or disrupting the rules and norms established over the past decades. Rather, policymakers in Beijing, New Delhi and Brasília are aware of the importance of actively defending global governance and globalization, from which they have benefitted greatly.

Beijing understands that an essentiality within providing global public goods is assuring that others regard China's rise as something positive. In this light, the strategies adopted by the US in the past and China today are quite similar. Just like Washington in the past used international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF to project its power and draw countries into its sphere of influence, China and other non-Western powers are using their new institutions to cement their newly gained systemic centrality, strengthen economic ties with other countries, and eventually gain stronger influence in global decision-making spheres.

Like the US a century ago, China will have to get used to the enormous responsibilities that being a global superpower status entails. Given its tremendous economic importance, China will increasingly be at the center of domestic political debates around the world - be it in Peru, Poland or Pakistan. Just as the US has been conjured up in many political debates in Latin America over the past decades, China will face many demands from others, be it to mediate when domestic tensions elsewhere run high, or take a leading role in key global issues, such as climate change, terrorism or the impact of mechanization of the global job market. Embracing this new global leadership role is, without a doubt, the greatest challenge Chinese foreign policymakers face today.

A look to the past, however, reveals that China's role as a great power is not as unprecedented as many observers describe. When asked whether China could lead, William C. Kirby, a professor at Harvard University, responded: "Yes, of course. China has led. China is home to the longest continuous civilization in world history. Chinese moral and political models defined what it meant to be civilized. Little more than 200 years ago, the Qing empire presided over the strongest, richest and most sophisticated civilization on the planet. Its economy was the largest and one of the freest in the world. (…) China survived - better than most parts of the world - the era of imperialism. China's current 'rise,' as its recent growth is often described, is not simply the result of the past 35 years. It has been a century and more in the making."

Throughout history, great powers have often sought to institutionalize and solidify their power within international norms. Based on the concept of exceptionalism, the major justification is always that maintaining hegemony is crucial to preserving stability - a line of argument currently embraced in many Western capitals. Yet fears of a post-Western order are misguided partly because the past and present systems are far less Western than generally assumed.

Non-Western powers have made important contributions to the creation of global rules and norms, often before Western actors did, and rising powers such as China are increasingly willing and capable to take the lead in providing global public goods. And while the transition to genuine multipolarity - not only economically, but also militarily and with regards to agenda-setting capacity - will be disconcerting to many, post-Western multipolarity is likely to be, in the end, far more inclusive than any previous order in global history, allowing greater levels of open dialogue, spreading of knowledge and more innovative and effective ways to address global challenges in the 21st century.

The author is an associate professor for international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil. His book Post-Western World has just been launched in Chinese by Beijing Mediatime.opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Read also:

Venezuela: No Solution Without Beijing

US sanctions against Venezuela help consolidate Chinese and Russian influence in Caracas

New Development Banks as Horizontal International Bypasses: Towards a Parallel Order?