FOREWORD
It’s a provocative question for a turbulent time. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 accelerated an already inevitable shift in the world’s balance of political and economic power from a U.S.-dominated global order toward one in which emerging powers have become indispensable for real solutions to a gathering storm of transnational problems. It’s a transition from a global economy driven by the increasingly free flow across borders of ideas, information, people, money, goods, and services toward a system in which governments are using old tools in new ways to maintain political control in the face of rapid change. In Washington, it’s a move from a world where policymakers debated how best to wield America’s unmatchable power to one of self-doubt and second guessing, where politicians talk of American exceptionalism to ward off fears that it just ain’t what it used to be. Assertions of hegemony have given way to whispers of default. This is a world in which the need to learn from the experience of others, particularly from the fastest-rising potential rival, leaves Americans angry and insecure. And it’s a world where those lessons have never been more valuable.
That’s why Ann Lee’s serious question deserves a thoughtful answer, and who better to provide one than an author who knows both these countries so well? With a wary eye on the extraordinary changes gathering steam inside China, should Washington focus its planning on cooperation or competition? That’s a false choice, Lee notes. Yes, the two governments have profoundly different political values and quite different takes on the role of capitalism in human development. No, the birth of a true middle class in China has not yet undermined the country’s authoritarian political system. But the friction generated by this clash of first principles should not obscure the reality that both countries have profited from China’s rise and that wise policies can ensure that the non-zero-sum game continues. If both sides play their cards right.
No one knows better than China’s political leadership that the next stage of that country’s development will prove even more complicated—and more dangerous—than the previous ones. China is on the verge of some of the largest-scale political engineering projects in human history as a new generation of leaders works to reorder a fast-growing economic system that Premier Wen Jiabao has acknowledged is “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” It’s no sure thing that they can pull this off, and fundamental changes to China’s political system could be forced upon them. Talk of a “Chinese Century” is absurdly premature.
But China isn’t going away, and as Americans work to restore vitality to their country’s economy and balance to its democracy, they’ll have to contend with a Chinese system grounded in fundamentally different principles. American companies will have to compete around the world (and sometimes partner) with Chinese state-owned rivals. Chinese and other emerging market-based companies won’t simply bow to Western institutions or operate according to a decades-old playbook written in the West. America will resist the need to change, then struggle to adapt. But if we learn to compete and win in a new arena, Lee argues, China’s rise, however it comes, need not imply the decline and fall of the American experiment.
A willingness to learn from China’s triumphs and mistakes will further that goal, and Lee details some of China’s strategies that are entirely compatible with a thriving democratic free market system. Americans must never renounce their faith in the political and economic principles that have helped them prosper, but the sometime excesses of our system remind us that short-term tactical thinking too often replaces sound long-term planning—both in Washington and on Wall Street.
What can the U.S. learn from China? Plenty.
IAN BREMMER is president of The Eurasia Group and author of the books The End of the Free Market, The Fat Tail, and The J Curve.