What kind of global player will China become?

Since the first Opium War, the ship of the modernization of China has experienced many setbacks and mishaps and, to date, its route is still not safe from pitfalls or other hazards. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 reflect the success of the policy of reform and opening conducted during the last thirty years, but the Chinese are well aware that their society has not yet entered an era of peace and prosperity and that there are a number of difficulties at the economic, political and socio-cultural level.
From an economic point on view, the China's growth over the past thirty years has not been a goal assigned to the single economy, but it has constituted a major political issue. In other words, the Chinese economy is not only a means of enrichment, it also represents the basis of the legitimacy of political power. From a political point of view, the institutional framework to ensure the ultimate success of the transition to modernization has not yet been built. Now, if on the one hand the implementation of such a political structure cannot proceed without the ruling party, on the other hand, it cannot be entirely trusted in order to implement it. In the current context of a state-party to rely on the ruling party to solve the problems of checks and balances, independence of justice, nationalization of the army, freedom of the press, etc., seems as difficult and surprising as to want to practice on yourself heart, liver or kidney surgery. From a cultural point of view, China now appears as a hybrid body composed of the old traditional culture and of a socialist culture and a capitalist culture, both imported from the modern and contemporary West. The clashes and the amalgam of these three cultural components have not yet produced a new system of values or a new social order. It is a cultural challenge to think of a symbiosis of cultures where the best of each of them is recognized. In practice, this involves to reconcile two approaches of human society, one based on the rights and one based on the "living together" (called "harmonious society" in China), that is, to find a balance between collective mind, the requirements of the community and the needs for autonomy and independence of the individual.

China faces a whole range of issues arising from the ongoing transition period in the society and, at the same time, it is in the difficult position of having to assume the responsibilities for a major global player because of its increase in power, of its weight in the global economy and of the reinforcement of the interdependence of human societies in the context of globalization. We have moved from a time when China could hardly express its point of view, where it was not taken into account, to a time when it is considered a power whose presence is necessary when seeking solutions to major global issues. This changing role played by China on the international stage means to the Chinese a new problem to solve: how to be a major global player? How to behave as a leader, or even as a simple citizen, of a great power?

What kind of global player will China become? That is the question that the world poses to China and that China poses to itself. But this question is closely related to another question: what kind of world does China want to build?

 

Chen Lichuan, journalist, columnist of the journal Transcultural Dialogue (China), director of the Association Culturemedia (France), director of the Institute for Research and Debate on Governance (IRG-France).

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