The Rise of China to Superpower Status and its Effects on World Politics

Abstract

China was considered as one of the greatest civilizations of the world. Even before Europeans began their mastery of Asia and the Americas, China already possessed the following features: it has the best navy in the world, the most advanced scientific and technological discoveries, and a sophisticated and coherent Chinese society which was the envy of foreign visitors. Truly, of all the civilizations of pre-modern times, none appeared more advanced and felt more superior (Kennedy, 1989), than that of China. But for some reason, China's greatness became forgotten and was left to slump behind the world’s most advanced states. The establishment of the Communist rule in China marked the beginning of a new era, which can be characterized mainly by China's re-emergence as a world power. China is starting to emerge as a formidable force not only in the Asia-Pacific but in the world as well. In security matters, China sits among the permanent five nations in the United Nations’ Security Council which means that no military, social, demographic or environmental conflict in the world can be solved without at least the tacit consent of the Chinese govemment. China is also the world's third largest nuclear weapon power and one of its top five arms exporters. As a contributor to the Intemational Monetary Fund, the financial institution upon which many countries depend to sustain themselves, China plays an important role in world economics. These matters only goes to show how important China is to the world. This study examines the past and present world political configurations with the rise of the People’s Republic of China as one of the world's major powers and its effects on international politics as the focus of inquiry. It also presents first, a brief history of Chinese foreign policy and second, an assessment of the factors that could have led/ are leading tof further lead to the rise of China as one of the world’s major powers. A brief evolution of the Chinese foreign policy together with the factors that invariably shape it such as history, political ideology and the five principles of Coexistence are presented in Chapter 2. This is complimented by brief descriptions of the internal and external political environment of China that would explain the events that have propelled this country to the path towards superpower status. China's national power is examined in Chapter 3 taking into consideration the economic, military, perceived and soft power as its key elements. By looking at each element of power assessed, China indeed has a great capacity to rise to superpower status. However, the question of whether certain mechanisms are built to sustain such capacity should also be tackled. This is the subject of Chapter 4 were the new generation of leaders and China's accession to the World Trade Organization were said to boost further this country to dominate the world. Chapter 5 examines the Chinese perspective of their country’s rise to power as well as the different measurements used in order to compare whether a country is at par with the only superpower in the world, the United States of America. Measurements based on the Comprehensive National Power and the Shares of Material Power Resources were presented and clearly showed that China is indeed rising to superpower status and is not very far from the United States. As a matter of fact, projections that were provided by such measurements give evidence that in a few decades from now, China will surpass the United States of America, at least economically. The Effects of China's rise to superpower status both in the US and the Asia Pacific Region as well as in the world political power configuration were extensively discussed in Chapter 6 to be followed by a presentation of survey results among Political Science professors all over the world on their perceptions on China's rise to power on Chapter 7. Chapter 8 provides an analysis on all the data presented in terms of the questions posed on the beginning of this thesis while Chapter 9 will provide conclusions as well as recommendations on how countries must relate with this emerging power as to avoid future confrontations with.