4.30pm: Keynes Hall, King’s College
Air-Sea Battle and the pivot seem an overreaction to China’s rise, given the number of challenges Beijing already faces.
Westerners are nothing if not breathless about China. Books describing its rise often have titles like When China Rules the World, Contest for Supremacy, Eclipse(of the U.S. by China), and so on. China is such a preoccupation that the U.S. has now “pivoted” to Asia. And the U.S. Department of Defense, eager to cash-in on the China hype in an era of sequestration and domestic exhaustion with the “Global War on Terror,” tells us now that the U.S. must shift to anAir-Sea Battle concept (ASB).
In a not-so-amazing coincidence, ASB is chock of full of the sorts of costly, high-profile, air and maritime mega-platforms the military-industrial complex adores. China’s single, barely functional aircraft carrier—the second one is not due for awhile—is a god-send to hawks and neo-cons everywhere. Even as the U.S. scales back in the Middle East, defense can seemingly never be cut. Indeed, the terrible irony of the pivot to Asia from the Middle East is that ASB platforms like satellites, drones, up-armored aircraft carriers, stealth jets and littoral ships will cost so much that staying focused on the Middle East may well be less expensive. (For a running debate on ASB, start here.)
Morning: Keynote Speech
Afternoon: Meetings with Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Ministry of Defence
2.19pm: Level 9, Westpac HQ, Britomart, Auckland
6.30pm: Imperial College Business School
In his well-known book, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, Martin Jacques claims China’s impact on the world will be profound and, in the long term, China will seek “to transform that system while at the same time, in effect, sponsoring a new China-centric international system which will exist alongside the present system and probably slowly begin to usurp it”.
Jacques’ bullish statement raises the expectation that China may come to dominate the world in the not-too-distant future. However, David Shambaugh, a leading expert in the field of contemporary China studies in the United States, pours cold water on such an upbeat sentiment.
In his newly released book, China Goes Global: the Partial Power, Shambaugh systematically examines China’s global impact in economic, political, military and cultural fields.
Sinologist’s views unleash debate about the country’s place in the world and how far it will finally advance
Is China emerging as a potential global superpower or just a partial one? The leading American Sinologist David Shambaugh makes the case in his new book, China Goes Global: The Partial Power, that despite being the world’s second-largest economy, the country has along way to go before it begins to shape the world in its own image.
Even in the economic sphere, where China arguably had its most significant influence —accounting for 40 percent of global growth over the past two decades as well as being the largest exporter and holder of foreign exchange reserves — its global reach is overstated, according to Shambaugh.
The American academic argues that while the image is of Chinese companies taking over businesses throughout Europe and the United States, China has only the fifth largest overseas direct investment in the world, behind even the Netherlands and a fifth of the size of that of the United States.
Leading Sinologist argues that China is only a partial superpower but many acknowledge that it has had the greatest impact on the continent
China has perhaps had more impact on Africa in the past decade than any other region in the world.
Trade alone has risen from $18.54 billion in 2003 to more than $200 billion today alongside the stock of overseas direct investment increasing eightfold from just $1.6 billion in 2005 to $13.04 billion at the end of 2010, according to the China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
But does this major economic interaction in Africa or elsewhere give China real influence and also make it a global role model?
University of Westminster
3.30-5.15pm: Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS campus, Vernon Sq, Penton Rise, London WC1X 9EW