Brian M Downing
Eighty years ago, the American Century began. America had been rising for decades but the global context offered a propitious moment for the country to reach the top. Most European countries soiled soon be in ruins. Their publics would lose the money and will to rule far-flung colonies. America surpassed them in wealth, power, and confidence and made it to the top. Opportunities and privileges came one after another. So did burdens and morasses. That was the history of the post-WW2 era.
China will soon surpass the US economically and it wants to do so politically, militarily, diplomatically, and financially as well. Its rise will present opportunities and privileges too. Burdens and morasses will soon follow, though the heady sense of limitlessness pervading the country makes them less apparent or seem manageable. It’s all a matter of applying resources.
What’s the global context today? What are the problems of tomorrow? Some appear more obvious and ominous in Washington and London than in Beijing. That may be welcome on the West.
Demography and engagement
The population of the world grew rapidly in the last twenty years. It’s presently just under 8 billion, up 25% since the new century began. Economic growth, better access to healthcare, and the continuity of traditional norms supportive of large families account for the population boom.
In many countries, people under twenty-five make up about forty percent of the population. Those under thirty-five, about fifty-five percent. They are young, energetic, and less accepting of the status quo than elders. Many if not most do not see promising futures for themselves or their countries.
Some eras show more political activism than others. The 1950s in the West was a decade of rebuilding and progress. Ten years later the streets were filled with angry protesters and clouds of tear gas. We are in another era of political activism. Driving forces in the 1960s were civil rights, lifeless institutions, the environment, and Vietnam. Today, the powerful example of the Arab Spring, climate change, foreign meddling, and corrupt oligarchies are energizing the discontent.
Groups from various countries learn from each other. Information on demonstrations and crackdowns spreads across the world in seconds. Regime tactics are disseminated, studied, and countered. Several regimes have fallen, many others are under siege or on the brink.
Opportunity for China
Endangered authoritarian governments are by nature indisposed to relinquishing power. Most adopt ideologies to justify their power: after us, anarchy or jihadis or a deluge of some sort. Many want to end the unrest with their own Tiananmen Squares.
They cannot look to the US for help, at least not today. Washington, amid the Cold War, was solicitous to anti-communist rulers, often without regard to their positions on democracy and human rights. Washington, sent money, trained security forces, and sometimes deployed military advisors. Such support isn’t entirely absent in US policy today, but it’s far less common than it was after Castro took Havana. This is in part because the special forces are overextended, in part because of the present administration’s beliefs.
Beijing does not share or even respect those beliefs. Beleaguered authoritarian rulers, especially those in Asia and Africa, can expect help for security forces, infusion of aid and capital, and support for decisive action on city streets. In exchange, rulers will integrate more closely into China’s co-prosperity sphere.
The evidence from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain indicates that regimes, no matter how despised they are by their subjects, can hold on to power if they retain control of security forces – and have the will to use them pitilessly. China will use this lesson to expand its political and economic power. Washington may have to reconsider once more its commitment to democracy and human rights as it vies with Beijing.
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.