(Interview conducted on 11 December 2020)
Question: In recent years, and especially with the spread of the Coronavirus and the way China and the United States have dealt with this virus, the issue of Chinese and American order has received more and more attention. Do you think it is relevant to talk about a Chinese Order?
Answer: I believe it is correct to speak of a Chinese Order, provided that we define it correctly. The pandemic has hit the United States very hard. In contrast, China which acted quickly and imposed a total lockdown on the entire population of Hubei province has done much better. As a result, by the end of November 2020, in China whose population is four times larger than that of the United States, Covid-19 had infected 92,300 and killed 4,742 people. In contrast, by the same date, there had been 13,216,193 cases in the United States with 265,897 deaths.
This great disparity has had its economic and even geopolitical consequences too. In the United States, the economic fallout for the working class has been severe. Unemployment has skyrocketed with 45.4 million new unemployment claims since March, and at least 1/6th of those with jobs before the pandemic now are out of work. As a result, while China has seen a growth of 4.9% between July and September of the current year compared to the same quarter last year, the United States is in deep recession and its economic outlook is not very bright.
China is a very old country, with a continuous history and a homogenous culture. China has had especially extensive relations with Iran. My late friend, Professor Richard N. Frye of Harvard who was a great expert on the ancient world, believed that Iranian and Chinese cultures were the two most distinct cultures in the region among all other civilisations. Frye stated in a 2007 interview on CNN that “In all of Eurasia, from time immemorial there have been two great cultures, two great civilizations: one is China, and the other is Iran.” (CNN online, 19 October 2007).
Iran and China have had relations with each other for more than 2,000 years. It is claimed that the Silk Road opened in 104 BC by a Chinese military expedition into the Ferghana Valley, in search of Central Asian horses bred by the Sogdians who spoke an Iranian language and were regarded to be part of Iran. There are not many countries that can claim such a long and continuous history of a distinct culture and civilization as the Iranians and the Chinese can.
After a century of Western and Japanese colonialism and Chinese decline, since 1940 China has emerged again as a radical and revolutionary country, and its progress since then has been phenomenal. Since 2014, China has been the largest economy in the world by PPP, with 24.16 trillion dollars versus 20.81 trillion for the United States.
It has developed the world’s largest middle class, with women playing a prominent role. In November 2020, the Human Research Institute released a report showing that over a third of the top richest women in the world have studied in China (35% versus USA at 28%).
China is now the world’s biggest manufacturer and exporter and its science and technology are also fast developing to rival, if not eclipse others. It is also important to remember that for most of the past 2,000 years, China has been the world’s foremost economic power.
So, it is clear that we can speak of a Chinese order. However, China is a one-party, fairly authoritarian state. History has shown that democratic countries are more enduring and more resilient and can correct their mistakes more easily than countries where freedom of expression is suppressed, as we have seen in the recent US election that deposed an authoritarian president, showing that even the president was not above the law.
So, whether in the long-term, the world will find the Chinese model of economic development & political authoritarianism as attractive as the model of democratic states is open to question.
China has moved a long way from its Maoist ideology and has shown that it is capable of change and transformation. So, if it can embrace democratic freedoms as easily as it has adopted the market economy, it can achieve even greater progress and popularity than it enjoys at the moment.
Question: With Trump coming to power, the liberal order that had achieved great success since World War II became more and more threatened. Trump weakened the institutions and organizations that were the manifestations of economic liberalism, like the World Trade Organization. China, meanwhile, is currently benefiting from a liberal order in the international arena. What is the reason for this?
Answer: With his slogans of “Making America Great Again” and “America First”, Trump adopted a policy of isolationism, undermining the liberal order, which America had been mainly instrumental in creating after the Second World War. However, although that order claimed to treat all countries equally, in practice, it was very West-centred and especially favoured the United States.
Various international organisations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and even the United Nations were designed in such a way as to serve US interests. We have seen how the United States prevented the World Bank from giving a loan to Iran, a country which had been forced to ask for a loan due to illegal US sanctions. As the US dollar acts as the main global currency, the United States has used this privilege to cut off other countries, such as Iran, from free trade and banking transactions.
Even the United Nations, which theoretically should treat all countries equally, has been used as a means for serving US interests. With their Veto power, the five permanent members of the Security Council, four Western countries and one Asian country, have a distinct advantage over other member-states and can block any resolution that does not suit them. To paraphrase what Madeleine Albright once said, the United States works with the United Nations when it suits her and rejects it when she must. In other words, all are equal but clearly, some countries are more equal than others.
Due to the establishment of a multipolar world, and especially because of how the United States has misused its overwhelming military and economic power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is a need for a new world order which serves the whole of humanity, not just a privileged few.
Question: The Biden team is set to amend the World Trade Organization’s constitution to make trade more profitable for the United States. They seem to be looking to make tariff changes and a kind of economic protectionism so that China does not benefit much from free trade. What is your assessment?
Answer: It is up to other members of the WTO and in fact the vast majority of other countries that will be damaged as the result of the proposed changes to confront the United States and prevent those changes from being implemented. The United States constitutes only about four percent of humanity and it is up to others to safeguard their own interests.
Question: Fifteen Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s largest free trade union, an agreement backed by China that does not include the United States. The Economic Partnership brings together the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The pact came as the United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Obama believed that the pact would establish the Asian trade order in the 21st century and would not allow China to do so. China is now shaping the Asian order with a new treaty. What is your assessment?
Answer: It was yet another result of Trump’s short-sighted and chauvinistic policies to take the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. There was an element of domestic rivalry and point scoring in that decision, as Trump tried to undo nearly all the achievements of his predecessor. The original arrangement implemented by President Obama was to form the world’s biggest trading partnership with the effect of getting the United States in the Asia-Pacific region and isolating China. However, by withdrawing from that treaty, China has filled the vacuum and has replaced the United States as the head of the world’s largest free-trade union. So, it really has been an own goal that has greatly benefited China.
Question: There is talk about the possibility of the United States joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced that he is ready to consult on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Why does China want to enter into a pact aimed at containing China?
Answer: The incoming Biden administration may try to reverse the trend and admit the United States into the new union, but by then the train might have left the station. In any case, China will be a leading member of the new union, and it is unlikely that the United States can regain its previous position of pre-eminence. China has shown that it is not interested in military confrontation and wants to assert its global leadership through economic cooperation. Therefore, she may not be too averse to allowing the United States to join the pact, but if that happens it will create by far the largest free-trade area and will greatly weaken the European Union.
However, the Trump administration’s economic warfare against China and Russia over the past several years will make it particularly difficult for Biden to pursue the necessary adjustments to reverse those policies, especially as he will be surrounded by some hawks who hold very strong anti-Chinese and anti-Russian sentiments.
Question: With Biden coming to power, it seems that we will see a kind of limited liberalism in the international system. What is your assessment?
Answer: Shortly after being elected president, Biden announced “America is back”. Unlike Trump, Biden believes in international institutions. He has said that one of his first decisions will be to return to the Paris Climate Accord. He will also strengthen US relations with Europe, Australia, Canada and Japan. EU heads of state have already welcomed Biden’s election and have expressed readiness to start a new era of cooperation. So, instead of getting close to authoritarian rulers and ignoring the allies, as Trump did, Biden will support liberal ideas and perhaps distance himself from authoritarian regimes.
However, some members of the Biden team have been sending the wrong signals about the future of cooperation between the United States and other world powers. Some senior members of the new team have even said that the Biden administration will be “pressing ahead with efforts to respond to China’s rise.” It seems US politicians cannot function without having some real or imagined enemies.
So, rather than witnessing a period of calm and stability in international affairs, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we may witness the start of a new Cold War dressed in the guise of a liberal order.
Question: Trump has received 70 million votes. This is almost equal to Biden. That means almost half of American voters like Trump. That is, his views on nationalism in all its dimensions, and his economic protectionism and unilateralism, are popular with the American people and are tied to the interests of the people. How can Biden balance the values of liberalism, of which globalization is a manifestation, with this demand of Trump supporters at the domestic level?
Answer: Although Trump lost the election, he received more votes in the recent election than he did in 2016, so although Trump will leave the stage soon, Trumpism is still alive and well. The latest polls show that some 70% of the Republicans still believe that Trump won the election, although Biden received about eight million more votes. This shows that many people live by illusion rather than base their views on reality.
Trump’s continued claim that the election was stolen from him bodes ill for the future. US society is divided as never before, and rather than settling the disagreements, the election has intensified the hostility. I believe that, domestically, the United States is set to have a rough ride, especially if the Democrats do not win the two Senate seats in Georgia and will have to face a hostile Senate. The genii of populism and chauvinism is out of the bottle, and no matter how hard Biden tries, it may be too difficult to put them back in the bottle again.
Question: Given that the spread of liberalism is not in America’s best interests internationally, and theorists such as Professor John Mearsheimer warn the US government against pursuing liberalism globally, what do you think will replace the current liberal order?
Answer: As I mentioned earlier, even in the past, the United States has abided by liberalism globally in name only. US governments of different parties have always been friendly with many authoritarian and despotic regimes when it suited them.
However, even the slogan of liberalism can sometimes prove dangerous. President Carter started with his slogans of liberalism and human rights in order to weaken the Soviet Union, but it resulted in the toppling of some authoritarian regimes that were friendly to the United States and replaced them with hostile governments, such as the Shah’s fall in Iran and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. This time too, the slogans of liberalism may backfire. I believe that some despotic and undemocratic regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere must worry that the new slogans of liberalism aimed at weakening China may lose their way and land at their door.
F Jahanpour 