I can grant the point about the anchoring of China in the global
economy, but I am not sure it says anything about China's hegemonic
potential. China as future hegemon would have no reason to carry out any
expropriations of anyone, or to cast its nationalistic assertion in a
particularly narrow way; after all, succeeding the US would require some
apparent breadth of ideology to make a "Chinese century" New New World
Order sustainable. My point, rather, was that eventually China _may_ be
particularly suited as a _state_ to take over the central role in global
policing, given its size (the US may be becoming too small proportionately
for the repressive shoes it is filling, just as Britain did) and the
feverishly pro-capitalist mentality of its rising technocracy. I do not
doubt for a moment that there is considerable potential for resistance
among China's population, and I sincerely hope that it can become part of
larger Southern mobilisation ten or twenty years down the road. But as
long as the current pace of Chinese development continues, and the elite
are not widely recognised as the foreign toadies they are becoming, the
majority of Chinese are going to be far more interested in "joining the
club," and eventually _leading_ the club, than in challenging it as part
of a pan-Southern project. Whether this scenario would include a core war
circa 2030 to facilitate the transfer of hegemony depends on how the
Chinese elite flavours that hegemony, and the extent to which
transnational corporations will be openminded towards the five-star red
flag as ultimate interventionist guarantor. Finally, while I think it
unlikely that China in fact will be "lost to the cause" in this fashion,
"World Party" advocates would be wise to plan for the worst even while
hoping for the best (70% versus 30% is harder than 85% versus 15%, but
still feasible).
Regards,
--AKW
===============================================================================
Adam K. Webb
Department of Politics
Princeton University
Princeton NJ 08544 USA
609-258-9028
http://www.princeton.edu/~akwebb