The Crumbling World Order And China’s Rising Economic Prowess

The present-day liberal world order or its related concept of rule-based world order, which is seemingly declining, has progressed through different phases, ranging from a blend of a free market economy to a wave of immigration. The politics of the post-world war II that guided this order has experienced many trajectories from bi-polarism to multi-polarism. It was until the financial crisis of 2008 that the world has begun experiencing greater fragility in global politics. It was mistakenly thought that the ascending power would come as a hindrance to rock the status quo and agitate the dictates of the protracted superpower, the US. The current nationalist interests of the states are the result of failed diversification of economies, military alliances, and societies.

Despite the US being the centerpiece of global affairs, it has been unsuccessful in bringing political and economic stability in the countries it has been ruling. From war-torn Afghanistan to volatile Syria, much of the world’s regions are still yearning for any impending peace and economic prosperity. Not only these weak states, but many European countries are also experiencing formidable nationalist movements in the form of Brexit and other separatist efforts. In such a crumbling situation of the world order, China stands out as the only stable and powerful state. China has the world population and thus the largest manpower, coupled with the largest share of global production (accounts for seventeen percent against the US’s sixteen percent), the largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, and its consolidated alliance with Russia, the US rival in the west. China is prudently carrying out its endeavors by offering economically weaker states an alternative to development. Its most ambitious economic project, the ‘Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’, has become a ray of hope for South and Central Asian countries to stabilize their economy.

There are a multitude of manifestations that warrant China as the biggest beneficiary of this crumbling world order. Free and open trade, technological exports, its purported debt-trap diplomacy, cheap labor, and persuasive power to incline other states to heed to its economic inducements are nudging it to become the next superpower. Though China has, for the last two years, fallen short of reaching its growth rate target, its position in the field of high-tech industries and research and development has become an Achille's heel for the US to retain its dictatorial power. A sudden convulsion in the US foreign policy, which encompasses national and non-interventionist policies has overtly undermined its global hegemony. This has provided China to fill the power void and consequently assume the global leadership, and that is the reason the US has shifted its post-world war II military command from US-Pacific to Indo-Pacific with a view to monitoring China’s shenanigans in South and Central Asia.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is considered to be a flagship project of BRI, is making headways to become the most secure trade corridor for exports and is less-consuming in terms of money and time period. This corridor will provide China to bypass the Strait of Malacca in the Malay Peninsula and adopt a shorter route of Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Being an iron brother of Pakistan, China has so far been successful in making the former less-dependent on the US aids and grants, which is also no less than a nightmare for Trump’s administration. Perhaps the most intriguing reason for China’s rising economic prowess is its negation of territorial conquests or non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other states. The US has added more injuries to the already deteriorating domestic politics of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria. These countries heed to its any bilateral agenda with a grain of salt. As the US is now treading a path of de-globalization, China’s advocacy of political-cum-economic interdependence could prevent the world economy from catastrophe. A profound study of the rise of China from being a colonized state to a rising superpower will give an idea of its transformation from traditionalism to progressivism, from economic pragmatism to globalization and from Marxist to laissez-faire policies, together nudging the country to become the next centerpiece of the global politics.