People's Republic of China and the international order

Report published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif.

Rome [ENA] A recent report published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., aims to represent an interesting analysis of China’s approach to a multilateral order and draws implications from that analysis for future U.S. policy. It is a research sponsored by the Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National

Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. The question of how China’s rise will influence the post–World War II international order involves substantial consequence for the future of global politics. This report evaluates the character and possible future of China’s engagement with the postwar order. The resulting portrait is anything but uncomplicated: China’s engagement with the order remains a complex work in progress. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2400/RR2423/RAND_RR2423.pdf

The report offers a series of findings about the relationship of China to the international order. China’s behavior over the past two decades does not denote it as an opponent or saboteur of the order, but rather as a conditional defender. China embarked on a policy of international engagement in the 1980s, and the level and quality of its participation competes with that of most other states. China’s approach and policies toward international institutions, norms, and rules is in considerable fluctuation. According to the report various consequences, from continued qualified support to more-aggressive challenges, are possible. Because of this vagueness, a strengthened and increasingly multilateral international order

can provide a critical tool for the United States and other countries to shape and constrain rising Chinese power. Modifications to the order on the margins in rejoinder to Chinese preferences pose less of a threat to a stable international system than a future in which China is isolated from that system. Nevertheless, these modifications should be governed by interpretations of key rules and norms on which the United States will not compromise. The United States should reaffirm and enforce the principle of reciprocity in international economic institutions. One area of Chinese pressure on the current order that should be of particular alarm is its ongoing effort to withstand true reciprocity in economic institutions.

China regularly uses tools such as nontariff barriers and industrial policy to circumvent the reciprocal liberalization intended in major trade deals. If this trend were to accelerate, it would threaten the sense of mutual economic benefit from the order’s economic institutions. Information security seems to be another important subject for gradual progress in established shared standards. China’s cyber activities risk generating a widespread sense of continuing conflict with USA. The United States should strengthen ongoing efforts to achieve something that will surely be slow in coming that is a long-term code of conduct for cyber activities.

Last but not least, one cannot forget the disputes over Chinese territorial claims in Asia (the question of Taiwan and so on) which need shared norms and standards. This area represents perhaps China’s most perceived potential challenge to norms of the order, in that Chinese behavior has become belligerent and apparently unconcerned with meeting others’ interests. Indeed, a major challenge in this issue is how little overlap there is between Chinese claims and ambitions and the interests of regional states. There seems to be a significant zero-sum aspect to these issues.