China does not seek to overthrow today’s global order, but hopes that it will turn into a “responsible stakeholder”, especially with regards to “soft issues” such as human rights, are misguided. Rather, China will act as a “free-rider” as long as possible, obey global norms and regimes selectively, and continue to avoid trouble that could slow its economic growth. Three internal isues influence China’s policy towards global governance: 1. An unshakable confidence in the bright future of the Chinese civilization that occasionally turns into hubris (e.g. in the face of America’s troubles) 2. Insecurity due to acute internal political pressure and a “growth imperative” to uphold the legitimacy of the one-party system, and 3.Conflict of developing country identity with that of global player.

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Winston Churchill to include China in the UN Security Council at the end of World War II, China’s rise has been lurking behind the horizon as the major theme in international politics. Today, despite being thrown back several decades by Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it seems like China is constantly breaking all-time records. Last year, more cars were sold in China than in the United States, and China overtook Germany as the world’s largest exporter. This year, China’s economy will become the second largest, leaving Japan behind, and it is expected to overtake the United States and become the world’s leading economy in fifteen years. Considering that a mere century ago, when the United States’ global reign began, China was still a poor peasant economy, this is quite a feat. It also raises some fundamental questions about the future of our global order, as China is not a fully-integrated member of today’s international system. The key question international analysts are asking themselves is how China will use its newfound influence. Will it further integrate and rise within today’s Western-led global order, or will it overthrow the current system and impose a new one?

Fundamental power shifts are interesting for two reasons. First, the process of power transition at the top often creates tension, and sometimes war, because the declining no.1 of the world is reluctant to cede to a more dynamic and rising no.2. Sometimes, the leader succeeds in vanquishing a challenger, as the United States did with Imperial Germany in WWI, with Nazi Germany and Japan in WWII and with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. More important, however, is the question of how the new supremo shapes the international system. Leading nations often become hegemons. Hegemony involves building institutions that other states want to join, creating extensive alliances, and, above all, providing public goods. The global order created by America after WWII, for example, is a system characterized by openness, rules, and stability, and upholding and enforcing the rules of this order is one of the United States’ principal national interests.

When seeking to predict the consequences of China’s rise, realists point to historic evidence. They contend that as powers rise, they inevitably seek to replace the leading nation, either alone of by creating an anti-hegemonic alliance. They call this the “tragedy of great power politics”, and predict “China’s unpeaceful rise.” The United States, they predict, will therefore seek to contain China’s rise, just as it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Institutional liberalists, on the other hand, retort that history is not a reliable guide since China faces a different kind of international system than any other rising power before. They stress that China is unlikely to do away with a system that has allowed it to rise in the first place, and that it keeps benefiting from. Institutional liberalists firmly believe in the current system’s ability to enmesh and entrap even the most powerful, making it more attractive for rising powers to join than to cause trouble and oppose the current order. They certainly have a point. As China invests all over the world, and relies more and more on raw materials from Africa and South America to fuel its growth, it has an ever greater interests in global political and economic stability, best achieved by maintaining and protecting the system.

Still, the truth is far from certain. Realists oversee that China has been, and remains, one of the principal beneficiaries of today’s global order. It is the United States’ principal debt holder and thus extremely interested in a strong America and a strong dollar- challenging the United States would thus be economic suicide, which would cause China’s political system to implode. China’s leaders need strong economic growth to uphold the legitimacy of one-party rule. Economic policies in China led to growth, but inequality is on the rise, and a concentration of power in the Communist party makes it difficult to control rampant corruption among its 45 million officials. The result are an estimated 100,000 instances of mass unrest per year, reflecting the severity of the internal challenges the Party faces, creating a formidable growth imperative and foreign policy constraint. China can ill afford any international trouble that would inevitably slow down growth. Yet, there is another reason why China is unlikely to undermine the current global order. Imposing a new vision requires, above all, a vision, yet China seems far from having developed a system of clear and coherent long-term fundamental national objectives, diplomatic philosophy and long-term or secular grand strategy. Despite its flaws, today’s system is widely accepted as it spreads prosperity.  Winning general support for a systemic change will be much harder than after WWII, when America led efforts to draft a new global architecture.

Liberal institutionalists, however, are also unlikely to have a field day. It may seem like China is set to integrate further. Its decision to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a case in point, and it was even praised by the United States for its constructive efforts to mediate during the Doha Trade Round in Cancun. The United States has long recognized that trying to contain China will be useless and—due to unprecedented economic interdependence—highly damaging. Its decision to invite China to become a “responsible stakeholder” instead is a clever move, as this would make China a status-quo within the Western system.

Yet, expectations that China will rise and lead within a Western-style framework sound nice, but they do not account for the fact that so far China has been a free-rider within the system, playing by its rules only when it seems convenient. Furthermore, the “responsible stakeholder” approach drastically overestimates the transformative power of the system, particularly with regards to human rights, democracy and free markets.

Still today, most foreign policy makers in Washington believe that China will not achieve its full potential unless it pursues economic and political liberalization. Yet, just like Russia did not democratize after being invited to join an all-democratic G7 in 1997, China’s participation in the Western system failed to westernize China, and Beijing is unlikely to change its position on human rights, market liberalization or political rights.

China’s refusal to give in can be explained by an unwavering confidence that China will reclaim a position it has occupied for millennia: the centre of the world. The Western dominated world as we know it today, which led to China’s temporary insignificance, is seen in China as mere blip in the long history of the Chinese civilization.

The financial crisis in America has turned confidence into hubris. While Beijing rejoiced to see America get thrown off track,  reactions in China fell short of all-out celebration because of high economic interdependence between the China and America.
China’s free-riding and reluctance to assume responsibility, which can be explained by the regime’s extreme insecurity about social cohesion, make matters worse. Systems can survive a leading nation’s occasional transgressions (the UN Security Council remains relevant despite America’s decision to ignore it in 1999 and 2003). It is more complicated, however, if the systems principal player fails to uphold and enforce the rules and norms that make up the current system of global governance. While America provides security by defending weaker nations (such as Kuwait) and pressuring rule-breakers such as Sudan, North Korea and Myanmar, it seems unclear whether China will assume similar responsibilities in the medium term. China’s leaders are reluctant to intervene in other countries, just as they abhor foreign intervention on its own soil that could put its unification project into peril.

The outcome will probably be muddied. On the one hand, China will continue to act within today’s structures, but, after receiving yet another confidence boost since America’s crisis, pick and choose which rules to follow. On the other hand, given its monumental internal challenges and the resulting insecurity, China is unlikely to assume active leadership within the current system in the short term. The combination of hubris and insecurity also explains Beijing’s outrage after America’s arms deal with Taiwan and Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, both pointing towards Chinese unity-related anxieties. Yet, there is some likelihood that economic necessity will trump qualms about sovereignty. If in, say, 2020, rebels threaten to overtake the government in Khartoum and expropriate Chinese oil firms, Beijing will be likely to intervene and restore order. The future of human rights, on the other hand, seems bleaker. For now, Western nations, principally the United States, must strengthen rules and norms, so that once America passes the baton on to China, Beijing has little choice but to continuously operate through and respect international institutions, rules and regimes.

Is the world unipolar, multipolar, or nonpolar? It depends whom you ask. But apparently, it may depend even more on where you ask, for national perspectives determine more than anything the lens through which analysts of international relations view and interpret the world.

Many Europeans, for example, tend to believe the world is multipolar, which implies the faint hope that Europe is, in fact, one of the poles. This changes considerably outside of Europe, where the EU is largely seen as an economic block, but not as a serious actor with one voice. Despite a an apparent genetic predisposition for eternal optimism, American analysts of international relations traditionally see the United States in decline, identifying to the next best player as the rising pole.  During the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union, in the 1980s it was Japan, and now, of course, China, where,  interestingly enough, many people still regard the world as unipolar and under US rule (a notion that is largely passé in the US). This may be tactics. Describing the world as unipolar, and America as the hegemon, frees China of the evermore pressing question of how China plans to run the show once it is the largest economy in the world – a moment that will arrive, depending on the forecast, between 2025 and 2040.

By that time, however, other players such as India and Brazil plan on playing in the first league (and they are quite likely to do so), so analystst from these two rising powers located on the fringes of the ‘Greater West’ usually describe the world as moving into a multipolar era, regarding themselves as a pole. Brazil’s foreign minister Celso Armorim prefers to identify South America or Latin America as one of the poles of this new multipolarity, but the only half-serious talk to regional integration cannot hide his country’s fledgling power ambitions. Yes, the region is important, but Brazil prefers to have the permanent seat on the UN Security Council for itself, and rather not share it Argentina on a rotating principle.

India is more direct, and, as a European diplomat who prefers to remain anonymous recently muttered, as cocky as a future global power could be. India can afford to be patient because it believes to have time on its side. Decades of isolation did little to change its mind and give up its nuclear ambitions. In 2006, when President Bush unilaterally recognized India as a nuclear power, India’s confidence got a boost. Why would America, the world’s leading power honor a pariah that, located in one of the most dangerous regions of the planet, refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), if it did not exepct India to emerge as a major pole in the near future? Indian thinkers seem less excited about the tectonic power shifts than people elsewhere, because they interpret India’s rise as it’s rightful and inevitable return to power after a brief interlude of Western domination (similar to China).

Last and least, Russia’s thinkers regard Russia as a pole, yet they largely admit that Russia fails to articulate any vision of how the world should be organized outside of what it claims to be its dominion. While the definition of what constitutes a pole remains controversial, virtually all analystst agree that only those powers constitute poles that have significant influence outside of its borders. From this perspective, China is already a pole, and India and Brazil are soon-to-be poles.  Brazil’s stance on the squabble about Iran’s nuclear ambition is sophisticated indeed, if not brilliant. But that still does not amount to a vision of how the world should be run. In a similar fashion, Indian government officials keep things at the general level. Its reluctance to promote democracy and its devout adherence to Westphalian principles  give a vague idea of how a world led by the likes of India. In a similar fashion, Chinese officials often have surprisingly little to say about how Beijing hopes to run the planet- but then, China sees little need to unnecessarily cause alarm. China’s time will come, and rather than making big statements, Chinese officials prefer to lean back and watch a America becomes ever more nervous.

The relatively recent idea that the world is increasingly non-polar, justified, among other issues, by the rise of non-state actors (Taliban, Gates Foundation, Google,  CNN, etc.), subnational actors (California, São Paulo)  has gained quite some backing in Western circles. It is true that the rise of non-state actors is important, but it is not entirely new. The East India Company, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and religious outfits of all kinds are examples of powerful non-state actors that have existed in the past. The Taliban may be a non-state actor, but once NATO leaves Afghanistan, it is likely to turn into a state actor. Non-polarity sounds interesting, but it is unlikely to become the accepted norms in India and China, where analysts largely think in terms of state power.

Is there a chance for consensus? For Americans, the unipolar moment is a thing of the past. Others aren’t so sure yet. Despite the non-polar fad, thinkers may increasingly disaggregate dimensions of power, distinguishing between military unipolarity (the US military is almost as powerful as all the others combined) and ecnonomic multipolarity- a description that is likely to best capture reality for the decades to come.

As the world finds itself in transition from a unipolar, US-dominated system to a multipolar structure with several poles, there is a widespread assumption that international organizations, or “global governance”, is crucial for this transition and its aftermath to take place in a peaceful manner. Countless IR analysts therefore spend their days studying ways to make global governance more effective. Many roposals emerge every year to reform the UN Security Council, to expand NATO, and to “democratize” the World Bank and the IMF, always assuming that effective global governance will make the world more stable. The fact that two rising giants, China and India, are located in an area largely void of international institutions, creates even more urgency to strengthen global governance and somehow integrate them. Yet, is this assumption correct? While global governance institutions may intuitively seem like an agent for peace,  what is the logic behind it?

Realists and the fallacy of institutions

Realists, who think of the world as an anarchic place, do not necessarily dislike global governance. Yet, they regard its impact as limited, as international institutions are, according to them, a dependent reflection of the participating states’ power and thus unable to alter a state’s behavior. The independent variable that explains war and peace are not institutions, but balance of power. The most powerful states in a system create and shape international institutions, which are then primarily used to “act out” these power relationships. States may build alliances and decide to cooperate, but they will change their strategy when it seems convenient. Today’s friend, after all, may be tomorrow’s enemy. Finally, in a realist world, states are obsessed with relative-gains logic, and they only cooperate if they benefit more than the other side, which makes long-term cooperation difficult. Institutions, in short, do not make the world a more peaceful place.

Liberal institutionalists’ beloved institutions

Liberal institutionalists, on the other hand, argue that institutions do in fact cause stability and peace among nations. While they agree that nations would cheat if it went unpunished, they stress that institutions create a powerful mechanism that convinces nations to opt for long-term cooperation rather than focusing on short-term gain and cheating the other. The effectiveness of an institutions can thus be measured in its ability to coerce its members to cooperate and refrain to misbehaving. Contrary to what realists’ believe, institutions thus become an independent factor that can impact state behavior, which is not just a mere reflection of their power. While the underlying assumption remains the same (states want to maximize power), the institutions (i.e. the rules that make up the institution) alter the way states aim to maximize their power, because the cost of cheating becomes to high- in both the economic and the security realm.  The so-called “shadow of the future”, “issue-linkage”, effective monitoring thanks so technology and reduced transaction costs make cooperation an attractive option for most states. According to liberal institutionalists, relative-gains logic is not as important as realists claim. Also, institutions may successfully address issues of distributive justice.

Whether relative-gains considerations matter or not is a tricky question. They certainly exist, as human beings (and states) naturally compare themselves to others, but the real question is in how far it influences state behavior. Realists say it is very important, liberalists argue that it is secondary once the cheating problem is solved and institutions enjoy the states’ trust.

Collective security theory uses a related approach, envisioning a world in which aggressors are confronted automatically by the international community. Modern-day Wilsonians such as Kofi Annan argue that states must not consider their national interest, but equate it to the wider interest of the global community. The first Gulf War, or the Yugoslav War are examples for such behavior, but they were not the product of international institutions, and collective security remains a normative concept.

So do international institutions influence states’ behavior? A peek into the real world shows that both realists and liberalists have a point. Some institutions, such as the UN Security Council, is an obvious reflection of power in the post-WWII era. And in 2003, the Council was not able to prevent the United States from invading Iraq. Other institutions, such as the European Union, strongly affect the behavior of even the most powerful European states, such as Germany. UN peacekeeping operations have arguably had some stabilizing effect, although its record is mixed, and it is wholly unsuitable for conflict between great powers.

Realists argue that what is really needed to show that liberal institutionalists  have a point are historical cases of cooperation between states that promoted stability and that would not have occurred without the existence of international institutions. Yet, institutions may prevent conflict from emerging in the first place, so it is hard to tell when exactly they have prevented stability. The European Union has brought its members much closer together over the past decades, and there is little doubt that it had a stabilizing force, although it is difficult to prove this empirically. However, the mere fact that the creation of the European Community (EC, later renamed EU) was followed by the most peaceful era in Europe’s history is unlikely to be coincidental. The same is true for the UN Security Council. Since its creation, there has not been any direct large-scale armed conflict between its members. This, however, could also be explained by the arrival of the nuclear age, which made wars between big powers unlikely. Finally, there is a myriad of regulatory interconnections, which make up the less visible of global governance. They help faciliate communication and trade between states, and they certainly increase the barriers –both domestic and international– to go to war.

International institutions are thus very likely to make war less likely.  While we cannot say for sure to what extent international institutions affect international relations, they are, by far, the most promising element in our efforts to promote peace and stability.

Political summits are an intricate business. Usually, they produce completely watered-down statements so bland that if read out loud, they’d put even the most engaged audience to sleep- or they are so removed from reality that they have a surreal ring to it. Some argue that the important stuff happens behind closed doors, when deals are struck and disputes are solved over a glass of fine scotch.  Yet, despite the potential fringe benefits, last week’s summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Mexico, where leaders of all colors pledged to unite under the newly formed Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), proved to be yet another festival of collective self-delusion and hollow rhetoric so blatant that the only question the observer was left behind with was  “Who exactly are they trying to fool?” Integration of any kind in Latin America remains as improbable as ever, and yet another addition to the already absurd alphabet soup of regional bodies is unlikely to make a difference.

Talk of unity is insincere, and there are five main reasons why economic or political integration in Latin America will remain an illusion, and why attempts to replace the Organization of American States (OAS) with a newly formed body –which excludes the United States and Canada– is unlikely to help tackle the region’s problems.

First, the region’s governments’ ideological predispositions are too far apart to find a common denominator on any economic, let alone political, issues. Even human rights- an issue often used to create some kind of common ground– is off the table, as Fidel Castro and an increasingly dictatorial Hugo Chavez refuse to discuss a problem highlighted by the death of Orlando Zapata, Cuba’s foremost dissident and defender of human rights, after a hunger strike in prison. But even less emotional issues such as trade liberalization or monetary policy prove difficult as the region’s governments move into opposite directions. The Venezuelan government nationalizes and becomes more fragile, while Brazil, a beacon of monetary stability,  is boasting an economy ever more competitive in virtually all areas. A related problem is the triumph of populist ideology over pragmatism in a series of countries in the region. Blaming outsiders – a daily practice in Venezuela and a phenomenon ever more common in Argentina– is usually a reliable indicator that a government is unwilling or unable to face unwelcome realities. Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Colombia, on the other hand, have reached political maturity and a general policy consensus that allows governments to deal with challenges pragmatically. As a consequence, nations lack the mutual trust necessary to integrate and confer sovereignty to a supranational decision-making body. Mercosur’s lack to establish a permanent supranational entity to decide trade disputes between its members is a case in point.

Secondly, it is increasingly unclear whether the region’s giant, Brazil, is as interested in integration as it claims to be. While Itamaraty, the foreign ministry, is correct to point out that Latin America one of Brazil’s foreign policy priorities, few top policy makers seem inclined to make concessions to neighbors that are falling behind. High-flying Brazil, which is now usually commonly included into all high-profile platforms, has its eyes on a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and has long started to think in more global dimensions. Aside from Brazil’s diverging political ambitions, the lack of mutual economic necessity, an essential ingredient of integration, further reduces incentives to integrate. The EU works because its members depend on each other. Brazil, on the contrary, does not depend on its neighbors. Some analysts even claim that Mercosur’s customs union hurts Brazil’s economy, reducing its room for maneuver when signing trade deals with other big powers. In any case, Brazil is unwilling to bear become the paymaster of integration, a role Germany has played in Europe.

Third, contrary to the European Union, regional integration in South America is a top down initiative that has never enjoyed civil society’s support. There are very few pro-integration pressure groups. In some societies, nationalism is quite strong and there is a potential for resistance against giving up autonomy. Politicians are thus unlikely to
continuously exercise leadership in this matter and push for integration. Contrary to Europeans, who have witnessed the ugly consequences of nationalism and whose societies bear post-modernist characteristics, Latin American nations are, similar to the United States, cherish sovereignty. Despite cultural similarities, most Latin Americans would find it absurd to see a regional parliament in Quito or Caracas overrule a decision their national government has taken.

Fourth, the region’s other significant actor, Mexico, is so much aligned with North America that the term “Latin America” has become largely irrelevant. Felipe Calderón’s pro-Latin America rhetoric during the summit can be read as a meek attempt to restore Mexico’s influence in a region it has long abandoned and left to Brazilian and Venezuelan leadership. Mexico is unlikely to engage in any regional club that positions itself against the United States.

Finally, there are few pragmatic arguments for replacing the OAS with an organization that excludes the United States and Canada, including Cuba instead. In February, Obama rightly pointed out that after criticizing the United States for intervening excessively in the region, several governments are now criticizing the US for having abandoned the region. Heeding to anti-American ideology is unlikely to help deal with problems the Americas urgently need to solve, and despite its occasional arrogance, its inclusion it crucial. Drug-related violence is a case in point, as it involved both Latin and North America. Unless they both sit down together, solutions are likely to be half-baked. In additional, another serious body is unlikely to go down well politically. Most Latin American countries are falling behind with their annual OAS fees, and they are unlikely to agree to paying to finance yet another headquarters, staff and costly summits.

For the time being, Latin America’s leaders can be expected to continue to dream about fulfilling Bolivar’s dream of uniting Latin America. Latin Americans could barely care less. Few Brazilians know that Unasur, another regional body created last year, exists in the first place, and even fewer will know about the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Strengthening the already existing OAS may be a smarter way to go forward.