Economic uncertainties, environmental degradation and climate change, risks of
nuclear proliferation, inadequate access to water, growing food insecurity and
massive migrations threaten the stability of the global village, whose
population has almost tripled in 60 years and which will increase by another 2
billion in the next 40 years. If nothing is done, today's volatile situation
could degenerate into tragic chaos.
While the challenges of the industrial and post-industrial society would
require a new global governance, an ongoing rearrangement of power in world
politics complicates and, to a certain extent, paralyzes the collective
decision-making necessary to design it. In short, problems accumulate at a pace
which exceeds
dangerously the mobilization's capacity of the international community.
The changes on the Asian continent, in South America, in the Muslim world from
the secular Turkey to the Indonesia of the "Pancasila" (the
philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state), or in the post-Soviet Union
space are certainly significant, but the major redistribution of influence is
taking place between the West and the Chinese world. China's re-emergence
corrects a development imbalance triggered by Europe's industrial revolution in
the 18th century, but the re-entry of one fifth of mankind at the center of
history marks also the beginning of a period where different types of modernity
have to co-exist. In other words, the Westernization of the world opened five
centuries ago by Columbus, Vasco de Gama and Magellan has ended.
Even if, as shown by the tragic failure in Iraq or by the Afghan quagmire, an
expansion of the Pax Americana has become a geopolitical fantasy, the US, still
in a relatively dominant position and relying upon an incomparable hard power,
will act to maintain an advantageous status quo. Despite an erosion of the US
soft power - the more nuanced policies of President Barack Obama can not amend
the catastrophic effects of the neo-conservatives’ hubris or erase Wall
Street's follies - American elites assume what they call world leadership, and
wrongly postulate a universal acknowledgement of this ascendance in a posture
which does not facilitate a collective response to the transnational problems.
Worse, the American forces unwilling to relinquish the politics of hegemony
could be tempted to manipulate some dimensions of the crises to contain
perceived rising rivals.
Another scenario has to prevail to avoid disastrous consequences. The just
appreciation of the extreme gravity of the transnational threats combined with
a Jeffersonian America and a renewed Sino-European partnership, could lead to
the construction of a more effective global governance. Despite the deception
which followed the Copenhagen summit on climate change, the deadlock over the
reform of the United Nations system, the difficulties to enter a post-Bretton
Woods architecture or to reach a consensus on the Doha Development Round, the
New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by the Washington and Moscow or the
shift from the exclusive Group of Eight to the Group of 20 as a consequence of
the financial crisis can be interpreted as steps in a more cooperative and
inclusive direction.
In a century of interdependence and coexisting modernities, if unipolarity is a
mere illusion of order, multipolarity without effective multilateralism could
be a source of real disorder. But in the international effort required to
organize a multipolar world, can the West treat China as a truly equal partner?
In the long and multilayered negotiation process which can lead to consensus on
new international security or financial architectures, or in the complex but
permanent global public debates echoed by powerful media, can the West look at
the Chinese world without condescension nor preconception?
Sino-skepticism, defined as the reluctance to view China as a trustworthy
co-architect of the new global order, impedes the progress toward a more
balanced world governance. If one seriously hopes to see more Sino-Western
synergy, one has first to apprehend the source of the mistrust which affects so
deeply their mutual perception.
Although geographical distance does not separate anymore the West and China, a
mental fault line keeps them apart. Less obvious than Sinophobia but more
pervasive, unrelated with ideology which is to a great extent a diversion from
deeper realities, an original schism divides the West and China like two
opposite poles on a cognitive map.
For those who consider Kant's league of peace (foedus pacificum), or a
definitive conciliation seeking to make an end of all wars forever, as a
political guide and not an utopia, the Sino-Western disunion seems to be an
insuperable objection. But remarkably, Kant did mention China in his Treaty on
Perpetual Peace (1795), one of the highest expressions of the European
Enlightenment, and therefore, put the practicability of a world republic which
logically could not declare a war against itself under the most extreme test.
The myth of the absolute otherness constructed by travelers in quest of
exoticism and centuries of orientalism will disappear when, to borrow a thought
that Thomas Paine applied to America in his pamphlet "Common Sense", the cause
of China with its 1.4 billion human beings will be spontaneously understood as
the cause of all mankind.
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), whose monumental work is still influencing the most
serious intellectual exchanges between the West and China, did not spend almost
half of his life in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to inflate the obvious
differences between the two edges of the Eurasian continent. On the contrary,
he tried to underline commonalities, and, in contact with concrete diversity
never lost sight of universality. Understandably, his first book composed
directly in literary Chinese was a treaty On Friendship (1595) in which
he showed, on a highly meaningful topic where reason and sentiment are
involved, the proximity between the European classical thinking and the
Confucian tradition.
Inspired by the Ciceronian reflections on friendship, Ricci explained to the
subjects of the Emperor Wanli that a friend, at the opposite of a distant
other, is just another self, and by doing so, he not only implied the unity of
mankind but the possibility of a universal concord. In his biography of the
Italian Jesuit, the Japanese scholar Sukehiro Hirakawa insightfully presents
Ricci as the first real citizen of the world.
Sadly, in some segments of the Western society, the financial and economic
crisis has even reinforced latent Sinophobia. The Western corporate community
which benefited enormously from Beijing's opening up has recently criticized
China's business environment, but the perceived Chinese unfriendliness toward
Western companies tells more about the West's anxiety and nervousness than
about China's objective situation.
In July 2010 the Financial Times reported comments by General Electric's CEO
Jeffrey Immelt on "China's hostility toward foreign multinationals".
Interestingly, the top leader of one of the world's largest companies had
expressed in the past more constructive views about the Chinese world: "Most
people in the United States are negative about China because they see it as a
threat. But I never trusted what other people said about China. I wanted to
learn it on my own. And what I saw were great people - people who want what you
want" (Dartmouth college, 2004).
While indispensable Sino-Western synergy does presuppose that the West fully
connects with the dynamics of the Chinese renaissance, it also requires
Beijing's continuation of its post-Maoist strategy of reform and opening up.
China's undeniable economic achievements should not reactivate what Matteo
Ricci called the "superbia Sinica", Chinese haughtiness, nor generate
Sino-centric behaviors, but should be seen as the conditions for more
institutional adjustments and global engagement.
Fundamentally, the various discourses on Chinese exceptionalism do not serve
the interests of the Chinese people because they often operate internally as
excuses to tolerate the unacceptable and, on the other hand, they provide
arguments to those, outside China, who want to believe in the myth of the
absolute otherness. As much as the cause of the Chinese people is the cause of
all mankind, the cause of all mankind has to be China's cause. Beijing's
long-term success will not only depend on its capacity to build an open and
creative cosmopolitan society but also to develop cooperative relations with
the rest of the world.
At an operational level, if diplomacy, public relations' efforts and dialogue
are necessary to dissipate mutual misconceptions, they are not sufficient to
induce trust. Sino-European relations are especially important since they could
realistically envelop new forms of cooperation which would flatten the great
wall of mistrust.
Recognizing that the quality of the Sino-European links can impact the
relations between China and the West, and beyond that, improve the climate of
international relations, it is urgent for Brussels and Beijing to reinvigorate
their partnership.
Regrettably, one could argue that since the 7th EU-China summit in 2008 at the
very beginning of the first Barroso commission, the relationship has been
characterized by an irresolution which partly explains the narrative on a
hypothetical Sino-American diarchy. To a certain extent, the discourse on the
Group of 2 aims to fill a strategic vacuum. However, the chapter of the
hesitant Sino-European relations can be closed if both sides realize the unique
value of their partnership and its global significance.
Following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the European Union's member
states in November 2009, Brussels is now better equipped to conceive and
implement a strategic foreign action and Catherine Ashton, its first high
representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, supported by Herman Van
Rompuy the president of the European Council, could make a difference by
putting the relations with Beijing in a truly global perspective at the top of
her agenda
Brussels' policymakers have to Europeanize former French president Charles De
Gaulle's policy toward Beijing, an independent and long term-strategy which
considers China as a living matrix of civilization, which anticipates that its
young republicanism will evolve into more perfect forms, and which counts on it
as a generator of geopolitical equilibrium.
The EU should grant China the market economy status - before Beijing gains it
automatically in the framework of the World Trade Organization by 2016 at the
latest. The EU lift the arms embargo, both an obsolete policy and a manifest
symbol of mistrust, and accelerate the negotiations for a comprehensive
Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.
Simultaneously, the Sino-European link has to be reenergized by a new set of
transformational cooperation. In order to support the development of the
world's poorest continent, Brussels and Beijing should work with the African
Union and its 53 members on a Marshall plan for Africa. Moreover, Sino-European
joint actions in Central and in South Asia would underline the importance of
the Eurasian dimension. The thought of the Silk Road is one of the best
antidotes against the great wall of mistrust.
Innovative Sino-European cooperation projects in China (it is time to invest in
projects related to the media and to establish a Sino-European University), but
also within the European Union (cooperation in medicine for example) could
contribute to take the Sino-European relations at another level. This year's
13th EU-China summit offers a platform to discuss some of these proposals.
It is nowadays very common around the Pacific to deride what is depicted as a
marginalized continent, but despite its imperfections, the European Union is a
giant laboratory which successfully tested new forms of governance. It has not
only been able to reconcile former enemies but also to integrate ancient
nation-states without the use of force.
To appreciate the spirit of this European republic in the making, one has to go
back to the seminal Schuman Declaration (May 9, 1950), the first moment of the
European integration: "Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a
single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create
a de facto solidarity".
Although the idea of a supranational construction or a shared sovereignty
between Brussels and Beijing is unrealistic, European and Chinese leaders can
reinterpret the call for "concrete achievements creating de facto solidarity"
or, in other words, recalibrate the notion of cooperation as an instrument to
build trust and to unite people.
In his magisterial Postwar (2005) the late historian Tony Judt expressed
a provocative view:: "In spite of the horrors of their recent past - and in
large measure because of them - it was Europeans who were now uniquely placed
to offer the world some modest advice on how to avoid repeating their own
mistakes; few would have predicted it 60 years before, but the 21st century
might yet belong to Europe."
Europe will certainly have an important role to play in the coming decades but
the 21st century does not have to belong to one continent, it should be an era
of peace and prosperity for all, a century of world cooperation. The quality of
the partnership between China and Europe, two ancient civilizations at work to
reinterpret their humanistic traditions, can demonstrate that the great wall of
mistrust is not inevitable and, therefore, can put all of us on the path toward
a more balanced global village.
The post-World War II global security and financial architectures which
survived the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR were first envisioned in the
Atlantic Charter (1941) by Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, two giants
of the English-speaking world, and, to a great extent, designed by a small
group of Americans properly called the "wise men". Cross-fertilization between
Western and non-Western wisdoms in an enlarged group of "wise men" could
transform what they have brilliantly established and take the global governance
at a superior level.
For the contemporary "wise men", the words pronounced exactly 60 years ago by
Robert Schuman in its historical declaration at the Quai d'Orsay are more
relevant than ever : "World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of
creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it."
David Gosset is director of the Euro-China Center for International and
Business Relations at CEIBS, Shanghai, and founder of the Euro-China Forum.
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