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Oct 16 2013
Government Shutdown, U.S. Decline and Sino-U.S. Relations
By
Recently, impact caused by the shutdown U.S. Federal government became a hotspot drawing international attention. Internally, it results from the fighting between Whitehouse and the Congress and between Democratic and Republican parties, which will certainly make a dent in domestic politics and economic development. The current internal political competition is not a short-term political struggle, but rather a long-term, systematic malaise, and is entangled with political crisis and social crisis. “Polarized politics” is formed to result in a sign of confrontation and paralysis to the U.S. political system. From occupying Wall-Street to fiscal cliff and to government shutdown, it is widely assumed by the international community that this is a systematic crisis of the U.S. capitalism, on which U.S. must make a major adjustment and transformation.
On international aspect, the shutdown has severely impacted the U.S. international activities. The most outstanding example is that President Obama failed to attend the APEC meeting and the East Asia Summit, which undoubtedly brought an impact on the “Asia-Pacific rebalance” strategy he strongly pushed for within his term of office and on his effort to strengthen the U.S. domination on international society.
In fact, since the breakout of global financial crisis, the developed world led by U.S., Europe and Japan had suffered from development dilemma and crisis, from the pressure of “devolution of power” in the evolving international system, and from power declining, while the newly-emerging powers led by China, India and Brazil are the “receivers” of this “devolution of power”. The U.S. therefore is deeply felt with a sense of crisis and began to adopt strategies of “revitalization of manufacture industry”, strengthening export, and rebalancing strategies of “contraction in Middle East” and “re-pivot to Asia-Pacific”.
As Paul Kennedy put is in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, declining is a gradual process that will last for decades, rather than an abrupt, devastating collapse of American power. In recent years, a sign of relative decline appeared in U.S. though, a large, generational gap between U.S. and the newly-emerging powers remain in areas of education, R&D, military, etc. Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was launched recently, which proved a great advantage of U.S. in military and technology areas. Moreover, the most recent Nobel laureates are Americans, which also proves that U.S. enjoys vast advantage in many areas.
By looking forward to the future, with the relative decline of its power, the U.S. will not be able to fight on multiple fronts, and its global strategy will be problematic with financial support. Thus, the U.S will turn to the off-shore balancer strategy to a larger extent. This is a strategy taken by an off-shore power by using the relative advantage in its geography. The strategy is based on the presumption that an off-shore power believes that a power in the Eurasian continent will certainly check a rising power in the region. This is exactly the strong motivation of the off-shore power to take a strategy of transference, i.e., to pass the cost of confrontation and risks on to powers within the region. Thus, according to the offshore balancer theory, it is not the U.S. but the powers within the region that should take the burden to keep the balance of power in the region.
Objectively speaking, the post-war international system established by the U.S.-led West did by and large make an important contribution to the development and stability of the international society. In fact, this system is mainly dominated by the U.S. It is by no means easy to dominate the international system. You need to have strength and capability to provide the international society with public goods, while the international society is the beneficiary of the system. So is China in respect of its development in the past decades.
We should not enjoy the Schadenfreude of watching the shutdown. Rather, we should make a pre-assessment on the possible impact that the process will exert on Sino-U.S. relations.
On international aspect, the shutdown has severely impacted the U.S. international activities. The most outstanding example is that President Obama failed to attend the APEC meeting and the East Asia Summit, which undoubtedly brought an impact on the “Asia-Pacific rebalance” strategy he strongly pushed for within his term of office and on his effort to strengthen the U.S. domination on international society.
In fact, since the breakout of global financial crisis, the developed world led by U.S., Europe and Japan had suffered from development dilemma and crisis, from the pressure of “devolution of power” in the evolving international system, and from power declining, while the newly-emerging powers led by China, India and Brazil are the “receivers” of this “devolution of power”. The U.S. therefore is deeply felt with a sense of crisis and began to adopt strategies of “revitalization of manufacture industry”, strengthening export, and rebalancing strategies of “contraction in Middle East” and “re-pivot to Asia-Pacific”.
As Paul Kennedy put is in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, declining is a gradual process that will last for decades, rather than an abrupt, devastating collapse of American power. In recent years, a sign of relative decline appeared in U.S. though, a large, generational gap between U.S. and the newly-emerging powers remain in areas of education, R&D, military, etc. Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was launched recently, which proved a great advantage of U.S. in military and technology areas. Moreover, the most recent Nobel laureates are Americans, which also proves that U.S. enjoys vast advantage in many areas.
By looking forward to the future, with the relative decline of its power, the U.S. will not be able to fight on multiple fronts, and its global strategy will be problematic with financial support. Thus, the U.S will turn to the off-shore balancer strategy to a larger extent. This is a strategy taken by an off-shore power by using the relative advantage in its geography. The strategy is based on the presumption that an off-shore power believes that a power in the Eurasian continent will certainly check a rising power in the region. This is exactly the strong motivation of the off-shore power to take a strategy of transference, i.e., to pass the cost of confrontation and risks on to powers within the region. Thus, according to the offshore balancer theory, it is not the U.S. but the powers within the region that should take the burden to keep the balance of power in the region.
Objectively speaking, the post-war international system established by the U.S.-led West did by and large make an important contribution to the development and stability of the international society. In fact, this system is mainly dominated by the U.S. It is by no means easy to dominate the international system. You need to have strength and capability to provide the international society with public goods, while the international society is the beneficiary of the system. So is China in respect of its development in the past decades.
We should not enjoy the Schadenfreude of watching the shutdown. Rather, we should make a pre-assessment on the possible impact that the process will exert on Sino-U.S. relations.
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