China Plans to Become the New Global Hegemon

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

How exactly will the post-pandemic world differ from the past? In particular, will we see the steady rise of an increasingly assertive China and the continuing decline of the United States?

Chinese president Xi Jinping has suggested that China should take the lead in shaping the “new world order” and safeguarding international security.

He stated that China must proactively shape its external security environment, strengthen cooperation in the security field and guide the global community to jointly safeguard international security. Xi made the remarks in Beijing Feb. 17.

China has made great strides in the past 20 years: Since 2001, China’s per capita Gross Domestic Product has risen five-fold. By the end of 2019 there were 285 billionaires in China.

China puts massive resources into basic research, science education, and infrastructure. It graduates six times as many scientists and engineers than the United States. 

In 1960 America produced 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. Now it produces 24 per cent. Even more important is the decline of America’s share of high-tech industrial production: according to the World Bank, it fell from 18 per cent in 1999 to just seven per cent in 2014, while China’s rose from three per cent to 26 per cent.

Launched in 2013, China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) now involves more than a hundred countries undertaking vast energy and transport projects, financed and largely built by Chinese companies, along with the development of new port facilities across the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean.

Alongside these economic projects there is China’s unprecedented assertion of naval power in the South China Sea, where several military installations have been built on reclaimed reefs. This has been viewed by its neighbours, and other states, as a strategic threat. 

China’s potential military bases in and around the Indian Ocean have been labelled the “String of Pearls.” They include Djibouti on the Red Sea, the site of China’s first overseas naval base, and a number of nominally commercial ports China has built or is currently building: Gwadar in Pakistan; Hambantota in Sri Lanka; Chittagong in Bangladesh; Kyaukpyu in Myanmar; and others in Mauritius, the Seychelles, the Maldives and the Comoros.

All of these have the potential to become military bases strategically situated on the world’s key maritime supply routes. The Indian Ocean is crossed by four fifths of the container traffic between Asia and the rest of the world and three fifths of the world’s oil supplies. 

The Pakistani port of Gwadar serves as a strategic base on the Arabian Sea, while Djibouti is China’s gateway to Africa. After all, 80 per cent of China’s oil supplies originate in Africa and the Middle East.

Nor has the Mediterranean Sea been ignored. China is set next year to take over management of the Haifa port in Israel and is constructing a new port in Ashdod. The two Israeli ports will add to what is becoming a Chinese string of pearls in the Eastern Mediterranean.

China already manages the Greek port of Piraeus, and the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) is looking at upgrading Lebanon’s deep seaport of Tripoli to allow it to accommodate larger vessels, inaugurating a new maritime route between China and the Mediterranean.

Major Chinese construction companies are also looking at building a railroad that would connect Beirut and Tripoli in Lebanon to Homs and Aleppo in Syria. Tripoli could become a special economic zone within the BRI and serve as an important trans-shipment point between the People’s Republic and Europe.

Taken together, China is looking at dominating the Eastern Mediterranean with ports in four countries, Israel, Greece, Lebanon, and Syria. 

In recent years, China has emerged as the most significant economic partner for the Middle Eastern states and of vital importance to Beijing’s ambitious strategy. The region is geographically situated at the very heart of the proposed BRI, with routes connecting Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean. This would create an alternative to the Suez Canal.

The BRI seeks to open up new markets and secure global supply chains to help generate sustained Chinese economic growth and thereby contribute to social stability at home. It is the flagship foreign policy of the Xi administration.