Abstract
In this chapter, Smolnikov investigates the past and current shifts in the global distribution of economic power between the West and the East, in particular the United States and China, and analyzes their long-term projections. He addresses various scenarios of the future pecking order by 2050, in terms of global economic supremacy, and—on the grounds of PPP-based projections of GDP growth—establishes that contrary to the many long-term global economic forecasts that expect China to become the world’s largest economy by the mid-century, this may not be the case. The chapter challenges the claim on the purportedly preordained fatality of the leading Western powers, and argues that as the ensuing structural changes risk eroding their status, a smart policy can attempt to arrest their downfall. A relatively declining yet powerful group of the major Western states could, for example, try to collectively change the commonly accepted status criteria through which it is judged by others, for instance, by attempting to “de-materialize” the international stratification standards.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a concept of human capital and its application in modern economy at micro and macro levels, see Gary S. Becker, Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993). For an instructive analysis of human capital’s impact on economic development, see Andreas Savvides and Thanasis Stengos, Human Capital and Economic Growth (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008).
- 2.
An HSBC report, for instance, referring to the work of eminent Harvard economist Robert Barro, evaluates eight fundamentals of “economic infrastructure” needed for a robust economic growth: GDP per capita; average years of male schooling; life expectancy; fertility (average children per person); rule of law; government consumption; democracy index; and inflation rate. As for regime impact on economic performance, the views stated in contemporary literature on the subject are frequently counterintuitive: democracies can restrain growth, while autocracies can advance it. Some economists, such as Robert Barro, suggest that the pattern of democracy-prosperity is reverse rather than linear. For an explanation of this phenomenon, see Robert J. Barro, Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998). Note that a projected list of innovation phase ascenders, disregarding the measure of their political liberalism, includes such states as Israel, Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR), Taiwan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. This row can be extended, once Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey complete transitions from the efficiency-driven stage of their development. See: “The Global Competitiveness Report 2011–2012,” World Economic Forum, 2011, 11.
- 3.
The term “sub-global” international system was coined by the English School. Sub-global systems present distinct international societies that include states united by common culture. “Sub-global international societies lose their point if there are no significant differences among them,” points out Barry Buzan , “and if the differences become too great then the global level disappears.” Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 236. Also see Martin Wight, Systems of States (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977); Alex J. Bellamy, ed., International Society and its Critics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society (London: Routledge, 2009).
- 4.
See Asian Development Bank, Asia 2050: Realizing the Asian Century, 119–120.
- 5.
See Harpaul Alberto Kohli, Y. Aaron Szyf, and Drew Arnold, “Construction and Analysis of a Global GDP Growth Model for 185 Countries through 2050,” Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies 4, no.2 (May 2012):116; author’s calculations.
- 6.
See Yongjin Zhang, “System, Empire and State in Chinese International Relations,” Review of International Studies 27, no.5 (December 2001):43–63. An important precondition for the Pax Sinica was formation of the unified Chinese state, the Chinese Empire. It dates to 221 BC when the Kingdom of Qin began its conquest of the adjacent six Chinese kingdoms. See Michael Loewe, “China’s First Empire,” History Today 57, no.9 (September 2007):12–19. Some authors differentiate though among China-centric systems established under the Chinese imperial dynasties: Charles Horner, for instance classifies them as the Pax Mongolica under the Yuan Dynasty, the Pax Sinica under the Ming Dynasty, and the Pax Manjurica under the Qing Dynasty. Charles Horner, Rising China and its postmodern fate: Memories of empire in a new global context (Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 2009). An excellent overview of empires was made by the English School in Michael Cox, Tim Dunne, and Ken Booth, eds., Empires, Systems and States: Great Transformations in International Politics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- 7.
Yongjin Zhang, 52.
- 8.
On the current discussion concerning the prospects of China-centric system’s re-emergence, see Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh, ed., Towards Pax Sinica? China’s Rise and Transformation: Impacts and Implications (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, 2009); Y. Y. Kueh, Pax Sinica: Geopolitics and Economics of China’s Ascendance (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013).
- 9.
The growth rate data from Dominic Wilson, Kamakshya Trivedi, Stacy Carlson, and José Ursúa, “The BRICs 10 Years On: Halfway Through the Great Transformation, Global Economics,” Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research 208 (2011):29.
- 10.
See Chong-En Bai and Qiong Zhang, “Is the People’s Republic of China’s Current Slowdown a Cyclical Downturn or a Long-Term Trend? A Productivity-Based Analysis,” Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 22, no.1 (January 2017):29–46.
- 11.
Notably, 83 percent of Indians view China as a security threat, while 65 percent believe that India should ally with other countries to contain China in the region. Rory Medcalf, “India Poll 2013,” Lowy Institute for International Policy, May 20, 2013. Available at: http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/india-poll-2013
India’s foreign policy experts appear to concur here with the majority of their compatriots. They agree that the rapidly changing balance of power in the Indian Ocean in favor of China is not in their country’s national interests, and that New Delhi can best countervail this trend by actively forging economic and security partnerships with the interested nations. “India’s economic integration with ASEAN,” suggests, for example, a paper by an Indian think-tank, “needs to be accompanied strongly in tandem with India’s strategic integration in ASEAN’s security matrix.” Subhash Kapila, “ASEAN Region: India Needs to Stand Strategically Tall,” Paper No. 5332, South Asia Analysis Group, December 20, 2012. Available at: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/node/1097
- 12.
Martin Wight , Power Politics, edited by Hedley Bull and Carsten Holbraad; foreword by Jack Spence (New York; London: Continuum: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002), 48.
- 13.
See, for instance, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Rebecca Giem, Andrew Jorgenson, Thomas Reifer, John Rogers and Shoon Lio, “The Trajectory of the United States in the World-System: A Quantitative Reflection,” Department of Sociology and Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California, Riverside, IROWS Working Paper # 8, presented at the XV ISA World Congress of Sociology, Brisbane, Australia, Wednesday, July 10, 2002.
- 14.
At the time, as Barbara Tuchman suggested in her famous account of the pre-WWI history, élan vital was the driving force behind French resolve to make up for their disastrous defeat at Sedan in September 1870 should they only have had a chance to prove their “all-conquering spirit” to Germans in a new military duel. See Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Presidio Press, 2004), 34–52. On the concept of élan vital see Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (New York: Cosimo, 2007).
- 15.
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson , Daniel H. Nexon, Jennifer Sterling-Folker, Janice Bially Mattern, Richard Ned Lebow , and J. Samuel Barkin, “Bridging the Gap: Toward a Realist-Constructivist Dialogue,” International Studies Review 6, no.2 (June 2004):351.
- 16.
Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (New York: Routledge, 2013), 41.
- 17.
Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: the first complete edition in English, translated by Bruce Fink in collaboration with Héloïse Fink and Russell Grigg (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2006), 19.
- 18.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision, custom data acquired via website.
- 19.
Sir John Bagot Glubb , Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1978).
- 20.
Johan Galtung , Tore Heiestad, and Eric Ruge, On the Decline and Fall of Empires: The Roman Empire and Western Imperialism Compared (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1979).
- 21.
Christopher Layne , “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America’s Future Grand Strategy,” International Security 22, no.1 (June 1997):86–124.
- 22.
“It is far too easy for a president to jump from crisis to crisis, dealing with one hot spot after another,” asserted, for instance, the former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “But to do so is to be shaped by events rather than to shape events. To avoid this paralyzing seduction of action rather than progress, a president must have a broad vision of the world coupled with clarity of purpose.” Quoted in Philip Rucker, “Mitt Romney Calls for New ‘American Century’ with Muscular Foreign Policy,” The Washington Post, October 7, 2011.
- 23.
Walter Lippmann , U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1943), 9.
- 24.
Author’s calculations based on data from United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision, custom data acquired via website.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
By 2050, the share of whites in US population, for instance, is projected to drop to 47 percent from 67 percent in 2005 and 85 percent in 1960 while the share of Hispanics will grow to 29 percent from 14 and 3.5 percent in the same time, those of blacks will stay more or less stable at the level of 13 percent, and those of Asians will grow to 9 percent from 4 and 0.5 percent respectively. Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, U.S. Population Projections: 2005–2050 (Washington, DC, Pew Research Center, February 11, 2008).
- 27.
Since 2013, the European great powers have been sidelined by Saudi Arabia. With US $87,186 billion in defense expenditures in 2015, she became the world’s third largest military spender. Source: SIPRI 2016. Available at: www.sipri.org
- 28.
Author’s calculations based on SIPRI 2016 data.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
See, for instance, John Hawksworth and Anmol Tiwari, “The World in 2050 – The Accelerating Shift of Global Economic Power: Challenges and Opportunities,” Price Waterhouse Coopers, January 2011; Karen Ward; HSBC Global Research, “The World in 2050: From the Top 30 to the Top 100,” HSBC Bank plc., 2012; Jean Fouré, Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Lionel Fontagné, “The Great Shift: Macroeconomic Projections for the World Economy at the 2050 Horizon,” CEPII Working Paper no 3, (2012); Åsa Johansson, Yvan Guillemette1, Fabrice Murtin1, David Turner, Giuseppe Nicoletti, Christine de la Maisonneuve, Guillaume Bousquet1, Francesca Spinelli, “Looking to 2060: Long-Term Global Growth Prospects: A Going for Growth Report,” OECD, no 3, 2012; Uri Dadush and Bennett Stancil, “The World Order in 2050,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2010.
- 31.
Fouré et al., “The Great Shift,” 64.
- 32.
Author’s calculations based on data from Fouré et al., “The Great Shift.”
- 33.
Calculated on the basis of PwC projections for 2050. Data available at: https://www.pwc.com
- 34.
See PwC projections for 2050. Available at: https://www.pwc.com
- 35.
SIPRI.
- 36.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2013 (London: Routledge, 2013), 255–256.
- 37.
Defense Industry Daily staff, “Bold Projections Taken Out of Context Overstate China’s Leeway for Military Budget Growth,” Defense Industry Daily, March 17, 2013. Available at: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/china-military-spending-projections-010980/
- 38.
The term “ingenuity” in Homer-Dixon’s connotation describes “ideas applied to solve practical technical and social problems.” Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 109. Referring to the proponent of the endogenous growth theory, economist Paul Romer, who defined ideas as “the instructions that let us combine limited physical resources in arrangements that are ever more valuable,” Homer-Dixon identifies the “ingenuity gap” as a discrepancy between the demand for and supply of creative ideas. (Paul Romer as quoted in Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, “The Ingenuity Gap: Can Poor Countries Adopt to Resource Scarcity?” Population and Development Review 21, no.3 (September 1995):587–612.) In comparison with the developing nations, he posits, the developed societies have a greater potential in supplying ingenuity that immeasurably increases their adjustment capabilities in the complex environment. See Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap, 1st ed. (New York; Toronto: Knopf, 2000).
- 39.
NATO’s appeal to Russia and China to share the $4 billion annual burden of financing the Afghani military after the alliance withdrew its troops from that country in 2014 is just but one case in point. Reuters, April 19, 2012.
- 40.
Consider, for instance, that in 2050 India’s GDP per capita will be just somewhat 12 percent, and China’s about 30 percent of US level. (See Dadush and Stancil, “The World Order in 2050,” 10.)
- 41.
Robert Kagan , “The Price of Power: The Benefits of U.S. Defense Spending Far Outweigh the Costs,” The Weekly Standard January 24, 2011, available at http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/price-power_533696.html; Robert Kagan, “No Time to Cut Defense,” The Washington Post, February 3, 2009.
- 42.
See Secrétariat Général de la Défense et de la Sécurité Nationale, “The International and Strategic Evolutions faced by France: Preparatory Document for the Update of the White Paper on Defence and National Security,” (Paris: SGDSN, 2012), 37.
- 43.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky , “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47, no.2 (March 1979):263–291.
- 44.
Maurice A. East, “Status Discrepancy and Violence in the International System: An Empirical Analysis,” in The Analysis of International Politics: Essays in Honor of Harold and Margaret Sprout, eds., James N. Rosenau, Vincent Davis and Maurice A. East (New York: Free Press, 1972), 299–319.
- 45.
See Richard Norton-Taylor, “Russian Spies in UK ‘at Cold War Levels,’” The Guardian, June 29, 2010.
- 46.
In April 2012, the City of London, for example, initiated making the British capital an international center for renminbi (RMB) trading and liquidity.
- 47.
For a comprehensive account of British imperial legacy see, for instance, Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (London: Allen Lane, 2002).
- 48.
Foreign Affairs Committee, “Fourth Report: The Role and Future of the Commonwealth.” Available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmfaff/114/11402.htm
- 49.
For a detailed account of Britain’s judicial legacy in its former dominions, see Jerry Dupont, Common Law Abroad: Constitutional and Legal Legacy of the British Empire (Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein & Co., 2001).
- 50.
William C. Wohlforth , “Unipolarity, Status Competition and Great Power War,” World Politics 61, no.1(January 2009):28–57.
- 51.
Robert Powell, “Stability and the Distribution of Power,” World Politics 48, no.2 (January 1996):239–267.
- 52.
For an informative account of the hegemonic concept evolution see, for instance, Jeffrey D. Kentor, Capital and Coercion: The Economic and Military Processes that Have Shaped the World Economy, 1800–1990 (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000).
- 53.
Lenore Lyons, “Foreword”; Richard Howson and Kylie Smith, “Hegemony and the Operation of Consensus and Coercion,” in Hegemony: Studies in Consensus and Coercion, eds., Richard Howson and Kylie Smith (New York: Routledge, 2008), IX.
- 54.
Author’s calculations based on data from Angus Maddison, The World Economy Volume 1: A Millennial Perspective (New Delhi: OECD, 2006), 261.
- 55.
Heinrich von Treitschke , “International Law and International Intercourse” in The Theory of International Relations: Selected Texts from Gentili to Treitschke, eds., M. G. Forsyth, H. M. A. Keens-Soper, Peter Savigear (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970), 332.
- 56.
Raymond Aron , Peace and War, 47.
- 57.
U.S. Department of Defense, “Remarks by Deputy Secretary Work on Third Offset Strategy as Delivered by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work,” Brussels, Belgium, April 28, 2016. Available at: https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/753482/remarks-by-d%20eputy-secretary-work-on-third-offset-strategy
- 58.
Raymond Aron , Peace and War, 47.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smolnikov, S. (2018). Dynamics of Primacy. In: Great Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71885-9_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71885-9_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71884-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71885-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)