Emerging global (dis)order: Quo vadis ordo?

By Kim Won-soo

The order among the nations, or more realistically the balance of power among major powers is undergoing tectonic shifts. At its heart lies the fast rise of China relative to the United States. While there has been much debate in the expert community on whether the current state of international relations will lead to a new Cold War between Washington and Beijing, no consensual view has emerged as yet.

Between the post-World War II and present situations, similarities exist on the relative power distribution of the two most powerful states and their value divide. But differences also exist in terms of the gap in the strategic balance of power between the two and their economic interdependence. China has caught up close with the U.S. in aggregate national power. Accordingly, the U.S.-China competition is raging in all areas including trade, technology, security and finance. But the U.S. still maintains dominance in most key areas, in particular strategic military capabilities and global finance. China may need more time to catch up, perhaps longer than popularly assumed. Efforts to decouple the economies of the U.S. and China may turn out to be much harder in the real world than any political logic would favor. The two economies have become inter-connected at much higher levels than the Soviet Union and the U.S. ever were. As to how these trends will evolve, we will need more time and a long-term expert analysis to have a clear answer.

For the near term, there is a consensual concern on the volatility of the current state of global order or lack thereof, from which serious structural risks are already arising. The two most palpable risks are the Thucydides Trap and the Kindleberger Trap, which are suggested by Graham Allison and Joseph Nye of Harvard University respectively. The former highlights the danger of collision between the existing hegemon and the rising challenger, while the latter points to the risk of leadership vacuum created by the failure of action by the new hegemon. Both traps must be avoided not only for the U.S. and China but also for the whole world. But it takes two to tango.

The Sino-American relationship moved from cooperative engagement during the Obama administration to unmanaged competition during the Trump administration. The choice of the Obama team was understandable in view of the need to steer Washington and the rest of the world out of the global financial crisis of 2007-8. But that choice allowed Beijing to grow faster than most other economies and catch up close with the U.S. This new reality may have influenced the almost 180 degree turn of approach taken by the Trump team. But Trump's approach was mostly so ad-hoc and transactional that it made it difficult to manage U.S.-China relations in a predictable and consistent manner. The outcome was disappointing with little real gain. Heightened mutual distrust caused most of the dialogue channels to be cut-off or suspended. The resumption has yet to take place almost a year following Biden's inauguration.

Now the Biden team's focus seems to be on managing U.S.-China competition responsibly. The virtual summit between the two presidents from a month ago was a welcome development. But no tangible follow-up actions have been made. Instead it was soon eclipsed by negative developments like the announced U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. Shifting to managed competition is much easier said than actually done. It requires the following three things to succeed.

First, some combinations of the Three Cs, namely cooperation, competition and confrontation, are inevitable, depending on the differing interests and priorities of the two countries in various issue areas. But the escalation of this mixture into the fourth C (conflict) must be prevented at all costs. This includes both intended and unintended possibilities of conflict, which would be entirely unnecessary and disastrous for the whole world. For that, a credible crisis management mechanism is urgently needed between the two powers including a hotline at the working level as well as high-level back door channels for crisis communications.

Secondly, both countries must work together to resume bilateral consultations on issues of serious mutual concern. The highest priority should be on coping with existential threats against humanity including weapons of mass destruction (WMD), terrorism, climate change and emerging disruptive technologies related to cyberspace and outer space. On these issues, the two countries face urgent and common threats. So they could potentially find common ground on how to pursue issue-based future-oriented cooperation.

Thirdly, both countries should have a realistic look at global and regional value chains. The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the need to adjust the value chains from the "just in time" to the "just in case" consideration. But regardless of any adjustments to be made, one thing is clear: the economies of the U.S. and China cannot be divorced easily. Any decoupling attempt would inevitably entail confusion and adverse consequences which would likely be a lose-lose situation for both economies.

These are daunting tasks to begin with. Unfortunately, high levels of mutual distrust between the two countries, along with China's near complete pandemic lockdown, has made them even more so over the past couple of years. Building confidence cannot be done easily without personal engagement and trust-building among the key figures to be involved in the resumed bilateral dialogue process. Now is the time for the leaders of the two countries to do their intellectual homework. They have to reconsider their current approaches seriously with enlightened self-interests in mind, before direct in-person engagements can resume. They owe it to themselves and to the whole humanity.

Kim Won-soo (wsk4321@gmail.com) is the former under secretary-general of the United Nations and the high representative for disarmament. As a Korean diplomat, he served as secretary to the ROK president for foreign affairs. He is now the chair of the international advisory board of the Future Consensus Institute (Yeosijae) and a member of the Group of Eminent Persons for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBTO).