Shift of strategic focus to the west

Author: Zhou Xingwei / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-01-01
Features:
Section IV National Security and the Western Development Drive
Entering the 21st century, China faces both opportunities and challenges from economic globalization. On one hand, grasping these opportunities can effectively enhance China's comprehensive national strength. On the other hand, the "shadow" of economic globalization looms over China's development path, as globalization is not solely an economic issue. In this sense, the Western Development Drive is neither a temporary measure nor a purely economic issue. It not only involves the coordinated development of China's economy and society but also concerns national unity, ethnic solidarity, border security, social stability, and national security.
I. The Challenges of Economic Globalization to China
From the perspective of "Chinese characteristics," it is undeniable that China has undergone an unprecedented "industrial revolution." Compared to its millennia-old agrarian cultural tradition, China has advanced to a stage of development "connected" with the modern world economy. However, it is equally undeniable that due to the severe imbalance in overall economic levels and regional development, China resembles a limping giant, vulnerable to setbacks at any moment.
Even in terms of the backwardness of the western regions, particularly the ethnic minority areas, economic globalization poses a severe challenge to China.
Economic globalization is always accompanied by conflicts between different cultures, and these conflicts are often manifested in the form of "groups." Different interests lead to different groups, and different groups lead to different interests. Interests and groups are in constant flux, with conflicts and groups mutually causal. However, the differences in civilizations and cultural conflicts are, in essence, differences and conflicts in interests. The deeper China integrates into the world economy, the more prominent the backwardness of the western ethnic minority regions becomes, making conflicts more likely to occur.
Yet, "closing the door" is impossible. The only factor that can balance conflicts is power—the power of development, including economic, technological, military, and political strength. Therefore, the Western Development Drive must first coordinate the interests of ethnic minorities and Han Chinese, as well as the interests of "frontier" and "inland" regions.
Second, the rapid development and application of information technology will undoubtedly have a significant impact on class, race, ethnicity, and even international relations—even though we cannot yet determine or assess this impact. But one thing is certain: on one hand, people are becoming increasingly aware of the outside world; on the other hand, they are also becoming more easily influenced by it.
Conflicts—whether in the form of traditional warfare, military intimidation, or even nuclear intimidation—may increasingly resemble "intellectual games." The wealthy elite, scattered like scattered islands in a sea of "low-intelligence" poverty, will dominate future conflicts. On one hand, the transfer of business or wealth is becoming easier, more cunning, and more civilized, blurring traditional boundaries—such as national borders. On the other hand, the divide between local elites (geographical or administrative) and ordinary people is becoming more pronounced, distinct, and widened.
This is a dangerous prospect: one side struggles in ignorance, poverty, bloodshed, pollution, and squalor, while the other indulges in the comfort of a "second ecological zone," sipping coffee and planning various "unlimited" futures. The divide between East and West gives way to the confrontation between the North and the South, and the gap between East and West is replaced by the friction between the dominant ethnic majority and minority ethnic groups.
As China becomes increasingly involved in the globalized tide, if the gap between East and West continues to widen, it will have an adverse impact on China's ethnic unity, social stability, border security, and national unity.
II. Nation-State, National Interests, and Economic Globalization
Since ancient times, human society has been eliminating ethnic or racial groups in various ways. Since the 16th to 17th centuries, "the West," relying on its advanced technology and the "demon of the market," has extended this elimination to the entire world on an unprecedented scale and speed. In this sense, the current globalization, led by Western developed countries and multinational corporations, can be considered another round of "elimination."
True, this elimination in the information age may be "civilized" and "clever," but precisely because it is civilized and clever, the danger is greater, and the consequences are more severe.
Although the trend of globalization is unstoppable, the world remains divided into nation-states (here, "ethnic" refers to the ethnic groups that constitute a nation, such as the "Chinese nation" or "Chinese people," or the "Russian nation" or "Russians"). Where there are nation-states, there are national interests. Globalization, which adheres to the principle of "cash is king, and the winners take all," undoubtedly poses a significant challenge to the national interests of nation-states.
The certain restrictions or even weakening of national sovereignty by various "international institutions" is sufficient to illustrate this point. Especially when a nation faces internal ethnic "fractures," its sovereignty and territorial integrity are even more threatened (consider the examples of Iraq and Kosovo).
Of course, China is neither Iraq nor Kosovo. China is, after all, a large developing country, and if it develops well, it can become a strong country, even a world-class strong country. But China is precisely the reason why it is unacceptable to developed countries.
Specifically, as a continental nation-state, China's national interests may face three challenges:
First, from "non-state forces" both internal and external;
Second, from the rhetoric of Western mainstream society about the "size" of nation-states;①
Third, from the "internationalism" of developed countries led by the United States.
Additionally, there may be a fourth challenge: China's own "national protection." Compared to the other challenges, this fourth one may be even more significant in the process of economic globalization.
Since the unprecedented "sea ban" imposed by Zhu Yuanzhang in the late 14th century, China's development has been trapped in poverty and weakness. After the Opium War, nationalist scholars in the gentry class often blamed imperialist aggression, while some radical thinkers emphasized the backwardness of Chinese culture itself. This conflict in "mainstream ideology" made the application of science and technology and industrialization even more difficult in China.
By the late 20th century, this "historical legacy" was again "realized" with China's reform and opening up: a debate about "worldism" and "nationalism" quietly emerged (no longer confined to academia, theory, or even the so-called "culture" sphere or social strata). There were many factions: one end was "China can say 'no'," while the other end was "the 'win-win' of joining the WTO"; one end was the "wolf has come" of multinational corporations, while the other end was discarding outdated "national industries"; one end was the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia by the NATO led by the United States, and the other end was the "conspiracy theory" versus the "open strategy."
All these debates nearly covered the entire economic, military, and political life of the country.
"The experience of history is worth attention." These debates could not but affect national decision-making. In an increasingly open world, for a nation-state composed of 56 ethnic groups with highly imbalanced regional development, how to prevent and balance the "conflicts" in mainstream ideology and coordinate national development strategies with the interests of all parties will be a great test.
"The golden mean leads to perfection." The arrival of economic globalization does not mean that "national protection" is no longer needed. In a sense, globalization itself is a form of "national protection" for a few developed ethnic groups. Look, even the United States, a free-market economy, still has various forms of explicit or implicit national protection (the breakup of Microsoft is actually another form of protecting American national interests), let alone China, which is large but not wealthy, and large but not strong—national protection is even more necessary.
The key question is: What kind of national protection do we need? Which objects or entities need national protection? How to provide and implement national protection? How to evaluate and balance the pros and cons of national protection versus opening up?