Meanwhile, this containment
strategy is empowering aspiring nations to take advantage of it to rise
to regional prominence without necessarily wanting to be at America's beck and
call. This could make America's efforts to re-balance the region more
complicated.

The author therefore argues that a G2 detente between the U.S. and China,
perhaps without speaking its name, may be a better answer to regional
stability, even as China had shown lukewarm response to such overture at the
beginning of Obama's first administration.

At the same time, against increasing challenge to China's claimed sovereignty
over certain islands and rights in the South China Sea, China's military hawks
are drumming up offensive rhetoric, according to a Reuters report of 17
January, 2013 here.

Although these hawks may not be able to dictate China's state policy, their media
and hence public influence adds spark to a volatile mixture of military and grand-standing
manoeuvres that may turn into a wild fire of military conflicts. These could
sweep across the region and beyond to a full-blown war between the world's
existing super-power and its perceived challenger, which either side remains
most anxious to avoid.

The elephant in the room is a tectonic shift of geopolitical balance. Security
dilemma dictates that a military solution could well escalate to mutual
destruction or worse.

It's now time to re-think a better way to maintain a sustainable world order to
accommodate the historic rise of China. Containing China militarily and
diplomatically, or re-balancing by another name,  may not be a very smart solution.

Admittedly, China will have to
reform politically sooner rather than later. Both President Hu and Party Leader
Xi have used very strong words to underline the urgency for social and
governance reform, if not political reform, as the very survival of the Party and
the nation is at stake. However, it is also clear that China remains
unconvinced that the Western model of multi-party democracy, with all its
fault-lines, could with advantage be copied in China’s unique circumstances.

However, China appears amenable to
a raft of reforms in its economy and society as highlighted in a 468-page
report Click here of the World Bank, exceptionally co-authored with the Development
Research Centre of China’s State Council. These include liberalizing and
strengthening the financial system, reform of the state-owned enterprises, the
development of green materials and technologies, and the promotion of civil
society. Helping China to deliver these reforms is likely to transform China
into a more welcome partner while a containment policy is bound to result in
the opposite.

Similarly, partnering with China
in exploiting the kinds of technologies targeted in the Five Year Plan
(2011-15) such as green technologies and materials, telecommunications,
bio-technology, and manufacturing upgrades, is likely to result a win-win
outcome.

Moreover, as a report “Global Trends 2030 – Alternative Worlds” here by the Washington
D.C.-based National Intelligence Council points out, by 2030 the developing
world will account for over 50% of the world's economy with China displacing
the United States as the largest economy. Power will become more diffused in a
multi-polar world, including individuals and other non-state actors,
characterised by unprecedented urbanization, rise of the middle-class, new,
disruptive, or lethal technologies, resource constraints, more aging
populations, and risks of more crises and conflicts. America will lose its
global dominant position but is likely to remain primus inter pares
amongst all nations. By all accounts, a great re-balancing of the world will be
taking shape, perhaps not dissimilar to the European "long peace" set
in motion by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which was also a multi-polar
period of rapid social, economic, technological and political change.

In this context, an economically- predominant
developing world will include not only the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa), but also a host of other EAGLEs (Emerging and Growth Leading
Economies) such as South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey and Taiwan. Additionally,
a BBVA research report here indentifies a dozen other emerging giants that are
next to take flight by 2020, such as Poland, Argentina, Thailand, Pakistan,
Columbia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Vietnam and the Philippines. They are all likely
to share power and influence in a multi-polar world.

The world has become not only multi-polar but
much more inter-connected and inter-dependent. It begs the question whether the
traditional thinking in terms of a fixed alliance or bloc of states is past its
sell-by date. It is conceivable that different groupings of diverse states and
non-state actors, across ideological or political divides, could step up
cooperation on a project-by-project basis, to address some of the critical
common problems facing the world today. These include climate change, resource
depletion, energy efficiency, water scarcity, ecological degradation, poverty
alleviation, disease control, piracy, terrorism, as well as problems of aging
and urban sprawl. As the largest non-allied power, China has a leading role to
play.

Additionally, China’s engagement with Africa
has thrown up salient lessons for all stakeholders. On the one hand, as Deborah
Brautigam points out in “The Dragon’s
Gift” (*) , following decades of aid addiction, many poor African countries
have achieved real poverty alleviation and economic progress as a result of
China’s infrastructural investments in their countries. On the other hand,
China’s African footprint has aroused a great deal of local antagonism against
the lack of corporate social responsibility, including,  for example, encroachment on local informal
economies, environmental disregard, want of job creation, and poor labour
relations. Helping China to overcome these problems, in partnership with the
United Nations Development Program and other non-state actors, is likely to
yield mutual and common dividends.

What is more, as U.S-China bilateral relations will define
the shape of the 21^st century, partnering with China to address the
above global issues may achieve the ultimate aim of bringing China into shaping
and sharing a more sustainable world order built
on multi-lateral cooperation rather than confrontational rivalries. This is what a containment strategy is
unlikely to deliver.

**************************************************************************

(*)  
 “The
Dragon’s Gift – The Real Story of China in Africa”, Deborah Braugtigam,
Oxford University Press, 2009