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According to a recent Global Times survey across 46 countries,MKsport nearly 80 percent of respondents expressed optimism about China's development prospects, with over 90 percent anticipating sustained economic growth over the next decade. This is one of the findings in this global public survey with the largest scale, the largest sample size, and the most comprehensive and in-depth questionnaire designed since the founding of the People's Republic of China that seeks to answer questions related to China and its development from a global viewpoint. The Global Times has invited domestic and foreign experts to comment on and explore the broader implications of these findings, seeking to provide readers with an in-depth analysis and fresh perspectives on China's evolving role in the international community. This is the second piece of the series.
We live in contested times. Systemic changes are unfolding, disrupting long-established patterns of economic and political power across the globe.
American unipolarity has given way to a new emergent multi-nodal configuration. Not surprisingly, against this context, the US has embarked on what can be described as hybrid warfare aimed at preventing, slowing or reversing this process of transformation. Economic warfare; new security mini-laterals; weaponization of the US dollar; and a massive financial commitment to anti-China misinformation has been unleashed.
The aim of the misinformation war is to diminish China's accomplishments, create doubts about China's economic sustainability and ultimately seek to undermine China's reputation and standing across the globe.
A recent large-scale survey of 51,332 respondents by the Global Times Institute provides a wealth of data on public attitudes toward China across 46 countries. The results suggest that the US misinformation war has failed to penetrate much of the developing world.
Over 70 percent of respondents from developing countries, the Middle East and BRICS countries believe that China's overall national strength is high. Even in other developed countries, the number surpasses 60 percent. Respondents are looking for China to play a positive and active role in global affairs, recognizing China as belonging to the so-called Global South.
The transformations of global economic contours over the past few decades have progressively reshaped the fundamental architecture of the international political economy. The center-periphery model of colonialist global capitalism is giving way to a more multi-nodal networked structure. China's unprecedented growth and its internationalization have been a key catalyst in this transformation, though there are other important emerging nodes of economic vitality too. Across the world, the legacy of colonialism is being challenged.
Shifting economic contours has given rise to instabilities in global governance as incumbent powers have sought to hang onto the longstanding privileges of economic colonialism. Inequitable global economic development was the norm rather than the exception.
Against this backdrop, China's development "bucked the pattern." It has managed to punch through the constraints of Bretton Woods finance and US technological dominance to achieve national economic and social development outcomes that are globally unprecedented, without waging wars of expropriation. In doing so, it has provided inspiration for many across the developing world that unshackling the prevailing systems of uneven development is possible.
As China developed domestically, it also began to play a more prominent role in global affairs through existing multilateral institutions and via the creation of new ones. Through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, and institutions like BRICS, China has increased its role in the development of capabilities in the developing world. Through these initiatives and forums, China seeks to be an empowering great nation rather than an expropriator.
Hard infrastructure is empowering developing countries to mobilize resources for new types of economic development opportunities. Transport infrastructure lays the groundwork for expanded market reach. Energy infrastructure is delivering energy security and sovereignty for others, a vital ingredient for 21st-century economic development. As a global leader in solar systems, battery storage technologies and the like, China is empowering developing countries by way of productive abundance.
Information sovereignty is being enabled through new hardware and software technologies. Soft infrastructure through training and education is helping developing nations' populations become more resilient and able to grasp the opportunities that are now emerging. The ongoing development of technological sovereignty and the expanded role of open-source platforms are enabling the emergence of what I call a "Digital Westphalia," in which national data sovereignty can be ensured while cross-border interoperability enabled.
Cross-border payments without recourse to the US dollar are also growing. In China, currency swap arrangements are in place with over 30 national central banks, and an interbank messaging system beyond the reach of SWIFT has been operational for almost a decade. China, through BRICS, is actively contributing to the next generation of national currency-based payments systems.
China has been leading discussions about the need for international institutional reform in order to create the institutions necessary to support peace and prosperity, while taking into account the realities of the 21st century. China speaks of a shared future and indivisible security through proposals like the Global Development Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the Global Security Initiative. Its experience showed that sovereign economic development can be achieved without waging wars across the globe. That's an inspiration that remains hard to shake.
The author is an adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology, senior fellow at Taihe Institute and former advisor to Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister. [email protected]
