The Rise of China: A Trojan Horse for an Illiberal World Order?

In 1913, Norman Angell’s *The Great Illusion argued that economic interdependence had drastically reduced the threat of war. It was no longer rational or productive; an idea steeped in traditions of liberalism. Just one year after publishing The Great Illusion*, however, the world was instead confronted by the Great War, the ‘seminal catastrophe’ of the 20th century. Yet by the end of the Cold War, liberalism was clearly in the ascendancy. Francis Fukuyama suggested it was ‘the end of history’ with ‘the universalization of Western liberal democracy.’

Today, however, liberalism suffers another crisis of confidence. In 2022, the directors of the FBI and MI5 warned that China is the ‘biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security.’ Yet the challenge to the liberal world order may not be in the form of war, but in its steady reshaping to an il-liberal world order from within.

Tiananmen Square “Tank Man” Graffiti in Cologne (Source: Wikimedia Commons).

One of the chief tenets of liberalism is that economic integration leads to closer cooperation. Joseph S. Nye, Jr. argues that China has little interest in challenging the existing international order, preferring to ‘increase its influence within it.’ Likewise, John Ikenberry, one of the foremost scholars of liberalism, believes that China has no interest in contesting the liberal order, wishing only ‘to gain more authority and leadership within it.’

But are they perhaps missing the point? The uncomfortable truth is that China is an illiberal, undemocratic, authoritarian state. Hopes that economic integration would lead to political liberalisation have faltered. China’s immense economic growth has in fact been accompanied by increased illiberalism and repression: Hong Kong’s democracy has been suppressed; China stands accused of genocide against the Uyghurs; and Beijing’s campaign of transnational repression seeks to silence dissent abroad as well as at home.

China is not committed to liberal ideals. What reason is there to suppose that China’s increased influence within the liberal world order will not fundamentally undermine it as ‘liberal’?

[embed]A tense meeting between American and Chinese officials (Source: YouTube).

To assume China does not seek to alter the existing liberal order is naive. As Richard McGregor notes, Beijing often attempts to denigrate the liberal international system by referring to it as the ‘so-called rules-based order.’ General Martin Dempsey recalls, ‘Whenever I would have a conversation with them [the Chinese] about international standards or international rules of behavior, they would inevitably point out that those rules were made when they were absent from the world stage.’

It is entirely possible that liberalism has become blinded by its own idealism. In attempting to integrate China economically, but failing to liberalise it politically, liberalism has created a Trojan horse that could undermine its liberal ideals and norms from within. It is with good reason that Anthony Blinken refers to the U.S.–China relationship as ‘one of the most complex and consequential.’ Whether the rise of China signals the end of international liberalism is indeed the defining question of the 21st century.