Is China a superpower? The question raised itself last week when I was opining about Taiwan. Without a second thought, I had written that a cross-strait misstep could put the world's two superpowers, China and the US, on a collision course. Only on rereading did I realise my impulsiveness and raise the issue with colleagues; the inconclusive discussion that followed prompted me to remove the 'super' part, but my doubt remained.
Being in Hong Kong has that effect. Nowhere else in the world is the mainland's economic rise more apparent. Of Beijing's political grip there's no argument: fully 37 years before the Basic Law dictated it could tell us what to do, it is doing so on what may be a daily basis. Our government has become so worried about causing upset that it has resorted to doing as little as possible, but it positively jumps when the orders come from up north. The inaction on air pollution compared to the mere months between announcing and starting work on the high-speed rail link to the mainland's network proves whose pocket we're really in.
We're a split society, with one side gung-ho about all things Beijing and the other reticent about getting on board. As China gets richer and has greater sway in the global economy, the arguments of those who are against appear less persuasive. The fears overseas about the implications of China's rise are, even from this distance, palpable. There's concern about its involvement in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America and its military spending, with particular focus on its submarine build-up and construction of an aircraft carrier.
In such an environment, it's easy to see how China can come to be equated with the United States, the only superpower left when the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago. British academic and journalist Martin Jacques certainly thinks China has what it takes to be a superpower. His book, When China Rules the World, makes no bones about which nation is pulling all the punches in the 21st century. He argues that the path followed by the US in rising to world domination doesn't have to be taken by China; that Beijing is making new rules.
Such a view is rejected by George Friedman, the founder and chief of the US-based strategic intelligence company Stratfor, and his colleague, Rodger Baker, his director of East Asia analysis. The raw numbers of economics aren't how we determine a superpower, they told me. Even using that gauge, China would fall flat: for all China's foreign reserves and America's debt, China's gross domestic product was just one-third of the US' despite the latter having only one-quarter of the population. Being a superpower - or as Friedman preferred to call it, global power - involved having worldwide economic, political and military reach. China, Baker determined, had not attained all three, and was therefore best described as a regional power.
Friedman, the author of The Next 100 Years, sees China as being markedly different from the former Soviet Union. The geopolitical scientist said the US and Soviet Union were politically united, balanced economic and military powers; each led a formal, global alliance structure. I agree with him that we shouldn't confuse Chinese rhetoric - and casual media reporting - with reality. He rightly determines that, although China has nuclear weapons, it has a weak military. The People's Liberation Army is primarily a defensive and security force, constrained by geography in projecting its power. He even contended that China doesn't have the ability to invade Taiwan.