Yes and no, but China should get ready for global leadership if the U. S. further retreats from the world.
Recently, a new debate has emerged within China: a debate about whether the country should assume global leadership. This debate has intensified since President Xi Jinping ‘s pro-globalization speech at Davos earlier this year, raising many important questions for China and the world.
In a sense, this is a long overdue debate. As I’ve written before, the world in many ways needs China’s leadership, especially in areas like global development. Now with the Trump administration in charge of U. S. foreign policy, a new window of opportunity has opened up in China’s quest for global leadership.
It should be clear that global leadership comes with both advantages and disadvantages, as evidenced by the United States’ experience in recent decades. One main reason why Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016 was the frustration and fatigue voters felt about the United States’ deep involvement in global affairs. Ideally, a major power should strike a delicate balance between its global obligations and domestic duties. For a developing country like China, many pressing domestic issues still pose major challenges for its leadership, hence the talk of global leadership might seem premature and ill-timed.
On the other hand, a stable global order cannot function well without a leader or a hegemon. According to Harvard professor Joseph Nye , the world should be aware of a “Kindleberger trap,” or how a lack of global leadership can lead to disastrous global consequences.
