Chinese grand strategy and American hegemony

The first requirement in such a process is to put possible future developments into a judicious historical perspective. As regards China, things look different, more complex, and more pregnant with various possibilities if we do this, rather than simply seeing it as resuming a natural primacy that it has supposedly held for most of the past two millennia.

The second requirement is to factor into our calculations the fullest possible range of variables that might affect how the future emerges. We must think in terms of various possible scenarios and not assume that if only we are astute enough we can predict just what is going to occur decades from now.

We are on the cusp of a mutation in the international order which goes well beyond the rise of China as a raw power.

The whole constitutional order of nation states is becoming problematic on a number of fronts. This poses quite profound questions about how best to revitalise the liberal democracies, not just how to encourage liberal democracy in China.

The work of Phillip Bobbitt is a preliminary guide here. His description of the transition we are undergoing from an order of nation states to an order of market states is a very insightful point of departure for seeing all this in a deeper perspective.

As for what it would be prudent for Australia to do in years ahead, our strategic premise has to be that China is not well placed to take over from America any time soon.

The role required of a dominant power upholding and defending a liberal international economic order is one China is far from being ready for. Our greatest task is urging it to accept the principles that might render it fitter for a leading role in a global order.