At the end of April, Oxford University Press published an important book by researchers John Keane and Baogang He titled:
China’s Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century
This book analyzes the significant developments related to China’s return to a prominent position in global affairs after two centuries of decline and oppression. The bold hypothesis is that China is a newly rising empire of an unprecedented kind, the first young empire born in the digital communication era, economically and politically powerful, and heavily armed. It exerts gravitational and attractive effects on all continents—even outer space, where China competes with the United States, India, and Europe to become the leading power.
The authors reject the simplistic and erroneous descriptions of China as a “superpower” or a homogenous “authoritarian” state, explaining why China defies old definitions of land, sea, and air empires.
They identify the developments that make its rising empire so new, including the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, the rapid rise of the global Chinese middle class, and control over Tibet and Xinjiang.
The book warns of the political and military risks associated with simplistic thinking: friend versus enemy, and the policies of “Big China” and “Bad China.” It also offers a preemptive warning to China’s rulers: while every rising empire aims to shift the balance of power in its favor, no empire lasts forever, and some are born dead due to their indulgence in delusions of grandeur and reckless power adventures.
The book analyzes China’s image both internally and externally, noting that external distortions of China fuel public disagreements and political divisions. The book advocates for calm and clarity, views that are not supported by some perspectives within China. Researchers, journalists, diplomats, and Chinese party officials often respond to questions about China’s emerging global role by indicating that Deng Xiaoping’s era of “crossing rivers by feeling the stones” has been replaced by Xi Jinping’s brave era of “crossing oceans.” They claim that China is no longer a hesitant power; it is a confident force at home and abroad, achieving economic growth, good governance, and moral improvement.
The same observers praise China’s global role as a driver for poverty reduction and environmental protection. Some scholars go further, believing that China’s new global role is to promote peaceful cooperation among the world’s nations and peoples, in line with the ancient Confucian principle of “all under heaven.”
China is described as an expanding and possibly a superpower, with its rulers being contemporary sons of heaven and fathers of the people, granted the right and duty to govern wisely by heaven. The inference is that Chinese leaders do not indulge in self-interests at the expense of the world’s peoples. Otherwise, they understand they will be punished: failure to act benevolently on the global stage, by causing political chaos or war, would endanger their “mandate from heaven.”
This is why some Chinese international relations scholars say China is a force for global stability and peace. “The old order is rapidly disintegrating, and the politics of strongmen are gaining popularity again among the world’s great powers.”
China thus rejects bringing wolves into the house of global arrangements. “The reason a superpower is considered a superpower is not due to its ability to challenge the old order, let alone its ability to wage war, but its responsibility to promote and maintain international peace.”
According to Chinese international relations scholars, their country proves to be an example of “humanitarian power to improve the world,” where true political leadership is based on morality, the government’s ability to improve the lives of its people domestically, and simultaneously build its global reputation concerning strategic integrity and effectiveness. China is also described as a “civilized state.” This phrase means that China does more than combine the main features of its five-thousand-year-old civilization with a modern massive state. By recognizing and warmly embracing the diversity of world cultures, it is a beneficial force and not a “source of global conflict.”
The rise of China signifies a shift from a “vertical world order” dominated by Western wealth and ideas to a more equal “horizontal world order” of nations. China is a “driver of human civilization progress,” a civilized state that respects other countries and refrains from interfering in their affairs.
The book analyzes the views of Chinese scholars on empire, distancing themselves from so-called realist school interpretations of state centrality in world affairs, the importance of interests and power factors in state endeavors. They claim China is an exceptional case, a “sovereign” state capable of adhering to the so-called “moral realism” standards: strong but humane leadership committed to universal standards of peace and justice for all other “sovereign” regional states and their peoples.
China’s commitment to “sovereignty and territorial integrity” is also the dominant term used by officials in China when describing and justifying their country’s growing global power. Talk of “sovereignty” has been a consistent theme in party statements and documents since April 1954, when Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. These principles aimed to reassure India and other non-communist regional governments that the Maoist revolution would not spread abroad. The Five Spices Principles included state sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, the importance of respect and equality and mutual benefit in international relations, and peaceful coexistence between sovereign states.
In high diplomatic and party circles, the language of sovereignty remains prevalent. Xi Jinping, in his speech marking the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2013, said: “No one should underestimate the strong determination, firm will, and strong ability of the Chinese people to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese people have never bullied, oppressed, or enslaved the peoples of other countries; China has not done so in the past, does not do so now, and will never do so in the future. At the same time, the Chinese people will never allow any external forces to bully, oppress, or enslave us. Anyone who tries to do so will be crushed to death against the Great Wall of steel, built with the flesh and blood of more than 1.4 billion Chinese.”
Sovereignty is treated as sacred: no country has the right to interfere in China’s internal affairs, and Chinese officials warn that China will fight for its sovereignty, which also means its right to reclaim lost territories (Taiwan) and rectify the humiliation the country has faced due to past defeats.
According to the book, the use of state sovereignty language by the Chinese regime provides China with many strategic advantages. Because sovereignty extends to all activities within China’s territory, it often appears in official statements about the state’s need to regulate institutions such as banks, technology companies, TV stations, and spiritual worship places, as well as in plans for road construction in China, quantum computing, military equipment, artificial intelligence, and other fields. The principle of state sovereignty serves other useful purposes, most notably boosting Chinese citizens’ morale by showing that the tide of history flows in their favor and reminding the United States that it is no longer the world’s master. Governments and companies must respect the inviolable dignity of the Chinese people.
US-led allegations of human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang are condemned as unjustified violations of sovereignty and insults to the dignity of the Chinese people. “The problem is that the United States has exercised long-term jurisdiction and oppression and exhausted its national security through force or financial hegemony,” and “what is needed is to abandon Cold War mentality and zero-sum game approach.”
The language of sovereignty and territorial integrity also has a global development, linked to much talk of “building a community with a shared future for humanity.” This means that all countries—regardless of their land size or wealth—have the right to cooperate equally to address common problems democratically, rather than taking cues from or bowing to the most powerful countries. Talk of sovereignty and territorial integrity accompanies declarations of “win-win cooperation” and commitments to “building a world of shared prosperity” and “peace.”
The book criticizes the Chinese vision when Chinese officials continue to speak as if their country is just a state. They risk blinding and deceiving themselves about the historical opportunities and severe risks facing an emerging empire now spreading its many wings. If “empire” means a large state exercising political, economic, and cultural authority over millions of people at great distances from its heartland, without much regard for or respect for regional sovereignty details, then technically, China is rapidly becoming an empire.
The word “empire” is the most accurate to describe China’s growing global role in capital formation, technological innovation, logistics, and diplomatic, military, and cultural power.
Key statistics within and outside China indicate that China is much more than just a “sovereign state” or “great power.” It is an emerging empire of a kind unprecedented in world history.
The book offers an analysis of China’s vision from the outside, indicating that developments suggest China is no longer primarily focused on negotiating the cumbersome rules and procedures of multilateral governing institutions. Instead, it has gained increasing confidence to the point of changing the game rather than focusing on reducing the number of influencers in global governing bodies.
China shows a deep contradiction regarding its participation in world affairs, lacking allies and best described as a lonely power without friends, incapable of transforming into a true global power.
China is essentially a realist state, narrow-minded and self-interested, seeking only to maximize its interests and national power. Except for its strong defense of non-interference principles and state sovereignty, it does not care much about global governance and enforcing global behavioral standards.
China is a solitary strategic power without allies, suffering from distrust and tense relations with most of the world. It is an insecure state heavily reliant on coercion, periodically displaying evidence of being a dissatisfied power, a nation angry and seeking redress from past wrongs, showing its differences with others in the present
