Current international variables indicate a state of chaos in the interactions of the international system that may lead to the imposition of a new reality. This system is undergoing a transitional phase, with key features including the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington’s economic setbacks, Europe’s retreat into domestic crises, and the escalating climate crisis, which is beginning to impact many international issues, against the backdrop of China’s continued superiority across various dimensions.
In this context, the book “Transitional Policies: China, the Pandemic, and Climate,” published in French in the first half of 2022, seeks to understand the nature of transformations occurring within the current international context through the insights of a wide range of researchers. The book first addresses the dimensions of the current competition between the United States and China, secondly, it examines the changes related to the environment and climate, and finally, it analyzes the characteristics of new power in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion method in this book relies on presenting diverse viewpoints on each issue.
First: The Struggle of Political Models:
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis appears more like a revolution than a passing crisis, illuminating trends that were already evident globally but not yet clearly visible. The pandemic accelerated their pace, confirming that China has emerged as a true power bearing an alternative global model to Western-style liberal democracy. Conversely, the American administration has adopted a logic of comprehensive confrontation with China, reflected in Joe Biden’s speech to Congress in April 2021, where he called for preparation for a historic confrontation between democracy and autocracy. This competition can manifest as follows:
A New Ideological Clash: Recent years have clearly revealed the characteristics of the Chinese authoritarian model, where mass surveillance has extended to all citizens. However, the engine behind the success of this model is not repression but rather the principle of libidinal capitalism, which translates public spaces—both physical and virtual—into areas that provide a sense of security and opportunities for social interaction, within the confines of limits set by authority.
The essence of the current ideological struggle between the West and China differs significantly from the conflicts witnessed during the Cold War under the Soviet era, as China provides its citizens a lifestyle increasingly resembling that of the West. However, it adopts a distinct conception of power and its exercise, aiming for total control over social relations and the lives of its subjects to create social harmony, thanks to the internet and advancements in artificial intelligence, where a robust system is implemented to ensure individual behaviors align with a social structure that can not only measure developments but also predict and influence them.
Contrasting Political Leaderships: China operates as a party state where a new political system emerged with Xi Jinping’s rise to power. This has led to a more effective structural transformation, strengthening the Communist Party internally and reshaping its relationships with various public institutions. The relationship between the party and the state sits at the heart of Chinese politics. Nevertheless, the division of labor between the party and the state remains poorly understood by external parties. According to Xi Jinping, every country should be free to pursue its national path towards modernization and reject Western ideological influences. This contrasts with the Biden administration’s perspective, which starts from two central points: threats as a departure point and means as the core of strategy. However, China has become the sole meeting point for political discourse within the U.S., facing the current fragmentation of national cohesion.
Political Capitalisms: In recent years, the term “political capitalism,” coined by Max Weber, has garnered increasing interest as it describes systems where political power is closely linked to economic demands. Regarding China, despite the absence of Communist Party representatives in multinational corporations, such as Alibaba or Amazon, Chinese tech entrepreneurs operate in an environment that shields them from competition, allowing them to gain significant competitive advantages. Nevertheless, private enterprises cannot contradict the party’s will; they cannot promote political liberties that contradict Chinese law, nor refuse cooperation requests on national security matters. The Chinese Communist Party effectively monopolizes power, leveraging the capabilities of digital companies and attempting to integrate their goals.
As for American political capitalism, despite the global market forces largely replacing political decisions in the U.S. due to globalization, the only exception is national security. Thus, the country with the most developed private sector in the world is also the one that imposes an absolute imperative to protect its military and technological superiority at any cost, including through violent intervention in markets, where government steps in to manage economic processes as necessary to mobilize the private sector and direct its innovative capabilities towards safeguarding national interests.
Second: A False Climate War:
Current contexts indicate that the international system is witnessing a “false climate war,” wherein pieces are being placed on the chessboard for a balance of national and international power, yet none have been played yet. The established liberal order continues to keep this new conflict dormant, with the main axes of the environmental crisis crystallizing into:
The Economic Perspective on Climate: For a long time, there has been an almost complete separation between climate economics and macroeconomic policy. Macroeconomists regard climate as a crucial long-term issue. Currently, however, the European Union is making significant changes with an ambitious climate program, especially as awareness of environmental crises grows. The main challenge for climate action is to shift from a marginal policy to a more centralized one that forms the basis for all collective decisions, necessitating a change in the mindset of decision-makers.
Carbon Violence Practices: In late July 2021, the journal Nature Communications published a study on how carbon dioxide emissions cause individual deaths. The study estimated the number of deaths likely resulting from carbon emissions over the rest of this century, revealing that every three and a half Americans will emit enough carbon dioxide to end one person’s life, while 146 Nigerians would need to achieve the same outcome.
However, these estimates are likely to double, as they only considered deaths associated with the risks of global warming. Thus, fossil fuels extracted from the earth should be viewed as random projectiles fired at humanity, similar to the weapons prevalent in the United States, an idea we can categorize as climate violence, as fossil fuels are literally killing people.
Green Social Pact: Calls for green pacts or legislative packages have existed in Europe and the United States for years without success, a demand that has been reinforced by public opinion polling alongside the European elections. European heads of state and government have explicitly called for climate action to become a priority for the European Union, taking social consequences into account. Consequently, it has been proposed to the European Parliament to implement a Green Deal.
The European Green Deal stipulates that “all actions and policies of the EU must contribute to achieving the objectives of this deal for Europe,” alongside a review of the EU’s climate and energy policy. However, this demand influences all Union actions and represents, at this moment, the most precise project for decarbonization, enabling the EU to embody a leadership role in climate diplomacy. The Green Deal could potentially become a political revolution capable of transforming Europe’s identity.
Third: The Return of the Interventionist State:
It seems that classical geopolitical terms have resurfaced over the past two years. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world had become dangerous again, as indicated by Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in his call for the development of a “strategic compass” for the EU in light of rising threats and declining member states’ abilities to address them.
Over the past thirty years, the idea that the state has been steadily weakening in the face of market victories has seemed self-evident. Globalization has led to a loss of state control over monetary and industrial policies, as well as over financial and trade management, causing the state to lose certain dimensions of its sovereignty. However, this long-dominant worldview has begun to crumble since the early 21st century, as the discretionary power of the interventionist state has returned.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted citizens’ dependence on public services, starting with healthcare, thereby exposing the irrationality of the austerity policies implemented after the 2008 crisis. One of the foundational principles of neoliberalism was to favor tight budgets while condemning irresponsible public spending and rising public debt. However, during the pandemic, this principle was largely circumvented, with states engaging in significantly more stimulus spending than previously seen after the 2008 crisis. Austerity advocates have shifted the discourse to the need for “good debt” aimed at investing in environmental and digital transitions.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic led to acceptance of temporary restrictions on freedom of movement, production, and consumption, driven by the fear of contagion. Constitutional rights and liberties were curtailed, all legitimized in the name of a temporary state of exception, with considerable focus on the long-term economic transformations resulting from the pandemic compared to thoughts on potential political shifts, interpreted as the current Western ruling class choosing to overlook the political consequences that may arise from the new face of power.
Fourth: Future Scenarios:
Participants in the book propose three scenarios for emerging from this transitional phase:
Scenario One: The formation of a more directive and interventionist authority, labeled as the “technocratic despotism hypothesis,” with the political and bureaucratic class in power being neither dictatorial nor authoritarian in the manner seen during the 20th century. Instead, it represents a gradual draining of represented institutions in favor of bureaucratic and judicial institutions, resulting in lower social mobility.
Scenario Two: The unexpected potential return of populism, particularly with the weakening of the political and bureaucratic institutions that surfaced as a result of the pandemic, alongside the emergence of sizable alliances capable of masking conflicts over two decades and controlling political and social anger.
Scenario Three: The ruling class realizes how fragile the system of freedom is and recognizes that a state of permanent emergency could be dangerous. Therefore, polarization and social fragmentation must be contained to avoid either despotism or chaos. For this reason, it is essential to build forms of exchange that allow for coexistence with multiple minorities without discrimination.
Source:
Politiques de l’interrègne: Chine, Pandémie, Climat, le grand continent, Esprits du monde, Gallimard, March 24, 2022.
