A number of students of global affairs are steadily predicting a power shift from the West to the East and the consequent emergence of a post-American era.[2]  In reality, however, the global power shift might not be from the West to the East, but a multi-directional one, as we also witness the emergence of Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa as new global centers of economic dynamism, along with the PRC and India – two spectacularly rising powers.

Perhaps recognizing that it has long been stuck in the dizzying whirlpool of the Middle East and the need to catch its breath by refocusing on its dominance in the Asia-Pacific, President Barack Obama has already withdrawn America’s forces from Iraq; and has redeployed 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan.  This is part of his promise to bring about complete withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  However, the United States is opening a new military base in Australia.  By withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the lone superpower might also be tacitly conceding its defeat.  The politics of Iraq remains as volatile and divisive as ever.  Except this time, along with the explosive Shia-Sunni division, it is also characterized by the growing presence of al-Qaida.  Afghanistan, on the other hand, continues to prove itself to be the graveyard of empires.  As such, the war in that country continues to underscore the mounting power of the Taliban.

The Asia-Pacific, on the contrary, is welcoming the United States’ decision to escalate its presence, with open arms.  China — whose escalating hegemony appears ominous from the perspectives of small nation-states of East Asia – is creating ample apprehension among them.  Thus, these nation-states initiated a policy of “circling the wagons,” and appear determined to balance the power of China by asking for a resurged presence of the old hegemon, the USA, which has an established record of creating a benign hegemony.[3]  Washington could not have been happier.  The East Asian nations’ welcoming of America to their region only complemented the insistence of the Obama administration that America is a “Pacific power.”  President Barack Obama reiterated that resolve during his trip to Australia by stating that “…we are here to stay.”

India and China, the poorest countries of the not-too-distant past, have long passed the label of “rising powers.”  Now, they appear to be the economic power houses, indeed superpowers, of the future.  China is way ahead of India in this race, and thus remains a focal point of America’s attention.  As the foremost rising power of our time, China has the American example of the post-World War II era to follow.  Its rise not only has to be peaceful, but it also should be eminently constructive in revamping the rules underlying the functioning of the premier global political and financial institutions, like the U.N., the World Bank, and the IMF, etc.  Thus far, however, its leaders have not impressed the world by their proactivism or imagination for playing a constructive role.  They are standing on the sidelines, while being critical of the U.S. and Europe for not being “responsible” in their respective economic policies.  In the meantime, China continues to act as a rising power most comfortable in implementing parochial and inward looking policies of currency manipulation, as well as a heavy reliance on pushing its merchandise to the West.  It behaves as if it is only interested in reaping the benefits of appearing to be a superpower of the future without paying the political or economic price for being one.

India is gradually learning to act as a rising power in its neighborhood.  It has enhanced its presence in Southeast Asia by deciding to explore for oil in the South China Sea and in its cooperation with Vietnam, which has been one of the most vocal critics of China’s assertiveness in that region.[4]  India also has escalated its military presence along its border with China by announcing “$13 billion plans to raise a new mountain strike corps and four mountain divisions.”[5]  That was a clear response to China’s reported buildup on the Sino-Indian borders.   However, the jury is still out regarding the future performance of the successors of the Sun Tzu and Kautilyan styles of Realpolitik.

Europe is facing a crisis related to the future of the Eurozone, which was recently depicted as “a crisis of apocalyptic proportion” by Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland.[6]  As Europe is standing at the edge of a precipice, Turkey is emerging as the new power center of Europe.  In that capacity, it is implementing a “truly multidimensional foreign policy” in which it secretly conducted a joint air force exercise with China last October.[7]  In economic affairs, Russia became Turkey’s number one trade partner, replacing Germany.

Turkey is playing a similarly spectacular role in the Middle East.  Its intermingling of secularism and Islam is emerging as a popular example for the next corps of Arab leaders replacing the autocrats in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening.  In view of these developments, Turkey is transforming itself from a “peripheral state of Europe” into a “central power” of that region.[8]  Its model of secular democracy is already being emulated in Tunisia; and chances are that it would also be emulated in Egypt, as Islamists are winning electoral majority in that country but promising to opt for a coalition with the secularist parties.

The Arab Awakening (aka Arab Spring) continues to capture the world’s attention.  As the aging dictators fall, Islamists are emerging as some of the most prominent leaders of the Arab world.  The question is not an imminent one, but should be asked:  What is the Arab world going to look like in the next 3-5 years?  Are there prospects for the emergence of democracies, Islamic democracies, or would some of those Arab countries slide under the rule of theocracies?  Three current models of theocracy – Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – have not made those countries places of economic prosperity, political stability, or the focal point of enlightenment.  If anything, obscurantism is on the rise in Pakistan, and theological autocracy is the order of the day in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

If the convergence of Islam and pluralistic democracy occurs in the post-awakening Arab world, then the opportunities for people of that part of the world are enormous.  There is tremendous human potential waiting to be liberated, educated, enlightened, and to make a dash toward the globalized world from which it was more or less excluded because the autocrats feared progress related to the information age.  And they were right for fearing it, because modernity was bound to become their enemy.  The Arab Awakening arrived in the Middle East and North Africa riding on the shoulders of some of the most recent advances in social/electronic media.  It was the power of social media that the autocratic and archaic control machine could not control, fight, or stifle.

One of the secrets of the Arab Awakening is that it has been an inclusive movement.  Another shocking aspect of it is that there were no leaders who could issue commands for the masses to follow, or whose arrests or assassinations by the ruling autocrats could have seriously undermined the movement.  As liberated Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are struggling to create a constitutional system of governance, the most important question is whether they will adhere to the principle of inclusiveness, or will they become victims of fissiparous tendencies for which their societies have been notorious?

One has every reason to be wary of the Islamists of the Arab world.  They have spent long years in the dungeons of the autocrats and the Pharaohs.  They have no experience with governance.  They have repeated the slogan, “Islam is the solution,” without having the responsibilities for spelling it out into specific policies.  As they become part of the ruling elites, it will be a test for them.  Their ultimate success may not be that they govern well, even though that would be a wonderful outcome.  Their ultimate success as participants in a democracy is their willingness to accept defeat, if or when they are voted out of office.

One “odd man out” in the rising tide of political change in the Middle East is Iran.  It has increased its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, most ironically, because of the dismantlement of the Taliban regime and that of Saddam Hussein by its arch enemy, the United States.  However, the Green Movement’s abortive attempt to bring about regime change in Iran has left that country exposed to the covert shenanigans of the United States to overthrow the rule of the Ayatollahs.  Iran’s recent capture of the CIA’s, RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone is evidence of that reality.  The CIA’s monitoring of Iran is only the exposed aspect of its covert actions against that country.  The covert actions that are unbeknownst to the theocratic rulers of Iran are likely to hurt their regime the most.[9]  To add insult to injury, Iran’s strong ally, Syria, appears to be the next country to undergo a bloody regime change.  The loss of Syria would also seriously damage Iran’s presence and influence in Lebanon.

However, Iran is not the only country increasingly troubled by the prospects of regime change in Syria.  Israel is equally concerned, because the ouster of the Assad regime promises to bring about the rising presence and clout of the Islamists, who are not likely to loathe the Jewish state any less than the current Baathist/Alawite rulers of that country.

The emerging realignment of power should be worrisome, especially for the great powers of the West, because it is not only aimed at threatening their erstwhile privileged status in the global hierarchy of nation-states, but it also promises to bring to prominence actors and forces that have not been viewed by them as particularly friendly or cooperative.  There are likely to be many uncertainties, even the outbreak of minor or even major military conflicts, before a new hierarchy of nations is formulated.  The emergence of China and India does not promise the evolution of a Sino-Indian condominium of power.  Instead, the two rising powers might be headed toward an era of increased friction and even military conflict, especially on the issue of border dispute.  One minor example of that friction is underscored by the fact that India’s new Agni-V long-range ballistic missile is being dubbed by its defense analysts as the “China-killer.”

The lessening of the economic status of European states and the rising power of Turkey direly requires the emergence of a new set of “rules of engagement,” whereby Turkey can decide whether it is still interested in joining the EU, and, if so, on what terms?  The “sick man” of Europe toward the conclusion of the first decade of the 21^st Century is Europe, not Turkey.  The rising presence and influence of Islam requires a new rapprochement between the Islamists and the secularists for the emergence of Islamic democracy or a new model of democratic pluralism that resembles the Turkish model.  All of these are tall orders.  But they are also in need of acceptance by the powers of the past and the future.

Espionage is the world’s second oldest profession, especially among the top echelon of nation-states who, in their never-ending scuttle for modernization, are looking for short-cuts in their rush to get ahead of others.  The United States, despite all of the chatter about becoming a declining superpower, remains the foremost target of those countries who aspire to become its equal, especially in the realm of technological excellence.  Two countries with a dissimilar state of technological development – China and Russia – are accused of conducting technological espionage, or to put it bluntly, stealing the best U.S. technology and technological know-how.  That is the charge of the latest report issued by the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.  It ought to know, because it has long been tracking the activities of these two (and other) countries.

The United States has been a global leader in the field of technological development because it has understood that “…technical progress is by far the most important source of economic growth of the industrialized countries….”[1]

China has known it, especially since 1978, when it initiated massive programs of civil and military modernization. As its economy remained highly vibrant, China’s industrial growth has remained an excellent source for financing modernization.  But espionage has also remained its effective tool.  The Soviet Union also understood that lesson. Before its collapse, it “was widely regarded
as a science and technology powerhouse…” In that capacity, it was “able to hold its own in fields such as theoretical physics and nuclear technology and a world leader in space technologies.”[2]

As a general principle, investments in research and development (R&D) play an extremely crucial role in any country’s ability to remain atop the pile of nations. A report issued by Battelle – an international science and technology enterprise – on global R&D funding, states that, for the United States, “a recession-related drop in industrial R&D spending in 2009 is expected to be recovered by increases in 2010 and 2011 at levels exceeding the rate of inflation.”  Regarding China, the same report quotes a
Reuters headline that stated, “While the world slashed R&D in a crisis, China innovated.”  The Battelle reports goes on to note:

“China entered the recession with a decade of strong economic growth.  During that time, it increased R&D spending roughly 10% each year – a pace the country maintained during the 2008-2009 recession.  This sustained commitment sets China apart from many other nations.”[3]

A table contained in the Battelle report entitled, “Forecast Gross Domestic Expenditures on R&D (GERD),” depicted in billions of dollars, places the United States in the number one position, followed by the PRC, with Russia ranked number 10.  The table of perceived country by country technical strength for 2010 in the same report places the United States at the top, while China and Russia are ranked 4th and 10th, respectively.  However, the ranking of countries for 2015 on the same subject places China as number one and the U.S. as number three.  Russia remains at 10.[4]

What we can extract from the preceding is the fact that China not only understands the significance of R&D for its attainment of superpower status, but – when one reads the aforementioned report of the U.S. Office of the Counterintelligence Executive – it is also determined to get that status, by hook or by crook.

Russia is following the same tactic to get ahead, but its R&D is in a poor state compared to a number of great powers.  Its
defense-related R&D rose in response to the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s, but then it suffered a sharp drop after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The main reason for Russia’s poor state of R&D is the fact that the industrial sectors of its economy are not doing well.  “The collapse of the Soviet economy, particularly the industrial/military complex, to which most Russian R&D investment was directed, brought down a system that was based largely on technological prestige and bureaucratic planning.”[5]  The poor state of its civilian R&D is also showing its effect in military-related R&D.  As one study correctly surmises, “…the Russian machinery for pulling through military R&D to the field may well be broken.”[6]

In the information age, a country’s capabilities to hack into its competitor’s super-secret computers have become a major way of getting ahead by hook or by crook.  No country is generally considered to be as effective in hacking into the highly sensitive computers of the U.S. government as the PRC.  One can glance through Defense News or other military-related publications and come up with a list of incidents of hacking where the PRC is suspected as the major culprit.  However, when considering the actual incidents of hacking, one has to keep in mind that not all such incidents are reported by the U.S. national security agencies, for security reasons.  Thus, the actual incidents are likely to be more frequent than reported in the news media.  As the New
York Times dispatch on cyber espionage by China and Russia states, “Many companies are unaware when their sensitive data is pilfered, and those that find out are often reluctant to report the loss, fearing potential damage to their reputation with investors, customers and employees.”[7]

Consequently, the United States has remained very much on the defensive through establishing a national cyberspace strategy and countless other defensive as well as offensive tactics to neutralize potential hacking from China, Russia, or its so-called nameless friends and allies.  However, getting ahead through cyber-theft will not only continue, but, no group of nations is
likely to come up with a code of conduct for others to follow.  One of the chief reasons is that individual hackers may be arrested, prosecuted, or even put into jails, but no such disciplinary measures will be taken against a country accused of hacking,
especially when it makes a lot of noise every time it is accused of conducting this “cyber theft.”

[2] Mario Cervantes and Daniel Malkin, “Russia’s innovation gap,” OECD Observer, page 10, http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/554/Russia_92s_innovation_gap.html

[3] “2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast,” R&D Magazine, December 2010, http://www.battelle.org/aboutus/rd/2011.pdf, p. 3.

[4] Ibid., p. 30.

[5] Cervantes and Malkin, Op. Cit. http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/554/Russia_92s_innovation_gap.html

[6] Steven Bowns and Scott Gebicke, “From R&D investment to fighting power, 25 years later,” http://www.technology-futures.co.uk/MoG5_DefenseR&D_VF.pdf

[7] Thom Shanker, “U.S. Report Accuses China and Russia of Internet Spying,” New York Times, November 4, 2011, http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=862593&f=19

First, the republics of Central Asia, like the Arab states, are predominantly Muslim.  Second, they are being ruled by aging autocrats; they have a high number of people that are below the age of 30; a number of them have acute poverty; and they have highly corrupt and inept governments.  Third, even though Islamic practices are not as prevalent in a number of Central Asian
states as they are in the Arab countries, Islamist forces have been active inside the borders of a number of them.  The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 turned out to be a major setback for the Islamist groups of Central Asia.  A number of them were in that country because they had fled their home countries or they were there to receive insurgent training from al-Qaida.  The most well-known Central Asian Islamist group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was cause for much insomnia for
President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan (who was ousted in 2006, but not by the Islamists), and President Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan.  No one knows for sure how strong the Islamist forces really are in today’s Central Asia.

While the Islamist groups of Central Asia may not pose a serious threat to Central Asian regimes, the dictators of those countries are fearful of an Arab Awakening-like social movement, which is secular and staunchly pro-democratic.  As such, it can garner
worldwide support and encouragement once it gathers momentum.  It is these features of a social movement that are the constant source of consternation in the capitals of the Central Asian republics, as well as in Moscow and Beijing.

In order to fully comprehend how afraid those countries really are about a potential birth of an Arab Awakening-like social movement inside their own borders, one has to examine the foremost objective underlying the military exercise – Tsentr-2011 – of the Russian-dominated military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).  Aside from Russia, its membership comprises Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Belarus.  Prior to that military exercise, which lasted from September 19 through 27, General Nikolai Makarov, head of the Russian Army, said that the focus would be to deal with any Arab Awakening-like “social uprisings” and “the increasing threat from military Islamists.”

The Central Asian dictators are reported to have been studying how the Arab Awakening was born and grew like a tsunami of change.  Since the global media presented a comprehensive picture of the role of the social media in the awesome surge of
that movement, Central Asian rulers are already reported to be monitoring social media websites within their respective borders.  Nursultan Nazerbayev spoke about “the need to build an ‘impregnable wall’ to prevent any spillover of such revolutions in Central Asia.”  Referring to the Arab Awakening, he also expressed high concern about “an unregulated information space” that posed “threats to regional security and stability in the CSTO member states, especially in light of the latest developments in the
world.”  Kazakhstan is also studying the possibility of constantly monitoring the Internet cafes nationwide by requiring the installation of video cameras.

The Secretary General of the CSTO, Nikolai Bordyuzha, provided a comprehensive view of what CSTO has on its planning board, in terms of what he labeled as “cyberterrorism.”  He said CSTO aims to develop new plans of “information counteraction” to fight cyberterrorism, which, to him, included all cyberspace activities aimed at destabilizing a state.

It should also be noted that Kazakhstan, after studying the fate of former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak, abandoned a previous plan to declare Nazerbayev the country’s unelected leader until 2020.  Instead, the government hastily organized another sham election to “prove” Nazerbayev’s “democratic credentials.”  Another country, Uzbekistan, systematically endeavored to filter out all images of the Arab Awakening from the Internet.

A number of Arab autocrats have found out that a social movement is considerably stronger than their tanks and their repressive security forces.   Those dictators who refused to believe that reality are still fighting, the rulers of Yemen and Syria, for instance. When people are willing to die for what they believe in – in the case of the Arab Awakening, it is the powerful will to be free – no force can crush them.  That may be by why the autocratic regimes of Central Asia (and even of China and Russia) are trembling in anticipation of the time when political change becomes an inevitable reality.  In their hearts they know a paraphrased version of Victor Hugo’s immortal words – no matter how much they attempt to suppress, they cannot resist an idea whose time has come.

This is just the electronic version of the color revolutions that took place in Georgia in 2003, in Ukraine in 2004, and in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. What is different about the spread of people power is that the United States is just as worried about its implications for its hegemony in the Middle East, as Russia was about the impact of the color revolutions of Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan and its dominance over them.

China’s fear of the Internet revolution is about its potential implosion, a not so far-fetched scenario, considering that the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 quite unexpectedly, despite all its power to control domestic dissent and all its military might. Who would have thought only two months ago that Hosni Mubarak would be in exile within his own country?  The suffocating fog over Egypt seems to have been swept away by the powerful wind of the Internet revolution.

If democracy indeed comes to the states of the Middle East and North Africa, the special and lopsided relationship that prevailed between those countries and the West will be gone forever. What will take its place is the real source of apprehension in the West, because democracy in Muslim countries does not promise to bring to office any rulers who will continue to genuflect to the West, or would even be eager to safeguard its interests, as has been the practice of current autocrats, kings, and emirs. If anything, the democratization of the Middle East and North Africa promises to drastically alter the entire scope and the very nature of international relations.

China is also afraid of the sweeping power of the Internet revolution. As an aspiring superpower, it has become as much of a status quo-oriented country as its counterparts in the West.  Now that the genie of the Internet revolution is out of the bottle, it promises to threaten the status quo and clout of all of them.

But there is a major difference between the Western reception of the Internet revolution and that of the PRC. Since the Internet revolution promises to bring democracy in the “autocratistan” of the Middle East and North Africa, no one in the West dares to criticize it or work against it. Even though both France and the United States are on the record about initially trying to support the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, respectively, it is merely to safeguard their security interests.

France wanted to send its special forces to keep Zine El Abidine Bin Ali in power, when demonstrations initially broke out in Tunisia.  Similarly, Vice President Joe Biden stated insipidly when protest began in Egypt that Husni Mubarak is not a dictator, , and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Egypt a stable country.  It was only after it appeared that Mubarak’s regime was doomed to fall that Obama decided to call for “stable change.”

As anti-government demonstrations spread to Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, and Libya, the United States has decided to become a “champion” for freedom of expression and democracy once again. The thinking in Washington appears to be that it is better to join the chorus now and hope that the eventual ouster of dictators from the friendly Arab countries would not gravely damage its interests or hegemony than adopt a policy of opposing regime change, as the U.S. officials did in the case of Egypt.

The United States is also hoping that the Internet revolution will oust the government of Iran, something the American politicians would absolutely love to see happen.  At least in the case of Iran, a general expectation is that successors to the Ayatollahs would be friendlier toward the United States.

China’s response to the Internet revolution is straightforward.  It is continuing its long-standing policies of managing information control, and blocking all news and websites that it considers injurious to its interests or threatening to its political status quo.  By continuing such a policy, Chinese leaders and their spokespersons unashamedly claim that the Internet in their country is “free.”  China knows that potential domestic unrest facilitated by the Internet will be most destructive.  It might even bring the kind of implosion that the world witnessed when the Soviet Union disappeared.  So, stakes for China about loosening its grip on the Internet are too high.   

The unique aspect of the Internet revolution is that it will treat all powerful countries of the contemporary era the same way: it will ruthlessly alter their status and interests. Thus, Washington is pretending to welcome the freedom that is riding on the shoulders of the Internet revolution, while China is shutting all doors to ensure that freedom and revolutionary change stay out of its borders.

In the meantime, the song of the Internet revolution seems to be “let freedom roll, never mind the high and mighty!”  The Jeffersonian notion of liberty and the Maoist notion of revolution have come alive, with a globalized twist.  However, the successors of Thomas Jefferson and Mao Zedong are the most apprehensive about it.

The most comforting variable for the PRC is that, while Tunisia and Egypt have been characterized by high unemployment, high degree of nepotism, and an equal amount of inept economic policies, China belongs to a different category. It has a high degree of corruption and nepotism; however, its economy has been experiencing a double-digit growth. Unlike the Arab rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, the Chinese leaders have been highly mindful of sustaining domestic prosperity, knowing full well how dangerous the absence of economic growth and high rates of unemployment could become for the sustenance of the current political order in their country.

However, are these conditions sufficient for the Chinese masses to be content about living under the communist dictatorship? No one has a definitive answer to that question yet.
While the Chinese leaders continue to monitor the deterioration of political control in Egypt, they might be thinking about developing some options if they were to face a similar situation. This is not merely an academic discussion, for Chinese leaders are already getting nervous about the worsening situation in Egypt. One Chinese blogger, during an Internet chat with Jeffery Bader, Senior Director of Asia on Obama’s National Security Council, stated, “In my view, many Chinese netizens and intellectuals believe that China’s future is Tunisianization.” Then he asked whether the American government is making “this same assessment and does it have a policy plan,” if China becomes a politically turbulent place. Bader wisely avoided answering that question.

The Chinese government is reported to be already taking precautionary measures. Users of the Internet in China “have been largely barred from making comments about the ongoing popular revolt in Egypt…” Online comments service is disabled since Egypt became turbulent. The Internet search for words “Egypt,” “Cairo,” “Jasmine Revolution,” or “Tunisia” in China is producing zero result. Instead, searchers are receiving “… a message saying the search result could not be displayed ‘“because of the relevant laws, regulations, and policy.”’

What options does the Chinese leadership might be considering if it were to face with Egypt-like demands for change? One option is to do nothing and hope that their regime does not encounter a similar social movement demanding radical changes in the domestic governance of China, or worse than that, a demand for regime change. But doing nothing might be an imprudent option, since it is fraught with so much uncertainty.
The other option might be the gradual opening of the Chinese political system—a Chinese version of the Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) that President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union implemented in his country in the late 1980s.
However, those measures are likely to remind the Chinese leaders of the awful events that led to the implosion of the Soviet Union. In polities that have experienced extended periods of authoritarian rule, when people are given the taste of limited democracy and freedom, they suddenly get the irresistible and collective impulse of becoming totally free of all political bondages. In the process, they dismantle the entire edifice of authoritarian rule. At least that was what happened in the Soviet Union, whose political system was very similar to the one that exists in the contemporary China. So, introducing a little democratic restructuring and openness might not turn out to be an option that could be given a serious consideration by the Chinese autocrats.
The Gorbachev model of granting openness to China is also problematic for the PRC leaders because their country, like the Former Soviet Union, is also an empire that has subjugated Uighur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists. When the Soviet Union imploded, all Central Asian and South Caucasus republics became independent states. If the Uighurs and the Tibetans were to become independent under a democratic reform in China, then the schisms among various ethnic groups (China has 56 different ethnic groups; of these 91.59 percent are reported to be of Han origin and the remaining 55 ethnic groups formulate 8.41 percent of the Chinese population) might also result in further subdivision of that country. Such a development might also bring an end to the emerging Chinese superpower as the world has grown to know it.
Given such forbidding scenarios of implosion and further reduction of Chinese power, leaders in Beijing might decide that the maintenance of status quo with larger economic payoffs might be the only tenable option for them. However, unfortunately for the defenders of status quo in China, the most significant aspect of the Tunisian-type of political change is that it starts unexpectedly, no one can tell what direction it would take, and when, and, most important, how powerful it would become for those who prove to be obstacles for change. The political change thus described has every possibility of becoming a reality for China in the coming months or years. The best the leaders in Beijing can do is hope that the Arab desire for freedom does not become an inexorable global phenomenon.

In any event, in this mental exercise, I consider the example of the United States and China. The United States became a superpower in the aftermath of the Second World War. Retrospectively, it took over the role of a great power from the U.K. and then it progressed to becoming a superpower. China is emerging as a superpower, but there has not been any war to facilitate its transformation into a superpower. Equally important, there is not likely to be a willing transfer of superpowerdom from the United States to China, as was the case in the transfer of British hegemony in the Middle East to the United States in the aftermath of World War II. One scenario that China-watchers may be ignoring is the possibility of the emergence of a bipolar global power arrangement where the two poles are likely to be the United States and the PRC.

The common variable between the United States’ emergence as the superpower and in China’s rise is a high degree of dynamism manifested by their two economies. In the case of America, its economic system did not experience the ravages of two World Wars, a reality that contributed to Great Britain’s demise as a great power. In the 21st Century, Chinese economics exhibit a high degree of resiliency, even while the world economy was experiencing a meltdown.

The record of the United States’ domination of the globe is indeed impressive and cannot be easily emulated, if at all.

The United States became a superpower unintentionally, if not reluctantly. It did not have a great design or a strategy to become one. It had tremendous resources, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to drag his country out of a powerful legacy of isolation and get it involved in winning the Second World War. After that victory, the United States was faced with the awesome task of rebuilding Western Europe and Japan.

The Cold War created new tensions between the U.S. and the USSR, which had become communist little over twenty-eight years prior to the end of World War II in 1945. The United States’ leadership of the non-communist world had become a profound reality by then. In that capacity, it played a crucial role in creating the non-communist global economic order by creating global institutions that were to govern world trade and other economic arrangements, in order to create a stable global peace. That order guaranteed that America’s leadership would remain unchallenged as long the global economic institutions worked well to enhance the scope and nature of economic progress and well-being. Because the U.S. economy remained highly vibrant, it could also bankroll its military strength by building a military that could project power to the remotest corners of the world. It also built military alliances in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and established a powerful legacy of treating the Latin American nations as its vassals.

The resilience of the American superpowerdom stemmed, most importantly, from the durability and dynamism of its economy, which could also bankroll its alliance systems. The American-led global economic system also showed a high degree of resilience over the Communist economic arrangements under the leadership of the Soviet Union. In fact, when one examines the entire history of the Cold War, there never was much economic competition between the two superpowers of that era. The superiority of the American-led capitalistic economic arrangement has been proven by the fact that still it exists even today.

The second most crucial reason for the durability of the American-dominated alliance systems is that its members not only remained beneficiaries as a result of their membership, but they were able to pursue their national objectives as sovereign states. There is no suggestion here that U.S. allies were at liberty to undermine the alliance systems by adopting reckless policies. They had the option of disagreeing with the U.S. without any threat of losing membership or other side benefit of the alliance. New Zealand’s decision to deny U.S. ships entry into its ports in 1985 might have been an exception to that rule. The Kiwis insisted that no nuclear-armed ship would be allowed to visit their ports. The United States, whose naval vessels were widely known to be armed with nuclear weapons, did not want to admit or deny that possibility. Consequently, it abrogated its ANZUS security treaty responsibilities toward New Zealand in 1986. However, New Zealand never formally withdrew from that alliance.

China’s emergence as a superpower is a reality, as long as its economy shows its present strength of sustained growth. It has no record of building an alliance system a la the United States, and it has no record of building regional alliance systems, save the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). But it is cashing in on the worldwide publicity given to its awesome “rise” through its deft use of building regional trade and aid systems in Africa and Latin America. It has also been playing a highly visible role, along with the United States, in finding solutions to pull the world economy out of the doldrums created by the economic meltdown of 2008-2009.

Wherever Chinese companies are busy signing up long-term oil contracts in Africa and Latin America, they also are offering highly lucrative contracts to a number of oil states for infrastructure development. As a result of these contracts, Chinese companies will build civilian infrastructures over a period of the next or more decades. Such arrangements will become the chief basis of China’s assiduous endeavors of building spheres of influence on those two continents.

Another Chinese strategy is to do business with countries that are on America’s list of so-called sponsors of terrorism or who have been given other nefarious monikers. That list includes Iran and the Sudan. What is ironic is that the Western states have made an art of doing business with autocrats and dictators of Third World countries throughout the 20th Century. However, a similar type of behavior from Chinese leaders in the 21st Century has generated ample denigration in the West. Still, considering that China’s oil and gas appetite will remain horrendous in the coming decades, it does not seem to be paying much attention to the Western exercise of double standards.

China is using its awesome economic resources in financing its major plans of military modernization. That reality is creating ample apprehension among its East Asian neighbors. China has had a record of militarily challenging the United States during the Korean War. It audaciously backed North Vietnam during its war with the United States in the 1960s, a war that the superpower lost. China, under Mao Zedong, showed a perverse brazenness about pooh-poohing a nuclear conflict in the 1950s and 1960s in his psychological warfare with the United States. That headstrong attitude toward belittling the awesome destructive nature of nuclear power might be one important reason why China’s East Asian neighbors look at its highly discernible military modernization with nervousness. Even though the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, it does not generate the same kind of fear anywhere in the world.

The major reason for that lack of fear is that the United States has had a long history of playing a crucial role in building a variety of regimes of international influence, from the World Bank to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). More to the point, it has not coveted the territory of any country in modern times (the purists, I am sure, will remind me of the Mexican territories that the United States incorporated into its boundaries in 1847).

However, that almost unblemished record was tainted when the United States invaded and occupied two countries in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on its territory: Afghanistan and Iraq. At least in the case of Afghanistan, the United States invaded it because it was from there that al-Qaida planned the 9/11 terrorists attacks on its territory. In the case of Iraq, the American invasion was based on an unending series of misstatements, lies, and cherry-picking of the intelligence. Still, there are indications that it will not remain in those countries for long.

East Asian nations have no idea about the real purpose underlying China’s military modernization and the blue water capabilities of its navy. They know that it will not create an alliance system emulating the Warsaw Pact. They also know that the era of implementing another Brezhnev Doctrine – whereby the Warsaw Pact countries were neither allowed to abandon that alliance during the Cold War years, nor did they have any option to leave the Socialist camp – has gone forever. Still, they want to know how benign a superpower China is likely to be in the coming years. This is a very important issue, because it will determine whether China’s superpowerdom would be welcomed by its East Asian neighbors, or would at some point be “ganged up” on in order to bring an end to its hegemony and, indeed, its superpowerdom.

In this brief conceptual exercise, the primacy and durability of economic power emerges as probably the most crucial precondition for a country’s emergence as a superpower. Needless to say, the term “economic power” is an umbrella phrase that also includes excellence in education, primacy of technological research and development, topnotch civilian infrastructural development, good governance, and transparency in trade, to mention just a few other characteristics. Of these traits, China’s record regarding transparency is shabby. If good governance were to mean responsiveness to its citizens’ needs and demands, the government in Beijing is highly sensitive. However, that sensitiveness revolves around keeping citizen dissatisfaction and dissent at manageable levels. From the perspective of Democratic theory, that type of governmental performance is far from satisfactory. But then, China is not a democracy.

Second, the exercise of creating numerous spheres of influence in different regions of the globe emerges as the next most critical precondition because, by playing a visible role in creating such arrangements, an emerging superpower enhances its international prestige and clout. Moreover, such institutions and regimes are vital for implementing the kind of trade and other important policies that a superpower wishes to establish.
The third significant precondition is the willingness of a superpower to follow the American model of hegemony, which covets no country’s territory or threatens its sovereignty. That is a very important ingredient of creating viable regional as well global alliances.

As the old saying goes, “No one can argue with success.” It seems that the United States has proven itself to be the most successful and equally resilient superpower. The next superpower – even if America were not to lose its superpowerdom – will have little choice but to by-and-large emulate the American blueprint. If that is true, then the greatest challenge that China will face as a superpower is to persuade its weaker and smaller neighbors in East Asia that its continuing rise will be nothing but peaceful. That persuasion would require the PRC to create unending streams of policies and international regimes and institutions that would palpably lower, if not totally eliminate, any apprehensions on the part of smaller nations related to its rise.

1. Leonid Brezhnev spelled out this doctrine following the crushing of the “Prague Spring” of 1968 as follows: “…each Communist party is responsible not only to its own people, but also to all the socialist countries, to the entire Communist movement. Whoever forgets this, in stressing only the independence of the Communist party, becomes one-sided. He deviates from his international duty…Discharging their internationalist duty toward the fraternal peoples of Czechoslovakia and defending their own socialist gains, the U.S.S.R. and the other socialist states had to act decisively and they did act against the antisocialist forces in Czechoslovakia.”

http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/glossary/g/glbrezhnevdoct.htm

Iran refuses to close down its nuclear research program; and, despite all its assertions that it is not interested in making nuclear weapons, Washington believes that that is precisely the direction Iran is heading.

Iran also has a very active ballistic missile program. And the United States is afraid that it is just a matter of time before Iran will not only put all the systems together to build a bomb, but it will also be able to integrate its nuclear weapons with its delivery system.

There is also much substance to the United States’ suggestion that Iran might have already acquired a bomb-making capability and might be waiting on an appropriate time for its “breakout” announcement — a term used, in the parlance of nuclear proliferation, to describe a surprise announcement of a country whereby it renounces the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) and uses it capabilities to build a small nuclear weapon.

The most striking aspect of the Obama administration is that, in the past several weeks, while it was involved in issuing its nuclear posture review and signing a new nuclear arms reduction treaty and then holding a “summit” on the issue of “loose nukes,” it never interrupted its focus on Iran.

Russia, while signing the nuclear arms reduction treaty, falsely created an impression that it was willing to side with the United States in imposing sanctions on Iran. A more correct interpretation of Russia’s attitude toward Iran is that it still wants to discuss the option of negotiating with that country, and is not at all interested in imposing the kind of harsh sanctions that the pro-Israeli elements in the United States would love to see implemented.

The same thing is also true for China. In fact, after the loose nukes summit, China has made it clear that it is not as much in the corner of the United States as the American media made it out to be immediately prior to, and in the aftermath of, that summit.

The presence of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in the thick of policy discussions on Iran becomes important when one considers his long experience in the realm of national security, and the fact that he is very much in the forefront of developing a comprehensive strategy.

However, the role of Admiral Mike Mullen remains a source of concern when one considers the fact that one of his top “informal” advisers on the Middle East is a woman by the name of Dr. Lani Kass, a holder of Israeli and American citizenship. One is befuddled by the fact that a holder of dual citizenship is given top Department of Defense clearance, while Israel’s use of such persons as spies against us is a known fact. Dubbed as “Dr. Strangelove made in Israel,” an essay written by a former CIA agent, Philip Giraldi, describes Kass as rabidly anti-Iran and an equally staunch Islamophobe.

As reported by Giraldi, Kass told her U.S. Air Force audience that, “the long war against the Islamists will end ‘when they learn to love their children more than they hate us,’ a comment originally attributed to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.” On another occasion she said, “radical Muslims hate the western world because Europe took their dominant political position away and they want it back.” This is a diatribe that Bernard Lewis has been peddling to the Western audience in the name of his “expert analysis.”

She is also on record as being more audacious than she was in the afore-cited quotes. This time, she disposed of the nuance between Muslims and radical Muslims and included all Muslims in her fictional “expertise” on the world of Islam. Giraldi notes, “In her speech she explained that Muslims hate western culture and want to dominate the world, adding that because radical Islam has a ‘culture of death’ all those who do not submit to Islam must die, an assertion so absurd that one suspects her political analysis derives from the Free Republic website.” Not surprisingly, no one in her audience questioned the veracity of that comment or demanded any evidence.
Regarding Iran, Kass is totally sold on the use of military option. She is reported to have said, “We can defeat Iran, but are Americans willing to pay the price?” In other words, she is very much gung ho on going to war against Iran. Her comments remind one of two other women who were way ahead of even the Bush administration in their fictional belief that, between 2001 and 2003, Iraq was fully engaged in making weapons of mass destruction: Judith Miller of the New York Times and Laurie Mylroie, who coauthored a book on Iraq. A detailed narrative of the roles of these two women is provided in Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.
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The question that is uppermost in my mind is why has Admiral Mullen decided to rely on such a highly partisan source for advice on the Middle East. Don’t we already have enough of a horrible image on being extremely one-sided when it comes to the strategic affairs of that region? More to the point, why is Admiral Mullen not getting his cue from the White House, which seems bent on pursuing policy options to take into consideration, first and foremost, American interests?

If America’s miserable record of going to war against Iraq on imaginary evidence, the cherry picking of intelligence, and in some instances even deliberately relying on highly deceptive sources (see the above-cited source), the only option that stands out in dealing with Iran is to avoid the military option at all costs. The only viable option is to negotiate, negotiate, or negotiate with that country.

The real test of President Barack Obama’s dealing with China and Russia will be whether he can persuade them to support U.S. pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear weapons aspirations. Obama is reported to have lobbied China on that issue during his recent visit. He also broached the topic with Russia in the recent past for the same purpose, but with little success. Iran denies wanting to join the nuclear club, but Washington has no faith in those denials.

By the same token, the United States has to think long and hard about taking military action again Iran while it is about to increase its troop deployment in Afghanistan. At the present time, American forces can become easy targets of Iranian asymmetric-war-related activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a time when the political tide in Afghanistan is already heavily favoring the Taliban, and when internal violence in Iraq appears to be escalating.  For a predominantly Shia country, Iran has shown remarkable pragmatism in cooperating with intensely anti-American Sunni Islamist groups in the past to make matters worse for American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under these circumstances, a potentially effective option for the U.S. is to heavily lobby China and Russia to support U.N. sanctions on Iran. However, in this regard, both of those countries have major strategic agendas of their own related to Iran. First, Iran is a major source of energy supplies for China. Second, it serves as a major source of hard currency for Russian nuclear technology and other military weapons at a time when Russia’s economy remains heavily reliant on income from energy sources. Third, Iran looms large in both Chinese and Russian maneuvers for the evolution of a multipolar global order. As a state that has never accepted America’s dominant role in the Middle East, and as a country that retains major clout in Iraq and Lebanon and high popularity in Gaza for its support of Hamas, Iran has been indirectly promoting the Sino-Russian agenda of challenging America’s dominance in the Arab world and multipolarity.

At least for now, the Obama administration has scored a victory when it received the backing of Beijing and Moscow for an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution that censured Iran and ordered it to halt construction of a secret uranium enrichment plant near the city of Qom. China’s support for this resolution was the result of Iran’s backtracking on a deal with the five-plus-one countries (Perm-5 of the UNSC plus Germany) for removing most of its nuclear fuel stocks abroad for the import of material needed for its medical research reactor.

The vote also came at a time when the American President, during his recent trip, was more than forthcoming in assuring China that the lone superpower has no intention of containing China. On the contrary, Obama stated that his administration is fully focused on engaging it. The overall tone of the global coverage of President Obama’s trip to China had all the ingredients to boost the self-confidence of the Chinese leadership that their country has indeed arrived on the global platform as the next candidate for superpowerdom.

Under these circumstances, China has no intention of ruining its moment of glory by refusing to cooperate with the United States just to please Iran. The most understated fact of Sino-Iranian relations is that Iran needs China more than the other way around. As much as China is in need of foreign energy sources, it also knows that, given the international sanction-ridden environment, Iran is quite eager to sell its oil and gas to China. Iran has also become an observer in the Sino-Russian-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is steadily acquiring a heightened global visibility. So, China can afford to play the seesaw version of first siding with Iran, then with the United States, and then calculating the ebb-and-flow of events before decding its next move.

The support of the aforementioned IAEA resolution by the dual-headed leadership in Russia—between President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin—was somewhat surprising, because, while Medvedev appears flexible in dealing with the United States, Putin is not. The latter is more resolute in asserting Russia’s role as a wannabe superpower. In a recent speech during the United Russia Party’s 11^th Congress, Medvedev criticized its “conservative” stance on a number of issues faced by Russia, and accentuated the urgent need for political modernization. He also stated that the United Russia “needs to step up and reform itself and put a halt to ‘administrative excesses’ within.” Those comments were given global coverage because Putin is the Chairman of that party. At least for now, there have been reports of evident friction between Medvedev and Putin.

It is hard to conclude whether Russia’s support of the IAEA resolution was an outcome of the split between Medvedev and Putin (who is known for his strong support of providing assistance to Iran as an integral aspect of his policy of Russia’s assertiveness), or whether that country is merely signaling Iran to be more forthcoming on the nuclear issue toward Perm-5-plus-one countries.

Iran’s behavior regarding the nuclear issue has become even more complicated as a result of its June 2009 presidential election, which has raised serious questions about the current nature of domestic support for that issue.

It is a well-known fact that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the “decider” on that issue, the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini is. But why is it that the Iranian representative was authorized to negotiate with the representatives of the Perm-5 plus one, and then Iran decided to backtrack on the deal that he made at the conclusion of those negotiations? The Janus-faced foreign policy of the Islamic Republic has always been a confusing variable for Western diplomats. It has become even more confusing as Iran is facing rising domestic tensions and the usual slogans of “death to America” are increasingly interspersed with slogans of “death to dictators” (the latter being Khameini and Ahmadinejad).  The Iranian leadership may very well be afraid to offer concessions to the Perm-5-plus-one countries that might be misconstrued, both inside and outside of Iran, as a sign of its wobbliness.

To add further perplexity to an already confused situation, the world is told that Iranian authorities confiscated the Nobel medal from its Nobel Laureate, Shirin Ebadi, one of the very faces of Iran that are recognized as reasons for hope and moderation in that country. Her husband was reportedly arrested and severely beaten by Iranian authorities. Iran has denied the report about the medal, but not about Ebadi’s husband.

As Iran is steadily heading on the road to even more confusion and chaos, President Obama’s task of negotiating with that country is becoming progressively more difficult. His strategy of developing a great power consensus on denuclearizing Iran emerges as a highly thoughtful and potentially most constructive one. However, what is not clear at this point is how far China and Russia are willing to go to cooperate with the United States regarding Iran, which remains a major actor in the strategic maneuvers of both Beijing and Moscow in the evolution of a multipolar global power arrangement.