Hegemons Tricking or Treating? Feeling Like A Human Fly

 I thought to go out this evening. CC never called, I got to fixing dinner, Edna O'Brien needs reading. Group was another chat fest, no instruction, only our weekly check in. 

I paid my rent, the Downtown Food Stand was not open for lunch until 11:30, so I ate at The Dumpling House.  The best hot and sour soup I have ever had in my life. That was the highlight of the day. 

I also managed a call to KH between soup and the vegetable lo mein (my effort at fasting today). He not yet read "The Women in His Life". I am giving up on him doing so before I see him next month.

On the way back from group, I stopped at Dollar General for Coke Zero and aluminum foil.

After dinner, I went through the email and did some reading. 

 The world without hegemony (Hedgehog Review) by Manjeet S Pardesi details something I understood but gave me insights into the details.

The liberal international order or Pax Americana, the world order built by the United States after the Second World War, is coming to an end. Not surprisingly, this has led to fears of disorder and chaos and, even worse, impending Chinese hegemony or Pax Sinica. Importantly, this mode of thinking that envisages the necessity of a dominant or hegemonic power underwriting global stability was developed by 20th-century US scholars of international relations, and is known as the hegemonic stability theory (HST).

In particular, hegemonic stability theory developed out of the work of the American economist Charles P Kindleberger. In his acclaimed book The World in Depression 1929-1939 (1973), Kindleberger argued that: ‘The world economic system was unstable unless some country stabilised it,’ and that, in 1929, ‘the British couldn’t and the United States wouldn’t.’ While Kindleberger was mainly concerned with economic order, his view was transformed by international relations scholars to associate hegemony with all sorts of things. In particular, a hegemonic power is generally expected to perform one or all of three main roles: first, as the dominant military power that ensures peace and stability; second, as the central economic actor within the global system; and third, as a cultural and ideational leader – either actively disseminating its political ideas across the system or serving as a model that others seek to emulate.

 I am one who is not happy with the idea of China as hegemon, but the essay offers a different perspective:

...The premise of HST, crafted by Americans at the height of the American century, however, is wrong. History shows us that there are other pathways to international order, and that stability does not require hegemony. Maritime Asia’s long history indicates that, contrary to this American theory about international orders, a hegemon is not required for a functioning world order.

***

But there is no law requiring we use the history of the classical Mediterranean under Roman hegemony as the model for understanding the history or theory of international relations. We recently wrote a book showing how the classical eastern Indian Ocean from around the 1st to the 15th centuries CE, corresponding with modern Southeast Asia, constitutes a coherent world order with appealing features. Of course, because this Asian world order existed before the arrival of the European imperial powers, international relations scholars are only now beginning to appreciate how it provided long-term stability in the absence of hegemonic power, and in particular how it emerged from the crucial role of the regional powers (or non-hegemonic powers) in that system. We think that it provides a powerful model for the world order emerging now, after US hegemony. It’s what we call a multiplex order, with the classical eastern Indian Ocean providing the paradigmatic case. It gave maritime Asia a durable, stable pattern of interactions among a group of states without a hegemon or world power dictating terms.

I can easily agree that tunnel vision exists; that people can order the world in different places in a way that is equally consistent with human flourishing.

Throughout the classical period, Southeast Asia was the realm of hundreds of mandalas, some larger than others. The mandala system not only asserted autonomy from larger regional powers, such as those in China and India, it also created a stable international order until the mid-2nd millennium CE, when it was disrupted by the advent of European colonisation of the region. The mandala kingdoms rose and fell as they competed for maritime trade, but defeated polities were not bureaucratically or territorially incorporated into the realm of the winner. Instead, the losing monarch was materially and ritually subordinated to the victorious monarch as a lower ruler. As a result, Southeast Asian rulers aimed only to control their local waters, as opposed to dominating the entire long-distance maritime trade routes between China and India. In this interactive and interconnected world, if one local mandala disappeared, another assumed its nodal position.

Skipping over premises to conclusions:

Despite widespread fears, the rise of China as an Indo-Pacific naval power does not imply a Chinese counter-hegemonic bid to displace the ‘liberal’ hegemony of the US. Although the US remains the world’s single-largest economy, China overtook it as the world’s largest trading nation in 2013. By 2020, in terms of fleet size, the Chinese navy had also emerged as the world’s largest navy. China’s economic and military rise has attenuated US dominance, especially in maritime Asia, or the Indo-Pacific. It is however unlikely to lead to Chinese hegemony. There are several reasons for this, including China’s strategic geography, strong neighbours like Japan and India, and the fact that the US remains powerful and engaged in that region, including through its long-standing military alliances.

So decline of US hegemony in the Indo-Pacific does not mean the emergence of Chinese hegemony. More importantly, the absence of a hegemonic power in this region does not imply disorder. China and the US are competing over relative position or rank in the global order, and otherwise aim to secure their access to the regional maritime commons. Their geostrategic competition entails efforts of naval/power projection, not sea control, because hegemony is no longer viable. The US is seeking the capabilities to project power into the waters near China’s shores, while China is keen to project power into the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean to protect its own interests. Moreover, they are not the only major naval powers in that region because others such as India, Japan, Australia, France and the United Kingdom also form a part of the emerging regional dynamics. Importantly, China’s return to power is not ‘a singular event’. Asia is also witnessing of the growth of other power centres, including India.

On the whole, it seems a viable possibility. Will it be taken? 

A reason for my bias against China as a hegemon comes from reading interviews like Ha Jin Returns to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in His New Novel  (Electric Lit).

One thing prison gave me was a chance to hear Florence + Machine, and I am - an old white guy - a fan. Florence + the Machine: Everybody Scream review – alt-rock survivor surveys her kingdom with swagger (The Guardian) sounds like she continues to surprise, and her new album is good.

Another voice I feel in love with - about 50 years ago: ‘It’s dark in the US right now. But I turn on a light, you know?’: Mavis Staples on Prince, Martin Luther King and her 75-year singing career.

A movie I want to see: Anniversary (2025).

Bugonia is playing locally. I will do my best to get there.

And there I leave you for the night.

Happy Halloween:

 

 

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