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Jonathan Fenby, Will China Dominate the 21st Century?
Article in Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies · July 2018
DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v36i1.5517
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the capacity to innovate. Yet the reader may think that the opposite
scenario is currently unfolding, with a strengthening of the state sector,
the creation of global state-owned champions and a Party that aspires
to gain absolute control over business, state and civil society as a whole.
However, one thing is sure: regional and industry variations in busi-
ness–government relations are likely to persist and continue being an
important research topic.
Kasper Ingeman Beck
PhD Fellow
Asia Research Center
Copenhagen Business School
Jonathan Fenby, Will China Dominate the 21st Century? Cambridge: Pol-
ity, 2017. 154 pp., ISBN 1509510974.
In the shadows of a looming trade war between China and the USA,
this second edition of Jonathan Fenby's 2014 book Will China Dominate
the 21st Century? has never been more relevant. With only 154 pages it
is an easy read that provides a realistic take on China's ability to domi-
nate this coming century. It is an enlightening and engaging book for
anyone with an interest in China and its current grip on the political
and economic situation that feeds into the global arena. For the more
seasoned China scholar the main points may already be well known and
the book can safely be placed on the shelf as another realist interpreta-
tion of why China will not succeed in having any meaningful impact
on dominating the global agenda in the twenty-first century.
Looking into China's political setting, Fenby describes Xi Jinping as
an uncommon man, standing out in a world where strong leadership
of big economically powerful countries has become a rarity. Xi is por-
trayed as China's new emperor standing at the centre of a personality
cult, and as 'a leader of a nation that sees itself existing on a plane of its
own, with little or no need of a global order shared with other nations'
(p. 18). The return to rule by a single dominant figure has increased
the risks inherent in Chinese society, as its leadership style has become
increasingly totalitarian. The denial of a political role for the people
provides a negative foundation for its government, bringing with it
systemic weaknesses which grow in scope as China develops. The
Communist Party and Xi Jinping have no rivals for power, and while Xi
has eliminated any form of opposition, Fenby describes this trend as a
general fetish by Chinese rulers (p. 19). Throughout the Party's history
136 ___________________ The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 36(1)•2018
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any form of competition or opposition has been stamped out, be it from
non-governmental organizations, human rights lawyers, websites or
Nobel Peace Prize winners such as Liu Xiaobo, now in jail for 11 years
for advocating democracy.
In relation to the economy, Wen Jibao's four 'uns' – unsustainable,
uncoordinated, unbalanced and unstable – have been used to describe
the China's economic condition and its dire needs for reform (p. 63). The
reluctance of central and local authorities to take the risks that come with
reform has, however, exacerbated the very problem. A policy to raise
consumption by increasing wages was seen as one way of rebalancing
towards consumption, as stated in the Five-Year Plan for 2011–2015.
Meanwhile, wage rises increase costs, and the higher price of capital is
eating away at the Deng-era combination of cheap labour and cheap
savings, with China's financial system coming increasingly under strain.
Upgrading the economy to move further up the value chain could cre-
ate even fewer jobs, replacing workers with machines. If that continues,
Fenby predicts that two core objectives of government and Party policy
– to give China a more advanced industrial machine and to preserve jobs
– will come into conflict (p. 87). The shift to innovation is an even more
difficult challenge in an authoritarian regime: China's growing number
of patents are proof of this, in their inarguable display of poor quality.
The government's strong shift to supply side reform is also evidence
of strong rhetoric rather than hard actions as, in the winter of 2015 for
example, it clashed with local needs for regime stability by keeping
empty jobs afloat. Local political considerations therefore 'stand in the
way of economic efficiency in a system in which the Communist Party
and its cadres at all levels outgun government officials and corporate
managers' (p. 91). As these cases indicate, Li Keqiang's call for reforms
to combat Wen's four 'uns' cannot rely only on the government to steer
the economy. China's political and economic situation is, according to
Fenby, caught in a standoff between its quest for stability and its need
for economic reform.
In the meanwhile, money-making has moved to the very centre of
the way China operates, which in turn has started to breed a new sense
of individualism, moving China and its people away from an era of
communist collectivism. China's middle class simply wants more. They
thirst for clean air, pure water and a clean environment in which to raise
their kids. Priorities are shifting fast and discontent has been building
up steadily. Similar problems have been present in now-developed
nations, but Fenby thinks that they take on a more acute character in
_______________________________________________________________________ 137
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China, precisely because of its global ambitions. Rising internal ten-
sions have manifested themselves alongside 150,000 to 180,000 popular
demonstrations each year, and social media is increasingly used as a
vent for people's frustrations: 'The system will not implode or explode
any more than it will collapse economically', Fenby predicts (p. 116).
And the real danger lies in the way in which the Party has penetrated
every particle of society so that if one element is disturbed it may send
treacherous ripples throughout the entire system.
While China's willingness to provide international aid without strings
has won it plenty of friends from afar, so its desire to establish itself as a
geopolitical stakeholder stays incommensurate with its current degree
of economic prowess. Furthermore, Fenby contends that a regime that
cannot admit to the uncomfortable facts of its own history and refuses
to engage in debate on its assumed truths is hardly in a position to gain
wide international intellectual support (p. 125). China remains captured
in a paradox where it needs to reform in order to rule more effectively
but reform brings with it the threat of weakening the very system it
seeks to protect. The conservation of control lies at the heart of China's
Communist Party while that very control now seems to run contrary to
an increased liberalization of its economy and society (p. 128). And this
is exactly the reason why China will not dominate the global system,
which it so desperately longs to shape, Fenby concludes.
In his book Fenby has accurately captured China's pending dilemma,
but his focus on internal political change along with its incommensura-
bility with a liberalized economic system perhaps suffers from a stroke
of denial, painting too gloomy a picture on the balance between power
and continued reform. Fenby notes that while the USA has left a legacy
of a liberalist world order, so China is now pondering about how best
to leave its own footprint on a new order in which it seeks to have an
increased say. In the meanwhile, and as Fenby rightly notes, China's
internal tensions do seem to be a stick in the wheel of the all-powerful
Party, slowing its ambitions of dominating the twenty-first century.
In the words of Guy de Jonquières, 'China has shown that it can shake
the established world order. It has yet to show that it can help shape a
future one'.
Benjamin Cedric Larsen
PhD student
Asia Research Centre
Copenhagen Business School
138 ___________________ The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 36(1)•2018
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