China’s Past and Future as a World Power, Research Paper Example

In the 21^st century China has become one of the most powerful nations on Earth. It wields enormous economic, political, and military influence both in Asia and around the world. In the span of less than a century China has outgrown the conditions of other parts of the developing world to emerge as a leader in manufacturing, technology, and industry. This feat is made all the more impressive when considering the conditions in under which much of this growth took place; as the United States and the Soviet Union maintained an uneasy truce during the Cold War, China diligently worked towards becoming the nation it is today. With the collapse of the Soviet Union near the end of the 20^th century, China’s rise was largely unimpeded. Despite the massive scale of its economic and political expansion, however, China has not entirely supplanted the influence or military and political significance of the former Soviet Union. Concurrently, the U.S. has not entirely relinquished its role as the world’s sole remaining superpower. To some extent the advent of the European Union, the growth of China, and the ongoing process of globalization have paved the way for a post-superpower world in which economic, political, and military power and hegemony are spread more evenly among nations in their respective spheres of influence. In order to understand the conditions which both impeded and supported China’s development, it is necessary to look back both at its history and the history of Western economic, political, and military expansion.

The East

A thorough accounting of the history of China is beyond the scope of this discussion; at best it will be possible to paint a picture of that history with a few broad strokes, emphasizing the factors that pertain most directly to the role of China on the world stage in the past several centuries. That being said, there are a number of cultural and historical factors pertaining to China that long predate the modern era of Western hegemony, and which had (and continue to have) a significant influence in terms of how China has and has not been able to project power on an international and global scale. With this in mind, the following sections will provide a brief overview of Chinese history, with an emphasis on the factors and issues that are most pertinent to a discussion of China as an internationalist entity.

Before beginning this discussion, however, it is necessary to place 13th-16^th-century China into some measure of historical perspective. China, India, and other parts of Asia had for centuries been the home of thriving civilizations. Trade routes spanning the Middle East and Asia provided a means for trading silk, spices, minerals, and other goods among various cities and states, and China’s culture had given rise to significant technological advances ranging from paper to gunpowder and beyond (Tanner, 2009).  China was also the home to a rich tradition and history of literature, art, philosophy, religion, and science. For centuries, China was ruled by a series of dynastic governments, with some dynasties lasting significantly longer (and wielding significantly more influence on the nation’s culture) than others. Such developments were typified by the Tan Dynasty, which ruled from the 7^th century to the 10^th century; during this time China established a strong central government, a sophisticated military structure, and an economic system based on agriculture and trade (Lockhard, 2012).

The rule of the Tang Dynasty was disrupted by internal strife and war, and these conditions continued for centuries as a series of dynasties and other powers struggled to control a divided China (Lockhard). In the 13th century China was overrun by the Mongols, which had aenormous influence on how the nation developed in subsequent centuries. The powerful Mongols both adapted and adopted Chinese culture, and reshaped China back into a largely-unified single state, now with the city of Beijing as the seat of government (Lockhard).  During this period of history, China and other parts of Asia, as well as the Islamic regions to their west, were among the most powerful and thriving civilizations in the world Roberts, 2006). It was here that the seeds of what we now call “globalization” were sown, as China established trade routes that spanned the hemisphere from Beijing to India to West Africa and beyond.

The West

As is the case with the discussion of Chinese history, an examination of Western history here will also necessarily be limited. While China was growing and developing through the first millennium and well into the second millennium AD, much of Europe was lagging far behind. The period known as the Middle Ages was in many ways a vast history of cultural stagnation, punctuated in the 14^th and 15^th centuries by a rapid period of cultural and technological growth that would come to underpin the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of European colonialism both to the East and the West (Abbattista, 2011). Prior to this period, Europe had largely been cut off from the world to its East, and what interaction did take place was often contentious, typified by the warring relationships between Christian and Islam during the Crusades (Hoffman, 2012). As the religious rule of the Catholic Church began to wane and the state-level power of monarchies expanded, Europe began to emerge from the Middle Ages into a period marked by commerce and global trade that would reshape the world.

The expansion of Western Europe was underpinned by the development of a new economic system that supported trade on a large scale. For centuries, the populated regions of Europe had largely been ruled under feudal systems that relied heavily on agriculture and were often mostly (or sometimes entirely) self-sufficient. With the advent of currency on a broad scale, trade became easier and these formerly-isolated pockets of people began to interact with each other more regularly. This in turn fomented the cultivation of a wealthy merchant class and relatively rapid urbanization throughout Europe (Hoffman). In some sense this was a repeat of the cultural and economic development that had taken place in China in previous centuries, though on a much more compressed timetable.  These rapid changes and the wealth they produced set the stage for expansionism, as the states of Europe sought new markets for trade both with each other and with other parts of the world.

Much of Europe as it is known today was rooted in the developments of this period in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. The emergence of the mercantilist system on which Europe’s international trade was predicated was what paid for the region’s explosive growth (Hoffman). The individual European states were often in direct conflict with each other, but in the larger scheme they competed economically, rather than militarily, through efforts to establish trade ports and colonies in Africa, India, and Asia (and later, of course, in the Americas). The new economies of Europe required constant growth of trade and new markets to sustain themselves, making it a virtual necessity that Spain, Portugal, France, England, and other nations in Western Europe would continue to seek new sources for materials and new customers for their goods (Abbattista). It was also during this period that the seafaring European states developed massive naval military ships and fleets used to project national influence and protect national power (Hoffman). The trade routes, ports, and colonies established by the nations of Europe were secured through the threat (and often the use) of military might and domination, both by maritime and land forces. By the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Britain would emerge as the dominant military power in Europe, especially in terms of the size and scope of its navy (Hoffman), leading to the age of the British Empire that would span the globe from North America to China.

East Meets West

It is something of an historical coincidence that China’s rather rapid cultural and technological development was stunted by the Mongolian invasion in the13th century just as Europe was beginning to undergo its own period of cultural and technological revolution (Roberts). The nations and states spread across the world from Western Europe to Africa, the Middle East and Asia did not function entirely in isolation from each other, but they were disconnected enough that the significant changes taking place in China were more or less unrelated to those taking place in Europe (Lockhard). Like the coastal states of Europe, China developed sophisticated naval technology and engaged in trade and exploration, but by the early 15^th century it largely abandoned efforts at expansionism (Tanner). In the hindsight of history, China might have taken a different approach to trade and expansionism, but in the 15^th and 16^th centuries it was still in the position of functioning as one of the world’s largest economic and political powers. It may be a bit of an oversimplification, but in the 15^th and 16^th centuries China was, at least to some degree, content to let the rest of the world come to it where trade was concerned.

When pondering the question of how and why the immensely powerful country of China did not grow to dominate the world from the 16^th century onward, it becomes clear that the real question is how and why the nations of Europe were able to do so instead. China had certainly developed many of the same technological capacities that the Europe countries wielded in advancing their own power, yet China did not use these advances to extend its interests and power around the world in the same manner.  If China had the same –or in many cases, better- technologies, from governmental systems to goods and products to military technology, why was European mercantilism able to so thoroughly dominate China for centuries? This question has no single answer, but there are several notable threads running through China’s cultural history that reveal, at least to a degree, how and why this happened.  Just as Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages into a period of cultural and economic development, China was retreating inward. For reasons too numerous to list here, but which included a tendency towards xenophobia, an economy that relied heavily on agriculture, and a cultural worldview that saw China as being largely self-sufficient (Roberts), the country simply did not share the desire or need for expansionism that drove the cultures and economies of Europe in the 16^th century.

China certainly did not set out to see its influence subjugated to that of European expansionism, but in retrospect it is easy to see how the powerful British Empire came to dominate much of China, Asia, and other parts of the world. Simply put, Britain brought its influence to China, rather than the other way around. An expansionist China in the 12th century could, at least in theory, have colonized Britain and Europe in much the same way as it was colonized by those countries in later centuries. China clearly had the technological means to do so, but it did not have the cultural and economic conditions needed to fuel such expansionism. Conversely, however, as the hegemony of the British Empire faded in 19^th and 20th centuries, China’s sphere of influence slowly but inexorably grew. In the 21^st century China stands as one of the most powerful and influential nations on Earth, and appears poised for continued economic expansion in the decades to come. It is impossible to predict the future, of course, but as U.S. hegemony wanes in the face of globalization, it will be economic, rather than military force that will drive expansionism into the next century. With this in mind, China’s future as a dominant world power is not just possible, but likely.

Works Cited

Abbattista, Guido. ‘European Encounters In The Age Of Expansion — EGO’. EGO | EuropäischeGeschichte Online. N.p., 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Hoffman, Phillip T. ‘Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered The World?’. J. Econ. Hist. 72.03 (2012): 601-633. Web.

Lockhard, Craig. ‘World History Connected | Vol. 9 No. 1 | Craig A. Lockard: The Asian Resurgence In World History Perspective’. Worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu. N.p., 2012. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Roberts, J. A. G. A History Of China. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.

Tanner, Harold Miles. China. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2009. Print.