A recent issue of , “Letting Go: Trump, America, and the World,” questions the extent to which the United States under President Donald Trump has abandoned its de facto post-World War II leadership of the liberal international order. The magazine further prefaces its front-page cover with the lead, “How Washington Got China Wrong,” suggesting that the US is either unable or unwilling to recognize the emerging reality presented by China’s rise to great power status.

The implication is that the ship of US grand strategy needs an immediate overhaul if it is to successfully navigate the increasingly turbulent waters of a multi-polarizing world. It is not just the US, but the societies of the so-called developed world that need to reassess their modus operandi if they are to keep up with China’s competing models of governance, business and society.

Since I spent most of March 2018 in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou, a major industrial hub and rapidly emerging metropolis, my arguments and supporting evidence are naturally informed by my recent experiences and first-hand observations. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province, which neighbors the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Macao on China’s southern coastline. Growing up in Canada, I also noticed some pointed contrasts between North American and East Asian cultures and practices. In arguing for greater Western awareness of the Chinese model of development, I outline some of these differences for the reader’s general interest.

Governance

China is governed by a principled but pragmatic Communist Party. There seems to be a peculiar social in China: The government continues to deliver robust economic growth year after year in exchange for zero dissent or public discussion of politics, religion and other topics of a taboo nature. As recently as 2013, Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner pointed out in their Foreign Affairs article on “” that internal Communist Party memos “warned against ‘Western constitutional democracy’ and other ‘universal values’ as stalking-horses meant to weaken, destabilize, and even break up China.” This reluctance to embrace Western-style practices and a conviction in the superiority of the Chinese system was on striking display as China was changing one of its core tenets of Communist leadership, the regular hand-over of power that has taken place since nearly half a century ago.

President Xi Jinping has enacted a series of reforms enshrining his , essentially eliminating presidential term limits. Of course, the local media portrayed this stunning development as “democratic” since it was supposedly in the people’s best interest to avoid “venal cliques” and “factional infighting.” It is argued that these forces would threaten the existential survival of the Communist Party and, in turn, the People’s Republic of China itself. Thus, the Chinese political system was superior to the West’s version of competitive electoral politics since it eliminated partisanship and unpredictability, and . Perhaps the Chinese government has a point: With residents migrating from the countryside to the city-centers every year, for decades now, the government faces an uphill battle keeping the economy running smoothly.

Business

China’s growth since the late 1970s has been rapid, sustained and unparalleled in the modern world. According to the , “GDP growth has averaged nearly 10 percent a year—the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history—and has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty.” US-China trade in goods has increased by 30 times in 30 years (from $8 billion in 1986 to $578 billion in 2016, accounting for inflation). While there are many reasons for China’s “economic miracle,” my arguments here will rely more on my personal anecdotes than a laundry list of statistics.

The municipality of Guangzhou is much more modern and integrated than many Canadian cities I’ve visited: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, even Montréal. The city parks, walking plazas and urban centers are well-kept, imposing and expansive. The Mall of the World, for example, is a series of interconnected stores and restaurants that connect to the subway and run through the central strip of downtown Guangzhou. Museums, libraries and artistic installations flank its southernmost tip astride a grand view of the city’s major tourist attraction and one of the world’s tallest observation lookouts, . During the day, these public works reach as far as the eye can see, but at night, they shine and shimmer with a dazzling array of lights and patterns, all choreographed to impress the myriad onlookers below.

Getting around the city is surprisingly easy and affordable. The subway system is quick and efficient, intersecting the city and penetrating surrounding suburbs. Subway cars are jam-packed most hours of the day, making even the busiest rush hour in Toronto’s underground feel like a leisurely stroll through the park. Millions of bicycles are stationed strategically around the city, owned and operated by government-sanctioned private enterprises like . Scanning a barcode with a smartphone application unlocks it remotely for a limited time, after which riders can park them anywhere else in the city. With today’s exchange rate, the cost of riding the subway or renting a bicycle is measured in cents, not dollars��— an impressive discount from nearly $4 a ride for public transit in major Canadian cities.

Society

Despite the limited exposure I had, I found that Chinese culture has blended the past and present, tradition and modernity, together into one seamless web. Guangzhou, the “City of Flowers,” decorated all its roads, bike paths and pedestrian walkways with floral arrangements of all kinds. The millennia-old heritage of Confucian civilization was evident in the sculptures on display at . The extensive foliage of the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial paid homage to the nationalist norms and principles embodied in the postcolonial, early 20th-century Republic of China. Going for a jog one morning in Zhujiang Park, it was refreshing to see the emphasis people placed on physical fitness. People of all ages were walking, jogging and stretching, popular with early morning joggers, tai chi practitioners, ancient sword dancers and octogenarians etching rows of Chinese character-based calligraphy in the ground.

At the risk of overgeneralizing, Chinese society seems exceedingly modest and traditional. Most personal interactions are pleasant and respectful, even with my limited grasp of the language. Still, all the shopping malls stock the latest fashions, and the trendiest brands are on display. The , in effect for decades but repealed a few years ago, means that most adults are without siblings and most families still have only one child. The growing middle and upper classes may be able to afford more than one at this point. For instance, my Airbnb host��— as a property owner, presumably already in the upper strata of society��— was raising a pair of beautiful twin boys, an alteration to conventional family planning that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

As a cautionary note, state-owned media still run the day. The government tells the people what to believe about their country and the outside world. Flying into Beijing, Hainan Airlines provided me with a copy of the and the , both of which propagate the official bottom line. The Sino-centric worldview and uncritical coverage of Chinese affairs were expected. What was not expected were the progressive, almost liberal-minded stories discussed as current affairs: a #MeToo-style with the potential to bring down a presidential contender; the in China’s major cities and within their own families; and the growing of feminists, represented most recently by the use of “rice” and “bunny” emojis to spell the phonetic mi-tu in order to get around government-monitoring censors.

Of course, and a tightly controlled online ecosystem render any public protest difficult and dangerous. Virtual private networks, or VPNs, are necessary to access BBC World News, Facebook, Google and many other websites deemed unsavory by the Chinese authorities. In the end, the government has an Orwellian ability to clamp down on dissent and enforce its own version of events on society if it deems it necessary.

Watch Closely

China’s rising status, resources and capabilities in the world are a force to be reckoned with that all “developed” countries must consider. Here I have merely relayed some of the more impressive and intimidating characteristics of the Chinese development model that I deemed noteworthy. Without an awareness and recognition of China’s growth and development, it is my contention that the West will be powerless to adapt and compete in the future.

For all the downsides that authoritarianism entails, the social mobility and economic development that I witnessed in Guangzhou impressed me to no end. No doubt, China faces serious socioeconomic and environmental challenges going forward. , even in the most developed cities, and .

All the same, a rising China is of global concern and interest. As the with the US demonstrates, China’s growing economic clout means that all countries need to take note of its foreign policy ambitions. Nowhere is this more pressing an issue than on the African continent, where some have already suggested geopolitical competition is underway. It was recently revealed that China’s freely-built African Union headquarters were , recording all incoming and outgoing messages since first being constructed. Furthermore, China has been up vast tracts of farmland in Africa, urban infrastructure, competitive loans, and even establishing its first in Djibouti as of 2017.

The future is uncertain for the West and China, but it is worth watching closely.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:����/��

The post China Is Rising… and Everyone Should Take Note appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Pundits on both sides of the ideological spectrum, in America and abroad, are quick to label President Barack Obama’s policies as complete “successes” or “failures” based on their own political leanings, without much regard to substantive discussions of policy. This is easy because the situation is so complex, rendering prediction and comprehension rare commodities in a market of misinformation and misunderstanding. Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of foreign policy, and especially so in the Middle East and North Africa, where the unfolding of regional events and processes continue to confuse and confound pundits and policymakers alike.

Inheritance of American Imperialism

The US president inherited a legacy of American imperialism in the Middle East, a reality accentuated by the facts of former President George W. Bush’s invasion and occupations of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, neither of which had ended when Obama took office.

Other long-term factors guided Obama’s policy choices: the reality of US dependence on Middle East energy supplies and the military commitments accompanying them, the spectre of jihadi international terrorism, ever-present since 9/11, a special relationship with Israel and a troubled relationship with Iran, internal tensions in the Arab world that were soon to erupt into rebellion and regime change in several countries, and decades-old key alliances with regional powers like Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The point is that Obama should not be seen as a success or failure simply based on how regional events outside of his control unfolded, but rather that he should be judged on how well the US reacted to these events as a victim of circumstance in a quickly changing world.

Ideally, a comparison of how the US dealt with each state and its diverse constituencies on their own terms could be undertaken to figure this out: a country-by-country cost-benefit analysis with objectively quantifiable scores to grade Obama on how well or how poorly he handled each case. Unfortunately, each bilateral political relationship between the US and the states of the Middle East and North Africa could fill a tome. Therefore, this brief analysis examines Obama’s foreign policy performance in the region via four simple dimensions: freedom, justice, stability, and influence.

The US and Freedom

Freedom refers to the foreign policy goal, often stated by incoming American presidents, to spread democratic reform and introduce competitive elections in the region. In this regard, it is difficult to see what Obama has accomplished. Mass uprisings in Iran protesting against the fraudulent elections of 2009 were virtually ignored by the Obama Administration in favour of engaging the Iranian government and attempting to negotiate an end to their alleged nuclear program.

A messy and protracted transition in Yemen from 33 years of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to a Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi led government has also failed to deliver promised changes to the impoverished and marginalized masses of Yemeni society.

The , along with the oil-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in shuttling between staunch Saleh loyalists and the disaffected opposition forces in brokering the eventual power transfer and avoiding all-out civil war. However, any notion of freedom or democracy maturing in Yemen in the interim is premature.

The Bush Administration’s lofty expectations for a democratic Iraq have long since vanished and been replaced by dysfunctional parliamentary coalitions and extreme insecurity for most of the population. While Obama withdrew US combat troops in December 2011, this has not meant the end of and has certainly not benefited the process of Iraqi democratization. It seems that individual liberty, secular politics, and genuine democracy have not yet quite arrived in the Middle East.

Justice and Ordinary Citizens

Justice can be a broad term, but in this context can be gauged by how fairly these societies have been treated by the US government, especially in the wake of the Arab Uprisings. Tunisia, the first country to undergo revolution and regime change, found American diplomatic and financial aid quickly after deposing Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, despite his decades of close ties with the US and the West. Obama even paid homage to the Tunisian revolution’s democratic struggle in his address in late January 2011, though it must be said that Washington was effectively blindsided by the swift and surprising nature of the onset of the revolution, as were leaders in capitals the world over.

The US initially wavered in welcoming revolutionary change to Egypt, cautiously waiting on the sidelines to see if President Hosni Mubarak would be able to reassert control after protests initially broke out on January 25. When Mubarak was eventually forced to cede power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the US doubled down on the military, continuing to provide billions of dollars in aid and equipment in exchange for a seat at the bargaining table for Egypt’s future. Without a hint of irony, the Obama Administration continued to push prosaically for democratic reform in Egypt while simultaneously entrenching a ruling military unwilling to cede power to the people.

Meanwhile, the US strategy in “leading from behind” with the NATO intervention in Libya succeeded in dislodging Colonel Muammar Qaddafi from power but proved less of a success in terms of rebuilding a fractured society. The burden of reconstruction inevitably rests with the intervening party, and while this does not exonerate Libyan society from adopting its own share of responsibility for the state of disrepair there today, Obama should have realized how central Libya’s post-intervention success would be to the narrative of the Arab Uprisings. Establishing law and order, revitalizing the oil export industry, and strengthening civil society would go a long way towards fulfilling the US responsibility to provide modern-day Libyans with justice.

As the bloodshed continues daily in the seemingly unstoppable Syrian Civil War, one thing is sure: it is doubtful at this point if the US can help to improve the lives of ordinary citizens in any of the Middle East’s troubled post-revolutionary states, let alone those within the decaying dictatorships left standing.

A Stable Region?

Stability: how secure and predictable is life for governments, businesses, and citizens? The biggest impediment to stability is war, and the biggest threat of war in the region for Obama has come from Iranian-Israeli tensions flaring intermittently.

Obama began his term in office by reaching out to Tehran, but a series of national crises within Iran and international developments negating any American-Iranian rapprochement quickly took on a momentum of their own.

With the US election now less than six weeks away, the threat of war between Iran and Israel has reached a . This risk of war has also endangered energy supplies, especially given Iran’s repeated calls in retaliation for US-backed economic sanctions to blockade oil tankers from traversing the , a vital waterway through which nearly 20% of global oil supplies regularly pass.

Terrorism continues to plague governments in the region, and US counter-terrorism operations in Yemen and elsewhere remain hugely unpopular. As the reliance on asymmetric forms of combat increase, most notably with remote-controlled “drone warfare”, airstrikes by these unmanned aerial vehicles in places as far apart as Uganda, Yemen, and Pakistan continue to foster radicalism and perpetuate anti-Americanism as innocent bystanders suffer the most.

The Arab Uprisings have served to undermine regional stability too, with virtually every government in the Middle East and North Africa experiencing some degree of mass protest unthinkable only a decade ago; however, it is debatable how much the US could ever have hoped to “manage” or “control” revolutionary upheaval on this scale, no matter who the US president would have been at the time. Stability ensures hegemony, which is clearly in the US national interest as a secure region nurtures interdependence, facilitates trade, ensures energy flows, cements relationships, and promotes cooperation. Instability risks the Pax Americana.

Influence and the Peace-Process

Influence is a tricky concept to define because it relates to the regional “balance of power” and “distribution of capabilities”, themselves notoriously ambiguous in practice. In other words, can the US government under an Obama Administration exert pressure, mobilize actors, achieve outcomes, and fulfill its objectives in the Middle East?

In terms of building and maintaining a consensus among a core group of states in the region that support American interests, the US maintains positive relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states, Turkey, Egypt and the North African states, including Libya – despite the recent storming of the US Consulate and to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

Egypt has long been recognized as a central pillar in a US-ordered Middle East, which is perhaps why Obama has deftly courted the Muslim Brotherhood movement and the new Islamist President Mohammad Morsi. Thus far, Egypt has acted largely in line with US interests, maintaining amicable relations with Israel, openly confronting Iran on their own turf, and seeking to broker an end to the Syrian conflict. Whether this continues to be the case remains to be seen.

Moreover, consider the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, one of the thorniest foreign policy issues any US president must eventually approach. In the course of Obama’s entire term, negotiations have never seriously gained any momentum, from Israel’s disastrous Operation Cast Lead campaign in Gaza in 2008-09 to the present impasse on settlements and Palestinian refugees.

Unlike past presidents, Obama never offered draft proposals. Instead, the US allowed the two sides to engage each other fruitlessly in a never-ending game of broken telephone calls, as regional events spiralled out of control and distracted all the relevant actors from a resolution of the final-status issues.

And the Verdict is…

So how did President Obama react to the tumultuous past few years in the Middle East and North Africa?

The pullout from Iraq in 2011 and the planned departure from Afghanistan in 2014 are major developments that deserve some credit. In addition, the killing of Osama bin Laden last year was a massive symbolic victory for the US in the Global War on Terror and against the forces of al-Qaeda.

No matter the outcome, these interventions have drained the US of resources, morale, and reputation in the Muslim world.

What will happen to the post-revolutionary Arab governments remains questionable. The US relationship with Bahrain in particular is emblematic of the balancing act that Obama has been forced to play between freedom, justice, stability, and influence.

The island-nation houses the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, an armada that preserves the balance of military power in the region. However, the Sunni ruling monarchy has suppressed the Shi'a majority’s calls for democracy and dignity, even asking its Gulf neighbours for help in quelling the incipient rebellion, and all under the watchful eye of US foreign policymakers.

The contradiction lies in the fact that US rhetoric touts democracy promotion as a public good, naming and shaming Middle Eastern non-democracies while scandalously forgetting about Bahrain.

There is no guarantee that the Middle East will become a more hospitable place for American interests as a result of Obama’s policies, but he definitely left an indelible impact that will last for years to come. The US president’s continued circumspection is more a legacy of the “hand dealt to him” as opposed to the “hand he drew himself” at the proverbial poker table of world politics and international diplomacy.

By making adjustments to US policy in the Middle East on an issue-by-issue basis and refusing to overreact to any single event or be overwhelmed by any one process, Obama has been able to respond relatively well to these foreign policy challenges.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Obama in the Middle East: Continued Circumspection (B+) appeared first on 51�Թ�.