more independent role. The collapse of the Soviet Union, followed
by the decline of Russian power, has now left the United States as
the sole superpower. This is a situation that Beijing dislikes
intensely, both because it places China in a subordinate position,
and because the United States stands in the way of China’s
achievement of her strategic goals. What China would prefer is a
multipolar world in which power is shared by six roughly equal great
powers (the US, China, Europe, Russia, India, and Japan). Beijing
believes that this is the way the world is moving, and that Ameri-
can power must inevitably decline in relative terms as that of other
major states, or groupings of states, grows. In this scenario, the US
might still remain primus inter pares, but it would no longer act as
global hegemon.
China seeks not to replace the US as the new world leader, for
this is not a practical possibility. What it does want is to be accepted
as one of a handful of great powers, none inferior to another, which
together would be responsible for shaping the world order. This is not
a vision the US shares, or wants to move towards. Not only is US mil-
itary power overwhelming, but, as it proved in the Gulf War and again
in Kosovo, Washington also has the political means to bring together
and lead a coalition of nations in support of its global strategy, thereby
sharing the cost and avoiding imperial overstretch.^2 Added to this is the
fact that the American economy monopolises the new post-industrial
technology, and that the US acts as the global champion of democracy,
and the array of American power—military, political, economic and
ideological—is complete. Moreover, it is an array China cannot begin
to match. It will take time for the ‘four modernisations’ to have their
desired effect of increasing Chinese economic and military power. In
the meantime, China is left to rely on political influence. What China
now lacks, paradoxically, is any ideological claim to global leadership,
for the ‘restoration nationalism’^3 that has largely replaced communism
as the driving inspiration behind Chinese foreign policy evokes no
appeal outside China.
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia