China, for both good and bad, is a status-quo power that does not want to rock the boat of the international system — a power largely satisfied with its new status, but one that does not want to see its regime transformed, especially through external pressures.
Let us have no illusions: No “conditions” imposed from outside will bring about the “China we deserve” in the way, after World War II, we got the “Germany we deserved” through a process of integration and reconciliation. If the Chinese reform their political system and improve their human rights record, it will not be the result of anything we in the West say or do, but because they realize that the absence of the rule of law jeopardizes their long-term ambition to be strong and respected.
Dominique Moisi, a founder and senior advisor at Ifri (French Institute for International Relations), is a professor at the College of Europe in Natolin, Warsaw, Poland.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
RSS