Description
The rise of China has attracted heated arguments as it is predicted to trigger the transition of the US-led liberal order. Moving beyond the materialist assumption, existing scholarship has started to explore the normative elements of hegemony and order transition. A noticeable contestation arises between those who argue the reigning liberal order is capable of accommodating and assimilating the authoritarian China and those who argue China will fashion its alternative China-led counterhegemonic order. Though they arrive at different conclusions, they share the assumption that liberal order and its supporting norms and the rising China are normatively incompatible, and these two are locked in a zero-sum competition. Through the lens of the dynamic constructions of China’s identity, this article examines the normative dimension and prospect of the rise of China. It argues that China is not contesting the Western liberal order in the form of pursuing its own hegemonic order. Rather, it does so by calling for a global order without a reigning normative hegemony. Instead of negating liberal norms, China partially accepts liberal norms such as sovereignty and multilateralism. And by turning to traditional Chinese cultural values such as benevolence, inclusiveness, and harmony without uniformity, and by characterising the US for unilateralism and protectionism and the West for double standards, China argues against Western supremacy and advocates toleration of ideological and political diversity. However, it seems this Chinese proposal is denied by the West who highlights in its discourses liberalism’s universality and the authoritarian China’s normative inferiority.
