Whether emerging powers embrace or instead challenge the current international order will be an important determinant of international stability in the years ahead. The material primacy of the traditional Western democracies will wane as emerging powers like China, India, and Brazil continue their ascent; that much we know. What remains unclear is how this change in the distribution of global power will affect the rules and institutions that are the infrastructure of international order.
China will wield considerable influence over this question. Its aggregate GDP is expected to surpass that of the United States in the second half of the next decade, and its geopolitical ambition will rise in step. Moreover, China's reliance on state capitalism and its illiberal brand of one-party rule contrast sharply with the West's principled commitment to free markets and liberal democracy. China's ascent thus has the potential to challenge not only the pecking order associated with Pax Americana but also its normative foundations.
As the title of Edward Steinfeld's book makes clear, Playing Our Game represents an emphatic vote of confidence in China's readiness to embrace the Western way. Steinfeld argues that Beijing's relentless determination to promote prosperity by attaching itself to a globalized economy is all the while transforming China and mandating its embrace of Western norms of governance. He claims that “the country has in essence linked its domestic transformation process—its destiny—to a global system that we designed and that we dominate. In the process, China has increasingly absorbed—and even embraced as its own—values, practices, and aspirations that have in their origins our own” (p. 231).
This book shines as a study of China's political economy, detailing how integration into global markets has transformed virtually all aspects of Chinese industry, including corporate governance, research and product development, and manufacturing. But Steinfeld makes an unsubstantiated leap of faith when arguing that these economic changes are compelling the Chinese to play our game on political issues as well. To be sure, China's attachment to the global marketplace is having political repercussions. But what is emerging is a unique brand of state capitalism predicated on political values and institutions that bear very little resemblance to the West's. China may be prospering, but it is doing so by playing its own game, not by copying the West's developmental path.
Steinfeld's core chapters on the remaking of Chinese industry are a fascinating read. By relying heavily on foreign companies to guide the transformation of its economy, China ended up importing from the West both business practices and manufacturing systems. The country's industrial infrastructure was molded to fit into a global architecture of commerce, bringing to China innovations such as modular production and digitization. Competing in the global marketplace also required changes to the country's laws, business regulations, and labor markets.
Playing Our Game is at its best in its fine-grained account of the manufacturing of specific products, such as laptops and motorcycles. The book's informed and meticulous analysis of different sectors reveals just how profoundly globalization has penetrated China's economy. When it comes to matters of industrial production, Steinfeld provides ample evidence to support his claim that “China today is growing not by writing its own rules but instead by internalizing the rules of the advanced industrial West” (p. 18).
Even on purely economic matters, however, Steinfeld does go a bit too far in insisting on China's thorough Westernization. Despite the explosion in private businesses, China's state sector still produces some 40% of the country's GDP. Many of the managers of state-owned enterprises are appointed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and are party members. Moreover, the state has deeply penetrated the private sector through party-led business associations, the flow of party cadres into private business, and the recruitment of entrepreneurs into the CCP. The symbiotic relationship between the CCP and China's business community stands in stark contrast to the relationship between the state and the market in the West. In this respect, China is distinctly not playing our game.
The author also overstates the degree to which China's management of its currency has converged toward Western standards. He argues that China controls the exchange rate of the renminbi (RMB) through the same kind of open-market transactions that the United States uses to affect the money supply and control inflation rates. But controlling inflation by managing the money supply is a far cry from setting a fixed, export-friendly exchange rate for the RMB that is programmatically defended by China's central bank. As years of international complaint about China's undervalued currency make clear, Western governments hardly believe that China is playing by a common set of global rules.
Steinfeld's argument becomes even more problematic when he strays from analysis of China's economy to matters of politics. He contends that China's drive for prosperity and modernity is transforming not only its economy but also what constitutes political legitimacy: “China today, after nearly a century of upheaval, is recapturing its identity and sense of self-worth not by lashing out but instead by attaching itself to an existing global order, our order…. It is not just opening itself up to us as investors or economic actors. Rather, it is absorbing our notions of governance and taking them as its own” (pp. 229–30). According to the author, China's leaders have concluded that “[f]or China to be modern—and by extension, for its government to be legitimate—society would have to be governed in a certain way that sounded a lot more like contemporary Western democracy than traditional Chinese socialism” (p. 39).
On these issues, Steinfeld argues primarily by assertion, providing none of the careful empirical narrative that backstops his economic analysis. Indeed, the empirical evidence points to a conclusion quite the opposite of his. The CCP thus far shows no signs whatsoever of readying the country for a transition to democracy. On matters of civil and political rights, Chinese behavior diverges widely from Western standards. Beijing's suppression of dissent, abuse of political prisoners, censorship of the press and Internet, and persistent hacking of Western newspapers belie Steinfeld's confidence that China is gravitating toward Western standards of political conduct. He may ultimately be right that China will go the way of South Korea and Taiwan, with “self-obsolescing authoritarianism” eventually giving way to liberal democracy. But at least for now, that transition is far from beckoning.
Steinfeld is correct that after more than a century of humiliation, China is bent on “recapturing its identity and sense of self-worth” (p. 229). But as it does so, it will self-consciously draw on its own history, culture, and unique developmental path. Steinfeld is simply mistaken that China “has chosen to develop by tying itself to us and trying to become like us” (p. 231). China wants to be on a par with the West, but it does not want to be the West.
China is happy to play our game inasmuch as it benefits handsomely from integration into the global economy. But as it takes its place amid the top ranks, the country is fashioning its own brand of modernity, not replicating the West's. And when it has the power to do so, Beijing will seek to recast the international system in ways that advantage its interests and suit its ideological preferences—just as all great powers before it have done.
Accordingly, Steinfeld is overly sanguine about the geopolitical implications of China's rise. He concludes that China's “time as an existential adversary has drawn to a close.” China “is a partner,” he continues, “an entity that shares with us an increasingly common set of values, practices, and outlooks. Most transparently, it shares with us an interest in sustaining the global system it has joined” (pp. 232–33).
Time will tell. But at least for now, China's military establishment is fast expanding and its territorial disputes with neighbors are heating up. Meanwhile, the United States is pivoting to East Asia, beefing up its military presence in the region, and refurbishing its network of alliances. Geopolitical quiescence hardly looms on the horizon. Fasten your seat belt.
