Now, China hopes to challenge the West's leadership in new technologies, focusing on strengthening social control through the combination of artificial intelligence and monitoring.This is the real potential threat to the West.Will China succeed in where the Soviet Union failed?As long as the West continues to cultivate innovation and manages innovation responsibly, China is unlikely to win.
The recent BRICS Summit in South Africa marks the beginning of a new stage of competition in great powers.In China ’s obvious urging, the BRICS Group (including Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa) invited other six countries to join: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Arabia United Emirates.In some ways, the expanded group's economic output is equal to the Quality of the Seventh Kingdom Group (G7, that is, the main developed countries: the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy).
According to the public statement of Russian President Putin and the more important public statement of Xi Jinping, the more important Chinese President Xi Jinping, the goal is to establish a group that can fight against Western influence and lay the foundation for another set of international order that reducing the US dollar.
There is no doubt that this move will get more attention in the next year, especially when the expanded members will be held in the first meeting of Kazan, Russia in October 2024.However, it is unlikely to reshape the world after the expansion of the expansion, there are three reasons.
First, we should not exaggerate the common interests between their members.Based on the recent history, India has many reasons that China does not want China to be too strong.In addition, any group including oil and natural gas producers (Brazil, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and energy importing countries have a fundamental fault line.For example, despite the shortage of energy shortage and power outages, it has a serious negative impact on the economy, and South Africa is not interested in paying more fees for energy to pay; however, selling oil to the world is the motivation for maintaining public fiscal operations of oil and gas production.
Secondly, the idea of using other currencies in trade and financial transactions has existed for decades.The problem is that you have to take out things that can replace the dollar.If the alternative involves RMB, it is necessary to be confident in the Chinese economy that looks a bit unstable.When the situation becomes difficult, will Chinese officials really allow foreigners to sell their RMB unlimitedly?
Third, any alliance with Russia is obviously dangerous.The Russian leadership looks unstable and unpredictable.Putin not only did not give up the war against Ukraine, but also seemed to be determined to continue to disrupt the global energy market (not good for energy importing countries) and the grain market (very unfavorable to Egypt and other countries).
Russia's full invasion of Ukraine is a disaster for both countries, but Putin is the kind of dictator who cannot admit wrong.At present, a series of coup in Africa reminds us and how these regimes end.
For centuries, the basis of competition in large powers has been the formal empire's other countries, as well as practical control through military means, bribery and inequality trade relations.From the early 1700s to the 1940s, the British Empire led the world with these two sets of tricks, but other European countries also had their own spheres of influence.
After World War II, the global system changed, because the United States replaced the United Kingdom as a leading Western industrial power, and was determined to replace the formal empire with more equal trade relations.It is true that many people still complain about the fairness of this system.However, Western Europe performed well. This relatively open and encouraged international trade system for the export of finished products to high -income market exports to high -wage countries has also made Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and China prosperous in recent decades.Another after -war group based on the military control of Eastern Europe was disintegrated in 1989; two years later, the Soviet Union itself collapsed.
However, the competition in the latest stage is more involved in technology rather than trade.It seems that this transition began during World War II. At that time, Britain shared key results, especially the early thinking of radar and early thinking about atomic weapons. The Manhattan plan in the United States has gone farther and faster than anyone imagined.Digital computers, semiconductor chips, jet aircraft, life -saving drugs and vaccines, and the Internet are all from the West, and have been greatly promoted by the US government.
In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite Sputnik, shocking the world.However, its rigidity and suppression system cannot maintain sufficient creativity, nor can it transform good ideas into products that people want (except for weapons).
Now, China hopes to challenge the West's leadership position in new technologies, focusing on strengthening social control through the combination of artificial intelligence and monitoring.This is not the expanded BRICS -is the real potential threat to the West.
Under the leadership of Chuck Schume, the majority party leader of the United States Senate, Washington is currently actively discussing how much artificial intelligence we want to develop and what guarantee measures we want to develop.This approach is healthy, and it is expected to bring better results (although there is no doubt that there is still incompleteness in consumer protection, and people have always been concerned about unemployment problems).
In contrast to this, China does not allow public discussions to discuss the technologies it wants to develop and how to guide innovation.Just like the situation during the Cold War, a rigid and suppressed system is trying to lead the world in terms of knowledge creation, application, and communication.
Will China succeed in where the Soviet Union fails?As long as the West continues to cultivate innovation and manages innovation responsibly, China is unlikely to win.In this sense, the West has its own destiny.
Author Simon Johnson is a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, a professor at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, and has co -authored power and progress with Daron Acemoglu: We are in technology and progressPower and Progress: Our Thousand-LERUGGLE Over Technology and Prosperity
English Original: Great Power Competition Today
All rights reserved: Project syndicate, 2023.
