In early December 2024, The University of Hong Kong (HKU) hosted a lucid dialogue entitled: “China in 2050 – Two Perspectives”. The presenters were recognized China scholars, Professor Rana Mitter of Harvard University and Professor Daniel Bell from HKU. “What might be a realistic and desirable future for China” was a primary question addressed. Although the focus was fundamentally on China, the discussion implicitly raised the question of where the United States may find itself in 2050.
China
As Mitter began the presentation, he explained he was drawing on research for a forthcoming article. He then outlined five key factors that should be considered in thinking through how China’s future development may be shaped.
First, he highlighted the way that a serious study of Chinese history revealed regular, to-and-fro pulsations between more and less liberalism. Controlling adjustments occurred as threats to stability were perceived. While enhanced stability, in turn, created scope for movements towards greater social choice.
Next, he stressed how China’s influence on pivotal concepts shaping global interaction and development was already significant. The growing importance of what he called “authoritarian welfarism”, where the state adopts a primary role in driving massive community betterment, was already established as one proved alternative to Western developmental paradigms.
Third, he spoke about the huge climate change challenges facing the world and the way that China was now doing so much to lead the green energy revolution, thus strengthening its global influence, with each passing year, in this vital sphere. He compared this role to the way that Japanese car-makers revolutionized the concept of what a “good car” was around 50 years ago by producing reliable, frugal, robust, lower cost mass market automobiles.
Fourth, he spoke about the general, global hi-tech revolution and how China’s extensive base-building in education and manufacturing development, inter alia, had given it a measurable head start. He added that forward-looking adaptability should help Chinese enterprises avoid the fate of Nokia and Ericsson, which lost their leading mobile-phone position to the new wave of smartphones.
Finally, Mitter observed how the positive potential outlined in these first four, future-shaping elements, could be negated by the fifth key factor: serious conflict over Taiwan region or the South China Sea. This, he argued, had the potential to crater the economy. He did not have time to examine in detail how this might come to pass, nor who might be most likely to trigger any such hot war and why.
Bell, who was previously a dean at Shandong University in China before taking up his position in the Faculty of Law at HKU, began by explaining how he sought to lessen the need for him to speculate by “looking back from 2050” at what had unfolded over the previous 25 years.
He observed how China had, consistent with its avoidance of warfare since 1979, continued to shun military conflict as far as possible notwithstanding significant provocations. It had also (predicted by 2035) harnessed the potential of Artificial Intelligence to deliver benefits to all the population and not just to fortunate segments thereof. Gradually, but finally, the US and China had agreed to work together to address the profound threats posed by climate change and global pandemics, for example.
Beijing had also introduced greater democracy into the operation of the Communist Party of China and, taking a lesson from ASEAN, a new East Asian Union, drawing in South Korea and Japan, had taken shape, which had helped pave the way for a form of cross-strait reconciliation with its Taiwan region. Meanwhile, fresh leadership in the two Koreas had eased tensions there.
Others, including the presenters, may differ over some observations set out in my synopsis. It is, however, fair to say that the central themes of the dialogue provided a critically informed but mainly positive assessment of what the next 25 years may hold for China.
America
The United States is the world’s paramount superpower. It is recognized for its extraordinary accomplishments which are underpinned by exceptional natural and human resources. These achievements stand on the shoulders of previous, substantial European reliance on slavery and the devastation of the native American population, but they remain unmistakable.
America is blessed with a major share of the very best universities worldwide. And it continues to attract millions of would-be migrants, including many outstanding scholars and researchers.
These are all pivotal factors informing how the 2050 outlook for the US may be shaped. But they are, today, a fading component in America’s future-shaping, collective behavior, which is increasingly dominated by the US propensity to seek extreme military solutions to the geopolitical challenges it faces. This primary, internal menace to American well-being was highlighted more than 60 years ago, when US President Dwight Eisenhower, delivering his farewell address to the nation observed that:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Many, including former US President Jimmy Carter, have since highlighted how the US is the most warlike country ever seen in world history.
Unsurprisingly, the US wields grossly over-developed military power that has spread around the globe and which eclipses all other military spending by a colossal margin. According to the Global Firepower Index, the US ranks first amongst 145 countries and it has maintained this leading position for 18 consecutive years. Moreover, during the Biden administration the US embrace of warfare solutions has intensified alarmingly.
Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia group recently argued, that “the United States versus itself” was the biggest challenge faced by America in 2024, adding that:
“The world’s most powerful country faces critical challenges to its core political institutions: free and fair elections, the peaceful transfer of power, and the checks and balances provided by the separation of powers. The political state of the union … is troubled indeed”.
Conclusion
In January 2023, Professor Yuen Yuen Ang of Johns Hopkins University in the US reasoned in The New York Times that:
“China has its own set of tremendous problems, just as the United States has. And at the end of the day, to me, what the U.S.-China competition is really about is which of these two countries are going to make use of their political system to solve problems of capitalism. That is the real competition.”
Over 10 years ago, the leading English political philosopher, John Gray, in his then new book, The Silence of Animals, maintained that:
“In America more than anywhere else the belief that each person’s life can be a story of continuing improvement has been a part of the psyche. In the new economy, where a disjointed existence is the common lot, this is a story that makes no sense. When the meaning of life is projected into the future, how are people to live when the future can no longer be imagined? The rise of the Tea Party suggests a retreat into a kind of willed psychosis, with populist demagogues promising a return to a mythical past.”
In December 2024, CBS News reported that Elon Musk spent US$277 million to back the successful election of President Trump and other Republican candidates all wedded to a promise “to return to a mythical past”.
As we look towards 2050, both China and the US face fundamental difficulties in “solving the problems of capitalism”. In America, present evidence confirms that this forward-looking project is gravely endangered by entrenched, adversarial political recklessness. Fortunately, in Beijing, a much more positive view of the future prevails. Dangerous political impulsiveness is also measurably more constrained by the active review of experience drawn from several thousand years of continuous civilization.
Richard Cullen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He was previously a Professor in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
This is a republication from PEARLS & IRRITATIONS website at: https://johnmenadue.com/china-and-america-in-2050/
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
