再辩论 | Liu Jianxi：What shaped international configuration?

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Editor's note:  Liu Jianxi is an opinion editor with CGTN Digital. This article is based on a debate in Tsinghua University on October 17 between Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Professor Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University. The article does not necessarily reflect the views of CGTN.

"Liberal hegemony is finished." This is what Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute for International Relations at Tsinghua University, and John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, agreed on during their debate at Tsinghua University last Thursday. But the two renowned realism scholars were at odds at the reasons behind it.

As a moral realist, Yan stressed the role of leadership in shaping international politics, while Mearheimer, a proposer of offensive realist, argued that the balance of power is what really matters.

Washington's liberal hegemony is finished for two reasons – U.S. President Donald Trump and China's rise, Mearsheimer emphasized. Since assuming office, Trump has been withdrawing his country from a slew of international pacts and organizations. "He hates the WTO; he hates the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement); he hates the IMF; he hates the World Bank," Mearheimer said, adding that Trump is slapping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike.

This, according to Mearheimer, is inextricably linked with the failure of liberal agenda and is, to a large degree, a result of the changes in the balance of power, as the world is no longer unipolar where the United States willfully transplanted its ideas and systems onto other states. In a multipolar world, all of the great powers have to operate according to the dictates of realism.

Therefore, Mearheimer asserted that China's rise is an important factor accelerating the fall of Washington's liberal hegemony. China's rapid rise in the past decades is seen by many as a challenge to the U.S. dominant status. With "multipolar" gradually replacing "unipolar," major powers, as Mearsheimer argued, changed their policies accordingly.

Yan echoed Mearsheimer that "international configuration exerts strong impact on major powers' behavior" and "liberalism-driven strategy will not work in bipolar or multipolar system," but emphasized that it is leadership, not international configuration, that played a major role in shaping today's world.

"Even in the same international configuration, different leaderships will adopt different strategies to purchase their interests," Yan said, using Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un as examples to illustrate his point.

Unlike other less-developed countries which usually turn to major powers for assistance and protection, the DPRK leader insists on self-development and has shown no intention to woo support from other countries. This, to some extent, has led to Pyongyang's current status in the international arena and may suggest the future direction of the Korean Peninsula situation.

Likewise, Trump, as Yan argued, has also shown his strong personal traits in administering the world's super power. Unlike his predecessors, the Trump administration has no interest in selling U.S.-democracy to the rest of the world. This, according to Yan, is attributed to Trump's unique leadership, but not the changes in international configuration as Mearsheimer asserted.

The changes in international configuration, if measured by GDP, started in 2010 when China overtook Japan to be the world's second-largest economy. But Trump came into power in 2017. It was seven years later that the United States suddenly changed its foreign policy.

Moreover, Yan argued that China has maintained the same system since 1949, but it was not until 1978 when then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the reform and opening-up policy that China's economy started to take off. This further proves that "the capability of the leadership decides whether a country becomes stronger or weaker." In this sense, Yan believed that it is the leadership that changed the international configuration.

Despite divergences on factors shaping international politics, the two renowned scholars emphasized the importance of the Sino-U.S. relationship in the era of global integration. Discussions as such may be inspirational for the world's two largest economies that are currently mired in a "multi-lose" trade war.

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