Vikram Chukka asked: Why is it felt that China poses threat to the “rules-based order”?

Raviprasad Narayanan replies: International relations are going through an animated phase where the 'order' scripted by the United States since the second world war has reached a point of stasis with China emerging as an alternative in economic potential and ideas that do not speak of political values the 'free world' espouses.

In other words, China is the new determinant, no longer the erstwhile variable inspiring misgivings to established actors speaking the language of irrational exuberance.

The 'rules based order' is a phraseology that comes unstuck when existing institutions of global governance have been bypassed repeatedly to satisfy the writ of might through military adventurism, masquerading as 'values' of human progress undermined by flagrant violations of the same leading to disruptions never resolved.

China's increasing flexibility and constantly improving negotiating skills in various domains of international relations is a welcome and sobering development established actors are acknowledging. International diplomacy in every form is now transiting or adapting to an order where the Anglo-Saxon pattern of international behaviour is running into an oriental expression of diplomacy and the tools it has at its disposal.

The foreign policy decision making of China is an example where foreign policy servitors to the state, policy forums, universities, think tanks and business organisations are in a constant process of exchanging ideas and opinions and not hostage to a process of institutional sclerosis.

Dr. Raviprasad Narayanan was Associate Fellow at IDSA. He is currently Associate Professor at Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Posted on September 20, 2018