Chandran Nair

China’s rise has reshaped global economics, lifted millions out of poverty, and challenged Western assumptions about governance. This extract from ‘Understanding China, Governance, Socio-Economics Global Influence’ argues that engagement, not confrontation, offers the only viable path forward.

Most people in the world recognise China as a country that has rapidly grown from one with a sizeable population yet constricted economy in the 1970s, to one of the leading economic powers in the world as of 2025. Four decades since the country undertook the monumental decision to “reform and open-up”, China today stands as a prominent regional and global power, as well as an “economic super-connector” with extensive economic ties and influence over a large number of states – especially states historically neglected by the Western liberal order.

Understanding China comprehensively – its past, present, and future; its shortcomings and strengths; its opportunities and risks – is pivotal to anyone who seeks to engage with serious international geopolitical analysis and enhance international cooperation. This book submits that China’s rise, on net, is in the interest of the world and yields positive global impacts.

The ascent of the country has lifted a sizeable proportion of the global population out of poverty; it helped consolidate the world’s supply chains and vastly enhanced its own technological capacity and efficiency. It has promulgated critical scientific and technological break throughs, as well as opening up the largest consumer market – in mankind’s history – to foreign investment, trade, and business.

Nevertheless, with its rise has also come a plethora of critical issues – the perception of its, at times, adverse overseas sociocultural influence, the sustainability of its growth – and discussions over its unique political structure and distinctive governance system. These issues must be dealt with through intensive and respectful dialogue, understanding, and cooperation for global progress – and not become the substance of confrontation.

Whilst perhaps not always inevitable, the economic and technological rise of China has proven to be both staggering in pace and inexorable in trajectory. This neither calls for mindless optimism and zealous embracing of all that the country has to offer; nor, of course, should the world respond with hasty dismissal and alarmist rejectionism that embeds the understandable – albeit mistaken – assumption that, “Only the West, can be best.”

The path forward requires all parties to partake in constructive engagement, collaboration, and organic liaison – and to resist the temptations to conclude, erroneously, that the past four decades of internationalisation and globalisation have not helped China reform for the better. They certainly have.

China – in many ways – constitutes an enigma for the West. As a country rooted in a multi-millennia civilisational history, Chinese politics is imbued with and populated by consistent references to the past, to historical ideals and figures, and to the incredible achievements that successive Chinese dynasties had accomplished. As a contemporary nation-state and economic powerhouse, China offers a serious, albeit by no means exclusive and adversarial, alternative to the Western liberal democratic order – which, despite having continually served the West and its citizens in a largely functional manner, is increasingly riddled by problems and challenges of its own.

The Chinese government, whilst by no means flawless and immune from criticism, is largely responsive to public needs, interests, and wills, without being directly elected at the highest levels by its citizenry. Some term this model of governance an instance of autocracy; others portray it as self-evident meritocracy.

Yet what is hopefully fairly uncontroversial is the view that understanding China requires an appreciation of the lenses and values of its government, people, civil society, economy, and all stakeholders invested in the country’s trajectory. China is not an enemy or a threat – it does not proactively export its governance model, for one. The international community, particularly the West, should ideally respect the diversity of governance systems that can flourish in the world – and the Chinese system is indeed just one amongst many.

At critical times like these, it is all the more imperative that the world and China alike cultivate a sustainable, convivial, and successful set of working principles through which mutual interests can be enshrined – as opposed to confrontation and conflict.

The following working principles are proposed for the international community’s engagement with China. The hope is that with these principles, existing and future tensions can be adequately defused, with prospects for mutual benefit and collaboration identified and pursued. These foundational propositions should not be sidelined by entrenched ideological posturing. Instead, they ought to be continually debated and reflected upon – with inputs from all sides of the table and the world at large:

1. There is more in common between China and other countries in the world – the West, particularly – than separates them. Both China and the world at large are confronted by challenges ranging from public health crises, domestic and international terrorism, climate change, and the challenges posed by nascent technologies. It is precisely the embracing of these common and shared interests that the Chinese government has advanced the notion of a “community of shared future for mankind”（人類命運共同體）– in full cognisance that in an era of globalisation, it would no longer be possible for national interests to be carved out and compartmentalised in narrow silos.

2. China is “crossing the river whilst feeling the stones”. Its actions and gestures should not be read as definitively embodying the intentional steps undertaken to accomplish a monolithic political vision. Understanding China requires us to appreciate both the successes and flaws of the present regime.

3. Working with each other requires China and the West alike to see the world through the other’s lenses – though this by no means implies acceding fully to the other’s wants and needs. Understanding China requires the rest of the world to get to grips with China’s point of view, which cannot be accurately interpreted and understood through the lived experiences, analogies, and literature familiar to only the West.

4. China should not be viewed as a state that seeks to become like the West – nor should it be reasonably expected to. On the other hand, indeed, we must also guard against views and narratives that portray China as innately bound to exist in antithesis to the West (or reacted to in this light), whether it be out of nationalistic sentiments or skewed confidence in its own institutions. China has much to learn from the rest of the world too, a fact that Chinese leaders often express openly – and premature or overzealous jubilation at its successes could risk undercutting its government and people’s ability to correct its mistakes and limitations.

5. At the same time, whilst there exist fledgling contours of a China Model, the talk of a distinct China Model remains premature – in interpreting China, there is an active need to return to the basics of incentives that drive its senior politicians, bureaucrats, burgeoning civil society and middle class, and its sizeable grassroots population. In seeking to make sense of how China governs internally, it is equally important to note that China does not seek to export its model of governance.

Only through empirically informed analysis delving into the country’s institutions and people – drawing upon both culturalist and materialist lenses – can the world fully understand China today. China is not a threat.

However, given its size, scale, and vast potential, its rise will inevitably generate challenges. In tackling and resolving these challenges with China, the international community, as a collective, improves and grows. An inter-civilisational dialogue between China and the world is not only an imperative for academics, but critical for world leaders and thinkers striving towards a more peaceful world.

Excerpt from Understanding China, Governance, Socio-Economics Global Influence

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/12/understanding-china-governance-socio-economics-global-influence/

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