Dec 24 (Reuters) - Earlier this month the U.S. National
Intelligence Council released its Global Trends 2030:
Alternative Worlds report - a document that comes out once per
presidential administration - mapping out likely geopolitical
trends over the next two decades or so. As usual, it's a
must-read, offering comprehensive analysis of the disparate
factors that will drive global politics through 2030.
Further, the NIC took bold steps to correct some previous
weaknesses in past reports. In the past the report nailed the
"what" more often than the "when." That is particularly the case
with its treatment of the United States, for which "past works
assumed U.S. centrality." This time around the NIC sets an
increasingly "multi-polar world" - which I call the G-Zero - as
the backdrop of its report, acknowledging that the lack of
global leadership has accelerated in the wake of the global
financial crisis of 2008-09. America's status as a "hegemonic
power" is eroding, and no country is likely to take its place.
This multipolar world is the foundation for the rest of the
NIC's predictions. The report is organized around subsections
that range in probability: There are the megatrends that are
sure to have an effect, the game-changers that could go a number
of ways, and the four potential worlds of 2030.
In my opinion, when it comes to probabilities for the future
global order, the single biggest variable - both in terms of its
importance and its potential variance - is China's rise or lack
thereof. If there are twin "gigatrends" that supersede all else,
they are China's trajectory and the multipolar world in which it
is playing out.
China is mentioned more than 300 times in the report, and
the NIC's assertion that "the US-China relationship is perhaps
the most important bilateral tie shaping the future" is dead on
(though I'd cut the word "perhaps"). But despite China's
implicit impact on the report, the NIC doesn't establish it as
the twin pillar alongside the multipolar world it vividly
describes. Nor do we get a full sense of how a host of negative
China surprises could fundamentally alter the world of 2030 as
we imagine it.
A look at each subsection of the NIC report demonstrates
just how critical China's development is - or should be - in its
calculus.
Megatrends
1. Individual empowerment: Reduced poverty, growing middle
classes and new communications and technologies will empower
individuals around the world.
Individual empowerment is, on balance, a positive global
trend. But in China, it is moving along two tracks. There is the
increasingly affluent, coastal, urban China, where citizens have
access to the Internet and increasingly demand the protections
that come with the rule of law, respect for intellectual
property rights and tougher environmental standards from their
government. In an authoritarian, state capitalist nation, where
the central government's priority is to maintain its grip on
power, empowered citizens are a wild card. An increasingly
affluent population that is demanding more transparency and
accountability poses a challenge to regime stability.
On the other hand, there is the half of China that is rural,
mainly inland, impoverished and uninformed. Should this group
fall further behind, China might face unrest and volatility from
the other side of the spectrum. China's two-speed individual
empowerment is a more destabilizing dynamic than it may appear.
2. Diffusion of Power: Without a hegemon, power will shift
to "coalitions in a multipolar world."
This is spot on. But if power is shifting away from the
United States and its allies, where is the bulk of it shifting
to? According to the NIC report, China will provide one-third of
global growth by 2025, even if its growth rate should slow
considerably. As the United States scales back its role on the
global stage, the needs of China's economy are tying its leaders
ever more tightly to the world's conflict zones.
3. Demographic patterns: We'll see more aging, urbanization
and migration.
China is ground zero for all three of these critical
demographic trends and the interplay between them. According to
some studies, the ratio of Chinese workers per retiree could
drop from 8 to 1 today to 2 to 1 by 2040. That's a product of a
rapidly aging population - and a one-child policy that will keep
the labor force from growing fast enough to keep pace. With "two
Chinas," one urban and empowered, the other impoverished and
rural, urbanization and migration will cause significant
turbulence in China's social and economic fabric.
4. Food, water, energy nexus: "Demand for these resources
will grow substantially "
For the most part, demand from the developing world - mainly
China and India - for these resources will drive conflict
surrounding them. Today, China and India are home to 37 percent
of the world's population - and just 10.8 percent of its fresh
water. Their share of the population will grow - as will demand
for water as their middle classes grow.
Food is a similar story. Consider meat, which is
particularly grain-intensive (and so requires a lot of water).
In 1978, China's overall meat consumption was one-third that of
the United States'; today, it's double. China now eats
one-quarter of the global supply of meat, or 71 million tons a
year. But per capita, it still only consumes one-quarter as much
meat as the United States. Expect the gap to close-with dramatic
ramifications for global food supplies - as China's middle class
grows through 2030.
Game-changers
1, 2, 3. Crisis-prone global economy, governance gap,
potential for increased conflict: Will multipolarity lead to a
collapse or a greater resilience in the global economy? Will a
governance gap between countries' leadership capacities and
changing realities overwhelm governments? Will we see more
conflict?
Whether a multipolar world makes the global economy more or
less volatile will increasingly depend on China's trajectory and
the role it chooses to play on the global stage. In terms of the
governance gap in China, the NIC notes that there is a chance
that demand for democratization will vastly outstrip Beijing's
progress in that direction. The NIC sees short- to medium-term
volatility arising from rapid democratization-and "a democratic
or collapsed China" in the longer term, with the bright
possibility for huge gains should China's state structure turn
democratic.
Unfortunately, in the case of sweeping democratic change, I
just cannot get past that word "collapse."
Think about the Soviet Union in 1991. Then remember that
China is on pace to become the world's largest economy. In other
words, there are a wide range of possible events in China that
would have a starkly different - and enormous - impact on what
the world looks like in 2030.
4. Wider scope of regional instability: "Will regional
instability, especially in the Middle East and South Asia, spill
over and create global insecurity?"
In this section, East Asia gets an honorable mention, but it
should be front and center. The NIC aptly explains the regional
dynamic: "Regional trends will pull countries in two directions:
toward China economically but toward the U.S. and each other for
security." As China grows, this balancing act will become
unsustainable. And with such an outsized percentage of global
growth slated to come from East Asia, this region's issues are
the world's issues. I don't mean to give prospects for Middle
Eastern and South Asian instability short shrift - they will
have their fair share and more. But China and its neighbors are
at the center of this trend.
5. Impact of new technologies: Can the advent of new
technologies help address global challenges like population
growth and climate change?
Technological innovation is a global positive, but its
potential to negatively impact China is a substantial piece of
the puzzle. Let's focus first on social media and innovation in
information and technology. Any trend that scrambles the status
quo of public perception and could potentially pierce the
Politburo's opacity has the potential to be structurally
destabilizing. An estimated 570 million Chinese are on the
Internet, and approximately 100,000 log in for the first time
each day. Can the government keep pace with the lightning speed
of technological innovation? What happens if it can't?
Another field of cutting-edge technology between now and
2030 will be in 3-D printing for manufacturing and robotics. As
the NIC explains, these technologies could eliminate low- and
middle-wage jobs in developed countries, as has already happened
with outsourcing. But what of their impact on a developing
nation such as China? A similar "outsourcing" from human labor
to a machine equivalent could be hugely disruptive.
Machine-driven economic growth could exacerbate the dichotomy
between the poor rural China and the rich urban one. What
happens when China's most valuable resource - ample cheap labor
- becomes the most serious threat to central political control?
6. Role of the United States: "Will the U.S. be able to work
with new partners to reinvent the economic system?"
The report correctly depicts the role of the United States
as a game-changer, but China could use a parallel section. China
and America's global actions will increasingly be informed by
the other. The report's question would better read, "Will the
U.S. be able to work with countries like China to reinvent the
economic system?" Or, if their bilateral relationship proves
more contentious, tweak as follows: "Will the U.S. be able to
work around China?"
Potential Worlds
In the potential worlds section, we get four distinct global
scenarios for 2030 - and a disclaimer that the real outcome will
likely contain elements from all of them. On one end of the
spectrum, we get a world of Stalled Engines, in which the United
States has pulled inward, globalization has largely ceased and
the powerhouses of global growth have halted. On the other end,
there is Fusion-a world where "China and the U.S. collaborate on
a range of issues, leading to broader global cooperation." There
are two other scenarios that I won't go into here - take a look
at the report itself to read about them.
All the NIC's scenarios are compelling. But China could be
better positioned as a key variable and signpost in determining
how we get from today to 2030. I structure what comes next based
on two simple questions. First, "How collaborative - or hostile
- will the United States and China be?" Second, "How multipolar
will the world really be - that is, will other countries be weak
or powerful in comparison to the U.S. and China?" If the answers
are, respectively, "very collaborative" and "very weak in
comparison," then we'll see a scenario that resembles Fusion,
with a workable U.S.-China G2. If, on the other hand, we see a
weaker, more adverse U.S.-China, a scenario like Stalled Engines
may be more likely. The bottom line: With its vast size and
enormous potential for outsized success or failure, China's
trajectory is the true game-changer between today and 2030.
***
I've only scratched the surface of the NIC report. I highly
recommend you read it for yourself. And be sure to look out for
China - you can't miss it.
( Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group, the leading
global political risk research and consulting firm. Bremmer
created Wall Street's first global political risk index, and has
authored several books, including the national bestseller, The
End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and
Corporations?, which details the new global phenomenon of state
capitalism and its geopolitical implications. He has a PhD in
political science from Stanford University (1994), and was the
youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution. )