Three weeks ago, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit concluded with a diplomatic bang. On November 12, President Obama and President Xi announced a “historic” climate-change pledge, as well as deals on military-to-military encounters, visas and tariffs. But for some, the real prize lay beneath the surface. By cooperating with China in multiple areas, Washington was able to draw Beijing further into the folds of the U.S.-designed and -backed liberal international order.
Accordingly, these agreements represented more than isolated policy choices on China’s part. They suggested that even if global primacy passes from the United States to China, the latter will still uphold the rules and institutions of the international system it inherits.
Though seductive, the promise of Chinese integration into the liberal international order is ultimately hollow. “Integrationists” resist this conclusion only by resting their arguments on conceptually uninteresting definitions of what it means for China to reinforce the Western order. To show that China will integrate fully, they set up a false, all-or-nothing choice between rejecting the liberal international order and upholding it. This strawman is easy to knock down, but it has little to say about the question that matters most: if China clinches primacy in the international system, how will it manage aspects of the inherited international order that do not suit it?
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