How Does the Gaza War Prompt China’s Desire for a New World Order?
To China, multipolarity carries the weight of faith, rather than simply an idea. The root of China’s belief in a multipolar world can be traced back to its contemporary experience in a unipolar world order imposed by the West, where a historically important country like China was relegated to a tragic condition of poverty, backwardness and marginalization. A goal was hence set by the Chinese, especially those committed to societal revolutionaries, that China’s then semi-colonial and semi-feudal status should be forever changed in a multipolar world where democracy and equality are valued, much like visions of China’s President Xi Jinping for the Community with a Shared Future for Mankind.
To China, unipolarity is essentially a hegemonic system where the strong preys on the weak. Politically, it’s a hierarchical system with racism as its intrinsic genes. Anyone outside of the top echelon of the system would be cast as less than human and treated accordingly. Blatant racism inherent in a unipolar world order is all the more manifest in the flagrant violence recently inflicted on Gaza.
Therefore, a unipolar World order, a Darwinian jungle, is destined to be ravaged by wars. Any attempt at breaking from it comes with great price. Take a look at the 10,000 sanctions the West imposed on Russia for its special military operations in Donbas, with the most menacing one being the exclusion of ruble from the SWIFT system, alongside the freezing of its $300 billion worth of overseas asset. In a binary-value system, unipolarity dictates ruthless suppression whenever objections arise, as Biden once vowed to turn Russia an economic and financial ‘pariah’ on the global stage
A multipolar world order, on the other hand, roots for the co-existence of sovereign states by balancing various forces. It is only within a multipolar framework that countries once marginalized in the unipolar world can gradually find its path to modernization as a true multipolar system would embrace all ethnicity and all civilizations. Therefore, for the Chinese, multipolarity has transcended from being an abstract notion to becoming a long-standing aspiration, a political vision and a practiced world view. But the Chinese also understand that multipolarity would remain mere wishful thinking without the ability to realize it.
When it comes to the essence of unipolarity, no one says it best than U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Munich Security Conference :”You’re either at the table or on the menu”. In a scenario where it’s either eat or get eaten, the prerequisite for anyone daring to seek multipolarity lies invariably in strength. In China’s case, only upon completing its industrialization as part of its modernization process does China possess what it takes to build a multipolar world. China’s strength had its first trial when Trump forced it into a trade war and a technological war, in which Trump was unable to get the upper hand.
In addition, a multipolar world would also encourage diverse modes of production, development models, lifestyles and roads to modernization. To Chinese, diversity is held as one of the foremost rules with which the world should develop, for human beings are only truly prepared for diverse challenges when they are exposed to the heterogeneity the world has to offer.
Challenges specific to China can only be dealt with by China; challenges specific to Russia can only be dealt with by Russia; challenges specific to Africa can only be dealt with by Africa. And this is why diversity is essential. Fundamentally speaking, a multipolar world will undoubtedly be a civilization more inclusive and vibrant than what we are offered with now. So we welcome all the friends of various countries present, especially friends from Russia, to join us in opposing hegemony and unipolarity. The arrival of a multipolar world will be made possible through our collective effort.
