Chinese media openly discuss China overtaking US

“If China becomes the world’s No. 1 nation...”

The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, and The Global Times, its sister daily specializing in international affairs, carried the article, “If China becomes the world’s No. 1 nation…,” Monday on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s historic state visit to Washington.

It is quite unusual for state-run Chinese dailies to use the expression "world’s No. 1 nation." China’s top leaders had frequently used phrases like, “China will not challenge U.S. hegemony,” and “China is not a G-2 nation” to preemptively stifle the notion of China as a global threat.

The Global Times said in Monday’s article, however, “Discussions of China’s emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S.” It presented the opinions of four experts on China as the world’s top nation.

The theme of the story is how this optimism will affect the Middle Kingdom and how it must respond, but also contains hints of self-confidence that China will soon overtake the U.S.

Da Wei, vice president of the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said, “China has already become the world’s No. 1 in many fields,” adding, “Being No. 1 in aggregate volume like this is absolutely normal, but it can have a big impact on the outside world.”

“The Chinese people see themselves based on per capita income, and thus there is a huge discrepancy in perception. But in international society, aggregate volume mostly serves as a barometer for comparing power between countries.”

He added, “Only a big and powerful nation can develop an aircraft carrier and next-generation fighter jets and explore space.”

Wu Xinbo, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, said, “The West has become so comfortable with spearheading the world over the past 300-plus years, it can hardly accept a non-Western nation overtaking the West in certain areas.”

“If China ranks first in a certain field, the West seeks to highlight the side effects of such leadership,” he said, adding, “Chances are very high that the Chinese economy will surpass the U.S. economy, and this means that the U.S. will fall to the No. 2 spot in the world economy.”

Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at National University of Singapore, said, “Since the onset of the global financial crisis, the U.S. has lost confidence due to high unemployment and Europe due to fiscal crises. But China has seamlessly overcome the crisis and expanded its economy, and thus there is some overestimation of China’s capacity.”

mungchii@donga.com