Seminar: China as a Rising Power in Asia and in the World

Centre for Military Studies has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with professor and ambassador Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller on the subject  “China as a Rising Power in Asia and in the World”. The seminar is held on Monday April 27 15:00-17:00.

China struggles to manage its rise without fuelling animosities or outright fear and anger especially among Southeast Asian countries. It does not have many friends or allies and is more dependent on the outside world than the outside world is on China. The long indefensible land border, the coastline inviting foreign intrusion, and the dependence on markets and resources creates insecurity – compounded by its leader’s knowledge of weakness instead of strength that cannot, however, be admitted.

All foreign and security policies are an extension of domestic policies, but few outside the Politburo’s Standing Committee know the impact of domestic policies on China’s foreign and security policy. The main keys seem to be that China is both a continental and a maritime power (only the US falls in the same category) and that China like all great powers pursues its own interests.

The world anno 2050 will be different. No superpower will ever assume the same power as the British Empire or the US enjoyed. A more complex world governed by the need for all parties to keep the system open without anyone alone in the driver’s seat. China seems to be aware of this and has become an important supporter of economic globalization without losing the perspective of looking after its own interests.

In geopolitical terms great powers can normally be classified as stabilizing, predictable, or disruptive. Since 1979 China has been a stabilizing power and it is likely that it will continue to be so for a foreseeable future. Its future lies inside the existing global system influencing how it develops instead of disrupting the system or setting up an alternative system.

There is a good deal of criticism especially in the US, but also in Asia, of China’s policies, but an analysis discloses that China does not do anything other rising powers did not do. The only difference is that now it is China doing it.

Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller is Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore and Adjunct Professor Singapore Management University & Copenhagen Business School. Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he has a long diplomatic carrier behind him holding, among other, positions as ambassador to Australia, Singapore and New Zealand. Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller is an internationally well known commentator and in 2014 he was made honorary alumni at the University of Copenhagen.  He has authored several books on Asian politics and economics and on European integration.

Click here to see a map of the venue.