Change will come from China

China has always been unpredictable. In 1900, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, which lasted from 1644 to 1912, no one could have imagined that 20 years later it would be a state devastated by warlords and civil war in the 1940s.

In 2000, the US helped China enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), and in 2020, the trade war with the US is intense and its outcome is unpredictable.

Now, China has two possible paths: to be a wealthy state with a powerful military, or alternatively, to be China in essence and a Western country in practice.

Until now, China has supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia's interference in digital networks in Europe. The zenith of this policy—if it were actually pursued—would be the invasion of Taiwan and the war in the South China Sea. A path of confrontation.

This is not the only possible policy. Coexistence with the United States without sacrificing the essence of its values is possible and more favorable for China and the world. The dream of the Democrats in the United States—Clinton—that China's economic growth would lead to democratization and turn it into a Western-structured democracy is improbable because it is unrealistic. Power in China is concentrated.

The alternative of coexistence, although not particularly friendly with the US, would reduce the current level of conflict. The generation that will come after President Xi, raised in the 1980s and 1990s, could return to the policies of Deng Xiaoping, which made China grow and brought it to where it is today. Xi grew up during the Cultural Revolution; his obsession with order is a consequence of the "disorder" in which he lived.

A military confrontation would have negative effects for China. It would drain resources for economic growth, which it needs due to its aging population and the consolidation of a citizenry with higher income levels and greater domestic consumption. Confrontation would increase distrust among its neighbors and turn China into a power more feared than admired. In that case, the alternative to the US model would be less so, because this policy would distance China from becoming an alternative model for the Global South.

For the West, this would raise the question of whether to treat China as a reliable counterpart. It would have far-reaching negative consequences for everyone on the international stage.

The military confrontation that the conquest of Taiwan would entail would entail significant economic costs for China, as well as rising inflation and a negative global impact due to the economic insecurity it would pose to the markets. It happened before with Tiananmen Square: inflation reached 25%. Now it would happen again. It is a well-known paradigm that an isolated state runs a greater risk of entering an inflationary situation. In Spain, autarky was abandoned due to inflation, which made the 1957 stabilization plan inevitable to consolidate the peseta. This achieved this goal, boosting international trade, which was then at a minimum but vital for the country.

States with authoritarian structures do not survive in the long term unless they evolve to a more flexible structure, at least in appearance. If they do, this may allow the regime to survive in a manner distinct from its founding principles. This is what happened with the GDR, East Germany, which abruptly collapsed in December 1989, in contrast to its apparent stability.

A shift toward a more authoritarian global political situation, which is what is happening, will make it easier for China to fit into these new circumstances.

China's internal evolution toward markets and competition is assured. Today, there are 300 million citizens learning English and 120,000 learning Russian. The contrast speaks for itself.

Without violating the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, it should be possible to relax its dogmas. A certain return has already begun on the part of Chinese society toward Confucianism, an eternal culture in China, partially forgotten during the harshest years of communism, and more contemplative than active: "It is more important to work collaboratively than individually." This culture is a path that can be followed without approaching Western capitalism and democracy, which are still anathema in China.

As Rana Mitter of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School describes it, if China abandons the path of "a rich state and a powerful military," it may find a different playing field from US capitalism and the party-based, absolute-discipline communism of the 1960s and 1970s.

The evolution toward less liberal and more authoritarian states, and the need for communism to evolve, despite maintaining state ownership of the means of production—the Chinese model has not been an economic failure—open up the possibility of finding common ground. The evolution from liberal democracy to more authoritarianism is underway, and the evolution from communism to less dogmatism can begin if China takes the path of coexistence.

The problem isn't the structure of the political regime, but rather its evolution away from intransigence. This seems to be the path China will follow.