This article is reproduced from the WeChat public account "chinanewsweekly", published in the 899th issue of "China Newsweek" Reporter/Cai Rupeng
As a well-known expert in the fields of China's foreign policy, national security and Sino-US relations, Dean of the Institute of International Relations of Tsinghua University Yan Xuetong When explaining the transformation of strength between countries, he proposed the concept of moral realism. He believes that political leadership is the key to national strength, while morality is the essence of political leadership.
Yan Xuetong
The decline of the soft power and relative strength of the United States at this stage, and the loss of much international support by the United States under the leadership of the Trump administration, moral realism is more reasonable. Therefore, after this theory was proposed, it attracted widespread attention in the international academic and strategic circles.
Based on this new concept, Yan Xuetong further constructed a new theory of analysis of international relations - moral realism theory, and wrote a new book Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers with this as the core.
In this new book published by Princeton University Press in the United States, Yan Xuetong systematically elaborated on the secrets of the rise of a great power. He pointed out that the core principle is that "the national leadership of the rising country has stronger reform capabilities than the dominant country."
Strategic reputation is the most important international moral
China News Weekly: We know that you have proposed the theory of moral realism in the study of the laws of international relations. Can you briefly introduce this theory?
Yan Xuetong: This theory explains why the rising country can successfully replace the world dominance of the hegemonic country, and regard the national leadership of the dominant country and the rising country as independent variables, and unifies the theoretical analysis of the system, state and individual levels, thus realizing the interpretation of several different major changes at the international system level with one variable, such as the transformation of the international pattern, the transformation of international norms, the changes of the international order and the transformation of the international system. The core principle of the theory of
is that as long as the national leadership of the rising country has stronger reform capabilities than the dominant country, the rising country can narrow the gap with the dominant country and even surpass the dominant country in comprehensive national strength.
If the leadership type of the rising country is different from the dominant country, the success of the rising country will change the international scale, international order, and may even change the international system.
The theory believes that a country can rise successfully because of its strong government reform capabilities rather than political systems. This is contrary to liberal theory that political institutions are decisive.
Historical experience shows that other Western countries have the same system as the United States, but cannot become superpowers; among socialist countries, except for the Soviet Union, they failed to become superpowers during the Cold War. Bannon, former chief strategicist of the White House, recently published an article saying that China and the United States are a battle of institutional models. I have different opinions from the arguments about the pattern. I believe that the strategic competition between China and the United States is a competition of government reform capabilities, not a dispute over model, nor a dispute over institutions.
China has now become a rising power, relying on the continuous reform of the government rather than changing our country's political system.
China News Weekly: You emphasize the role of morality in international politics. What exactly does "morality" mean here?
Yan Xuetong: Morality is divided into three levels: individual, government and international. For example, loyalty to the spouse is personal morality, responsibility for national interests is government morality, and fraternity is international morality. Since moral realism studies government behavior, the "morality" here refers to the morality of the government.
uses government morality as the standard for judging whether political leadership is moral, avoiding the problem of unclear leadership standards caused by confusion at moral levels. Lifestyle is a morality at the individual level. Judging government behavior by this level of morality will deviate from the essence of responsibility for the interests of the people, which is the core morality of political leadership.
Government morality refers to being responsible for the interests of the people and gaining trust from the people; externally, it is to maintain the strategic credibility of the country.Strategic credibility is the minimum standard of international morality, and it is also the most basic and important morality. When a country loses its international strategic credibility, the country must be regarded as an unethical country.
Recently, American scholars published an article about how the Trump administration reduced its leadership position in the United States due to its loss of strategic credibility. This fully demonstrates that countries without strategic credibility are regarded as lacking international morality. This applies not only to the United States, but also to China and all other major powers.
China News Weekly: What are the similarities and differences between the theory of moral realism and Joseph Nye 's soft power theory in explaining how to enhance national strength?
Yan Xuetong: The biggest difference between Joseph Nye and me on the issue of soft power lies in what is the core element of soft power. I think soft power consists of both political strength and cultural strength, but the former is the core element, because political strength is operational strength and cultural strength is resource-based. Cultural strength plays a role through political operational capabilities, so changes in political strength will bring about changes in soft power.
, and Joseph Nye believes that soft power is composed of political system, social culture and foreign policy. He put these three elements together and did not explain the relationship between these three elements, so it cannot explain the reason why the United States' soft power has dropped significantly within the six months after Trump's administration. He also created the concept of " clever strength " to make up for the shortcomings of its soft power theory. However, his "smart strength" refers to policy formulation, which overlaps with the element of foreign policy in soft power. After I pointed out, he agreed that there is an overlap between the two concepts of "soft power" and "smart power". Overlapping concepts will lead to synonyms, which is a taboo in theoretical construction.
In short, the definition of soft power by moral realism can not only explain why the size of soft power of two countries is different, but also explain the reasons for the rise and fall of a country's soft power. Joseph Nye's theory of soft power can only explain the former but not the latter. That is to say, moral realism theory can explain the dynamic changes in soft power, while Joseph Nye's theory can only explain the static differences in soft power.
The core of political leadership is reform capabilities
China News Weekly: Compared with factors such as economic and military strength, why do you think political leadership can better influence a country's national strength? Can you give an example?
Yan Xuetong: We have already said that political strength is operational, so it determines the effect of resource strength. Since the founding of New China, the history of my country's strength growth can prove this. For example, during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government had very weak leadership and did not even have the ability to maintain the on-site operation of the train, let alone the role of improving economic, military and cultural strength and expanding these resource strength elements. During this period, the government was not only unable to carry out reforms but also made great regressions, but after the reform and opening up, China had the possibility of rising.
At the same period, the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, Germany and other countries were carrying out reforms. The Japanese government has carried out reforms with the greatest efforts, so Japan's national strength grew faster than other major countries during this period. Other major powers are reforming and China is regressing, so the gap in strength continues to widen with other major powers. The principle of
not only applies to China, but also to the United States. Since the founding of the United States, the government has carried out many reforms, and each reform has enhanced the United States' strength and status. After the Cold War, the United States gained the status of the only superpower, and its excessive pride has made the United States not only less reforms than China, but also much less than before. This is the reason for the relative decline of the United States in the 21st century.
If compared with previous US governments after the Cold War, the Clinton administration has carried out more reforms, which is also a period of rapid growth in US strength. The Bush administration did not carry out any reforms but made some regressions. During this period, the growth rate of US strength declined, and the 2008 financial crisis occurred during his administration. The Obama administration has the willingness to reform but lacks the ability to reform, so the U.S. strength has grown slowly.
The Trump administration has indeed made many changes, but most of them are regressive changes rather than progressive reforms.Currently, in the United States, like in China, people have two completely opposite judgments about the strength of the Trump administration's leadership. I think it's a little early to make the final judgment now. After his rule ends, history will make an objective evaluation.
China News Weekly: So in your opinion, what aspects of abilities do political leadership mainly include?
Yan Xuetong: Moral realism regards reform ability as the core of political leadership, so political leadership can be simplified into the reform ability of a government. Reform capacity includes two elements: one is the direction of reform, and the other is the implementation of reform plans.
reform refers to a change in the direction of progress, and the opposite concept is a regression. For example, the change from the empire to the republic is reform, while the transformation from the republic to the empire is retreat rather than reform. Therefore, Zhang Xun's behavior of restoring the imperial system is called "restoration."
Implementing the reform plan means turning the plan to change in the direction of progress into substantial results. Gorbachev's reform direction was progressive, but the result of his implementation of the reform plan was the disintegration of the country, which shows that he did not have the ability to implement it.
reform brings hope to the public, and thus stimulates people's enthusiasm for work and innovation, so the country's strength grows rapidly; if no reform or regression makes the public lose hope and thus have no desire to fight, so the national strength grows slowly and even shrinks.
Moral realism believes that the reason why the rising country can narrow the strength gap with the dominant country is that the reform ability of the rising country is stronger than that of the dominant country. The strength of a government leadership is not determined by the political system, which is why under the same system, reforms are sometimes more and sometimes less, and reforms are sometimes backwards.
One thing to be clear is that the strength of leadership is in comparison, that is, comparison of two governments or two governments in one country. Similarly, weak leadership is also relatively common. In the strategic competition between the rising and dominant countries, the same result of reform less than the other party and regressing more than the other party can lead to failure in strategic competition.
Rise is a matter that is more difficult than development
China News Weekly: What impact do you think the theory of moral realism can have on China's diplomatic strategy today?
Yan Xuetong: Rise is a more difficult matter than development, and there are huge differences in the needs of the international environment. Development can intervene less or even avoid international affairs, while rising will inevitably intervene widely in international affairs. This is because the essence of rise is to narrow the gap with the dominant country and even achieve transcendence, and strategic competition with the dominant country is inevitable. To win this competition, either the dominant or the rising country must win widespread support from the international community.
The theory of moral realism does not only apply to rising countries, but also to dominant countries. In light of China's current status as a rising country, moral realism's suggestions for China's diplomatic strategy are to focus on establishing international strategic credibility, because only by improving strategic credibility can we win wide international support.
The Trump administration is weakening the United States' international strategic credibility, which provides China with strategic opportunities to improve its international strategic credibility. Improving international strategic credibility involves many aspects, but I think there are three most important ones.
First, it provides security guarantees for small and medium-sized countries. Moral realism believes that in a disorderly international system, small and medium-sized countries need security most, so they support whoever provides security for them.
The second is to fulfill international commitments. Moral realism believes that the core of strategic credibility is to be trustworthy. Theoretically, countries that believe that China's rise is beneficial to it will support China's rise, and countries that believe that China's rise is harmless to it will not oppose China's rise. To fulfill the promises is to make more countries believe that they can benefit from China's rise. To this end, foreign commitments must be within the scope of China's strength and cannot exceed this range.
Third, domestic and foreign policies are consistent. In the era of globalization, the two overall situations of domestic and foreign affairs can be integrated, and the unity of domestic and foreign policies can enhance the trust of other countries in China. The dual-track system is not conducive to its rise in the era of globalization, because the dual-track system cannot achieve international alignment. Everyone believes that internal affairs are fundamental, so policies that are inconsistent with both internal and external will lead to other countries not trusting our country's foreign policies.
