Two Civilization-States At Odds

Time For A New Kind Of Dialogue

China has grown strong enough to challenge American power and presence in Asia and potentially around the world.  Thanks to skilled U.S. national-security analysts like Michael Beckley, Hal Brands, Elbridge Colby, Matt Pottinger, and other hard-core realists, we stand alert and alarmed about the possibility of bilateral conflict erupting over Taiwan or other matters.  Yet thanks to equally observant analysts like Michael Mazaar, Evan Medeiros, Michael Swaine, Jessica Chen Weiss, and other temperate voices, we know of many reasons to calm down, lest we err and exaggerate what Beijing is up to.

All this threat analysis and strategic discourse is proceeding along familiar lines, involving experts from all schools of analysis. Problem is, I see two possibilities being utterly overlooked to America’s potential detriment.

• One is that Beijing is serious in claiming that China is more than a nation-state: it is a civilization-state and should be treated as such.  U.S. strategists have roundly shrugged at this claim and its key expression, Xi Jinping’s Global Civilization Initiative.  Yet, proposing a pro-civilization dialogue with China might open new avenues for rerouting tensions and engaging constructively on a wide array of issues, including principles for future political, social, cultural, and economic evolution.  Why not give it a try?

• The other possibility is that China has every intention of presenting a hard military face to the United States, but no intention of going to war.  Instead, Beijing is pursuing, in tandem with Moscow, a strategy similar to the one they believe Washington used to win the Cold War: a challenging but ultimately at-bay military posture, plus a dynamic non-military netwar campaign to foment social unrest during the 1990s-2010s (e.g., the Color Revolutions) that would collapse the Soviet Union and weaken Russia.  Moscow and Beijing have drawn lessons-learned, turned that social netwar strategy around, and are presently using it against us.  They have placed America under constant cognitive attack in ways that appear to be working to their benefit.  Why aren’t we doing more to recognize and counter this?

Over the past two years, seeking confirmation and advice, I have tried to broach these ideas a few times with friendly experts on both topics, to little avail.  By now, in light of the way things are going for me and the world at large, I might as well try to offer preliminary write-ups.  To my knowledge, nobody else is asking about those two possibilities.  So here comes my speculative take, a sketchy write-up for consideration. 

This post is about the first possibility.  I’ll hope to cover the second in a future post. 

CHINA ON THE MOVE AS AN AMBITIOUS CIVILIZATION-STATE

Just as U.S. strategists overplayed the likelihood of China becoming more liberal and democratic a decade ago, now they appear to be underplaying the seriousness of China’s civilizational turn.  Yet China is aggressively on the move, not only as a nation-state but also as a “civilization-state.”  By touting civilizational matters, Xi Jinping and his regime apparently aim to overlay the conventional nation-state framework of world order with a civilization-state framework — not to forsake or supersede the former, but rather to fashion a new layer atop or in tandem with it to benefit China’s rising influence.  

Xi’s Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), released in March 2023, may read like a prosaic unobjectionable document, full of platitudes; but it is also a solid marker for campaigning to pursue more expansive roles in world politics, especially in Eurasia and the Global South.  China’s government, party, and think-tank strategists have worked hard for over a decade to develop this civilizational theme.  Earlier initiatives for creating a worldwide “community of common destiny,” are now being folded into it.  Xi and his regime look set to emphasize civilizational matters for years to come — on occasion overtly and showily, but often slowly and stealthily.  

The civilization-state notion stems in part from a 1990 Foreign Affairs article by Lucien Pye that viewed China as having a state that represents a civilization.  However, the actual terms civilizational state and civilization-state appeared two decades later with the publication of Zhang Weiwei’s book The China Wave: Rise Of A Civilizational State (2012), Martin Jacques’s book When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (2014), and Xia Guang’s article on “China as a ‘Civilization-State’” (2014). 

Zhang, Jacque, and Xia continue to promote civilizational perspectives to this day.  Zhang in particular, from his perch as a professor and theorist at Fudan University and as a long-standing advisor to top government and party leaders in China, persists at advancing his civilizational views along with his beliefs about the future superiority of the Chinese model and the decline of the West.  Of note, he runs a YouTube channel titled The Chinese Way where he led a Thinkers Forum on “What is a civilizational state?” with famed Russian geopolitical analyst Aleksandr Dugin and noted Pakistani religious scholar and Islamic political analyst Ejaz Akram in July 2022.

In addition, numerous other experts — Alistair Campbell, Gordon Chang, Christopher Coker, James Dorsey, Alison Kaufman, Ryan Ho Kirkpatrick, Lee Kuan Yew, Li Xing, Bruno Maçães, Gideon Rachman, Shashi Tharoor, Göran Therborn, and Wang Gungwu — have spread the concept more widely.  A 2020 article in The Economist even morphed Samuel Huntington’s famous (and infamous) “clash of civilizations” idea into a “clash of civilization states.”  During 2022, the magazines Noēma and Telos provided special coverage of the concept.  Indeed, Noema and its publisher, the Berggruen Institute, have done more than anyone in the West to advance the concept (along with other ideas for future planetary governance). 

Thus the concept keeps gaining traction, though episodically and without mainstream acceptance yet.  However, U.S. and other Western experts on China have largely ignored or dismissed the concept for years. 

While the civilization-state concept was initially applied to China, leaders in other nation-states have been trying it on as well: notably, in Egypt, India, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and Serbia — a set of Eurasian and Islamic states.  Vladimir Putin is a leading proponent.  He began referring to Russia as a civilization-state in 2012; and has repeatedly deployed the concept since 2022 to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his new alliance with China.  Other Eurasian political leaders seem attracted to identifying with Xi’s and Putin’s civilizational stances partly because it helps them rally together for standing against the West.  Nonetheless, viewing the United States and the European Community as civilization-states has proponents as well.  

Meanwhile, China continues to build vast organizational infrastructures to support its unfolding campaign to advance Chinese ideas about culture and civilization.  Elements exist in the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which operates both at home and abroad; in the numerous Confucius Institutes abroad; and in a network of New Era Civilization Practice Centers at home.  New government- and party-led offices and institutes — like the CCP’s Central Guidance Commission on Building Spiritual Civilization — have been created for analyzing and advancing the topic.  Policies and programs for enhancing China’s “discourse power” and “cognitive domain operations” through civilizational narratives are also in motion.  (Many of these entities and activities serve broader propaganda and surveillance purposes as well.)

CULTURE AS THE CORE ATTRIBUTE OF CIVILIZATION-STATES

So we come to the looming question: What defines a civilization-state?  In general, a civilization-state is simply a state that claims to embody and represent a civilization — meaning its domain may sprawl beyond a country’s territorial boundaries.  Proponents of the concept tend to define civilizations primarily in terms of their cultural contents.  This is different from the way empires and nations are usually defined.

Thus, adopting a civilization-state moniker means upholding one’s identity in terms of the cultural values and formative traditions that are said to define a people, thereby determining their ways of life and their beliefs in themselves as a collectivity, no matter where they reside.  Accordingly, collective identity trumps individual identity; spiritual values are more defining than ideology; and cultural heritage and tradition matter mightily.  Thus, for Beijing, Taiwan falls under China’s civilization-state; and so may immigrant Chinese communities in other countries.

Thus, while civilizations normally contain diverse sub-cultures, what matters more for civilization-state proponents is claiming their civilization stands unified by a distinctive cultural ethos (system, cosmology).  Civilizational analysts and strategists are thus constantly concerned with reconciling unity with diversity, since they must insist on cohesion and solidarity around that central ethos.

Of course, more than a strong culture is necessary for a state to become a civilization-state.  Military prowess is normally a foremost factor too.  As art historian Kenneth Clark noted decades ago in his iconic work (and acclaimed TV series) on Civilisation: A Personal View (1969), “All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war.”  Even so, as Clark knows, spiritual, religious, and other cultural energies may matter more in the end.  As British historian Christopher Dawson observed in his classic on Progress and Religion: An Historical Inquiry (1929), “Every living culture must possess some spiritual dynamic, which provides the energy necessary for that sustained social effort which is civilization.”  China fits that analysis, and Beijing is now intent on reenergizing its Confucian heritage to suit future growth purposes.

Claiming the mantle of a civilization-state is thus about expressing ideational grandeur, even more than material power.  It is a spiritually grand way to radiate power.  It shows a claimant’s sense of entitlement and authority is so well-deserved that its impulses and prerogatives merit profound respect, even outright obedience within its cultural sphere of influence.

Sovereignty is evidently one of those prerogatives.  While a civilization per se cannot claim juridical sovereignty over its cultural reaches, civilization-state proponents do argue for “cultural sovereignty.”  Chinese writings about civilizational matters are loaded with calls to maintain cultural sovereignty and cultural security — especially to defend against American and other Western influences.  Russian discourse is similarly loaded (as, I suppose, are civilizational narratives in India, Iran, Turkey, and other aspirants).

AUTOCRATIC VIEWS ABOUT THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION-STATES

As the civilization-state concept has spread among authoritarian leaders in Eurasia and elsewhere, so have presumptions about its implications.  Many seem selected to favor traditional over modern values, and autocratic over democratic forms of governance.  Yet the concept is potentially more flexible than such leaders assert.

Thus I have seen claims, both as criticism and praise, that civilization-states can and should look to the deep past more than the future for guidance and stature.  But that looks questionable to my knowledge.  Great civilizations always honor the past, draw inspiration from it, and tout bygone glory and grandeur.  Yet the advanced ones also inevitably endeavor to be exemplary engines of future progress, even models for others to follow.  Thus Western ideas of civilization and progress grew conjointly in the 19th and 20th centuries.  Today, China’s leaders are looking to rejuvenate past Confucian concepts in order to thrust forward and outward more energetically than ever.  Their efforts are decidedly future-oriented, aiming to offer new models for future progress. 

I have also seen claims, again both as criticism and praise, that civilization-states are prone to illiberalism — that illiberalism is sensible, even wise.  Indeed, the recent rise of the concept reflects Eurasian resistance to Western liberalism — Xi, Putin, and others are using civilizational mantles to rationalize their anti-liberal ideas and ways.  But the civilization-state concept is not inherently illiberal.  Democracies too may develop into civilization-states, and vice-versa.  It is a matter of making the effort.  Besides, arguing in favor of liberalism as a complement to civilization has impressive proponents inside China, albeit sidelined. 

Moreover, I have come across instances where ardent Eurasian and Islamic proponents argue that America is too young to qualify as a civilization and thus a civilization-state.  One even called America a “Potemkin civilization.”  Yet these presumptuous critics still sometimes imply they might accept America as having a civilization-state, if Western leaders would disavow the existing global liberal order and deny any aim to move everybody ultimately under a single grand unipolar civilization-state ruling the world like a global empire.  Their notions that the nation-state idea is running out of steam has merit, but their claims strikes me as utterly chimeric that the global liberal order is designed to lead to a single civilization-state— further grounds for conceptual debate. 

Meanwhile, the civilization-state impulse is not confined to governments.  It resonates among non-state actors too, especially among far-right activists.  The “Aryan nation” and “Christian nationalism” movements see themselves as pan-national brotherhoods engaged in cultural and spiritual warfare on behalf of civilizational values that span many borders in North America and Europe. 

PARTICULARS OF CHINA’S STANCE ON CIVILIZATIONAL MATTERS

The text of Xi’s Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) says nothing about what a civilization-state is or isn’t — it never uses the term.  But the GCI does show how China wants civilizations to behave toward each other.  Far from fretting about a prospective “clash of civilizations,” the GCI calls for co-existence and confluence — to be achieved through peaceable inter-civilizational exchange and dialogue.

Accordingly, no civilization is superior to others; none ranks higher or lower.  In the past, Western colonizers were wrong to claim civilizational superiority and seek hegemony.  In the future, no single universal model of civilization will or should exist. 

What should grow is a “garden” of civilizations, as all parties work together to “build a community of shared future.”  The GCI favors respecting the diversity of civilizations, tolerating the variety of development paths their peoples may choose.  It calls for upholding principles of equality, equity, justice, non-interference, inclusivity, harmony, and “democracy and freedom” among civilizations, as common values and aspirations.  Thus it advocates strengthening people-to-people exchanges, mutual learning, dialogue, and cooperation among all civilizations.

All those points are evident in the “Full text of Xi Jinping's keynote address at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting,” which first announced the GCI on March 15, 2023.  They are more fully elaborated and explained in the party-government’s statement issued six months later on “A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions” (September 2023).

I’m going to quote from the latter at length.  I’ve already mentioned many points that are in it.  But quoting may help you to better grasp its nature, particularly the way it insists on the importance and variety of civilizations, their value as a “garden”: 

“… Different histories, national conditions, ethnic groups, and customs have given birth to diverse civilizations. Diversity of human civilizations is a basic feature of our world. Mutual learning among civilizations provides important impetus to human progress. Countries should respect one another and jointly pursue common development through exchanges and mutual learning.…

“We should increase inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony, inclusiveness, and respect for differences.  There are more than 200 countries and regions, over 2,500 ethnic groups and a vast number of religions in our world.  Such cultural diversity is what makes the world colorful.  Diversity breeds exchanges, exchanges lead to integration, and integration brings progress.  Only by upholding the equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness of civilizations, and working for mutual respect, experience sharing, and harmonious coexistence while preserving diversity, can the world maintain its diversity and thrive.  We should respect all civilizations, treat each other as equals, and draw inspiration from each other to boost the creative development of human civilization.…

“… Every country should value its own civilization, appreciate others, and facilitate their common progress.  We should keep our own civilizations dynamic and create conditions for other civilizations to flourish.  Together we can make the garden of world civilizations colorful and vibrant. All countries should be open and inclusive, promote mutual learning, strive to remove all barriers to cultural exchanges, and seek nourishment from other civilizations to promote the common development of all civilizations.  All countries should progress with the times, explore new ground in development, take in the best of the present age, and sustain the development of civilizations through innovation.…”

This document then specifies “Four Proposals of the Global Civilization Initiative,” as follows:

“– Jointly advocating respect for the diversity of civilizations.  Countries should uphold equality, mutual learning, dialogue, and inclusiveness among civilizations, and let cultural exchanges transcend estrangement, mutual learning transcend conflict, and inclusiveness transcend supremacy.

“– Jointly advocating the common values of humanity.  Peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom are shared aspirations of people across the world.  Countries should be open to appreciating different perceptions of values by different civilizations, and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.

“– Jointly advocating the importance of continuity and evolution of civilizations.  Countries should fully harness the relevance of their histories and cultures to the present times, and push for creative transformation and innovative development of their fine traditional cultures in the course of modernization.

“– Jointly advocating closer international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation.  Countries should explore the building of a global network for inter-civilization dialogue and cooperation, enrich the contents of exchanges and expand avenues of cooperation to promote mutual understanding and friendship among people of all countries, and jointly advance the progress of human civilization.”

A respectable document, I’d say.  I see nothing overtly objectionable or insulting from a U.S. point of view.  In my reading, its civilizational rubric offers new openings for exploration, new angles and avenues for bilateral if not broader dialogue, new vectors for probing future prospects for U.S.-China cooperation, competition, and conflict.  For all of China’s objections to apparent domination of the global order by Western values and by Western ideas about universal values, the GCI seems filled with parallel values and ideas, not distinctly contrary ones.  Grounds for engagement and debate, I’d say.

CRITICAL REACTIONS BY CHINA ANALYSTS AND STRATEGISTS

As critics have noted, the GCI does indeed amount to “New packaging for old principles” (Manoj Kewalramani, March 2023).  To some degree, it is self-serving, unclear, ambiguous, and manipulative; it does play to grievances against past great-power colonialism and imperialism; and it is “an attempt to win global buy-in for China’s principle of non-interference by conflating modern-day regimes with traditional culture” (Evan Ellis, June 2023).  Moreover, it is designed to subvert and displace U.S. influence in the Global South (as many observers point out).  It may also provide a new rationale for Beijing to heighten surveillance of its own people’s activities, at home and abroad (source misplaced). 

Moreover, much can be said about the GCI that has been said about Putin’s efforts to adopt a civilization-state mantle.  It can be seen as a “smokescreen” for ulterior desires to reconstitute an empire.  It does tout principles about civilization, unity, and diversity in ways that still let Moscow, and by extension Beijing, oppress minority cultures, religions, and ethnicities within its claimed sphere of influence (Alexander J. Motyl, October 2023).

Meanwhile, hardly any China experts have said something positive about the GCI.  Right after its release, business-minded blogger Bill Bishop remarked insightfully that “a lot of countries may find this more appealing than the Biden Administration’s ‘Democracy vs Authoritarianism’ framing” (March 2023).  But since then, nary another Western expert has said anything inquisitive, much less positive about the GCI.  The one exception I’ve found is Elizabeth Economy.  Recognizing the significance of the GCI and related Chinese initiatives, she advises: “Rather than dismissing Beijing’s playbook, U.S. policymakers should learn from it” (April 2024) — quite so, I’d say. 

So much negativity seems understandable in today’s heated environment.  But the nearly total dearth of positive or at least inquisitive reactions strikes me as analytically incurious, unwarranted. 

CONSIDERATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S.-CHINA DIALOGUE

In sum, China has fielded a vague but grand concept of civilization and linked it to all sorts of values, principles, and policy options it intends to pursue in the period ahead.  Xi’s regime is using it to advance China’s power and presence across Eurasia and into the Global South in ways that can detract from U.S and other Western interests. 

Thus, as I ineffectively mused via email in June 2022 and later at a private forum in April 2023 with U.S-China relations in mind,

“How about calling for the formation of a new entity, say a Forum or Dialogue, for discussing and proposing how best to expand civilization on a global / planetary scale?  An entity that would be driven by cultural rather than political and economic actors?  An entity that would be about ‘civilization’ broadly defined?” 

I’ve done little about the matter since them.  But I sense its urgency is growing.  Hence this much fuller write-up.

Whatever, America’s leading China analysts and strategists have continued to neglect China’s conceptual and operational turn — in my view, to our detriment and Beijing’s benefit.  I do not understand why this is the case.  But I would offer some harsh as well as possibly hopeful observations based on my sense that we — be that a governmental or nongovernmental “we” — should begin to probe and perhaps later propose dialoging with China about civilizational matters.

• By fashioning China as a civilization state, China’s theorists and strategists are operating on a different plane from America’s.  Xi’s initiative has proven more attractive to leaders elsewhere than Biden’s pro-democracy initiative.  The GCI’s contents are so unobjectionable that it enables Chinese diplomats to maneuver in non-judgmental ways, particularly in the Global South, without necessarily obligating others to choose sides.  In contrast, Biden’s pro-democracy initiative, despite its laudable focus on democracy versus autocracy, is very judgmental, even presumptuous.  It has limited America’s maneuvering ability. 

I read that Washington has lately eased up on its democracy-vs.-autocracy initiative, but not to the extent of coming up with something better. 

• America is currently not in good shape to respond to China’s civilizational thrust.  U.S. analysts and strategists do not think in civilizational terms.  Civilizational language is unfamiliar to them, and they seem unprepared for a full-on civilizational campaign by China.  So far, they have barely noticed it is unfolding.  

Part of the problem in my view is that most persist in relying on traditional frameworks about geopolitics, nation-states, great-power rivalry, realpolitik, polarity of one kind or another, deterrence, hard versus soft power, the escalation ladder, the Thucydides trap, and the so-called 3Cs spectrum that spans cooperation, competition, and conflict.  These ingrained frameworks are not becoming invalid; but they have begun to limit strategic thinking — they increasingly fall short of accurately representing new trends and prospects (e.g., emergence of the noosphere and noopolitics).  None are well suited to situations where civilization and civilization-state concepts may take hold. 

If Donald Trump regains the presidency, it will probably be lights-out for civilizational ideas during his administration (except as benighted rhetoric).  In that case, fostering a pro-civilization dialogue may be best left to non-governmental actors and entities who are experienced and interested in the matter.  Yet even they may be hard put (except maybe for the Berggruen Institute).  China already has dozens, maybe hundreds of scholars and strategists who have been working on civilizational issues for years. 

• The aging frameworks I listed above all merit additional discussion for their bearing on U.S.-China relations and civilizational matters.  Normally, I would urge at length, as John Arquilla and I have long done, that geopolitics and realpolitik should give way to noopolitics and noopolitik.  Civilizations and cultures are more noöpolitical than geopolitical in nature, and fostering pro-civilizational dialogue will require becoming adept at noopolitics. 

However, for this write-up, I want to focus on the “3Cs” spectrum and framework — the 3Cs being cooperation, competition, and conflict.  It deserves extra comment, for its standard version, which served U.S. policy well during the Cold War, is now getting in the way of U.S.-China relations. 

For decades U.S. diplomats and strategists have relied on the 3Cs spectrum (not to mention its 4Cs and 5Cs variants) as a framework for categorizing whether another nation-state is viewed as cooperative, competitive, or conflictive.  Bilateral dialogue is then framed and conducted in terms of where matters fit on this spectrum.  The standard intent is to get the other side to identify with the cooperation end, or at least with peaceable competition in the middle, while seeking to avoid conflict at the other end. 

In recent years, China’s strategy has aggressively defied standard U.S. use of the 3Cs model.  Starting with the first bilateral encounters after the Biden administration took office in 2022, Beijing has vociferously enacted all 3Cs at the same time: simultaneously cooperating, competing, and edging near conflict with us, while refusing to be pinned down to any single 3C category.  Instead, China’s goal has seemed to be total consternation, to leave the U.S. utterly confounded.  This seems to have worked pretty well at putting Washington warily on the defensive these past few years, though matters have toned down lately. 

Meanwhile, U.S. experts on China have reflexively persisted in framing and discussing their preferences for U.S. policy and strategy in terms of one specific 3C or another, usually strategic competition.  Those who lean liberal-progressive may propose ways to pursue cooperation as well, while those who lean hard-right keep stressing the conflict potential.  But whichever way they lean, all remain anchored to the 3Cs spectrum (or its 4Cs-5Cs variants). 

Yet, as I/we argued a few years ago (in Ronfeldt & Choo, 2022), the wiser strategic path nowadays would be to push in all directions at once, without identifying with any single one of the Cs.  In jargony terms, this means pursuing a multiplex strategy where actors are competitors, cooperators, and conflict-containers all at the same time.  Shifting toward a civilization-state framework may well make that advice all the more advisable and tenable.

Days ago, I finally came across an expert analysis that points in much the same direction — a longed-for relief to me.  In “Imagining the endgame of the US-China rivalry” (at EnglesbergIdeas.com, July 25, 2024), Michael Mazarr cautions as follows: 

“America’s strategy seems predicated on relentless, unending competition …

Yet a strategy of open-ended competition without a clear endgame has many downsides. For one thing, it magnifies the risk of getting caught in an endless cycle of competing for competition’s sake on almost every issue. …

“Adding a clear and compelling vision of an endgame would have many benefits, … [including a] calming influence … and a post-rivalry period of continuing but regulated competition between two countries that no longer view themselves as locked in a zero-sum clash.…

“The United States can’t know precisely when or why the rivalry will mellow, but it can have a strong sense of how it will happen: a mutual decision that both countries’ interests are best served by winding down the confrontation. Such a development isn’t likely soon – but history suggests that it is inevitable at some point. Managing the trajectory to that point is the great challenge for America’s China strategy – and embracing the idea of an endgame would inject new energy into the American approach to its most potent competitor.”

Without explicitly saying so, that’s an argument for a multiplex strategy, and it is cast in traditional 3Cs language.  Thus it substantiates some of my observations. 

However, Mazarr never mentions the GCI or other civilizational issues.  Yet an effort to open a pro-civilization dialogue and discuss civilization-state perspectives and dynamics could help induce precisely what Mazarr calls for: “a mutual decision that both countries’ interests are best served by winding down the confrontation.”  Furthermore, instituting a pro-civilizational dialogue might help prompt this decision sooner than Mazarr currently expects. 

It’s time to try and find out, is it not?

REASONS AND WAYS TO PROMOTE PRO-CIVILIZATION DIALOGUE

If/when U.S. strategists rise to the challenge of civilizational dialogue, they will be hard-pressed to address what are bound to be contentious issues about not only the nature of civilization but also about liberalism, capitalism, democracy, and other matters that seem likely to be tabled.  Moreover, they will surely need to address China’s claims that America is in decline and coming apart, not only as a society but also as a civilization.

All these matters are due for rethinking.  I have suggestions on all them.  But for this preliminary write-up, I want to emphasize one point above all.  It has to do with defining the nature of civilization(s): 

So far, China’s theorists and strategists have had only “high civilization” in mind.  That’s what all their leaders’ statements have touted (likewise leaders elsewhere, particular Russia).  Beijing’s view of civilization seems deliberately top-down and hierarchical, bound up with classic Chinese views about tianxia (“all under heaven”) as a hegemonic ordering principle for the world at large

But in fact there is far more to civilizations than “high civilization” — their “low” and “popular” levels are also important.  Great civilizations become great, and remain great, by having both radiant high cultures and lively low cultures, plus fruitful interconnections and interactions across all levels and domains.  Great civilizations are also able to draw sideways on the fruits of other cultures and civilizations.  No great civilization is entirely self-made; many function as crossroads (Turkey) and melting-pots (America) — they gain strength from this.  Civilizations and their leaders often strive to present themselves as unitary if not unique; but variety and diversity are bound to be core dynamics.

If U.S. strategists ever engage with China on civilizational matters, they should insist that civilizations be viewed holistically and dynamically.  They should argue that civilizations not only have hierarchical dynamics, but also tribal, market, and network dynamics too.  In accurately arguing this way about the nature of civilization, U.S. strategists may then do better at guiding dialogue about testy associated matters such as the significance of variety, diversity, inclusivity, tolerance, and freedom for how and why civilizations are able to adapt and evolve over time.

By discussing and hopefully correcting views about the nature of civilizations this way, U.S. and other dialoguers may be better positioned to address other crucial and/or sensitive topics that are likely to arise, including what to think and do about the benighted legacies that evidently come with every civilization’s rise and duration.  

CONCLUDING QUESTIONS AND SPECULATIONS

The civilization-state idea is not going to go away.  It is part of China’s long game.  I sense it is a good move for China.  We could and should make it a good move for America as well, shouldn’t we?

In closing, I offer three speculations.  All are derived from my past findings that the future statecraft and strategy will depend as much on noopolitics as geopolitics, and that states will find it increasingly advisable to think and act more in civilizational than in old imperial or aging national terms.

• U.S. security and military strategists keep playing military-war games about one potential U.S.-China conflict or another.  Could it be that China’s narrative strategists are also playing “story-war” games?  Xi’s civilization initiative seems far better crafted than Biden’s democracy initiative, as though Chinese strategists had gamed it out.  I have no evidence for this speculation.  But it leads to wondering, and asking, whether learning to design noöpolitical story-war games could assist U.S. strategy in the future?  Better than military wargaming is doing?  Disclosures about the latter seem to be muddling and antagonizing relations more than is desirable (as Jacquelyn Schneider confirms in “What War Games Really Reveal,” Foreign Affairs, December 2023).

• If bilateral efforts to engage in pro-civilizational dialogue were to go well, how about eventually proposing to co-found a new entity, say a Planetary Civilization Forum, for discerning and discussing how best to advance civilization on a worldwide scale?  If so, how about filling it more with cultural than the usual political and economic leaders?  A goal might be to foster “commonwealths of the mind,” while preventing the “empires of the mind” that Winston Churchill forecast in 1941.  In other words, let’s take Xi up on his calls since 2015 for “inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony, inclusiveness, and respect for differences.”  Such nternational dialogues have been proposed before, but they never matured — for instance, 2001 was once supposed to be the UN’s Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations.  Perhaps U.S. and Chinese actor working together could someday do better at founding a pro-civilization activity and/or entity of planetary dimensions outside of established nation-state frameworks like the UN.

• Suppose civilization-state entities do take hold in the decades ahead, and civilizational conflict becomes a constant concern.  Might it then be time to propose a Peace of Singapore or Brasilia for civilization-states?  As a successor to the Peace of Westphalia treaty of 1648 that conferred sovereignty for nation-states?  Whereas Westphalia was about living together by setting boundaries, this new planetary treaty (compact) could be about living together while transcending boundaries.

So many assertions.  So many questions.  But I must leave it at that for now.  I do have further ideas and recommendations, but conveying  them will require using my favorite concepts and frameworks about the future: the next phases of social evolution à la TIMN; the emergence of the noosphere, noopolitics, and noopolitik; the prospects for great-power netwars; and the crucial importance of respect, honor, pride, and dignity as foundational principles for civilizational dialogue — more than I can handle right now.  Hopefully I can do so with a future post, especially if this post proves at all worthy of attention.