China achieves peaceful rise to global leadership between two Beijing Olympics

Andrew Korybko

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games will begin on February 4 and are taking place in a completely different international environment than the Beijing Summer Olympics that were held in 2008. Drawing attention to China’s peaceful and mutually beneficial rise to global leadership over the past 14 years can help observers better appreciate this process. That’s not a lot of time in terms of history, which further reinforces the fact that all of this is unparalleled.

Back then, China had only just begun to build its nationwide high-speed rail network. Its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) also wasn’t unveiled yet. Despite having already lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty in a historically unprecedented time, some Chinese still experienced extreme poverty. China was only just beginning to rise by 2008.

The world was able to glimpse this exciting period in history by watching the glorious opening of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. They learned about the millennia-long story of this civilization-state and many found out for the first time that there’s more about China than just the factories that produced an increasingly large number of their goods. This was an unforgettably educational experience for an untold number of people. They finally began to take China seriously and appreciate it.

Relations with the US were also a lot better back then than they presently are. That was because the fading unipolar hegemon had yet to commence its so-called Pivot to Asia. American officials also had yet to ridiculously politicize trade ties and their government kept its meddling in China’s internal affairs at a minimum. That was the right policy to practice but it regrettably isn’t being promulgated any longer.

The 14 years between the Beijing Summer Olympics and next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics saw a lot of changes when it comes to China. The country’s rise to global leadership occurred during this period. As President Xi Jinping said in his speech, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” and China’s comprehensive development facilitated the simultaneous rise of its fellow Global South peers. Everything accelerated in this respect after he unveiled BRI in 2013.

This was followed by China’s founding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) two years later in 2015. That development was a milestone for the Global South since it provided no-strings-attached financial support to those countries who needed it the most. Importantly, the AIIB served as a pragmatic foil to the US-influenced International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, both of which had previously been accused of politicizing their loans.

China was able to lead by example because it succeeded in eliminating extreme poverty and achieving a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s centenary last year. Everyone saw that China’s development model brings tangible socio-economic dividends to its people. That’s why more countries expanded their trade with it over the past 14 years. Nowadays more countries count China as their top trade partner than they do the US. This shows the world’s acceptance of China’s peaceful rise.

It also deserves mentioning that China reached an agreement to create the world’s largest trade bloc in November 2020, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It entered into force at the beginning of this year. In December 2020, China also reached a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with the EU. Taken together, China was able to strengthen economic, financial, and investment cooperation across Eurasia, which is mutually beneficial for all.

No conversation about the many changes connected with China between its two Beijing Olympic Games is complete without discussing the role that the country played in helping the international community contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The country provided a large quantity of vaccines to the developing world and many more items of personal protective equipment like masks and gloves. It also importantly never politicized the pandemic and called on everyone to join forces to defeat the disease.

Altogether, the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics serve as an opportune time to reflect on China’s peaceful rise to global leadership since the Beijing Summer Olympics 14 years ago. So much has changed since then, yet one crucial element remains the same, and that’s the CPC’s guiding role in the country’s development. Without that, none of these unprecedented socio-economic feats would have ever happened.

The writer is a Moscow-based American political analyst.