KARACHI, Oct 16: While some scholars at a seminar on Tuesday were of the view that due to China’s growing global economic clout and international footprint the Middle Kingdom’s opinions needed to be heard and its investments courted, others felt the idea of a ‘rising’ China was exaggerated.

These views were expressed at a seminar on ‘A rising China and contemporary Europe: situating South Asia’, organised by the University of Karachi’s Area Study Centre for Europe at its premises.

Aside from local scholars, representatives of a delegation from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh, also addressed the seminar.

Prof Anwara Begum of the University of Chittagong’s Department of Political Science gave the Bangladeshi perspective on China. She emphasised the need to look at world events from a perspective other than the prevailing discourse, dominated as it is by the West. “I am not anti-western. I appreciate the Industrial Revolution and the progress made [by Europe]. But I also remember history,” she said. “Two hundred years from now, the period of western history will be remembered as a dark time.”

Prof Anwara said there was huge Chinese interest in Europe, as “hundreds of research centres” studying Europe existed in China, whereas the number concentrating on the United States was far less. Commenting on the ongoing Eurozone crisis, she said there were reports China had bought $650bn worth of Greek, Spanish and other European government bonds. “China feels that if Europe is seriously destabilised, the [considerable] Chinese holdings in Europe will lose value.”

The scholar said that according to Chinese think tanks, Beijing lagged behind Europe when it came to cutting-edge technologies and managerial experience. She added that by supporting the ailing Greek, Spanish and Portuguese economies, China was actually backing up Germany, Europe’s strongest economy. According to one Chinese thinker, Prof Anwara said, Beijing should be “positively but moderately engaged with Europe”. Some Chinese intellectuals also felt Europe was “entrapping” China. There was a feeling in Beijing that if European economies tumbled, there would be turmoil in world markets, she added.

Prof Anwara was of the view that the West’s financial crisis was of its own making due to “capitalism run wild and their wars”. She reiterated the need to listen to non-western voices regarding the current financial crisis. “There is a systemic crisis in the international system. What options does it offer to South Asia? We consider China the future hegemon, but have we been listening to how the Chinese feel?”

Beyond security

Prof Dr Bhuian M. Monoar Kabir, also of the University of Chittagong, while referring to South Asia suggested that “we should move beyond the security fixation. Maybe the rise of China has presented us with an opportunity that we should cash in on. Let’s keep disputed things aside and move forward. We can attract Chinese investment, expertise and technical assistance.”He said that currently Europe was in “big trouble” and that its colonial past had been “not good. The US and Europe have been in gradual decline since the 1960s,” he said, adding that in the EU there were disputes about covering the cost of economic recovery.

Prof Kabir said that while China and India “have enmity”, the fact is that China is India’s biggest trading partner. “How can you have such trade with your sworn enemy? We can learn from this.”

Munazza N. Kazmi, senior research fellow at the ASCE, said Europe treated the whole Far East as “a priority region”. She added that China’s “soft power” approach had been welcomed in developing countries. She observed that how the EU dealt with the Eurozone crisis would determine its future relations with the rest of the world. She said there was a question mark over Europe’s future role as a coherent political and financial force in the world. She said Asian countries had expressed different responses to the European financial crisis; those more integrated into the world economy were more affected. “China is emerging in a multi-polar world while Europe is declining,” she said.

Sajjad Ahmad, also a senior research fellow at the ASCE, said that in the late 1970s, the Chinese diplomatic model changed and under the guidance of the late Deng Xiaoping, China pursued a policy of non-involvement in the affairs of regional countries. He said that in relation to other South Asian states, the Sino-Pak relationship “far outweighed” other relationships.

Commenting on China’s “fault lines”, he said these included its internal population imbalance thanks to the one-child policy, the issues of Tibet and Xinjiang as well as “the unfinished business of Taiwan”.

In his concluding remarks, ASCE Director Prof Dr Moonis Ahmar said that by some, China had been described as the “yellow peril” due to its perceived rise, expansion and domination. “Every power has ambitions; the Chinese have concealed their ambitions,” he said, adding that there was a lot of exaggeration regarding the ‘rise’ of China. Prof Ahmar “seriously disagreed” with the notion that China would one day be the world’s top economy as according to him the Chinese economy was export-oriented but did not innovate. He added that should the West ‘fall’, China would be unable to fill the vacuum.—QAM