By Jonathan Dela Cruz
The brouhaha over the reported militarization of the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea (take your pick) by China has brought back to center stage the 1993 essay of foremost American political theorist, Samuel Huntington, entitled “Clash of Civilizations.” This highly provocative piece which was later expanded into the book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order”—considered as the author’s response to his former student, Francis Fukuyama’s sensational piece entitled “The End of History and the Last Man”—posits that in the post-Cold War era, the primary source of conflict will not be ideological, as in capitalism versus communism, or economics, but people’s cultural and religious identities.
In the 1993 piece, the Harvard U-based theorist said: “It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future…”
Copies of Huntington’s essay and book as well as Fukuyama’s became de rigeur reading among political thinkers and pundits immediately after the World Trade Center bombings which the Western intelligence community attributed to the militant Islamic organization Al Qaida. In response to the public outcry over this unthinkable development and, might I say, the retribution for the trouble created by the Islamists which has since engulfed the world, the US mounted a global “war on terror” aimed essentially at wiping out Al Qaida and its adherents worldwide and the rogue states supporting it. Interestingly, the WTC-engendered conflict fits into one of Huntington’s box—the perpetrators’ mindset had religious and cultural underpinnings. That Al Qaida’s and the Islamic State’s propaganda called for an end to the West’s hegemony and decadence and was peppered with Koranic attributions only reinforced the view that the war on terror was necessary, a kind of life-and-death undertaking, meant to “preserve human life and dignity and Western values and system.” That positioning strengthened the resolve of its proponents in the ‘civilized West’ to move with all guns blazing and with all deliberate speed against the Islamists who expectedly fought tooth and nail for their own beliefs.
Led by no less than the acknowledged military superpower in the world, the West embarked on a global anti-terror expeditions to wipe out this curse on humankind, from the Middle East to Asia and even Europe resulting in, among others, the death of Osama Bin Laden and the marginalization of Al Qaida, the short lived emergence of the Islamic State, the ouster of rogue regimes such as Libya and Iraq, the continuing civil wars in Syria and Afghanistan and the bombings and maiming of innocent civilians in key European cities all attributed to Al Qaida or Islamic inspired terrorists. With its heavy religious and cultural undertones coupled with the highly inflammatory rhetoric of the “Islamic extremists,” it came as a no surprise that the war on terror was viewed by many quarters as the Crusades Redux. A clash of Western and Islamic civilizations of the first degree, indeed!
But it is the emergence of China and its leadership’s multi-pronged push for the Asian economic powerhouse to take its rightful place in the world which puts Huntington’s clash of civilizations theory in a clearer and starker light. That goal got enshrined at the end of the Communist Party of China Congress and the subsequent statements of Chinese President Xi Jinping which outlined the means by which China will get to center stage and the expected period within which it can realistically achieve the same.
It is clear from the Chinese pronouncements that China will not go the Western, read that US, way. Instead of embracing the West’s prescription for unity, harmony and development in the post-Cold War era—basically the make up of the world order after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the break up of the Soviet Union—it is embarking on its own path. And in a big way. As if on cue, in the Huntington book the theorist advised that the divide between the West, read that US led, and Chinese civilizations is “just as deep, enduring and consequential.”
Thus, he noted: “The very notion that there could be a ‘universal civilization’ is a Western idea, directly at odds with the particularism of most Asian societies and their emphasis on what distinguishes one people from another.” These differences are evident in almost all aspects: from the economy, free market versus state-led and stock market cycle versus long-term economic projects. Then in cultural and political: USA- style individualism where rights and freedoms are key versus communalism and societal harmony which then translates into the political arena as democratic free-for-all versus state led governance.
Professor Graham Allison in his book “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap?” expounded on this expected race to center stag’ of the two world powers—the US with its Western values and system and China as the spearhead of the Asian way—as earlier theorized by Huntington. As Dillon would have it, that race would have far reaching consequences on a post-Cold War world similar to if not even more complicated than the previous one. Thus, he virtually calls on all peoples and nations of goodwill to do all they can to manage this next clash of civilizations.
“Established powers,” Dillon noted, “faced with challenges tend to become fearful, insecure and defensive while rising powers understandably feel a growing sense of entitlement and demand greater influence and respect,”—a situation which can only erupt if not nursed and managed properly.
How true and how current a task for all. Given this enveloping environment of super power competition in all aspects the choice left for countries such as the Philippines can only be summed as friends to all, enemies to none. In a very real sense, that encapsulates President Duterte’s view on how we should behave in the post-Cold World era: A policy of interdependence and harmony, of promoting solely and realistically the nation’s best interests.
In a very real sense, the Chinese are assuming the leadership, the sword, if you may, meant to show another path to a 21st century world that has been loosely described as the Asian way.