Introduction

In May 2020, former US President Donald Trump scapegoated China’s rise to power, insisting, “China’s pattern of misconduct is well known. For decades, they have ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before.” Trump was not the only leader of a superpower that commented on China’s rise to power. In March 2023, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, described China’s global standing differently noting, “In recent years, China has made a colossal leap forward in its development. It has been the object of sincere interest around the entire world, and we are even a bit envious of you.” The same month, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, added, “It is clear that [relations between the EU and China] have become more distant and more difficult in the last few years. We have seen a very deliberate hardening of China's overall strategic posture for some time. And it has now been matched by a ratcheting up of increasingly assertive actions.”

Over the last decade, the conversations on China’s rise to global power have animated politicians, policy makers, and political pundits. Many of them are keen to predict what China’s rise to power means for China itself and the larger international world. This essay joins this conversation but presents a much more nuanced picture of China, its position on leading policy issues of our time, and impact on people within and beyond its borders. Superpowers have the ability to change international policy or persuade them, but that does not mean that they will change it in the favor of its own citizens or a larger global population since they are keen on retaining their positions of power. 

In this essay, I argue that China’s rise as a leading superpower ensures that the country will continue to make policy decisions that bolster its state power, economy, and political influence over the world, and that these positions will have a differential and nuanced impact on China’s own population and a larger world population. More specifically, by outlining China’s position on one of the most fundamental policy issues of our time–climate change–this essay underlines that China’s rise as a global superpower both challenges and reifies the existing global international order, and benefits but also disenfranchises its own population. By underlining the complex nature of China’s rise as a superpower and its effects on local and international populations, I show that superpowers largely operate to maintain their global standing and strength in an international world order and thereby impact local and global populations in both positive and negative ways.

A Super-power and its Citizens

China’s position as a superpower will enable the nation, as a whole, to have access to greater economic opportunities and international standing but it will not inherently improve the conditions of all its citizens. A superpower is defined as “a state that cannot be ignored on the world stage and without whose cooperation no world problem can be solved." Political scientist Ivan N. Timofeev also notes that while superpowers are characterized by strong economies, military power, advanced technology and industry, and human capital, they also have the unique ability to influence the world through their political ideas and philosophies. 

Like many global superpowers, China prioritizes its investment in economic growth and international geopolitical power over the well-being of its population. According to the 2022 Inform Risk Index, China is at great risk of tsunamis (8.8), flooding (8.8), coastal flooding (8.7), cyclones (8.2), and droughts (8.5), being the only country in the world to be above an 8 risk rating (very high) in all these categories, indicating that its population has much to gain if China strongly supported policies that could curb climate change. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), continues to make large investments in coal despite the fact that its own population will be heavily impacted by climate change. For example, the CCP approved the construction of 82 coal plants in 2022, with a total of 106 GW of power generation. According to global reports by a range of energy watchdog groups, China has invested in and built more new coal plants than the rest of the world. This includes its production of over 240 coal power plants throughout 25 foreign countries under the Belt and Road initiative, a massive state project led by China which seeks to link East Asia and Europe through a modern iteration of the Silk Road via enhanced and modern physical infrastructure. 

China’s rise as a global superpower may bring short-term stability and socioeconomic mobility for its population but its policy positions may not necessarily ensure the same results in the long term or come with pressing cautions of their own. For example, while the CCP’s investment in the coal industry has allowed the government to support more than 6 million employees in a single industry, assist with the development of a wide range of industries, and increase average wages over the years, these jobs have presented hazardous conditions for most laborers. In addition to health hazards that result from inhaling the dust of mines such as pneumoconiosis, asbestosis, and silicosis, coal mining incidents have led to tragic deaths. For instance, in February 2023, a mine collapse in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia resulted in at least nine deaths. Moreover, a Global Burden of Disease analysis on China found that ambient PM2.5 air pollution, most of which are produced by the burning of fossil fuels, resulted in approximately 1.4 million premature deaths in 2019. 

When China has led on the issue of climate change activism, it is to continue to maintain control of the global market economy on emerging green technologies. The International Energy Agency (IEA) notes that China possesses a quarter of the world’s solar capacity, a third of the world’s total wind power, six out of the top ten solar panel producers, and nearly a majority of the most prominent wind turbine manufacturers. China has also promoted the use of electric cars via a policy that limited the use of gas cars under “reducing carbon emissions” but its efforts are also designed to cut more independent and smaller electric vehicle companies and markets out of a global economic competition. As a result, using state subsidies and lower market prices, China seeks to capture a global market on electric vehicles for economic benefit rather than to resolve an impending global crisis tied to carbon emissions and climate change.

In summary, China’s rise to becoming a leading superpower will create positive and negative impacts on its population. While China’s economy will grow and continue to be at the forefront of the world, its citizens will not necessarily benefit from this economic growth. In fact, its own workers–as seen through the example of the coal industry–may continue to work in risky industries as China grows its economy, and will experience the long term impacts of climate change even if they are able to secure employment and feel pride in China’s stature as a superpower. Instead, if China, as in the case of all other superpowers, hopes to create an environment in which its citizens thrive, then it must pursue policies that replace its ambition for global power with the well-being of its citizens in the present and future.

China’s Influence on the World as a Superpower 

China’s rise to power has the potential to maintain the existing international order and challenge it, underlining that the rise of new superpowers has a differential impact on existing global orders and populations across the world. At present, countries share power through international organizations such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank and across a range of treaties. World superpowers have greater power within these international organizations, and therefore impact our global order more directly. Currently, China already maintains a powerful influence over international affairs. For example, the United Nation relies on China as its second largest source of funding, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. 

China’s ascending role in the international community will divide existing tensions on major global issues and shape the future of the global community as a result. Climate change, very likely the most relevant global issue of our time, provides a key window into exactly how China would do so. China’s position as a leading superpower would stand in close proximity with other conservative countries in terms of climate change action. It will add more weight to the conservative side of climate change along with other countries such as the US and India. Furthermore, countries that are economically involved with China, especially via the Belt Road Initiative, will likely also join China on its climate stance. This puts even more power in the climate conservative countries. 

China’s rise to a leading superpower will not challenge the status quo on climate change, but instead reify it, delaying substantial policies on climate change. In 2015, China also played a crucial role in forming the Paris Agreement, and, as a result of its participation with similarly conservative nations such as the United States and India, more progressive climate change initiatives were changed and delayed. China’s position on global issues has an impact on the world at large as it, like other superpowers, continues to use its position to bolster and build its economy and state power. While China signed the Paris Agreement, its position on climate change mainly serves to benefit the state according to Robert Putnam’s two-level games theory: “China’s NDCs (Nationally Determined Contribution) leveraged the strengths and weaknesses of the Paris Agreement to pursue domestic and international goals while minimizing economic compromises. China’s emphasis was on economic costs and international reputation.” This suggests that China will likely be unwilling to pursue more impactful climate change policies even after it becomes the leading superpower. 

The international community’s support for reducing carbon emissions increased and gained larger global legitimacy with China and the United States, the two largest global emitters of carbon, on board; however, their support also undercut the more progressive changes sought by countries leading the debate on climate change and failed to instantiate substantive change. For instance, the European Union has made more substantial progress and efforts to combat climate change than those outlined in the Paris Agreement, and continues to advocate for international plans targeting carbon neutrality rather than a reduction in carbon emissions. By 2030, the EU plans to cut emissions by 55%, and become completely carbon neutral by 2050. In 2021, the European Union adopted measures to obtain this goal. But these goals have never been placed into international agreements on climate change due to more conservative superpowers like China who benefit from retaining the status quo on the use of fossil fuels and carbon emission.

China’s rise as a global superpower will thereby have consequential impacts on the world community but these impacts will differ in relation to what issues China chooses to support or reject. Like all superpowers, China has the ability to slow or advance progressive change for the world but its decisions are influenced by what is best for the growth of its own power and economic development. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, there are many sides to China becoming a superpower, with some being positive, and others being negative. China, to maintain its position as a superpower, will continue to pursue policies and forms of economic development that advance the nation’s standing in the world but may not necessarily have solely positive effects on its citizens. Likewise, on a global scale, China will advance policies and ideologies that influence the global international order in accordance with its own best interests. As a result, the world will reckon with the changes wrought by a new global superpower in its international order, and the impact of that will remain as nuanced as the changes brought on China’s own population.