Power and Developments V

Question 1

3

Belt and Road iniative stats

Answer 1

• Strengthening trade, infrastructure alongside 65 countries - 75% of known energy resources - 30% of the world’s GDP
• Has invested 1-8tr in this whilst also offering loans to other countries - Sri Lanka - 200M investment for a 2nd airport and 60B investment in Pakistan to stimulate the economy
• Centre for Global Development expresses concerns - geopolitical ambition underlying - structural power

Question 2

3

To what extent does the rise of China threaten global stability

Answer 2

• US depend on each other for trade and investment - not in econ. interest to go to war - annual bilateral trade in 2022 had a gross value of 575B$ and have shown to work closely - join climate change deal in 2014 Paris Climate Congress 2015
• According to realist Mearsheimer, the rise of China is unlikely to be peaceful - especially for regional hegemony - The Thucydides trap - as one power rises, hegemon is threatened, declares war (expansion of South China Sea)
• Kissinger has said viewing China as a threat to peace could simply end up being ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’

Question 3

2

Attitudes towards human rights changed since end of WW2? - Cold War

Answer 3

• UN took a moral end - established Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1945) laid foundations for a new world order based on coop instead of conflict - international community, rule of law, respect that would challenges racism and nationalism
• BUT became gridlocked - interest of each superpower to advance its tactical interests at the expense of the other - led to proxy wars and prolonging military conflicts

Question 4

3

Attitudes towards human rights changed since end of WW2? - Unipolarity

Answer 4

• USA became hegemonic - Bush referred to a ‘New World Order’ with free trade, democracy and greater coop between nation states - but even a liberal democratic leader has to act according to realist self-interest and there are limits on what they can do to advance
• 1999 - US led NATO bombing of Serbia to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and end of cold war persuaded scholars like Fukayama and Kant that liberal democracies lead to international stab (democratic peace theory)
• 1993 - Battle of Mogadishu - 18 US soldiers killed - Black Hawk Down - withdrew US ofrces from Somalia, sternly informing UNGA Sept that ‘if the American people are to say yes to UN peacekeeping, the United Nations must know when to say no’

Question 5

3

Attitudes towards human rights changed since end of WW2? - limits of US power

Answer 5

• War on Terror further undermined USA commitment to human rights - biased foreign policy
• Rise of more authoritarian governments - Putin militarily intervened on behalf of President Assad despite appalling record of human rights
• 2017 Chinese report on human rights said that USA was too ready to ‘wield the baton of human rights’ in spite of ‘paying no attention to its own terible human rights problems’

Question 6

2

How has the changing balance of world power affected conflict - realist view

Answer 6

• Fear that continuos power transitions can lead to conflict as emerging powers, keen to expand their influence, challenge the hegemon’s attempts to retain its global standing
• Since they argue that states seek power and security - the uncertainites of power transitions rae highly unstable, as aspiring powers are more likely to take risks to gain influence

Question 7

How has the changing balance of world power affected conflict - liberal view

Answer 7

• A more multipolar world can encourage states to work together if they are prepared to coop through the organs of global gov. In an evenly balanced world no one power is able to unilaterally impose its will on others (malign hegemon theory) and so countries can move effectively/resolve differences through dialogue

Question 8

2

How has the changing balance of world power affected conflict - attitude towards interpretation

Answer 8

Neither is wholly satisfying, since each is based on a different interpretation of what motivates states

• if states are motivated by a desire for power, 1st interpretation works, if states are communitarian in their outlook 2nd interpretation works

Question 9

How has the changing balance of world power affected conflict - failed/rogue states

Answer 9

The extent to which the global community succeeds or fails in dealing with failed states like Syria or rogue states like North Korea is therefore likely to determine the sort of direction in which global politics progress in the 21st century

Question 10

2

How has the changing balance of world power affected poverty? - impact of globalisation

Answer 10

• Increase in free market capitalism
• Dramatically decreased in global poverty because it enables developing countries to take advantage of the opporutnities for groeth that global trading presents - convergence of Global South and North challenges the idea of their divide

Question 11

3

How has the changing balance of world power affected poverty? - successes

Answer 11

• Share of developing world’s population living on less than 1.25$ a day has fallen from 30% in 2000 to below 10% in 2014
• South Korea has the 11th biggest economy in the world, beating Russia to 12th and among the top 10 biggest economy in the world - 3 are in the developing world - China, India, Brazil
• Africa’s growth from global trade - Cote D’Ivoire (world’s largest exporter of cocao beans) - Xi Jinping pledged them 60B

Question 12

2

How has the changing balance of world power affected poverty? - limitations

Answer 12

• ‘The Bottom Billion’ - Sub Saharan Africa - billions of people living in poverty, land locked and poorly governed are most likely to be victims of globalisation - cheap manufactured products dumped on them
• Immanuel Wallerstein’s ‘world systems theory’ developing countries that seem to be expanding as a result of globalisation are actually be exploited

Question 13

3

How has the changing balance of world power affected the environment? - rapid growth of emerging economies

Answer 13

• Heavy industrialisation, deforestation and increased pollution from emerging CO2
• Developing world has prioritised economic growth over sustainable development
• Difficult to achieve consensus between developing and developed world - Copenhagen Conference 2009 unsuccessful

Question 14

2

How has the changing balance of world power affected the environment? - population growth

Answer 14

• Malthus theory argues population growth is unsustainable and that we do not have the global resources to continue to support growth at current rates
• Many have adapted neo-malthus without a significant focus on resource management and sustainable development we will reach a crisis point characterised by famine, disease, and civil war

Question 15

2

How has the changing balance of world power affected the environment? - increased cooperation and environmental protection through global governance

Answer 15

• Paris Climate Change Conference succeeded in getting nearly all of the 200 states represented to agree that tempretaure rise in the 21st century should be kept to 1.5 degrees as possible
• 2017 - China reversed plans for 104 new coal plants and Xi Jingping expressed regret that Trump had not lived to the aspirations of the Paris Climate treaty, reversing the restrictions Obama put on the extraction of fossil fuels