Collaboration with China is preferable to containment

Sir, In addition to its core working hypothesis that everything is connected to everything else, complexity theory is characterised by the compelling notion of the “edge of chaos” – the critical region where incommensurable, apparently contradictory phenomena (eg order and disorder) co-exist and co-evolve. By this definition, China is rapidly emerging as the world’s leading presence in this dynamic, multidimensional space.

As the world’s second-largest economy, China is a major driver of global capitalism, while retaining its retrograde communist ideology and autocratic system of governance. Also, although China is Japan’s number one trading partner and Japan is China’s second-largest trading partner, China has implemented a campaign of “patriotic education” that has facilitated a rise in popular nationalism and anti-Japanese demonstrations, helping to bring the two countries arguably to the brink of war over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Further, China is in the process of eclipsing its primary political rival, the US, in taking significant steps to address climate change, while retaining its status as the world’s primary emitter of greenhouse gases.

Given the vastness of China’s territorial and population reach, the carbon emissions trading programme that it launched in the city of Shenzhen this week, could, depending on its demonstration-effect, turn out to be a major catalyst in ensuring that a global treaty for signatory countries to begin reducing carbon emissions by 2020 results from the UN climate talks scheduled to take place in Paris in 2015 (“China poised to test carbon market”, June 17).

Instead of seeking to “contain” China, therefore, the US and its allies should be learning from, encouraging and collaborating with China to develop a global problem-solving regime to tackle a host of complex problems that no one nation or organisation can adequately address on its own. In the event, tipping points could be reached at the critical edge of chaos, reversing China’s political, human rights, pollution and cyber-theft trajectories and aligning them with its more progressive economic and climate change policies.

At the recent summit with his Chinese counterpart, President Barack Obama has already taken tentative steps to achieve these goals, not only with regard to climate change but also, according to President Xi Jinping, in developing a “new model of great power relations”. Indeed, as Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, has said (“A subtle defrosting in China’s chilly war with America”, Comment, June 11), this developing relationship could create “a framework to manage the growing complexity of bilateral, regional and global challenges” faced by the two powers. This would surely be a boon for the global commons and world stability, not to mention Mr Obama’s “legacy” objectives for his second term.