ពិភពលោក​នៅ​ក្រៅ​តុល្យភាព​គឺ​មិន​ទាន់​ជា​របស់​ចិន​ក្នុង​ការ​កំណត់​ត្រឹម​ត្រូវ​ទេ

 Beijing is keen to assert leadership but nations now have many choices

Abishur Prakash is co-founder and geopolitical futurist at Toronto-based advisory firm Center for Innovating the Future and author of "The World Is Vertical: How Technology Is Remaking Globalization."

As the Ukraine war enters its second year, China is asserting itself as a power player. Not only is President Xi Jinping readying for a visit to Moscow, but his administration has also unveiled its own peace plan to resolve the conflict.

China's move to unveil solutions for global problems raises two big questions: Is the world ready for Chinese leadership? And just as importantly, does the world want it?

These questions get to the heart of how China is perceived around the globe, its development and its global footprint. The answers will be critical to China's ability to become a superpower that rivals America.

To start with, the world can only be ready for Chinese leadership if there is a global leadership void, whether real or perceived. Whether there is a vacuum today depends on one's perspective.

In the West, the U.S. has never been more relied upon than today. This is why Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte recently said that he cannot see this century belonging to China rather the U.S. Indeed, nations from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia are starting to distance themselves from Beijing and move into closer orbit around America.

Outside the West, however, many nations are acting on their own accord -- an implicit sign that they do not perceive there to be a global leader.

Since the Ukraine war began, India has ramped up purchases of Russian oil, ignoring Western concerns about financially supporting Moscow's war in Ukraine. Nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are taking new trajectories, becoming gateways for Russian finance and refusing to put America's needs ahead of their own.

With the world fragmented between nations who clearly view the U.S. as the global leader and those who are unsure or refuse to follow someone else, there is a great opportunity for China to innovate a new future.

The Global Security Initiative, which Beijing trumpeted the same week as its Ukraine peace plan, is a sign that China is aware of this. But this is where the question of global interest in Chinese leadership comes in.

When the world turned to Chinese and Russian vaccines at the height of the COVID pandemic, that was usually because there was no other choice. But now, from trade to diplomacy, nations have options to choose from. So why pick China?

Accepting Chinese leadership implies a willingness to peg a nation's future to Chinese ideas. It means realigning with a new world power and could require discarding some systems adopted from the West or elsewhere in favor of Chinese alternatives.

Taking such steps could redefine the very identity and fabric of a nation, which can involve major risks and be a tremendous undertaking. The bigger the ambitions of a government, the bigger the gamble.

Is there a country in the world that is ready to do this? So far, only one nation has succeeded in recent years in getting other nations to redesign their societies and economies around it: the U.S.

It is one thing for a nation to buy essential systems from China, such as 5G networks from Huawei Technologies. It is a much bigger thing for a nation to anchor its diplomacy on China.

This represents one of the great challenges that China must overcome. If countries choose a Chinese solution to solve a challenge, then Beijing can rest assured that it has made gains on the world stage.

But if countries reject Chinese solutions, or fail to come to a consensus about them, then Beijing could hit a wall. It would then have to reshape its image and standing in the world. This is where China's investments in technology could become pivotal.

As China moves to bring its ideas on leadership to the world and reinvent itself, it will have to accept that the global environment has radically changed.

A new era of vertical globalization is underway where barriers are going up around the globe in many different areas, not just trade and immigration.

Beijing has been a particular target of this, for instance with the Lithuanian government's advisory to consumers against using popular smartphone models from Chinese brands due to hidden data collection and censorship tools.

At the same time, geopolitical pressures are pushing nations to pick sides between the U.S. and China. Whatever Beijing does is often immediately met with a suspicious eye, complicating every Chinese initiative.

Like COVID-19, the Ukraine war is testing the world. For China, the conflict comes at a critical time.

The world's second-largest economy is no longer just focused on solving internal or regional challenges. Now, it is attempting to truly shape the global environment and by doing so, the future of the world.

For China, the transformation that the Ukraine war has unleashed on the world could be equal to what World War II did for America, clearing the way for Washington to build and lead a new postwar order. But unlike after that war, the world stage is now crowded with a spectrum of ambitious powers.

A new competition has begun as countries prepare for the next global shock, and clash over whose solutions the world will use.

Nikkei Asia