Conversely, due to capitalism taking a forefront in the eyes of the Chinese government it has enabled China to grow ten percent per annum and now sit second in terms of Nominal GDP. I addition to this, according to a report published by Bloomberg, China have now increased their expenditure on their military to £106bn. Considering that in 1989 China was on the brink of a civil war to how prosperous it is now can be considered to be incredibly impeccable and thus some view our global system as unipolar with China leading the way or at the very least bipolar (if he USA is considered a superpower despite its economic problems). However, one cannot pin the rise of China solely on the reason why the global system in now not multipolar because the recent demise of the European Union must be taken into account. When the EU was initially formed and up until around 2005 it was a very powerful continent with the free movement of labor and trade contributing to its success. But the economy of the EU as whole took a huge blow with nation states such as Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece requiring a large amount of support to just keep the system ongoing. Greece in particular was hit the hardest with large amounts of unemployment, political instability and the anarchism that took place on the streets of Athens, the EU and the world looked to China in time of crisis. Everyone wanted China to effectively bail out Greece and they are still currently pushing forth the idea. Even President Obama was quoted saying “We must borrow billions from China to bail out Greece.” This is illustrates the clear power of China that they possess above the rest, including USA, because that quote essentially has Obama conceding and admitting that the one real force in our global system is China . Therefore, some may see this as clear evidence that China has risen so far and so quickly that they have almost got the global system into one of uni-polarity, with other states such as USA now falling short of their power.
On the other hand, the twenty first century has shown real signs of uni-polarity as opposed to multi-polarity. The reason for this is that the USA has really taken on the role of acting as the “World’s Policeman”. A prime example of this was witnessed in 2003 with the US led invasion of Iraq when USA believed that Iraq possessed Mass Weapons of Destruction (WMDs) and therefore went and invaded Iraq whilst also using hard power to uproot Sadam Hussein. However this did consequently disrupt and tarnish the global image of USA and the war was later declared as illegal by Kofi Annan despite USA claiming that it was pre-emptive self-defence. The sense of the uni-polarity from the USA being the “World’s Policeman” is also highlighted by the combination of carrying out this role as well as pursuing their global interests. The Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine had the USA play a large role in the peace process and provided Israel with aid. This shows that even in such volatile situations where many other states would not even think to go near, the USA feel it is their duty to implement their tough foreign policy. Under Obama the USA have still exercised their power but in a slightly more mellow form.
However, the sense of multi-polarity instead of the US dominated uni-polarity or even bi-polarity in terms of nation states foreign policy is underlined with the state of affairs in Syria and the UNSC is one the reasons why the global system is regarded as multipolar. The Ba'ath Party government led by President Bashar al-Assad have been involved in a civil war with the people of Syria by carrying out mass violence despite various international organizations such as the Arab League, USA and EU condemning these acts. The United Nation Security Council has five permanent members who have the power to veto but also have the biggest influence when it comes to resolutions; therefore you could argue that there is great sense of multi-polarity as these five have the most influence and not just one member nation state. Relating it back to Syria; USA, France and the UK all voted for a resolution to be implemented in Syria condemning Assad’s actions. However, the resolution cannot be carried out because China and Russia have vetoed it, this puts into perspective that in terms of the global security it very much a multi-polar system as it requires on a wide range of various nation states to agree on security resolutions.
Another factor that essentially presents a case that the global system is now multi-polar is that of, interdependence. With the economic climate so gloom for many parts of the world and political insatiability there is in our global system nation states have increasing become more interdependent on each other more than in previous times post World War II. This was witnessed in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, where despite the USA at the time being arguably the only superpower with its strong economy and extremely invested military force (they outspent on their defence the next twelve states combined), they still required the support of United Kingdom. The scenario really emphasised that even in what some viewed as a unipolar period, interdependence was still required through support for the invasion of Iraq. However, the analysis that the global system is multipolar due to interdependence has definitely come to the prominence with the stance that both Russia and China has taken on Syria in the United Nations Security Council. Although USA, France and UK have tried to get a resolution on Syria implemented China and Russia have both used their power to veto against it. It is widely believed that the reason for this is due to the principle of interdependence because Syria has a close tie to Russia and China. Syria is a key state for them as China and Russia are actively involved in Syria’s oil industry due to the Al-Furat Petroleum Company and the China National Petroleum Corporation having a joint venture as well as the Russian company Tatneft. Therefore, if China and Russia were to support a resolution in Syria then this would be a major hit to both of their relations. In essence, this highlights that as there is strong interdependence between different nation states it almost acts as barrier for any state to be clearly the strongest and promote a feeling of uni or bipolarity instead of multipolarity.
In conclusion, I believe that our global system looks to be more of multipolar one rather than a uni or even bipolar system. However, I do agree with Professor Fukuyama that there is a “victory for capitalism” and we are seeing that come to fruition with the emerging states such as India, China and Brazil adopting that theory more and therefore creating a sense of multipolarity through the use of the economic power that hey posses. On the other hand, a report published by John Chipman indicated that the terms multipolarity, uni-polarity and bipolarity are now outdated and that we have moved into a period where relations are too complex to be described with such words. Consequently, Chipman describes the twenty first century global system as a “non-polar” one.