The "World Social Science Advanced Lecture" (Lecture 66), organized by the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences (Fudan IAS) and Contemporary China Research Center at Fudan University was held on May 28, 2018, at Fudan University. Robert O. Keohane, Honorary Fudan Scholar, Senior Visiting Scholar in Residence at Fudan IAS, internationally renowned political scientist, Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, professor emeritus of International Affairs at Princeton University, recipient of the prestigious Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science for 2005, gave a lecture on After Hegemony: Institutionalized Cooperation and Shifting Power in World Politics. Prof. Sujian Guo, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Fudan IAS chaired the event.
Prof. Guo first expressed his warm welcome to Prof. Keohane and made a brief introduction of his academic achievements. Then he presented Prof. Keohane with a certificate of appointment as Honorary Fudan Scholar. Prof. Keohane had visited China many times since the 1980s, but this was the first time that he visited Fudan University to give a lecture. His lecture consisted of the following four parts:
1. What is hegemony and why will it not recur?
Prof. Keohane began with a clear definition of hegemony as the ability of a single state to set and enforce the most important rules for a given area of the world. He then summarized the states that held global hegemony in recent times and their periods: the British Empire (1815-1871), the United States of America (1947-1961, 1991-2003/2008). An example of regional hegemony is the United States between 1961 and 1991, while the hegemony of the traditional Chinese empire was reflected in Northeast and Southeast Asia. As for the present, Prof. Keohane argued that the United States no longer has global hegemony, as it lacks rule-making influence in the Middle East, the South China Sea, or Southeast Asia and Africa.
As to why hegemony would not recur, Prof. Keohane argued that historically, hegemony had always been accompanied by war, and thus the current state of systematic and sustained peace was unlikely to produce a new hegemony; attempts at replacing hegemony would lead to sustained competition, not to the creation of a new hegemony. Therefore, there is a need to think about how to build cooperation “after hegemony”.
2. From discord to cooperation in a non-hegemonic world: a long-term perspective
Prof. Keohane cited his own understanding of the concept discord in 1984: a situation in which governments regard each other's policies as hindering the attainment of their goals, and hold each other responsible for these constraints. The essence of conflict and cooperation lies in the infliction of intentional harm and mutual adjustment respectively. After making a distinction between the above three concepts, Prof. Keohane pointed out, with regard to the current Sino-US relations, that mutual competition between China and the United States will inevitably lead to discord, while mutual cooperation does not require harmony, but only the mutual policy adjustments on the basis of mutual benefit. Discord in international relations is the norm, harmony is impossible to achieve, only in the discord of cooperation. Based on this, Prof. Keohane made a conjecture: will rising nations that do not seek hegemony enable discord to eventually evolve into cooperation rather than conflict? To argue for it, Prof. Keohane outlined three conditions for cooperation among great powers to take place: reasonable demands, intention to pursue mutual benefit, and a multilateral system that monitors and generates credibility. He then went on to explain the three conditions in detail, and discusses them from both positive and negative perspectives to illustrate how difficult it is to achieve them. For example, reasonable demands under the international law system are often not met due to monopoly control; technological arms races can arise unintentionally, making it difficult for a country to credibly demonstrate that it is not pursuing competitive superiority; and multilateral institutions need to have the ability to monitor the behaviors of all countries and not disclose confidential information to competing countries. In this regard, Prof. Keohane argued that great powers often face three temptations that can lead to a loss of cooperation: expressions about unreasonable demands; the avoidance of mutual benefit; and the preference for bilateralism.
3. Long-term maxims for rising powers
In the third part, Prof. Keohane compiled four core features of long-term maxims for rising powers:
1). Pursue steady moderation: time is on your side
2). Maintain essential global rules: they will help you
3). Selectively retain institution
4). Reform and innovate institutions that generate collective benefits
4. Implications for Chinese policy now
Based on the above analysis, Prof. Keohane proposes two approaches to Chinese policy in the current context:
From a subjective perspective, there are four principles that need to be pursued in the cooperation between China and the US: limiting ambitions, distinguishing between fundamental and secondary interests, setting up credible institutions, and maintaining calm and patience. From an objective point of view, he suggested that China’s strategic goal should be to establish cooperative relationship with willing partners and maintain an open attitude toward re-entry of the United States. Besides, China should strengthen cooperation on some public issues. Regarding setting up multilateral institutions, Prof. Keohane, using the Asian Investment Bank (AIIB) as a model, suggested that a multinational staff and professional bureaucracy should be established to maintain the independence of the nations after their joining, and the World Bank's proven experience and practices should also be learned and followed.
Finally, with regard to institutional cooperation based on “after hegemony”, Prof. Keohane pointed out that, despite the remaining difficulties, such cooperation would be possible because it would evolve from discord. For a rising country like China, it is able to choose its partners, and the need for cooperation leads to the adjustment of mutual interests, thus creating a virtuous circle that promotes cooperation.
After the speech, Prof. Guo chaired the Q&A session. Under Prof. Keohane's call “Let's have a real exchange of views”, the participants asked many questions ranging from China-US relations, US domestic issues, EU issues to East Asian security, etc. Prof. Keohane responded and patiently answered all of them. In the end, many students went up to the stage to sign autographs and take pictures with Prof. Keohane.