Several quotes from a Hoover Institution Policy Review article "End of Dreams, Return of History" by Robert Kagan:
....National ambition drives China’s foreign policy today, and although it is tempered by prudence and the desire
to appear as unthreatening as possible to the rest of the world, the Chinese
are powerfully motivated to return their nation to what they regard as its
traditional position as the preeminent power in East Asia. They do not share a
European, postmodern view that power is passé; hence their now two-decades-long military buildup and modernization. Like the
Americans, they believe power, including military power, is a good thing to
have and that it is better to have more of it than less. Perhaps more
significant is the Chinese perception, also shared by Americans, that status
and honor, and not just wealth and security, are important for a nation....
...The current order, of course, is not only far from perfect but also offers no
guarantee against major conflict among the world
’s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts
involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan
and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia
and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide
whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict
between India and Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and
Israel or other Middle Eastern states. These, too, could draw in other great
powers, including the United States.
Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States
pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or
withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in
East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a
stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of
most of China
’s neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States
as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American
withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan....
But those expectations have proved misplaced. China has not liberalized but has
shored up its autocratic government. Russia has turned away from imperfect
liberalism decisively toward autocracy. Of the world
’s great powers today, therefore, two of the largest, with over a billion and a
half people, have governments that are committed to autocratic rule and seem to
have the ability to sustain themselves in power for the foreseeable future with
apparent popular approval.
Many assume that Russian and Chinese leaders do not believe in
anything, and therefore they cannot be said to represent an ideology,
but that is mistaken. The rulers of China and Russia do have a set of
beliefs that guide them in both domestic and foreign policy. They
believe autocracy is better for their nations than democracy. They
believe it offers order and stability and the possibility of
prosperity. They believe that for their large, fractious nations, a
strong government is essential to prevent chaos and collapse. They
believe democracy is not the answer and that they are serving the best
interests of their peoples by holding and wielding power the way they
do. This is not a novel or, from a historical perspective, even a
disreputable idea. The European monarchies of the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries were thoroughly convinced of the
superiority of their form of government. They disdained democracy as
the rule of the licentious and greedy mob. Only in the past
half-century has liberalism gained widespread popularity around the
world, and even today some American thinkers exalt “liberal autocracy”
over what they, too, disdain as “illiberal democracy.” If two of the
world’s largest powers share a common commitment to autocratic
government, autocracy is not dead as an ideology. The autocratic
tradition has a long and distinguished past, and it is not as obvious
as it once seemed that it has no future.