Globalization And Rise of China's Economy Part Four, An Independent Foreign Policy

There are only a handful of countries in the world that have independent foreign policies. United States being the foremost global hegemon obviously qualifies. Russia, China, India and Iran has independent foreign policies due to their relative size in their geographical area. A number of African countries were left alone due to the fact that they do  not have anything worth the effort from the other powers. The remainder of countries all live in the shadow of one or more powers.

Obviously, countries like Germany and Japan were able to reach developed nation status without having an independent foreign policy. However, I would argue that countries like Russia, India and China will not become first world countries until they have their own independent foreign policy. The reason has to do with their size.

While NATO and EU was willing to take in smaller countries like Poland, when the Soviet Union imploded, and Yeltsin wanted to join NATO, Russia was not allowed to join. The reason is simple. Russia could only join EU and NATO if it is in the interest of the bigger NATO powers. With the size of Russia and the proximity to Europe, Russia will be the biggest power in EU and NATO after United States, not only will this threaten the U.S. hegemony, it will displace the other heavyweights like Great Britain, Germany and France. Even Poland, after they joined EU, the European market was still closed to the Polish companies. The Japanese, after they become successful with their auto and electronics in the eighties, were forced to push up their currency as well as other "voluntary" restraints to allow the American auto makers to survive, even if the U.S. companies were unable to compete economically, we would use our non-economic power to bend the rules our way. Japan and South Korea as well as Taiwan benefited tremendously as junior partners in a cold war against the Soviet Union. While they were beating the U.S. in many industries, they were allowed to continue their operation because the U.S. needed them to fight the cold war. With the cold war over and U.S. industries in disarray, Trump is abandoning the rule of law and WTO etc in a naked attempt to reshuffle the deck. If China did not have its own independent foreign policy, no doubt the U.S. would use every means at its disposal to prevent the industrialization of China once it reach a state that is alarming to the United States.

An independent foreign policy allowed the Chinese to continue to develop their economy without fear of undue foreign meddling.