© Pacific Affairs: Volume 87, No. 2 June 2014 265 China’s Future in a Multinodal World Order 1 Brantly Womack Abstract Over the next twenty years China is likely to become the world’s largest national economy, though not home to the richest one-fifth of the world’s population. Chinese demographic power will be qualitatively different from American technological power despite bottom-line similarities in GNP, and China will face challenges of political and economic sustainability. Assuming that globalization, constrained state sovereignty and demographic revolution continue as basic world trends, the world order is likely to be one in which concerns about conflicts of interests drive interactions, but no state or group of states is capable of benefitting from unilaterally enforcing its will against the rest. Thus, there is no set of “poles” whose competition or cooperation determines the world order, despite the differences of exposure created by disparities in capacity. Although the United States and China will be the primary state actors and their relationship will contain elements of rivalry as well as cooperation, the prerequisites of Cold War bipolarity no longer exist. Rather, the order would be best described as “multinodal,” a matrix of interacting, unequal units that pursue their own interests within a stable array of national units and an increasing routinization of international regimes and interpenetrating transnational connections. Keywords: China, globalization, demographic power, multinodal, multipolar, asymmetry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5509/2014872265 T he continuing global economic turmoil since 2008 has ended the era of naïve confidence in the US-centred global system, and the future does not lie in its restoration. The status quo ante is history. Since the end of the Cold War, American hegemony provided a familiar, if erratic, context for world politics and economics. Although other states sometimes distanced themselves from particular American actions, expectations evolved _________________ Brantly Womack is Professor of Foreign Affairs and hold the C.K. Yen Chair at the University of Virginia. Recent books include China Among Unequals (2010) and China’s Rise in Historical Perspective (ed., 2010). Email: bwomack@virginia.edu 1 This paper has benefitted from the patience, enthusiasm and suggestions of many audiences and individuals. I would especially like to thank Herman Schwartz, Robert Earle, Don Keyser, Tim Cheek, Ali Wynne, Hyung Gu Lynn, Miles Kahler, Peter Furia, John Owen, Feng Shaolei, Nicola Nymalm, Tony Spanakos, John Israel and the late Deng Zhenglai. Research was completed at the East Asia Institute, National University of Singapore.