Competing visions of a postmodern world order: the Philadelphian system versus the Tianxia system

Abstract

This article analyses competing discourses on a postmodern world order perpetuated by the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which are themselves built on their own pre-modern or early modern (inter)state models. Among several dimensions of the growing struggle between the two superpowers, this article focuses on their contestation of global norms or the standard of civilization regarding the question of world governance. What is unique in the contemporary competition between America and China is the fact that both countries aim to alter the fundamental organizing principle of modern world politics; they are against not only the balance of power system but also the imperial order, both of which originated from the modern European system. Indeed, Washington and Beijing strive to offer a third organizing principle beyond the conventional dyad in the modern discipline of international relations (IR) of anarchy and hierarchy. In terms of an analytic framework, this article explores the constitutive processes of self-identity formation in America and China against the European other (the Westphalian system and imperialism), thereby demonstrating the two states’ exceptionalist doctrines and their alternative visions for a postmodern world order.