Opinion | Like the US before World War I, China is staying above the fray

But will these events really prompt China to play a bigger role in the Middle East, even directly intervene in the region’s affairs? The answer should be no.

Instead, China is behaving more like the US in 1914, adhering to a neutral role in mediating conflict so as to create more opportunities for its own peaceful development, rather than obsessing over global hegemony.

Meanwhile, America today increasingly resembles the British Empire of the time, which had abandoned its “splendid isolation” to become dragged into wars in Europe and the Middle East, exhausting its hegemonic influence even as it failed to curb the rise of emerging powers from across the ocean. History has repeatedly shown that empires perish from overexpansion.

Chinese scholars could transform their theoretical perspective and consider isolationism, its value and the behavioural patterns. To do this, it is useful to examine the US of over a century ago and how it successfully navigated an increasingly chaotic world order.

After a period of rapid economic growth, during the progressive era between 1901 and 1929, America’s social contradictions intensified. If the US had chosen then to intervene in the European wars, both its German immigrants and Anglo-Saxon voters would have become destabilising factors during an already difficult time.

When the first world war broke out in 1914, president Woodrow Wilson declared US neutrality and concentrated on progressive reforms at home, such as the 1916 Keating-Owen Child Labour Act and Adamson Act, which established an eight-hour workday.

The government began protecting labour rights, creating a direct link between the state and labour, and consolidating the nation’s social foundations, which turned out useful later for wartime mobilisation.

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China’s Communist Party wraps up policy meeting amid growing uncertainties

China’s Communist Party wraps up policy meeting amid growing uncertainties

Finally, isolationism does not mean turning a blind eye to catastrophes such as the plight of Gaza; counter-intuitively, it can lead a country to behave in a more humanitarian way.

China, for instance, has held off directly intervening in the conflicts in the Middle East, perhaps due to an isolationist instinct. If it had, however, the likely result would not be a rescue but a more complicated situation and probably more conflicts. As often noted, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Shi Quan is a PhD candidate at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University