In reflecting on the strategic mistakes of the West in its relationship with the PRC, we have observed that these flaws originated from short-sighted policies, but also from the fact that China, for the West, poses an economy-security dilemma. The West's delay in coming to this realization has led to the erosion of the LIO. In the following chapter, I focus on the conundrum facing China that has arisen from the intensification of its relationship with the outside world. Indeed, the LIO is not only a source of dilemma for the West in the face of a rising China, but it has become a source of tension for China itself. Capturing opportunities abroad requires opening the national economy to global capitalism. Yet, deeper integration with the global order will make the PRC's borders more porous to American, European and South Korean businesses, and to western ideas more generally. This threatens to undermine the internal political and cultural hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party, which will have to scrutinize and, if necessary, restrict China's engagement with the world. The PRC elite will have to carefully weigh up whether they want to expand or retrench from certain international commitments, whether this means convincing different foreign constituencies that Beijing is keen to fight climate change and the environmental crisis; or deciding the extent to which China's military power should be employed abroad. It is unlikely that the CCP will find an answer to these dilemmas any time soon, and China's rise as a global power could make it more difficult to work out a coherent path.

DOES CHINA WANT TO DISMANTLE THE LIBERAL ORDER?

The journal International Organization celebrated its 75th anniversary in the spring of 2021 with a special issue dedicated to the LIO. The journal and the LIO came into being at roughly the same time. In the opening article, the authors asked whether the rise of China is “a fundamental challenge to the LIO, or has the country been sufficiently co-opted into the order that it is now a ‘responsible stakeholder’?” (Lake et al. 2021: 241). This is a worthwhile question because the socio-political hybridity that characterizes the PRC has implications for how China integrates with or detaches from the LIO.