Is a deeply-flawed global American hegemony worth protecting to prevent a fragmented power structure for countries such as China from developing regional hegemony? I don't know.
I think that you'll find my inclination on that from the post I made before that!
Sorry for whataboutism but isn't this what some countries (e.g USA with Saudi Arabia) do for geopolitical self-interest?
But seriously, yes. It is true that the US also props up authoritarian states. I think the difference is that the US does so in the pursuit of other ends (e.g. regional stability, American economic interests, support for American foreign policy, etc.) and is not committed to promoting authoritarian rule; with China the authoritarianism and regional destabilization seems to be precisely the point of its support. It doesn't make the US' support morally defensible; I'm not arguing that.
Sovereignty? Doesn't China meddle less with the leaderships of countries? For example our country Malaysia, China simply bribed our leaders with their business and investments in hope we take their side in territory dispute.
I want to preface all this by saying that "meddling" isn't really the bar I was setting for not respecting sovereignty. I think that your example qualifies as meddling, too! But let's just go with it, anyway.
I do not think the question is, "Doesn't China meddle less with the leadership of countries?"; I think the question is, "If China was hegemonic in its own region or globally, would it meddle less with the leadership of other countries?" The US does not meddle simply because it enjoys being meddlesome; it meddles because it perceives that its interests are being threatened. For instance, and speaking of Malaysia, President Mahathir Mohammed initiated the East Asian Economic Caucus (or Group) in 1990. This proposal made the US uncomfortable:
American officials not only saw the EAEC as a threat to American access to these markets but also felt that its success would undermine the prospects for the completion of the Uruguay Round of global trade negotiations. As Poddar ("The Price of Fear," p. 123) recounts, over the years when the EAEC was actively being considered, various American diplomats were sent to Asia to undermine the proposal, and they directly employed US security leverage as part of their effort to do so. Most notable in this regard is when Secretary of State James Baker underscored in a 1991 meeting with South Korea that "Malaysia didn't spill blood for this country, but we did." A participant in the meeting recounts that after hearing this reproach, the South Korean minister told Baker that his government would agree to US demands and oppose the EAEG. Japan also came to strongly opposed the EAEG in response to continued US diplomatic pressure, which included a public warning from then assistant secretary of defense Joseph Nye that if the EAEG were adopted, "we would probably withdraw our security presence." Opposition from Japan and South Korea greatly undermined the EAEC, and the proposal ultimately fell by the wayside in the mid-1990s.
Was this meddlesome? Absolutely.
I think that similarly, China's rhetoric of noninterventionism and absolute sovereign rights to the side, it will find itself increasingly meddlesome because its interests will demand it. For instance, China became involved in the politics of the partition between Sudan and South Sudan because they were so deeply involved in oil production; it was simply unavoidable for them. I think this passage is rather apropos:
Yet in between the bitter standoffs over Syria, the UN vote on Sudan was compelling evidence that the historical forces are also pulling China in a different direction from the one Ignatieff imagines, one in which it has little choice but to immerse itself in the messiness, the compromises, and, most of all, the meddling that conflict resolution demands. The dispute between Khartoum and Juba is far from resolved, but in the breakup of Sudan, China has found itself the indispensable outside power in a country whose politics it barely understood but could not escape.
In the case of Sudan, China was forced by its own interests to end up on the same side as the United States, despite its usual defensive pose that internal affairs are the business of that country only. Whatever China's rhetoric, it will "find itself compelled to get its hands dirty on a more regular basis, to play the local power broker, to pick sides, maybe even to send in its military for more than just peacekeeping operations."
I think it is illustrative to consider also how China began behaving when it believed that the US had entered a terminal decline:
As it happens, Chinas recent conduct has been far from affable with a number of countries, and with some has even been threatening in some degree. In a process disregarded at the time but quite evident in retrospect, the 2008 financial crisis, the seeming downfall of the Washington consensus and the seeming vindication of the Beijing consensus greatly emboldened the Chinese ruling elite, inducing a veritable behavioral shift that became manifest in 2009-2010. There was a sudden change in the tone and content of Chinese declarations, which became sharply assertive on many different issues, from monetary policy to the relevance of Western democracy. More strikingly, mostly dormant territorial disputes were loudly revived with India, Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam - and all more or less at the same time, amplifying the effect. Actual incidents duly followed with the vessels or island outposts of Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, with successive episodes that have continued until the present writing.
China has already demonstrated a willingness to engage in economic blackmail and bullying during disputes when it does not have have hegemony in its region. This is the period when Yang Jiechi made that revealing outburst, "China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact." It was also after this meeting that Yang put out a statement that US involvement in the issue (involvement invited by other countries) was simply the US and other countries ganging up on China; Yang also argued that China did not want to internationalize the issue and insisted on resolving all disputes bilaterally. This insistence is a way for China to attempt to pressure smaller states into coming to heel:
For the smaller countries, Beijing's insistence on bilateral negotiations feels like a form of bullying. "China's attitude," says a senior politician from one Southeast Asian nation," is 'It does not matter what the precise nature of our ultimate claim is; if we say it is our, then that means it is ours.'"
I think it's worth repeating that China is an illiberal authoritarian country and that illiberal authoritarian countries tend to have a very poor track record of playing well with others. Somehow, they seem to behave similarly abroad as they do domestically. I think all indications are that, if the US behaves as both a benevolent and a predatory hegemonic power simultaneously, China has given ample notice that it would behave as a predatory hegemonic power. There is little indication that it would be willing to balance that impulse (which the US itself indulges from on occasion to gain specific benefits) with shouldering the responsibility of maintaining a broader system that benefits others, as well. I think it seems more likely that China will drive other countries to balance against it through predatory behaviorwhich is, as it happens, exactly what China caused post-2010.
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