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China, the US and the Power-Transition Theory: A Critique
Abstract
China's recent growth has called attention to the power-transition theory, which contends that the danger of a major war is the greatest when a rising dissatisfied challenger threatens to overtake a declining satisfied hegemon. Steve Chan questions this prevailing view by analyzing the extent of ongoing power shifts among the leading powers, exploring the portents for their future growth, and seeking indicators of their relative commitment to the existing international order. To better understand the strategic motivations of ascending and declining states, insights are drawn from prospect theory and past episodes of peaceful and violent transition (such as the end of the Cold War and the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars). He concludes that China is unlikely to instigate a confrontation with the US, and that whilst military conflict over the Taiwan Strait is possible, this is more likely to be due to China's inability to prevent US involvement than its willingness to provoke the US. This book places China in a comparative and historical context, in which inquiry is informed by the experiences of other major powers and pertinent theories in international relations, such as those on extended deterrence, preventive war, and democratic peace. Its comparative and theoretical orientation and its contrarian perspective will be of great interest not only to students and scholars of international relations and Chinese politics, but also to policy makers and professionals.
... I have written extensively elsewhere [Chan 2004[Chan , 2005[Chan , 2007[Chan , 2014[Chan , 2017[Chan , 2019[Chan , 2020a[Chan , 2020bChan, Hu, He 2019;Chan, Feng, He, Hu 2021] about the flaws in Allison and powertransition scholars' analyses 2 . In the following discussion, I highlight and explain my reservations about and objections to their explanation of interstate wars in general and contemporary Sino-American relations specifically. ...
... Power-transition theory also claims that wars are initiated by a "revisionist" rising power. As I have explained elsewhere [Chan 2004[Chan , 2007[Chan , 2020bChan, Feng, He, Hu 2021], some states designated as "revisionist" such as Wilhelmine Germany and Imperial Japan did not behave differently from the precedents set by other expanding powers such as Britain, France, and the U.S. They were simply following the footsteps of these predecessors. ...
Thucydides Trap has become a familiar term in scholarly and even popular discourse on Sino-American relations. It points to the ancient rivalry between Athens and Sparta as an analogy for contemporary relations between China and the United States. This analogy warns about the increased danger of war when a rising power catches up to an established power. This essay raises concerns about (mis)application of historical analogy, selection bias, measurement problems, underspecified causal mechanisms, and so on that undermine the validity of the diagnosis and prognosis inspired by this analogy and other similar works. My objection to this genre of scholarship does not exclude the possibility that China and the U.S. can have a serious conflict. I only argue that this conflict can stem from sources other than any power shift between them or in addition to such a shift. By overlooking other plausible factors that can contribute to war occurrence, a monocausal explanation such as Thucydides Trap obscures rather than clarifies this phenomenon. Because it lends itself to a sensationalist, even alarmist, characterization of a rising China and a declining U.S. (when the latter in fact continues to enjoy important enduring advantages over the former), this perspective can abet views and feelings that engender self-fulfilling prophecy. Finally, as with other structural theories of interstate relations, Thucydides Trap and other similar formulations like power-transition theory tend to give short shrift to human agency, including peoples ability to learn from the past and therefore to escape from the mistakes of their predecessors.
... On March 4, the Chinese MFA spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said at a press conference and also tweeted: "Confirmed cases of #COVID19 were first found in China, but its origin is not necessarily in China," 12 implicitly promoting the widespread conspiracy that the virus might have originated in a military lab in the US, brought in by the US army to Wuhan during the 2019 Military World Games in October. Trump fired back within days, retweeting a message containing the term "China virus," 13 invoking the popular conspiracy that the virus was leaked from a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, suggested already by US Senator Tom Cotton publicly in February. 14 On the same day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield criticized the term "China virus" as "absolutely wrong and inappropriate." 15 8 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China. ...
... Accessed 10 July 2020. 13 Trump, Donald J. 2020. @realDonaldTrump, March 10. ...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing a surge of nationalism throughout an ostensibly globalized world. In this article, we focus on the “narrative battle” over COVID-19 that has escalated between two competing major powers – China and the US. Guided by a cultural sociological approach, we reveal the meaning-making processes behind the narrative battle through in-depth, hermeneutical reconstruction of the “reactive performance” of each country, as articulated in political speeches and mass media. We point out that, in the Chinese narrative, the country emerges from a “century of humiliation,” becoming a major world power that will no longer be subject to the “bullying” of the West. In the US narrative, even though Trump initially highlights the country’s “very good” relationship with China, as the storyline unfolds, China is blamed for the global pandemic, assuming again the role of a dangerous actor on the world stage. Our research shows that the current reactive communicative mechanism is not only unsustainable, but also dangerous in times of crisis. We suggest that recognition of the narrative battle and acknowledgement of its performative function in the public sphere is the first step toward mutual understanding and meaningful dialogue between these two world powers.
... The US's China policy refers to the basic principles and policy direction of the US in addressing relations with China in a specific period, which largely determines the periodical development of US-China relations (Ye, 2021). The US and China are widely considered the hegemon and rising powers, respectively, which trap these two great powers into a structural contradiction (Chan, 2008). Relying on its superior power and dominant position in the international system, the US holds greater initiative in US-China relations, enabling it to redesign and change its China policy at will. ...
How does the US intervene in the Taiwan question? To answer this question, existing studies have formulated three schools of thought—the strategic perspective, the congressional perspective, and the agenda-setting perspective—but these perspectives still suffer from the problem of a single attribution and fail to provide a comprehensive typology of explanations. By applying high/low politics as indicators, this article categorizes the US’s strategic interventions as hybrid interventions, hard interventions, soft interventions, and maintaining the status quo. Additionally, this article argues that the US’s China policy and Taiwan’s mainland China policy are the two independent variables shaping the different types of strategic intervention. Empirical studies have demonstrated that US intervention activities related to the Taiwan question have transitioned from the status quo to hybrid interventions. The new typology breaks the traditional boundaries of tactics and may help deepen the theoretical understanding of the increasingly diversified and complicated the US’s Taiwan policy, particularly as the US–China rivalry intensifies and grows.
... The launch of China's plan and the US's aggressive response will set the Asia-Pacific region's security pattern in the decades ahead (Roy, 1994). Chinese identity has become a huge threatening factor as a result of China's ascent (Chan, 2007). China is a threat to US regional security interests on the one hand, and a competitor to US economic interests on the other (Nathan & Scobell, 2012 ...
Communication is a way of interacting with fellow human beings, because communication is essentially a needfor each individual to exist as a society. In communicating, ethics must be considered whencommunicating with others.Thisstudy aims to provide an overview of the perspectives and impressions exchanged by the United States and China during the Pacific War. Methods of the writings is qualitative, which sources are taken from many of Chinese and USA plus Australia and New Zealand’s policies in order to gain economic benefit from Pacific States. Superpowers have been put a lot of intentions in the Pacific regions, since its Colonial times. This writing only want to stressed the rivalty which had beenput in the region nowadays. This effort only tried to understand form of policies of the countries in the Pacific, to addressed these rivalries of ex colonial powers, USA and China, for least mentioned.
... The above realism perspectives gained considerable popularity in recent years, as the relationship between the United States and China significantly worsened during the Trump administration. Presently, much research influenced by realism are treating China's rise as a case of power transition in their analysis (Chan, 2007). It is worth noting that such a trend exists not only in the outside world but also within China and the works of Chinese IR scholars. ...
The rise of China in the 21st century has triggered long-lasting debates and has evolved into one of the most popular and heated topics in contemporary international relations (IR) scholarship. The key query on China’s rise is how it will interact with the rest of the world. This paper discusses China’s rise by engaging with the mainstream theoretical discussions in IR from the three schools of thought—liberalism, realism, and constructivism. From an analytical perspective, this paper examines these existing theoretical discussions on the rise of China, evaluates their arguments, and compares their reasoning logic. Finally, this paper suggests that China being a revisionist power is often an overexaggerated claim lacks convincing evidence. In fact, throughout the years, China’s behaviors in global governance imply a tendency to climb-up within the existing status quo, rather than overthrowing or replacing it.
... The launch of China's plan and the US's aggressive response will set the Asia-Pacific region's security pattern in the decades ahead (Roy, 1994). Chinese identity has become a huge threatening factor as a result of China's ascent (Chan, 2007). China is a threat to US regional security interests on the one hand, and a competitor to US economic interests on the other (Nathan & Scobell, 2012). ...
Communication is a way of interacting with fellow human beings, because communication is essentially a needfor each individual to exist as a society. In communicating, ethics must be considered whencommunicating with others.Thisstudy aims to provide an overview of the perspectives and impressions exchanged by the United States and China during the Pacific War. Methods of the writings is qualitative, which sources are taken from many of Chinese and USA plus Australia and New Zealand’s policies in order to gain economic benefit from Pacific States. Superpowers have been put a lot of intentions in the Pacific regions, since its Colonial times. This writing only want to stressed the rivalty which had beenput in the region nowadays. This effort only tried to understand form of policies of the countries in the Pacific, to addressed these rivalries of ex colonial powers, USA and China, for least mentioned.
... After all, the Second Island Chain is enough to tackle the possible threat, especially a peaceful region under the America-China accord for Taiwan. The Taiwan issue is a heritage intertwining the US, but after the failure of communism, America does not need to deter China on the base of intervening in its sovereignty [34]. ...
In this paper, discussing the possibility of solving the Taiwan issue is a significant task. By adopting defensive realism and estimating the power of America and China, this paper finds their core interest and baseline in the Taiwan region and gives several solutions. China and America have faced a power decline and will concentrate on securing their supreme; the PRC has inflicted an economic recession, and the US has suffered a domestic political crisis combined with the disintegration of the alliance system. This situation thereby remains the space for resolving regional tension by mutual negotiation. Additionally, this paper assesses the baselines of two countries in the Taiwan strait, of which both powers can accept finite compromise. By the previous discussion, the remedy 'Federation' is their best solution.
... It may not be possible to set an exact date for this power flow, but it continues for sure. In this regard, power transition theory makes sense by arguing that one's relative power downgrading could lead to another's power upgrading (Chan, 2007;Lai, 2011;Pop and Brînză, 2017). "The character of these respective changes contradicts power transition theory, which claims that the dominant power, as a status quo power, will seek to actively maintain the status quo, and the rising power, as a revisionist power, will challenge the existing system" (Zhou, 2019: 3). ...
... The launch of China's plan and the US's aggressive response will set the Asia-Pacific region's security pattern in the decades ahead (Roy, 1994). Chinese identity has become a huge threatening factor as a result of China's ascent (Chan, 2007). China is a threat to US regional security interests on the one hand, and a competitor to US economic interests on the other (Nathan & Scobell, 2012). ...
Communication is a way of interacting with fellow human beings, because communication is essentially a needfor each individual to exist as a society. In communicating, ethics must be considered whencommunicating with others.Thisstudy aims to provide an overview of the perspectives and impressions exchanged by the United States and China during the Pacific War. Methods of the writings is qualitative, which sources are taken from many of Chinese and USA plus Australia and New Zealand’s policies in order to gain economic benefit from Pacific States. Superpowers have been put a lot of intentions in the Pacific regions, since its Colonial times. This writing only want to stressed the rivalty which had beenput in the region nowadays. This effort only tried to understand form of policies of the countries in the Pacific, to addressed these rivalries of ex colonial powers, USA and China, for least mentioned.
... Чаще всего современные исследования статуса сосредоточены на крупных государствах и центрах силы [Johnston, 2003;Chan, 2007;Murray, 2018;Krickovic, Weber, 2018]. Это неудивительно: у таких стран наличествует не только суверенитет и международное признание, но и сила, которую можно конвертировать и инвестировать в статус. ...
Analysis of Russian interests in a broader regional context has become the logical
continuation of Russia’s pivot to the East. Nowadays Russia is one of the main actors
to advocate the idea of creating a new geo-economic and geo-strategic space —
Greater Eurasia. The Eurasian countries orientation to adopt a non-Western model
of the global development is conditioned by their desire to protect national sovereignty, and increase their influence in the international arena what in the long run will lead to the development of a common «Code of Conduct» for Greater Eurasia which excludes asymmetric dependence, hegemony, sanctions and any other instruments of “economic warfare” as an instrument of achieving foreign policy goals. The research is focused on perspectives of non-American and non-Euroatlantic security institutions of Greater Eurasia as potential elements of construction of a broader security space. The research is oriented on scientifi c preparation of a complex Russian strategy towards various institutions of regional security in Eurasia.
The monograph examines the possibility of establishing non-American and
non-Euro-Atlantic security institutions in the space covered by the initiative of the
Greater Eurasian Partnership.
This monograph is addressed to specialists in the fi eld of political science, international relations, orientalists, historians and journalists, university lecturers, students and graduate students of universities, as well as a wide range of readers
... From the perspective of power transition theory, wars are likely to occur when there is growing power parity between the existing hegemon and the newly emerging power that would eventually bring about a change in the international system (Chan, 2008). What is missing from this framework is the consequence of a war that is initiated by a hegemon to prevent the rise of a competitor. ...
This article attempts to provide an alternative perspective on the US-China trade war by integrating power transition theory and the concept of soft power in examining the nature of the trade war and conditions that fuelled it. The discussion also includes the possibility of the emergence of a new global order led by China beyond the trade war. This study used a qualitative approach by analysing primary and secondary sources such as speeches of representatives from both China and the US, books, journal articles, newspaper articles and research by both national and international organisations. The findings revealed that the main trigger of the trade war was not trade deficits or unfair practices, as other literature has suggested, but rather a desire by the US to prevent the decline of American hegemony. We argue that there are three reasons why China cannot form a new global order and replace the US as a global hegemon within the next decade. First, following the trade war, there is growing wariness about Chinese firms and investments, globally. Second, China’s soft power is relatively ineffective, and its culture less appealing to Third World countries as compared to the US’s. Finally, unlike the US, China does not have a strong and expansive network of allies supporting its quest for global leadership.
... A rising challenger, on the other hand, will see an exponential increase in national strength, thanks to strong domestic economic growth. The dominant state is developing, but compared to the emerging power, it is losing territory (Chan, 2009). The world's leading nations are on the edge of conflict as a result of the shift in power balance. ...
Power is the main reason to rule over the world. The concept of power transition is started when a country has risen in economic growth and gained military power and reaches the level of its challenger,and also had its place at the top of the international order and the hunger for power led the country to reach the maximum extent. This is due to the fact when a country gets power and establishes a great economic system, it wants to get in the top position in the international order and also save its interest in the world.The global international order has seen several power transitions from empire to empire, region to region,and then country to country. The study is a qualitative analysis of past events of power transition in the global world. It also focused on the causes and prospects of power transition in the past and the future,respectively.
... A growing literature is also turning towards power concerns when examining China and its new role and relations with other states and the continuation of the liberal international order (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann, 2020;Hopewell, 2020;Weiss and Wallace, 2021). Many analyses also highlight the potential consequences of U.S.-China power changes for security issues (Chan, 2007;Tingley, 2017;Mukherjee, 2022). ...
Power transitions among major states have shaped the course of cooperation in the history of the international system. We study this relationship from a public opinion angle by examining the effect of a potential power transition on attitudes toward bilateral trade liberalization. Power transitions can spur political and economic conflict because the rising power gains greater influence over the course of world politics, including trade rules, allowing it to assert its national interest and the interests of its citizens. This implies that citizens in the rising power are more optimistic of bilateral economic cooperation than citizens in the declining power. Empirical findings from parallel, survey-embedded experiments in China and the United States lend support to this conjecture. Great Power competition, therefore, interferes with current international economic affairs – an aspect that has received less attention in previous research on trade politics.
... Modern status studies mostly focus on large states and centres of power [Chan, 2007;Johnston, 2003;Krickovic, Weber, 2018;Murray, 2018]. This is not surprising: such countries have not only sovereignty and international recognition, but also power that can be converted and invested in status. ...
In this article, the prospects or changing the status of unrecognized states in Greater Eurasia are analyzed. Status and recognition are close but distinct categories in international relations (IR) theory and international law. Status defines a state’s rank in the hierarchical international system. Recognition is a different category; legally, it defines whether other states recognize a particular state as fully established and sovereign. Sovereignty is a third category related to the issue of recognition but not equal to it since it includes internal and external (international) sovereignty. There are examples of sovereign states that effectively control their territories and collect taxes, but which are not recognized as sovereign by other states. The analysis in this article focuses on whether an unrecognized state can strengthen its status and improve its position in the international system. It is argued that this is possible, and that the absence of international recognition should not be regarded as an unsurpassable impediment to the economic development of the country.
... 2000'li yılların başından itibaren Organski'nin güç geçişi teorisini Çin'in yükselişine uyarlayan araştırmacı ve akademisyenler, ABD ve Çin arasında bir güç geçişi sürecinden bahsetmektedirler (Bkz. Goldstein, 2007;Chan, 2008;Levy, 2008;Beeson, 2009;Lai, 2011;Heywood, 2016). Söz konusu güç geçişinin bir savaşla gerçekleşip gerçekleşmeyeceği ayrı bir tartışma konusu olmakla beraber, 21. ...
Bu çalışmanın amacı, önemli ekonomik ve ticari fırsatlar sunması sebebiyle pek çok ülke tarafından olumlu karşılanan Çin’in Kuşak ve Yol Girişimi’ne neden Hindistan’ın dahil olmak istemediğini, bu ülkenin Çin’e yönelik uyguladığı hedging stratejisi kapsamında açıklamaktır. Zira Hindistan’ın Kuşak ve Yol Girişimi’ne dahil olmama tercihini Çin’e yönelik hedging stratejisinden bağımsız değerlendirmek mümkün değildir. Hindistan bir taraftan ekonomik ve ticari çıkarlarını gözeterek Çin ile yakınlaşmakta, diğer taraftan ise güvenlik kaygılarını göz önünde bulundurarak Çin’i dengeleyecek ortaklık ve işbirliklerine yönelmektedir. Hindistan’ın ekonomi alanında angajman, güvenlik alanında dengelemeye dayanan bu hedging stratejisi, Çin – Pakistan Ekonomik Koridoru ve Çin’in Hint-Pasifik bölgesindeki etkinliğini artırma girişimlerinden rahatsız Yeni Delhi’yi Kuşak ve Yol Girişimi’nin dışında kalmaya sevk etmektedir
... PTT comprises dynamic and structural forms. Structurally, the theory envisions international politics as a hierarchy of nations with different collaborations and competition (Chan, 2007). The theory specifies the relative roles of countries in this hierarchically articulated system under norms and rules in the sense of identifying how nations try to dominate international politics. ...
Constantly analyzed in scientific, theoretical, and empirical studies, the “ Asian Mediterranean” region has received renewed attention as a consequence of the rise of China. China’s emergence combines its strong economic dynamic with increased confidence, positioning it as a potential regional hegemony. On that conceptual basis, this study aims to answer whether a power transition has already occurred in the South China Sea and how the process of a regional hegemonic transition took place. Through an examination of the instruments used by the United States and China to exercise power, articulated with the power transition theory, it establishes that a transition in the South China Sea dispute could have already occurred. However, the study disclaims that Beijing’s evolution and sudden change of behavior aim to overthrow the U.S. global leadership but rather intends to reclaim its position of regional hegemony.
... On those rare occasions when we witness a process of 'hegemonic transition', it is because one state is in decline while another is rising. We saw this when the US replaced Great Britain; some think we are witnessing the beginning of something similar as a consequence of China's rise (Chan 2008). Whatever the merits of these arguments one thing seems clear: less powerful states tend to have little capacity to influence such events or the international systems over which hegemonic powers appear to preside. ...
... The two states are not only self-identified great powers, but also widely recognized as such. Nonetheless, materialist theories have quite different expectations of a "declining" United States and a "rising" China (Chan 2008). Within-case comparison in the United States is also illustrative, as the Trump era might intuitively seem more associated with narcissistic narratives than previous presidencies, particularly that of Barack Obama. ...
Why do self-representations of weakness pervade public discourse in self-identified great powers? Moreover, why do they intersect with self-representations of greatness? Do such narrative instability, inconsistency, and incoherence simply indicate that great powers are ontologically insecure? This article advances a theoretical explanation that is both embedded in and contributes to scholarship that theorizes ontological (in)security from a Lacanian perspective. The gist, ironically, is that great powers’ quest for greatness is co-constituted with the narrative construction of weakness. The article then challenges the assumption in existing ontological security scholarship that states are generally self-reflexive and experience pride when ontologically secure but shame when ontologically insecure. Since great power narratives reflect persistent, exaggerated, and simultaneous feelings of shame and pride, it argues that narcissism helps better account for great power self-identification and ontological security-seeking. Drawing on psychological research on narcissism, the article develops four narrative forms—shame, pride, denial, and insult—through which self-representations of weakness and greatness, and feelings of shame and pride, can be mediated. Finally, using empirical illustrations from the United States and China, the article analyzes how and with what implications political leaders have narrated about each respective great power's weakness and greatness, with a focus on the period 2006–2020.
¿Por qué las autorrepresentaciones de debilidad se extienden en los discursos públicos en las grandes potencias autoidentificadas? Asimismo, ¿por qué se entrecruzan con las autorrepresentaciones de grandeza? ¿La inestabilidad, la incongruencia y la incoherencia narrativa simplemente indican que las grandes potencias son inseguras en términos ontológicos? Este artículo propone una explicación teórica que está incorporada a una erudición, y que contribuye con ella, que teoriza la (in)seguridad desde una perspectiva lacaniana. Irónicamente, la idea es que la búsqueda de grandeza de las grandes potencias está coconstituida con la construcción narrativa de debilidad. Por lo tanto, el artículo desafía el supuesto de la erudición existente de seguridad ontológica que establece que, por lo general, los estados son autorreflexivos y experimentan orgullo cuando están ontológicamente seguros, pero experimentan vergüenza cuando están inseguros en términos ontológicos. Puesto que las narraciones de las grandes potencias reflejan sentimientos persistentes, exagerados y simultáneos de vergüenza y orgullo, se sostiene que el narcisismo ayuda mejor a dar cuenta de la autoidentificación y de la búsqueda de seguridad ontológica de las grandes potencias. Al recurrir a la investigación psicológica sobre el narcisismo, el artículo desarrolla cuatro formas de narraciones: vergüenza, orgullo, negación e insulto, a través de las cuales se pueden mediar las autorrepresentaciones de debilidad y grandeza, así como los sentimientos de vergüenza y orgullo. Por último, usando ejemplos empíricos de los Estados Unidos y de China, el artículo analiza cómo y con qué consecuencias los líderes políticos han narrado sobre la debilidad y la grandeza de cada gran potencia, y se centra en el período que va de 2006 a 2020.
Pourquoi les auto-représentations de faiblesse imprègnent-elles le discours public des grandes puissances autoproclamées ? De plus, pourquoi ces auto-représentations de faiblesse s'entrecroisent-elles avec des auto-représentations de grandeur ? De telles instabilités, inconstances et incohérences narratives indiquent-elles simplement que les grandes puissances sont ontologiquement insécurisées ? Cet article avance une explication théorique qui est à la fois intégrée et contributrice aux recherches qui théorisent l’(in)sécurité ontologique d'un point de vue lacanien. Ironiquement, l'idée générale est que la quête de grandeur des grandes puissances se constitue conjointement avec la construction narrative de la faiblesse. Cet article remet ensuite en question l'hypothèse des recherches existantes sur la sécurité ontologique, qui est que les États sont généralement auto-réflexifs et qu'ils ressentent de la fierté lorsqu'ils sont ontologiquement sécurisés mais de la honte lorsqu'ils sont ontologiquement insécurisés. Étant donné que les discours des grandes puissances reflètent des sentiments persistants, exagérés et simultanés de honte et de fierté, cet article soutient que le narcissisme aide à mieux prendre en compte l'autoproclamation des grandes puissances et leur quête de sécurité ontologique. Cet article s'appuie sur une recherche psychologique sur le narcissisme pour présenter quatre formes narratives—de la honte, de la fierté, du déni et de l'insulte—par le biais desquelles les auto-représentations de faiblesse et de grandeur, et les sentiments de honte et de fierté, peuvent être communiqués. Enfin, cet article utilise des illustrations empiriques des États-Unis et de Chine pour analyser la manière dont et les implications avec lesquelles les dirigeants politiques ont discouru sur les faiblesses et grandeurs respectives de chacune des grandes puissances en se concentrant sur la période 2006–2020.
... The framing of the Cold War analogy suggests that the US and China are power-seeking, rather than securityseeking, great powers that pursue global and regional preponderance. This power competition framework inspires researchers to assess US-China strategic interactions through the lens of power transition theory and offensive realism, but these theories do not capture the reality of the US-China strategic competition (Chan 2008(Chan , 2019Mearsheimer 2010). As for their motivations, the US and China do not always seek to maximize power. ...
The gradual deterioration of the US–China relationship during the Trump era has inspired the development of diverse theoretical approaches to grasping the essence of the two countries’ recent great power rivalry. Although the Cold War analogy is a useful heuristic for making sense of the dynamics of the US–China strategic competition, it is based on the bygone US–Soviet relationship, and thus may lead to misunderstandings about the particular logic of the current US–China relationship. The pitfalls of relying on the Cold War analogy include motivated bias, cognitive bias resulting from framing effects, and potentially missing the real causal variable driving the rivalry. Historical analogies are necessary but not sufficient for grasping the nature of the US–China case. Instead, scholars should ascend the ladder of abstraction to escape the conceptual stretching problem that contributes to misunderstandings in studies of the dynamics of the US–China strategic competition.
... There are chances for the American authorities to be undermined to an exhaustive level with this BRI initiative. (Chan, 2007;DiCicco & Levy, 1999;Goldstein, 2007). ...
Importance of the global collaboration for the sake of regional development is very well understood by the rising economic structure of China as it has played a very important role in developing such initiates such as Belt and Road Initiative for regional advancement in Middle Eastern countries. The importance of One Belt One road initiative for the economic, cultural, and regional development cannot be overemphasized and thus it is going to bridge the gap between China and Middle Eastern countries. This research is focused on those specific requisite areas, which need a systematic scenario for the implementation of this global progressive initiative. Moreover, this research also exploits the relationship between imperative areas. Although these highlighted associations do not play a stand-alone role, though they are and will be affected by other prompting factors. The major findings of this research study expose the dependency and mutual exclusion of these factors such as the significant change in our main variable (IPR Paradigm) due to change in Trademark, IPR institution, ownership, and confidentiality adoption because of the Sig. value is 0.014, 0.015, 0.003, and 0.002 respectively, which is less than the acceptable value of 0.05. With a 1% increase in the adoption of trademark, IPR institution, ownership, and confidentiality , the IPR Paradigm will increase by 0.183%, 0.173%, 0.197%, and 0.197% (B value) respectively.
... If nothing else, this is a powerful reminder that material transformations in the international system ⎯ redistributions in the balance of power perhaps ⎯ make some countries more important and potentially influential (Mearsheimer 2019, Brzezinski 2012. 7 It is not necessary to subscribe to the currently fashionable assumptions about "hegemonic transitions" (Chan 2008, Beeson 2009), "Thucydides' traps" (Allison 2017) or other realist-derived conceptual frameworks to recognize that China is of interest because it matters. Having said that, China's prominent place in the international scheme of things is not unprecedented. ...
The international order created under the auspices of "American hegemony" appears to be unraveling during the erratic and nationalistic leadership of Donald Trump, and the growing geopolitical and geoeconomic competition between the United States and China. Many commentators fear that such tensions will lead to the demise of the so-called rules-based international order in particular, and to the declining influence of values, principles and norms associated with "the West" in general. This paper analyses these developments by putting them in historical context, considering what was distinctive about the "rise of the West", and explaining why the relative decline of American influence may prove so consequential. The key questions that animate the discussion are: what is at stake in the possible decline of the West? Does the rise of China presage the emergence of a very different sort of international order than the one currently dominant?
... The realist scholarship is contradicted by other analysts (e.g. Kang 2007;Chan 2008;McNally 2008) who posit that China's notion of security and diplomacy, together with its political culture, generates optimism that China's rise does not certainly have destabilising effects on regional order. This school of thought argues that China will use its growing power to shape an international order that will engender cooperative outcomes for China and other nations of the world. ...
The paper deals with mutual geopolitical and security interests in Bangladesh-China bilateral relations.
... The debate typically focuses on what parameters better indicate a power transition, and on how the new geopolitical scenario would look like after the dawn of America's global liberal project. While many scholars contend that it is premature to hail China's challenge to America's hegemony, others, such as Steve Chan (2008), also add that China has little incentive to challenge a global order in which it has grown at unprecedented rates, although the sustainability of the model is today more under question than at other points in recent decades. It is thus possible to conceive a scenario where China becomes the main economic or even political partner to particular countries without necessarily defying America's liberal project or trumping the interests of American businesses. ...
Politics in the Andes in the post–Cold War era are not at the mercy of “inter-national” dynamics but are mostly affected by global economic trends. While the United States and China have somewhat distinct approaches—in part determined by their own positions in the global economy—they both deepen the entrance of global markets in the region. Economic competition within a U.S.- and China-centric business-led globalization poses important challenges for industrialization and socially and environmentally sustainable development in the Andes. The four countries here analyzed (Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia) are thus in a curious position. Their civil societies are as vibrant as ever, and their national politics more immune to foreign intervention, yet they increasingly face similar economic and environmental pressures through their investment, trade, and finance links with the world’s two largest economies.
The pivot from focusing on counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan in the post-9/11 era to strategic competition between great powers today has led the U.S. military to prioritize preparing for large-scale combat operations. However, the dominant forms of conflict during the Cold War, the last era of strategic competition, were irregular and proxy warfare as the Soviet Union and the United States sought to pursue national security interests while avoiding direct confrontation that could escalate to nuclear annihilation. Irregular warfare will play a prominent role in the new era of strategic competition as well, with three areas the U.S. military can focus on to prepare for the new international security environment: first, strategic competition will require the ability to work effectively with partner forces, and there are many lessons from the post-9/11 conflicts that can help military practitioners navigate partner warfare dynamics; second, synchronization across the joint force and the interagency is imperative to success in IW contexts; third, U.S. strategists and military planners need to account for both the conventional capabilities of U.S. competitors and also their employment of IW.
Discussions about the population and demographic structure of China have intensified even more, especially during the Coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic era. Demography discipline is statistically dominated; however, our approach adopted here is to consider demography not as a numerical exercise but instead as an essential factor for arguing the attributes of anthropological demography, such as socio-cultural components, gender aspects, comparative political economy of aging, demographic conjunctures, legal perspectives, and gerontocracy.
This article builds on the prevalent discussions of Western and Asian prestigious states to provide a distinct account of power and prestige in black diplomacy through the lens of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (T-AST), colonization, and neocolonialism. The principal argument is twofold namely; that T-AST and colonization have contributed significantly to prestige deficit of African states and contemporary forms of racism and discrimination targeted at blacks in the diaspora. Second, the paper argues that the pursuit of prestige recovery by African states, notably through attainment of political independence, has been undermined by neocolonialism. The analysis helps to fill a major gap in the literature with respect to the limited attention paid to African states and black communities in the rejuvenated discussion of prestige in International Relations. The policy recommendation is that power and prestige need to be redefined along the lines of genuine respect and cooperation between African societies and foreign powers.
Bu çalışma, Çin’in Ortadoğu politikasını İran ve Suudi Arabistan ile ilişkileri üzerinden açıklamaktadır. Çalışmanın temel argümanı, Çin’in Ortadoğu politikasının küresel bir hegemonya elde etme amacıyla değil bölgedeki mevcut hegemon ile iş birliğine ve çatışmadan kaçınmaya dayandığıdır. Argümanı desteklemek üzere J. Abu Lughod tarafından geliştirilen “karşılıklı bağımlı hegemon güçler” teorisi ele alınmış, Suudi Arabistan ve İran ile ilişkiler karşılaştırmalı şekilde yorumlanmıştır. Lughod, 21. yüzyıl dünya düzeninin sisteme hâkim tek bir egemen gücün olmadığı, bunun yerine birkaç çekirdek gücün bir arada var olabildiği bir görünüm arz edeceğini öngörmektedir. Elde edilen bulgulara göre Çin’in Ortadoğu politikası, küresel sistemdeki çekirdek güçlerden birisi olarak bölgenin mevcut hegemon gücüyle bir arada var olmaya dayanmaktadır.
Most explanations of the crisis of the Liberal International Order (LIO) focus on resistance against the liberal norms and values that it embodies. This chapter argues that this standard explanation is by no means wrong. Yet, it is incomplete. The omission that is discussed here concerns the hierarchical element of order, i.e. not the content of norms, rules and procedures, but rather who has the greatest influence on their their definition, interpretation and enforcement. In other words, many governments and societies reject the LIO not only because it is liberal, but also because it is a Western order that they themselves have had little hand in shaping. From this vantage point, the LIO is also a status order that is is becoming less and less acceptable, especially in Asia (but not only there). These societies see the LIO as an expression of a hierarchy that has always seemed unjust and degrading and humiliating. With the rise of Asian powers, the order also looks ever more anachronistic. To many nations in the Global South, efforts to overcome (or at least reform) the existing order are also about a renegotiation of asymmetrical roles that it assigns to states and regions.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40568-7_7
The literature on international relations pays special attention to China's rise since the "opening of China" in 1978, trying to identify and make predictions about China's behavioral patterns in its relationship with the United States and the current international system. Not surprisingly, international relations theories have been considered – from Morgenthau to present –, useful tools for predicting the evolution of major events in the international relations system. Using different theoretical lenses we can infer different outcomes regarding the complicated US-China relationship especially now, when the Chinese economic and social transformation seems to be accompanied by a revival of its own traditional concepts aimed at formulating a „Chinese school”, of international relations, characterized by the rejection of the realist assumptions that point almost every time to an imminent confrontation and placing both countries on even more profoundly contrasting positions. Therefore, starting from the balance of power theory and the power transition theory, this article aims to identify the extent to which the two theories prove explanatory and predictive value and can be useful tools for inferring China's behavior in the context of the current aggressive discourse that characterizes the relationship between the two countries. Also, this paper is aiming to analyze the limits we can identify in the existing literature on both theories.
Advancing a new approach to the study of international order, this book highlights the stakes disguised by traditional theoretical languages of power transitions and hegemonic wars. Rather than direct challenges to US military power, the most consequential undermining of hegemony is routine, bottom-up processes of international goods substitution: a slow hollowing out of the existing order through competition to seek or offer alternative sources for economic, military, or social goods. Studying how actors gain access to alternative suppliers of these public goods, this volume shows how states consequently move away from the liberal international order. Examining unfamiliar – but crucial – cases, it takes the reader on a journey from local Faroese politics, to Russian election observers in Central Asia, to South American drug lords. Broadening the debate about the role of public goods in international politics, this book offers a new perspective of one of the key issues of our time.
How would the history of international relations in 'the East' be written if we did not always read the ending – the Rise of the West and the decline of the East – into the past? What if we did not assume that Asia was just a residual category, a variant of 'not-Europe', but saw it as a space of with its own particular history and sociopolitical dynamics, not defined only by encounters with European colonialism? How would our understanding of sovereignty, as well as our theories about the causes of the decline of Great Powers and international orders, change as a result? For the first time, Before the West offers a grand narrative of (Eur)Asia as a space connected by normatively and institutionally overlapping successive world orders originating from the Mongol Empire. It also uses that history to rethink the foundational concepts and debates of international relations, such as order and decline.
The rise of China has returned attention to the links between power transitions and war. In this literature, three different causal mechanisms can be confused. This essay disentangles them. Power transitions can lead to three kinds of war: preventive, accidental, and revisionist. Formal models tend to study the first, in which a declining state tries to delay or prevent a rival’s ascent. However, major wars during great power transitions are usually initiated by the rising state, not the declining one. To describe these historical cases, less formal theories, especially neorealism and neoclassical realism, focus on accidental and revisionist wars, but these theories tend to fall back on nonrational mechanisms to connect changing power to the risk of conflict. This leaves a theoretical gap: Why would a rising, rational actor deliberately choose conflict, i.e., start a revisionist war? To suggest an answer, this essay demonstrates how a simple change in standard bargaining models—incorporating a nonzero probability of indecisive war—can ground realist intuitions on rationalist foundations. It further shows how this change leads immediately to an intuitive, formal definition of stability that aligns naturally with existing informal work. Then, contrary to existing realist theory, it shows why the rigorous analysis of realist assumptions leads to a nonmonotonic relationship between the offense/defense balance and war. It thus uses realism to inform and potentially redirect formal scholarship; it also uses formal scholarship to sharpen the logical foundations of realism and, in so doing, derive novel empirical predictions. The essay concludes by applying this synthesis to the rise of China today and indicating directions for deepening the formal/realist synthesis.
This book argues a position contrary to much of the conventional wisdom regarding the current complexion of power relationships. It is that, despite power shifts, the emergence of multi-polarity and America’s determination to balance China, anarchy will not prevail, disorder will not be unleashed and world order will survive. But it also argues, as against the more recent liberal mantras, that it will not be the same world order that we have been enjoying for the last thirty years. It is about power transition and how to understand both the processes involved in power transitioning and how to calibrate the results.
The chapter clarifies the different explanatory domains of the main theories of power transition, their recent versions and makes the case for an international society approach to power transition based on the theoretical concept of “fundamental institutional change”. In this perspective, the key question is how power transition is shaped by fundamental institutions (such as sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, great power management and trade) and the other way round, and what this means to international order as a historical quality of international society rather than a function of the distribution of power, hegemonic stability or liberal organization. The key answer is that power transition stimulates stable processes of fundamental institutional change (rather than a break-down of international order), while international organizations are key arenas for the agentic perception and negotiation of such changes (rather than the victims of hegemonic retreat or the end of liberal world order).
As China grows in international importance and influence, more and more countries worry about how it will behave, and are preoccupied with the hard question of how to tame it. As a middle power Australia has sought ways to influence the thinking and behaviour of Chinese policymakers. The Australian approach to taming China represents an academically puzzling and politically intriguing case, which, unfortunately, has not been studied in detail. The paper has argued that the concept of taming offers significant intellectual advantages in its reconsideration of Australia’s China policy and has called for Australian scholars and policymakers, to critically rethink unspoken and understudied Australia’s taming practices and policies. To this end, this paper has proposed an experience-based theory of taming as a key research agenda.
Efforts to predict how regions and their rivalry patterns will change in the near and longer future can benefit from comparative regional analysis. But one has to be careful in doing so to avoid overlooking important regional differences such as vastly different geohistorical patterns. Projecting a European past onto an Asian future seems to do just that. But one has to also be careful about projecting selective interpretations of a region’s own geohistorical past into the future. Moreover, the utility of historical patterns of any kind needs to be filtered for significant changes that may mitigate the persistence of geohistorical influences. After reviewing critically some efforts to interpret East Asian international relations in terms of developments in other regions and phases of East Asian regional history, a linkage to past European international relations is made via the “Western” question. Who would dominate in Western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire? The corresponding “Eastern” question has been who will dominate East Asia after the disintegration of the Han Empire? While the questions of regional dominance are similar, the way in which the questions have played out in the two regions has been quite dissimilar. Moreover, questions of regional dominance in the twenty-first century are likely to play out much differently than they have in the past thanks to such factors as the increase in weapons lethality and the fusion of regional and global political hierarchy.
The Indo-Pacific region is said to be the center of the 21st century, unlike the Asia-Pacific in the 20th century. In the region, China is emerging rapidly in terms of economic strength, defense capability, and international presence. The US and other concerned countries are striving to cope with the new development. It looks that the US manages to somehow retain its Pax Americana as in the latter half of the last century. China which dreams to head for Pax Sinica has been implementing various measures including removing unfavorable circumstances to promote its dream. At the moment, it is hard to make prompt predictions on how these two Pax would be going. The key question would be ways to deal with China. Typical policies now under implementation are engaging policy represented by the RCEP and balancing policy by the Quad. These two policies have a timeline of short-term policy and middle-term policy. Perhaps, contents of the policies would be finalized depending upon China’s economic development as one of the major factors. To bring about peace and stability of the region, in tandem with them, it might be necessary to bring about a regional order of the Indo-Pacific where it has been lacking. The close relations of Japan and India could be utilized for such a purpose also. Although COVID-19 is afflicting the whole region, it is hoped that the pandemic could be overcome by vaccines and other measures in the near future. It is the right time now to ponder over the future direction of the Indo-Pacific region before it is too late.
Much has been said about how China’s rapidly growing economy has led to increasing power disparity between India and China over the last two decades. China’s economic growth in this period has been spectacular, but it is not clear whether that gives a good sense of how effective its military capabilities are against India. In the context of the escalating Sino-Indian rivalry, this article asks the question: what is the nature of India’s power disparity vis-à-vis China? And does the existing power disparity between India and China give China a clear and uncontestable advantage? We argue that while there is significant asymmetry between India and China, the asymmetry is not as overwhelming when we consider certain facets of war-making capacity such as capital intensiveness of the military, military mobilisation, extractive capacity of the state and the institutional capacities to mobilise forces on a large scale, should the occasion demand. Moreover, India, with a more defensive posture against China, is in a better position to counter it because it mitigates the effects of power disparity. Therefore, we seek to understand the variation in asymmetries across different parameters of war-making capacity and force structure to better assess where the two countries may have advantages and disadvantages in the months and years to come. This article’s main contribution is to demonstrate through publicly available data the various levels of asymmetry between India and China. It also contributes to the security studies, rising powers and conflict literature.
This chapter briefly introduces the relevant previous scholarship on US-Chinese and US-Japanese economic relations and on ideas, discourse and identity in International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) more broadly. It addresses the role of American exceptionalism and the liberal theory of history as constitutive features of US identity and their influence on the formulation of economic, and especially trade, policy on Japan and China. A final section focuses on the identity/difference question in scholarship on liberalism and connects it to questions on the link between ‘identity’ and ‘othering’ in poststructuralist scholarship, which are addressed in more detail in Chap. 3.
Of all the historical precedents that have been invoked in recent years to make sense of US–China relations, which is the most suggestive? This article argues that the Cold War analogy, which frames the US–Soviet strategic rivalry between 1947 and 1989 as a power-cum-ideological struggle, fits the bill best. Yet because analogical reasoning tends to be a hazardous intellectual enterprise, it is necessary to “test” the inferences derived from the Cold War 1.0 analogy against the current trajectory of US–China relations. This article offers some suggestions on how to go about performing such tests.
The world is experiencing a dramatic transformation. Many security challenges, from territorial disputes to climate change, are threatening political stability and economic prosperity in the world. One interesting puzzle in the Asia Pacific is the so-called “Asian exceptional peace” phenomenon, i.e. there has been no military conflict in the Asia Pacific since 1979. By engaging the debate over the “Asian exceptional peace” puzzle, I introduce an “institutional peace” argument, which suggests that Asian countries have constructed an institutional framework of “dynamic security governance” to manage three types of security challenges in the region. I also discuss three future challenges as well as how to sustain this “institutional peace” in the Asia Pacific.
The 21 st century has witnessed a significant transformation of the economies of many developing countries. Consequently, many studies have argued that the centre of gravity of the global economy is shifting from the Western core to the semi-peripheral East. Vassilis Fouskas and Bülent Gökay’s global fault-lines model detailed in their book titled The Fall of the US Empire: Global Fault-Lines and the Shifting Imperial Order is an attempt to use some ideas of the theory of plate tectonics to explain the historical-geographic tectonic shifts in the global political economy. This paper shows the major arguments of the global fault-lines model and shows the link between the plate tectonics theory and the global fault-lines model. Finally, it highlights the implications of the tectonic shifts in the global political economy and by so doing argues for the expansion of BRICS and strengthening of the south-south cooperation paradigm.
Are the United States (US) and China destined to fall into a 'Thucydides trap' of power transitions leading to great power conflict? This study explores how the intersubjective perception of media-disseminated narratives of US-China interdependence may shape the likelihood of war. In two randomized online experiments, we manipulated ordinary Americans' perceptions of US-China relations with real CNN video clips that narrated a US-China power transition as either positive or zero sum. Across both experiments, more zero-sum narratives boosted perceived US-China competition, increasing intergroup mistrust, anger and subsequent desires for a tougher China policy. The second study also revealed that individual differences in nationalism and uncertainty avoidance moderated the effects of the perception of media narratives on mistrust and anger. Viewers actively interpret media they are exposed to. These findings empirically demonstrate the power of narratives: specifically, they reveal the psychological mechanisms linking structural changes in the balance of power to the individual-level processes that may determine great power war and peace.
In the last few years, Graham Allison’s “Thucydides’ Trap” has stimulated much discussion within International Relations (IR). Most IR scholars understand Thucydides’ Trap as a shorthand for power transition theory, and view it as highly inadequate for analyzing China-US relations. This article seeks to offer an alternative, tragic, understanding of Thucydides’ Trap that may have more purchase on the analysis of the dynamic of China-US relations. It first argues that while Thucydides’ Trap shares power transition theory’s focus on the shifting balance of power, it is also different from the latter in its emphasis on the emotional implications of changes in the balance of power. This article then explores a tragic understanding of Thucydides’ Trap. Economic success often encourages a rising power to display ambition, confidence and enhanced sense of self (what Allison calls “rising power syndrome”), which leads to loosened restraint, overextension, and strategic blunder; meanwhile, its assertive and ambitious moves spark a ruling power’s fear, insecurity and even paranoia (what Allison calls “ruling power syndrome”), which prompts it to take “preventive” actions in response to the rising power’s assertiveness. This article finally looks at China-US relations through this tragic lens. It suggests that this tragic understanding of Thucydides’ Trap can illuminate the emotional aspect of China-US relations, and also argues that the Thucydides Trap Research Project should henceforth develop an emotional line of inquiry into interaction between the great powers.
International Security 30.1 (2005) 196-211
In his recent article in International Security, David Shambaugh provides a far-ranging and thought-provoking account of China's engagement policy with the wider Asian region, which he argues is "a principal catalyst in shaping a new order in Asia." Shambaugh posits that "the traditional underpinnings of international relations in Asia are undergoing profound change, and the rise of China is a principal cause" (p. 64). Other causes of change that he points to include the relative decline of U.S. influence in the region; the growing role of norms espoused by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and attendant growth of ASEAN-linked institutions; increased technological and economic interdependence in the region; and improvements in China's relations with key regional states including India, South Korea, and Vietnam. As a result, Shambaugh asserts that in contrast to the situation just a few years ago, "the majority of Asian states currently view China as more benign than malign and are accommodating themselves to its rise" (p. 67). Following other observers, Shambaugh sees regional bandwagoning dynamics operating in China's favor.
We contend, however, that there are serious problems in Shambaugh's thesis, which collectively leave us with much less room for optimism about China's Asia policy both in the present, as well as for the future. Three key points of critique merit further elaboration. First, Shambaugh devotes inadequate attention in his article to China's relations with two states, Japan and Taiwan, whose interactions in the last decade patently contradict his portrayal of skillful Chinese diplomacy. Second, his claim that "most nations in the region now see China as a good neighbor, a constructive partner, a careful listener, and a nonthreatening regional power" merely illustrates short-term trends in the post–Cold War era, mostly since 1997 (p. 64). A strong case can be made that many Southeast Asian states are economic competitors with China, and that some are hedging against its rise by consolidating their long-standing relations with the United States. Third, even if one were to look past the first two points of criticism, Shambaugh provides no convincing reason for why China should not simply be viewed as acting strategically, and behaving itself while it is on its ascent, so as to not induce balancing by regional states. In this view, once China feels that it has sufficient economic and military power, it will behave as other great powers have done in the past and insist that its preferences are respected, by force if necessary.
While Shambaugh is correct to point out the improvement in China's relations with a number of Asian states—notably some of the ASEAN states, along with South Korea and India—a sustained discussion of China's relations with two key states in the region—Japan and Taiwan—is conspicuously absent. This is a significant oversight because China's relations with these states are (1) arguably enormously important to regional stability; (2) have historically been prone to conflict; and (3) have been on a downward trajectory since the mid-1990s. At a minimum, Beijing's relations with Tokyo and Taipei call into question Shambaugh's conclusion that Chinese diplomacy is as astute as he claims (p. 64). Space constraints require that we paint only the general trends in China's relations with these two states.
As Thomas Christensen has argued, China exhibits a visceral and historically rooted distrust toward Japan and is resistant to the idea that any Chinese actions could pose a threat to it. This is an important issue because Chinese insensitivity to Japanese fears of a rising China is already fueling mutual suspicions that could easily activate security dilemma dynamics in Asia. Since the downturn in its economy in the 1990s, which has coincided with sustained Chinese economic growth and military modernization, Japan has quite naturally developed apprehensions about being eclipsed by China. As a result, Tokyo has consistently worked to develop closer ties with the United States, its formal alliance partner since 1951...
Since Munich, appeasement a policy of making unilateral concessions in the hope of avoiding conflict has been considered a disastrous strategy. Conceding to one adversary is thought to undermine the conceder s reputation for resolve, provoking additional challenges. Kreps, Wilson, Milgrom, and Roberts formalized this logic in their 1982 solutions to the chain-store paradox. I show with a series of models that if a state faces multiple challenges and has limited resources, the presumption against appeasement breaks down: appeasing in one arena may then be vital to conserve sufficient resources to deter in others. I identify appeasement and deterrence equilibria, and I show that when the stakes of conflict are either high or low, or when the costs of fighting are high, only appeasement equilibria exist. I illustrate the result with discussions of successful appeasement by Imperial Britain and unsuccessful attempts at reputation-building by Spain under Philip IV.I thank Rui de Figueiredo, Jim Fearon, Tim Groseclose, David Laitin, Ed Mansfield, James Morrow, Barry O Neill, Bob Powell, Lawrence Saez, Ken Schultz, Art Stein, Marc Trachtenberg, Romain Wacziarg, Justin Wolfers, and other participants in seminars at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and the 2002 American Political Science Association meeting for helpful comments.
Debates about how the various causes of great events interact cannot be resolved conclusively, but neither can they be avoided. All arguments about the implications of the Cold War's end for both policy and international relations theory hinge on rendering some judgment about how changing economic constraints affected this seminal event. Although scholars have spent a great deal of intellectual energy tracing the effects of ideas and leaders, comparatively few studies rigorously analyze how economic shifts independently influenced the final years of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry1 The Endgame conference illustrates this problem. James Baker opened the conference with an analysis that highlighted Soviet economic decline and geopolitical exhaustion, yet the subsequent discussions focused on the interaction between leaders, changing ideas, and domestic politics.
This article applies the logic of selection, or strategic choice, to analyze extended deterrence in the Taiwan Strait (Chan 2003; Huth 1988a, 1988b; Huth et al. 1993; Huth and Russett 1984; Lebow and Stein 1990; Morgan 1983). Extended deterrence refers to a situation whereby a defender (in this case, the United States) seeks to prevent a challenger (China) from attacking its protégé (Taiwan). This formulation naturally leads us to focus on those acts of commission or omission by the defender that are likely to influence the challenger's decision to select, or not to select, itself into a confrontation that may escalate to war. Assuming that the challenger is strategic, its decision seeks to anticipate the defender's choices and makes ex ante adjustments in anticipation of the latter's moves. This anticipation, however, is not easily undertaken because the challenger recognizes that the defender cannot be expected to disclose its true intentions and capabilities.
Sino-Soviet border fighting in early 1969 had many causes. The two Damansky Island incidents, moreover, were quite different in level of conflict and outcome. Only an investigation of the details of the incidents, together with a composite analysis of domestic, foreign policy, and international political variables suffices to determine what actually happened and why. Fitting the pieces together reveals that the Chinese caused the March 2 incident, while the Russians initiated fighting on March-14. The first incident involved only local forces; the second included regular army forces of several thousand and heavy equipment.
The history of the border conflict since 1954 is traced and found to have entered a critical stage in 1966, with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution and increased Soviet military readiness. The 1964 border negotiations aborted because the Chinese wished no agreement then; but no insurmountable obstacles stand in the way of a definitive border agreement. A combination of local excesses, regional power struggle, and national-level policy changes motivated the Chinese to initiate action on March 2. The Soviets caused the March 14 incident primarily for revenge and as the opening move in forcing the Chinese into new border talks.
One of the current controversies within international relations deals with the “stability” of bipolar as opposed to multipolar stratifications of world power. Morton Kaplan, in codifying the views of classical balance of power theorists, advances the view that multipolar systems are more stable than bipolar systems. Kenneth Waltz, sagely pointing to the relatively peaceful international arena since World War II, argues that a bipolar distribution of power can guarantee world stability. Many a priori arguments have been presented to buttress the Kaplan and Waltz hypotheses. In one of the most elaborate such formulations, the “interaction opportunity” hypothesis of Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer, the presence of stabilizing crosscutting alliances is postulated to be most likely within multipolar systems, which in turn are a function of the number of major powers and members of a system. In an attempt to bring the two opposing strands of theory into a larger framework, Richard Rosecrance more recently has suggested that bipolarity and multipolarity may each have their peculiar costs and benefits. Bipolarity, according to Rosecrance, is distinguished by (1) an absence of “peripheries,” such as areas for colonial expansion or neutral powers to woo; (2) all international behavior is highly politicized; (3) there are many crises; (4) changes in power confrontations are either significant or trivial, with no intervening shades of gray; (5) each pole is dominated by major powers highly motivated to expand their domains, willing even to incur brinksmanlike situations and hostility spirals; (6) no detente is possible. Multipolarity, on the other hand, is hypothesized to have (1) more interaction opportunities and thus less preoccupation (or obsession) with any one set of states; (2) fewer arms races; (3) more international conflicts; (4) the outcomes of international conflicts are harder to predict in advance; (5) changes in power confrontations have ambiguous consequences for the overall distribution of power. Rosecrance, therefore, urges a “bi-multipolar” arrangement that would combine the best features of both alternatives. The empirical questions and intriguing hypotheses so eloquently raised by Kaplan, Waltz, Deutsch, Singer, and Rosecrance have remained largely unexamined, however.
The United States has done much to enable China's recent growth, but it has also sent mixed signals that have unnerved Beijing. More consistent engagement is in order, because the course of the twenty-first century will be determined by the relationship between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging power.
Using a game-theoretic model of international interactions, the author shows that systemtransforming wars can result from a relatively small dispute between rivals who are basically satisfied with the international status quo. Such wars are likely to be relatively low in costs even if they are profound in their consequences. The possibility of such system-transforming wars is overlooked by the theories of power-transition, or hegemonic, war.
The Seven Weeks' War is an example of a system-transforming conflict that can be understood by combining the insights of theories concerned with differential growth rates and of those derived from the game-theoretic perspective suggested here. The combination of these two perspectives expands the explanatory potential of existing theories of system-transforming wars.
Original power transition theory is extended by relaxing the restrictive assumption of the method of augmenting national power. The occurrence of war in East Asia from 1860 to 1993 is examined to see if the revised power transition argument holds for the conflicts in East Asia. Results show that conflicts in East Asia occur under the same general conditions that lead to war in the international system and that war is most likely when the dissatisfied challenger approximates the dominant power. The evidence also suggests that the role of alliances is crucial for mitigating or militating the risk of war, contrary to the standard power transition formulation. Because alliances play a central role in the risk of wars, the dangers of such a conflict in East Asia (or elsewhere) can be managed through skillful strategies of alignment and de-alignment.
A dynamic pattern that historically played an important role in the rise and fall of the major powers involves the early attainment of power supremacy by comparatively small countries that developed earlier and subsequently lost their status to larger countries that developed later. Cases in point are the staggered rise in power of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, and their subsequent loss of status to the USA and the USSR. The development of China and, at some point in the future, of India has the potential of pushing these countries to superpower status while pushing the USA and a revitalized Russia to substantially lower power ranks. If this sequence of events comes to pass, it will fit the same fundamental dynamics that rendered the USA and the USSR superpowers to begin with. The thesis that the economic development of large countries can produce power shifts of major consequence is the focal theme of this article. First, this thesis is discussed in general terms, is related to a number of literatures from several disciplines, and is validated using an econometric model and empirical data. Then, the thesis is brought to bear upon the USA/China ‘case’. In this connection, the USA/China shifts in power capabilities that have occurred during the past 50 years are documented and extrapolated over the 1995–2050 time-horizon. The extrapolations are based on seven projections that span diverse presuppositions, assumptions, and approaches. The conceptual and analytical generalities, the empirical analyses, and the forecasts presented suggest the possibility that China will acquire power superiority over the USA within the next half-century.
Attributions of satisfaction or dissatisfaction to states form an important foundation of theories about international relations, especially with respect to the outbreak of war among major powers. This paper addresses several conceptual and empirical problems in the application of these attributions. It first offers a critique of the conventional denotation of states as putatively satisfied or dissatisfied. It then presents the multiple connotations that this distinction has been associated with. This is followed by the suggestion of an alternative indicator, based on the extent of a state's participation in international governmental organizations (IGOs), for assessing and tracking national satisfaction/dissatisfaction. The paper then proceeds to a discussion of prior studies of the power-transition theory, and presents a serial reading of national satisfaction/dissatisfaction on the part of the main contenders for international leadership from 1860 to 1949. Given its central role in the wars among these contenders, Germany's scores are the subject of special scrutiny. The proposed measure of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, when combined with the occurrence of power shifts as determined by prior research, shows a strong association with the timing of past wars between major powers. The conclusion discusses some further theoretical and policy implications of the perspective presented. © Oxford University Press and the Japan Association of International Relations 2004.
A central premise of the Bush foreign-policy team is that China is trying to challenge the status quo. China is seen as a rising power with a grudge against the international system. In short, we are said to be entering the twenty-first century equivalent of the early twentieth century, when a democratic England struggled with a rising, authoritarian Germany. But this analogy - of a 'Wilhelmine China' - is flawed, for it is hardly obvious, in the year 2001, just who is defending the status quo. At the very moment of China's decision to integrate fully into the international system, the United States seems to have started the process of changing the rules. Just as China aspires to become a 'normal state' for the first time in its history, the criterion for 'normal' is changing. As China goes multilateral in its foreign relations, America turns unilateral.
The relationship between dyadic power balances and the onset of war is a principal element in realist theories of international politics. The influence of the status quo orientation of the belligerents has also been specified in power transition theory as a factor which impacts on the patterns of conflict. However, despite this theoretical underpinning, the question of the probabilistic identity of war initiators constitutes a gap in the understanding of factors associated with international conflict. This study examines the identity of war initiators as it relates to both power balances and status quo orientation for a set of nation-dyads that have formed long-term rivalries. The results of the analysis indicate that for rival dyads: (1) status quo challengers rather than defenders are the most probable war initiators; (2) status quo challengers are equally likely to initiate wars whether they are superior or inferior in capabilities to their rivals; and (3) status quo defenders initiate wars almost solely under unstable military balances. This last pattern suggests that stable military balances of either preponderance or parity are generally interpreted by status quo defenders as supportive of deterrence, whereas unstable balances producing capability shifts or transitions are deemed dangerous enough to provoke preemptive military action. The distribution is such that it approximates a necessary condition for the initiation of war by the status quo defender in an enduring rivalry. All three of the above findings are consistent with A.F.K. Organski's original formulation of power transition theory.
Lanxin Xiang has authored a most thoughtful and provocative contribution to current considerations on United States-China relations. As this key international relationship is once again in flux, there is no shortage of punditry and prediction about it. Xiang's is a particularly valuable voice, as he offers interesting and insightful historical parallels from a century ago - which he describes as the Edwardian Era (1901-1910), the period during which England wrestled with the rising power of Wilhelmine Germany. His principal thesis seems to be that London misunderstood Berlin then, as Washington misunderstands Beijing now. He argues that this strategic misunderstanding led the stronger, entrenched power to undertake unnecessary preemptive measures against the rising authoritarian power - which, in turn, provoked a disequilibrium in the international system as the entrenched hegemonic powers (England and America respectively) disrupted a functional balance or concert of powers by seeking absolute, rather than relative, global preponderance (hegemony). There are no doubt some diplomatic historians who might query the veracity of this argument in Britain's case a century ago, as there are undoubtedly experts on American foreign policy who would dispute that Washington under the Bush administration seeks total global dominance today. Yet, I find Xiang's argument essentially persuasive in many regards, and for much of the evidence he cites. There are also significant areas of his analysis with which I would not readily concur, but first allow me to echo where I think his analysis of the contemporary scene has merit.
This paper is motivated by three ideas. First, analyses of interstate relations have over-emphasized the role of hard power (especially military capabilities) to the relative neglect of soft power (including the important role played by economic statecraft). Second, these analyses have privi-leged the role of the state while not giving civil society (in the case of this paper business interests) sufficient attention. Evolving relations between the state and civil society influence the feasibility and success of economic statecraft. And third, economic carrots and sticks are two sides of the same coin, and their effects are in part contingent on the alignment of domestic interests and influence. I pursue these ideas in the context of Taiwan-China-U.S. economic relations, offering general heuristics and selective reference to the pertinent literature. After a short introduction, the discussion proceeds to treat (1) the double-edged nature of economic intercourse, (2) relative bargaining power, (3) vulnerability to economic holdup, (4) cross-border signaling, and (5) evolving domestic interests and influence. The paper's conclusion returns to the thesis that carrots and STEVE CHAN (³¯«ä¼w) is Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Colo-rado, Boulder. His research has addressed topics of democratic peace, war termination, power transition, and political culture and economic development in East Asia. Professor Chan can be reached at <steve.chan@colorado.edu>.
The United States, by concentrating its intellectual, diplomatic, and military energy on the Middle East, is neglecting the far more substantial long-range challenges that will arise in Asia by mid-century. This strategic myopia is magnified by the lack of a clear national strategy, one that should be focused on recognizing the full implications of the rise of China and India into the ranks of great powers. Informed by theoretical arguments and offering policy options, this essay examines the coming Asian challenge against the backdrop of a world with three great powers potentially competing for resources, allies, and leadership within Asia and, more broadly, the international system.
This article tests the predictions of expected-utility and prospect theories against the most important dimensions of the Cuban missile crisis. Largely through use of the most recently released information on the crisis from the American and Soviet governments, I attempt to ascertain the anticipated benefits, costs, and probabilities of success associated with each of the major policy choices that the key leaders in both superpowers perceived before each of the major decisions throughout the crisis was made. Using this information and the logic of extensive-form game-theoretic models of choice, I construct a baseline for expected-utility theory that helps us to understand when prospect or expected-utility theory provides the better explanation for a particular decision. Prospect theory predicts that when individuals perceive themselves to be experiencing losses at the time they make a decision, and when their probability estimates associated with their principal policy options are in the moderate to high range, they will tend to make excessively risky, non–value maximizing choices. I find that the evidence for the Cuban missile crisis supports this prediction for the most important decisions made by both Khrushchev and Kennedy.
Demographic and social scientific research suggests, with near certainty, that by the end of this century, the two Asian giants, China and India, will have surpassed the United States on certain key indicators of national power. The implications for the future of world politics are profound, but the outcomes are not predetermined. If the coming power transition is managed wisely, there is an opportunity for continued peace among the Great Powers. If the transition proceeds confrontationally, as many have in the past, a serious global conflict is in the offing. There is much that policy makers can do to avoid the most threatening potential outcomes.
This essay explores the deterrence-versus-restraint dilemma in extended deterrence in the context of the Tripartite Crisis Game under incomplete information. This model was developed specifically to capture the mixed motives and contradictory impulses that oftentimes frame extended deterrence encounters. To focus the analysis and to gain tractability, we make specific assumptions about the utilities of the players: Challenger, Defender, and Protégé. Our most significant simplification concerns Defender's type. In particular, we assume that Defender, although not heavily invested in the issues in dispute, is known to prefer conflict to the breakup of its strategic relationship with Protégé. One important result concerns unequivocal commitments. We find that such commitments are efficacious but only when Protégé's threat to sever its relationship with Defender is highly credible. In the absence of this condition, a straddle (or mixed) strategy is optimal for Defender. A straddle strategy, which involves probabilistic support of Protégé, is the mechanism by which Defender attempts to resolve the deterrence-versus-restraint dilemma. Sometimes, the stratagem works and Challenger is deterred and Protégé is restrained. But a straddle strategy will always fail to deter determined Challengers, such as Germany in 1914, that prefer to fight rather than back down during a confrontation. It may even fail to deter hesitant Challengers with an aversion to conflict. We use these insights to explain and evaluate British policy in the runup to World War I.
According to power-transition theory, war is most likely when the leading state is challenged by a rapidly growing, dissatisfied rival. Challengers are said to be dissatisfied because the hegemon manages the status quo for its own benefit, rewarding its allies and penalizing rivals. We assess the leading states ability to distribute the private goods of peace, victory in war, and economic prosperity. States with alliance portfolios similar to the hegemons are not protected from aggression; nor do they grow more rapidly than countries with which the leading state is not closely allied. The dominant powers allies are more apt to win defensive wars, although the means by which this is accomplished are unclear. On balance, our results call into question the ability of the leading state to engineer satisfaction by distributing private goods. Like hegemonic-stability theory, power-transition theory exaggerates the influence of the leading state over the international system.
Three assertions about relations between multinational corporations and host countries in the Third World frequently appear in the dependencia literature: 1) that the host countries receive too few benefits; 2) that foreign investment causes distortions in the local economies; and 3) that foreign investment distorts host countries' political processes. These propositions can be reformulated as testable hypotheses, to which non-dependency studies of oligopolistic competition, bureaucratic politics, and transnational relations are relevant. Identifying critical areas of disagreement between dependency and nondependency approaches may help scholars to design their research in such a way as to enrich the dialogue between dependentistas and non-dependentistas .
I attended all 42 hours of classes in the Cardiovascular System Course in order to help the course coordinator set the examination. What makes this unusual is that I am not a physician. As a PhD educator supporting faculty and the educational programs at our medical school I became a learner as well as a co-course co-coordinator. Attending all the classes has led me to discover what might become the future of faculty development and course renewal. I now know who teaches what and how so I can approach them to talk about any changes they may want to make in their teaching. I have also learned what the specific content of the course is which will allow me to connect with coordinators of concurrent and of supporting courses from earlier years in the hope of achieving some higher degree of integration. Taking the course with medical students has been one of the most interesting and professionally valuable tasks that I have ever undertaken, one that will be repeated.