Power and Restraint in China's Rise

Power and Restraint in China's Rise

Author: Chin-Hao Huang

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2022-07-05

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 0231555628

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Honorable Mention, 2024 T.V. Paul Best Book in Global International Relations, Global International Relations Section, International Studies Association Conventional wisdom holds that China’s rise is disrupting the global balance of power in unpredictable ways. However, China has often deferred to the consensus of smaller neighboring countries on regional security rather than running roughshod over them. Why and when does China exercise restraint—and how does this aspect of Chinese statecraft challenge the assumptions of international relations theory? In Power and Restraint in China’s Rise, Chin-Hao Huang argues that a rising power’s aspirations for acceptance provide a key rationale for refraining from coercive measures. He analyzes Chinese foreign policy conduct in the South China Sea, showing how complying with regional norms and accepting constraints improves external perceptions of China and advances other states’ recognition of China as a legitimate power. Huang details how member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have taken a collective approach to defusing tension in maritime disputes, incentivizing China to support regional security initiatives that it had previously resisted. Drawing on this empirical analysis, Huang develops new theoretical perspectives on why great powers eschew coercion in favor of restraint when they seek legitimacy. His framework explains why a dominant state with rising ambitions takes the views and interests of small states into account, as well as how collective action can induce change in a major power’s behavior. Offering new insight into the causes and consequences of change in recent Chinese foreign policy, this book has significant implications for the future of engagement with China.


Obama and China's Rise

Obama and China's Rise

Author: Jeffrey A. Bader

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2012-02-24

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0815722435

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"Future presidents will need to find the right balance in China policy, so as to maintain America's strength and watchfulness but not fall into the classic security dilemma, wherein each side believes that growing capabilities reflect hostile intent and responds by producing that reality. I believe that President Obama struck that balance." —From Obama and China's Rise In 2005, veteran diplomat and Asia analyst Jeffrey Bader met for the first time with the then-junior U.S. senator from Illinois. When Barack Obama entered the White House a few years later, Bader was named the senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council, becoming one of a handful of advisers responsible for formulating and implementing the administration's policy regarding that key region. For obvious reasons—a booming economy, expanding military power, and increasing influence over the region—the looming impact of a rising China dominated their efforts. Obama's original intent was to extend U.S. influence and presence in East Asia, which he felt had been neglected by a Bush administration fixated on the Middle East, particularly Iraq, and the war on terror. China's rise, particularly its military buildup, was heightening anxiety among its neighbors, including key U.S. allies Japan and South Korea. Bader explains the administration's efforts to develop stable relations with China while improving relationships with key partners worried about Beijing's new assertiveness. In Obama and China's Rise, Bader reveals what he did, discusses what he saw, and interprets what it meant—first during the Obama campaign, and then for the administration. The result is an illuminating backstage view of the formulation and execution of American foreign policy as well as a candid assessment of both. Bader combines insightful and authoritative foreign policy analysis with a revealing and humanizing narrative of his own personal journey.


The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy

The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy

Author: Edward N. Luttwak

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-11-15

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0674071255

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As the rest of the world worries about what a future might look like under Chinese supremacy, Edward Luttwak worries about China’s own future prospects. Applying the logic of strategy for which he is well known, Luttwak argues that the most populous nation on Earth—and its second largest economy—may be headed for a fall. For any country whose rising strength cannot go unnoticed, the universal logic of strategy allows only military or economic growth. But China is pursuing both goals simultaneously. Its military buildup and assertive foreign policy have already stirred up resistance among its neighbors, just three of whom—India, Japan, and Vietnam—together exceed China in population and wealth. Unless China’s leaders check their own ambitions, a host of countries, which are already forming tacit military coalitions, will start to impose economic restrictions as well. Chinese leaders will find it difficult to choose between pursuing economic prosperity and increasing China’s military strength. Such a change would be hard to explain to public opinion. Moreover, Chinese leaders would have to end their reliance on ancient strategic texts such as Sun Tzu’s Art of War. While these guides might have helped in diplomatic and military conflicts within China itself, their tactics—such as deliberately provoking crises to force negotiations—turned China’s neighbors into foes. To avoid arousing the world’s enmity further, Luttwak advises, Chinese leaders would be wise to pursue a more sustainable course of economic growth combined with increasing military and diplomatic restraint.


Has China Won?

Has China Won?

Author: Kishore Mahbubani

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2020-03-31

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1541768124

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The defining geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century is between China and the US. But is it avoidable? And if it happens, is the outcome already inevitable? China and America are world powers without serious rivals. They eye each other warily across the Pacific; they communicate poorly; there seems little natural empathy. A massive geopolitical contest has begun. America prizes freedom; China values freedom from chaos.America values strategic decisiveness; China values patience.America is becoming society of lasting inequality; China a meritocracy.America has abandoned multilateralism; China welcomes it. Kishore Mahbubani, a diplomat and scholar with unrivalled access to policymakers in Beijing and Washington, has written the definitive guide to the deep fault lines in the relationship, a clear-eyed assessment of the risk of any confrontation, and a bracingly honest appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses, and superpower eccentricities, of the US and China.


The Paradox of Power

The Paradox of Power

Author: David C. Gompert

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780160915734

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The second half of the 20th century featured a strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. That competition avoided World War III in part because during the 1950s, scholars like Henry Kissinger, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, and Albert Wohlstetter analyzed the fundamental nature of nuclear deterrence. Decades of arms control negotiations reinforced these early notions of stability and created a mutual understanding that allowed U.S.-Soviet competition to proceed without armed conflict. The first half of the 21st century will be dominated by the relationship between the United States and China. That relationship is likely to contain elements of both cooperation and competition. Territorial disputes such as those over Taiwan and the South China Sea will be an important feature of this competition, but both are traditional disputes, and traditional solutions suggest themselves. A more difficult set of issues relates to U.S.-Chinese competition and cooperation in three domains in which real strategic harm can be inflicted in the current era: nuclear, space, and cyber. Just as a clearer understanding of the fundamental principles of nuclear deterrence maintained adequate stability during the Cold War, a clearer understanding of the characteristics of these three domains can provide the underpinnings of strategic stability between the United States and China in the decades ahead. That is what this book is about.


The Paradox of Power

The Paradox of Power

Author: David C. Gompert

Publisher: Department of the Army

Published: 2011-12-27

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

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Looking deeply into the matter of strategic vulnerability, the authors address questions that this vulnerability poses: Do conditions exist for Sino-U.S. mutual deterrence in these realms? Might the two states agree on reciprocal restraint? What practical measures might build confidence in restraint? How would strategic restraint affect Sino-U.S. relations as well as security in and beyond East Asia?


Decoding the Rise of China

Decoding the Rise of China

Author: Tse-Kang Leng

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 981108288X

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This edited collection provides a synthetic analysis of the rise of contemporary China and its impact on the current global system from a range of Asian and Western perspectives. Highlighting Taiwanese and Japanese viewpoints, the book considers a macro, integrated vision of the rise of China and examines the vital cultural factors which link domestic politics and foreign policy in the Sino-Japanese relationship. The book addresses key policy matters, such as the internationalization of the Chinese currency and Arctic diplomacy, and provides a key reference on contemporary Chinese foreign policy and the Sino-Japanese relationship for students, academics experts and policy makers in the field of Area Studies, History and International Relations.


The Asian 21st Century

The Asian 21st Century

Author: Kishore Mahbubani

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9811668116

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This open access book consists of essays written by Kishore Mahbubani to explore the challenges and dilemmas faced by the West and Asia in an increasingly interdependent world village and intensifying geopolitical competition. The contents cover four parts: Part One The End of the Era of Western Domination. The major strategic error that the West is now making is to refuse to accept this reality. The West needs to learn how to act strategically in a world where they are no longer the number 1. Part Two The Return of Asia. From the years 1 to 1820, the largest economies in the world were Asian. After 1820 and the rise of the West, however, great Asian civilizations like China and India were dominated and humiliated. The twenty-first century will see the return of Asia to the center of the world stage. Part Three The Peaceful Rise of China. The shift in the balance of power to the East has been most pronounced in the rise of China. While this rise has been peaceful, many in the West have responded with considerable concern over the influence China will have on the world order. Part Four Globalization, Multilateralism and Cooperation. Many of the world's pressing issues, such as COVID-19 and climate change, are global issues and will require global cooperation to deal with. In short, human beings now live in a global village. States must work with each other, and we need a world order that enables and facilitates cooperation in our global village.


Looking for Balance

Looking for Balance

Author: Steve Chan

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2013-07-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0804778477

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Debate surrounding "China's rise," and the prospects of its possible challenge to America's preeminence, has focused on two questions: whether the United States should "contain" or "engage" China; and whether the rise of Chinese power has inclined other East Asian states to "balance" against Beijing by alignment with the United States or ramping up their military expenditures. By drawing on alternative theoretic approaches—most especially "balance-of-threat" theory, political economic theory, and theories of regime survival and economic interdependence, Steve Chan is able to create an explanation of regional developments that differs widely from the traditional "strategic vision" of national interest. He concludes that China's primary aim is not to match U.S. military might or the foreign policy influence that flows from that power, and that its neighbors are not balancing against its rising power because, in today's guns-versus-butter fiscal reality, balancing policies would entail forfeiting possible gains that can accrue from cooperation, economic growth, and the application of GDP to nonmilitary ends. Instead, most East Asian countries have collectively pivoted to a strategy of elite legitimacy and regime survival based on economic performance.


When China Rules the World

When China Rules the World

Author: Martin Jacques

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2009-11-12

Total Pages: 631

ISBN-13: 1101151455

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Greatly revised and expanded, with a new afterword, this update to Martin Jacques’s global bestseller is an essential guide to understanding a world increasingly shaped by Chinese power Soon, China will rule the world. But in doing so, it will not become more Western. Since the first publication of When China Rules the World, the landscape of world power has shifted dramatically. In the three years since the first edition was published, When China Rules the World has proved to be a remarkably prescient book, transforming the nature of the debate on China. Now, in this greatly expanded and fully updated edition, boasting nearly 300 pages of new material, and backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China’s ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, changing the world as we know it. First published in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim - and controversy - When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order has sold a quarter of a million copies, been translated into eleven languages, nominated for two major literary awards, and is the subject of an immensely popular TED talk.