Learning to Live with the Hegemon: evolution of China's policy toward the US since the end of the Cold War

This paper is designed to review China's efforts to adapt to the post-Cold War world dominated by the United States and to analyze the underlying factors that have shaped such efforts. It attempts to make three points: (1) the adaptation process has been an eventful and difficult one; (2) China's gradual appreciation of the new international reality, the daunting domestic challenges China faces, and China's growing awareness of the implications of its rise for its developmental prospects have helped shape its efforts of adaptation; and (3) in the foreseeable future, if the US does not treat China as an enemy and if the two countries can effectively manage the Taiwan problem, China is likely to continue its efforts to accommodate and cooperate with the US.     

Taiwan's Foreign Policy and Africa: The limitations of dollar diplomacy

The search for status, or more correctly, the desire to maintain status, lies at the heart of the Republic of China on Taiwan's (ROC) foreign policy. This is particularly so vis-a ¤ -vis its official state-to-state relations. In this regard, the ROC has been constrained by a conscious policy by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to try and marginalize Taiwan on the international stage. Due to objective realities, Taiwan has had to become satisfied with maintaining official state relations with small states only. All, with the exception of the Vatican, are in the developing world, with a number in Africa. This paper examines Taiwanese foreign policy and its diplomatic initiatives, with particular reference to its use of 'dollar diplomacy' in its activities in Africa. The constraints and limitations of such policies are drawn out.     

How East Asians View the Rise of China

Its newly acquired status as the world's second largest economy has entitled China to a more prominent role in global affairs, and increasingly, its behavior has drawn scrutiny from the world in ways that the country is ill-prepared for. The attention to China's rise, however, focuses not only on its economy but also on other aspects, including its military, diplomatic moves, domestic politics and its ‘soft power’, namely, its own image or self-projection and the world's perception or attitudes toward China. And yet, there has been no systematic investigation to evaluate how the world views a rising China. In this article, the authors applied the latest dataset from the Asian Barometer Survey to investigate whether East Asians recognize and welcome the rise of China. The findings suggest that geographical and cultural proximity have a great impact on people's perception of China. Countries which are territorially adjacent or culturally close to China tend to regard China as the most influential country in Asia. With the exception of Japan and Mongolia, most Asian countries hold positive views about the impact of China on the region. However, such benign evaluations are weaker in countries which have potential security conflicts with China, such as Taiwan and South Korea, when only the bilateral impact is considered. The overall picture shows that the rise of China has been largely recognized and welcomed by East Asians, despite some apprehension about China's strategic intentions to its neighboring countries.     

The Tibet Problem in the Milieu of a Rising China: findings from a survey on Americans' attitudes toward China

The Lhasa riots in 2008 re-captured the world's attention on the Tibet problem. As China continues to grow as a rising power, it raises a concern over whether the perception of a rising China will affect how American people think about the Tibet problem. In this article, the authors apply public opinion data to evaluate this question. The results show that the perception of China's hard power or soft power has little influence on Americans' view of the Tibet problem, while factors of political values and China's policy stance matter greatly. Our findings suggest that the huge difference in political values between the PRC and the US makes it tough for both sides to agree on a resolution to the Tibet problem. In the long term, China needs to improve its human rights record and present itself as a responsible great power to win over the hearts of foreign publics rather than conduct a public relations campaign according to its own imagination.     

Xi Jinping and the National Security Commission: policy coordination and political power

This article discusses the rationale for, and progress to date of, creating a National Security Commission in China, a move first announced in late 2013. Central impulses for the Commission's establishment are to help better coordinate a very fragmented bureaucracy and to advance Xi Jinping's drive to consolidate his personal power over the internal and external coercive and diplomatic arms of the governing structure. The Commission is a work in progress and its full institutional maturation will take a protracted period. In the midst of the Commission's construction, there is considerable confusion among subordinates in the foreign policy and security areas about lines of authority and ultimate objectives. Beyond Xi Jinping, it is difficult to discern an authoritative voice. It is an open question as to whether this institutional attempt to achieve coordination will improve, or further complicate, China's long-standing coordination problem, some recent foreign policy achievements notwithstanding. The Commission's focus is heavily weighted toward internal and periphery security, but it also is an institution-building response to new global and transnational issues. It is not self-evident that Xi, or any single individual, can effectively manage the span of control he is constructing.     

Hong Kong in United States‐China relations: The international politics of Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese sovereignty

This article examines the implications of the political transition of Hong Kong on US‐China relations in strategic, political and economic dimensions. It evaluates the impact of Hong Kong's changing status in the context of the engagement‐containment debate on China policy in the US. It suggests that US concerns over questions such as democracy and human rights and China's rejection of foreign interference’ in Hong Kong would turn the territory into a source of political conflict between the US and China. Finally it points out that any major trade confrontation between the two countries would have serious implications for the territory. The article concludes by arguing that if Hong Kong could continue to be a prosperous and free society with a global outlook, it would facilitate China's integration with the global community, but if a reversion to authoritarian rule occurred in Hong Kong, US‐China relations will be aversely affected.     

Reform,Openness and Public Health: on the economic and social determinants of HIV/AIDS in China

China's HIV/AIDS epidemic today is seen by policy-makers primarily as a biomedical problem. Yet according to many researchers this conceptualization of what causes HIV/AIDS epidemics is restricted, focussing on individual behaviour to the exclusion of the broader economic and social determinants. This paper, therefore, illustrates how considering such determinants, including income and gender inequalities, may complement our understanding of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China. It does so by using two different examples: the development of commercial sex work and long-distance migration patterns.     

Managing Government Integrity under Hierarchy: anti-corruption efforts in local China

In contrast to the early campaign style anti-corruption strategy based on nationwide uniformity, disparate local integrity initiatives and programs have proliferated in China in recent years. Local innovation in managing government integrity has been encouraged by the Center. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Guangdong, this article investigates the rationale behind such development and addresses the question of why the central leadership has become receptive to local initiatives in cadre management, an area where political conformity was deemed necessary by an authoritarian regime. It suggests that the strategic adjustment testifies to the institutional failure of the earlier anti-corruption regime that manifested in, inter alia, an acute agency loss problem. The emerging approach to integrity management nevertheless has paradoxical institutional roots. It indicates some new thinking by the central authorities on holding local governments responsible for integrity management. Just as clearly, the adjustment is also driven by the Center's concern about losing control and its desire to ‘manage’ government integrity under hierarchy.     

What Affects China's National Image? A cross-national study of public opinion

This paper investigates macro-level sources of variations across countries regrading China's national image, as measured by the proportion of the public in each of 35 countries that expressed a favorable view of China in the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Survey. It turns out that several expected factors have no significant measurable impact on China's image: not the extent of strategic ties between China and a given country; not the political system of that country; not the extent of Chinese investment in the country; and not the number of Confucius institutes and classrooms in that country. The only macro-level factor we find to affect China's image in a country is that country's level of economic and social development, as measured by the UN Human Development Index. Controlling for the other factors, publics in poor or developing countries are much more likely to have a favorable image of China than publics in economically advanced countries. Some implications of our findings are discussed.     

Useful Opium? ‘Adapted religion’ and ‘harmony’ in contemporary China

Pragmatism has been a leading feature of Communist Party policies since Mao Zedong's death. The attitude to religion has been something of an exception with many restrictions to the freedom of religion stipulated in the constitution. In recent years, while stressing the ‘harmonious society’, there has been a change in the view of religion. Recognizing the ‘spiritual vacuum’ in China after Mao, the party has seen the need for a controlled spiritual development that could also support the economic development. However, in this process the party has tried to control not only religious activity but also religious content and to use it for its own purposes. This is in direct opposition to Marx and Lenin's views on ‘religion as opium’ and indicates that the party is de facto using ‘a reversed opium theory’.     

The Missing Link in Sino–Latin American Relations

The growing economic presence of China around the world is a widely recognized reality. China's expanding economic relations with other developing countries have generated both positive and negative reactions. Many believe that the increasing economic ties between China and these countries will enhance China's political influence and encourage political cooperation between China and other countries in the Global South. How strong is the economic–political link? This article examines this question in the context of Sino–Latin American relations in recent years. It finds that thus far China's expanding economic relations with the region have not had a significant spillover effect into the political realm. The article provides preliminary explanations of the missing link between the economic and the political. It calls for more nuanced ways to apply familiar international relations paradigms to understanding the implications of the rise of China.     

Illegal drugs,policy change,and state power: The case of contemporary China

This article describes and analyzes the rapid resurgence of illegal drugs in contemporary China since the late 1970s. It also examines the evolution and implementation of China's anti‐narcotic policy, especially the people's war on drugs launched in 1990. It is suggested that the resurgence of drug trafficking and drug abuse provides additional evidence of the severe erosion of regime legitimacy in China     

China in Global Food Security Governance

The Chinese public's domestic expectation is that its state will ensure a safe and affordable supply of food. However, in doing so, China has acquired large amounts of farmland abroad which has raised concerns among many developing countries. It has been argued that land grabbing in the developing world is a form of neo-colonialism. This role of a colonial power is in conflict with China's historical role, which presents China as a leader of the developing world. In order to bring these role expectations into conformity with each other, China has taken a more active role in global food security governance. It has brought food security to what is becoming the core of the global governance decision-making system, the G20. China's historical role, together with its growing economic power, has helped to push the G20 to understand the importance of food security. This has shifted the G20's understanding of economic global governance away from the traditional fields of banking and trade regulation toward understanding the developmental-oriented economic structure.     

A Crisis is Looming: China's energy challenge in the eyes of university students

This paper uses a survey at six universities in China to analyze university students' views on China's energy problems. It finds that gender, the nature and location of a student's original community, and their level of education affects students' views about China's energy problems, as well as the types of solutions that are deemed to be most appropriate to manage this looming crisis. University students are quite concerned about China's energy situation. For them, it is already a crisis. They fear China will be controlled due to resource dependency, see the US as China's primary energy competitor, all the while advocating a more hawkish attitude towards Japan in the East China Sea. But, they look foremost to domestic solutions to this crisis, such as enhanced conservation, more efficient use of energy, new technologies, enhancing China's strategic reserve, and increased government taxation, particularly of large enterprises. When they look abroad, they support diversifying energy sources, increasing energy cooperation, particularly with Russia and Central Asia (but not with Japan), and some increase of the navy's role in enhancing sea lane and energy security.     

Chinese Perceptions of US Return to Southeast Asia and the Prospect of China's Peaceful Rise

This article systematically examines the perceptual dimension of US–China–ASEAN relations. It specifically focuses on Chinese perceptions of American intentions in Southeast Asia, Chinese perceptions of the impact on China of the US's return to Southeast Asia, and suggestions of the Chinese scholarly community as to how China should respond to the US's return. Chinese scholars believe that the US returns to Southeast Asia for a variety of reasons and one of the most important is to manage the rise of China, and that the US's return has both positive and negative impacts on China's interests and the negative impact outweighs the positive. Overall, Chinese perceptions of the US return, especially Chinese scholars’ suggested response, indicate that Chinese scholars have internalized the strategy of peaceful rise which would give us added confidence that China is seriously committed to this strategy. If both the US and China stick to their relevant commitments, the rise of China, unlike that of most great powers in the past, would quite likely be peaceful.     

China Goes to Africa: a strategic move?

Entering the twenty-first century, particularly under the reign of Hu Jintao, China began to pursue an increasingly pro-active diplomacy in Africa. Most analysis on China's offensive diplomacy in Africa focuses on Beijing's thirst for energy and raw materials, and for economic profits and benefits. That is why it is often called ‘energy diplomacy’ or ‘economic diplomacy’ as if China, just like Japan in the 1980s, became another ‘economic animal’. But if one looks at the history of the PRC's foreign policy, Beijing has seldom pursued its diplomacy from purely economic considerations. Is this time any different? This article exams China's diplomacy in Africa from a strategic and political perspective such as its geo-strategic calculations, political and security ties with African countries, peacekeeping and anti-piracy efforts in the region, support for African regionalism, etc. It argues that China's diplomatic expansion in Africa, while partially driven by its need for economic growth, cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration its strategic impulse accompanying its accelerating emergence as a global power. Africa is one of China's diplomatic ‘new frontiers’ as exemplified by new Chinese leader Xi Jinping's maiden foreign trip to Africa in 2013.     

‘Three Chinas’ and international organizations after 1997

This article analyzes the effects of the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty to China in 1997 on the participation of Hong Kong and Taiwan in international organizations. It identifies the conditions under which China tolerates co‐existence with Taiwan as members of eleven intergovernmental organizations as of 1996. It concludes with two observations: one, international organizations are not monolithic entities; two, although China has overwhelming influence over Hong Kong's participation in these organizations, it depends also on how the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government is going to manage its relations with China.     

One Regulatory State,Two Regulatory Regimes: understanding dual regimes in China's regulatory state building through food safety

As China proceeds with a process of urbanization unprecedented in human history, it maintains an urban-biased governance regime in many areas, including food safety regulation. Using secondary data and interviews with officials from the Changping district in Beijing, this article systematically defines the main characteristics of China's dual food safety regulation regimes, highlighting differences between urban and rural areas in four dimensions: policy structure, funding source, staff structure and resource allocation. This article also provides an explanatory framework to understand this dual regime's development and persistence from a neo-institutionalism perspective. Three main explanatory variables are advanced: historical legacy, dual incentive structures, and dual economic and industrial patterns. While China's urbanization process and governance structure, including the food safety regulatory regime, are not complete by Western standards, we emphasize this problem is best understood by examining China's unique socioeconomic and cultural context.     

Chinese nationalism,Taiwan autonomy and the prospects of a larger war

In contrast to the belief that the 1995–1996 Taiwan Straits crisis was caused by the visit of the President of Taiwan to Cornell University, in fact, the post‐Mao ruling groups in Beijing made forcing early reunification with mainland China on Taiwan a top priority soon after assuming power in 1978. This new focus on Taiwan's reunification reflects a policy switch. It is not a continuation of Mao era policies. The switch is basic. It involves a profound change in the content of Chinese nationalism from Mao era nationalism, which is seen by its critics in China as insufficiently promoting the national interests of the Chinese people. The new, post‐Mao nationalism in China not only challenges Taiwan's autonomy, it also could endanger peace in the Pacific‐Asia region. Consequently, it is important to rethink the political dynamics at work in China and in the region if the parties involved hope to avoid a larger war.