Balance of Power Politics and the Rise of China: Accommodation and Balancing in East Asia

Realists agree that great powers balance the military power of rising powers, but there is little agreement regarding secondary-state responses to rising powers. First, there are differences regarding whether secondary states balance or accommodate rising powers. Second, there are differences among realists regarding the distinct roles of economic and military factors in secondary-state alignment policies. Third, some scholars argue that state alignments are not necessarily determined by realist variables, but can reflect preferences shaped by intentions, historical experiences, or cultural influences. This paper addresses these issues in balance-of-power theory. Its empirical focus is the impact of the rise of China on secondary-state alignments in East Asia. After examining the complex mix of China's military and economic reach in East Asia, it concludes that secondary-state behavior is sensitive to local variation in the great power capabilities and that secondary states tend to accommodate rather than balance rising powers. It further concludes that economic capabilities alone are insufficient to generate accommodation, so that the political-economy literature should reexamine cases of apparent secondary-state accommodation to economic dependency, sensitive to the presence of military vulnerability on the part these secondary states to proximate great powers. These conclusions suggest that there is nothing sui generis or culturally-determined in East Asian international politics and that realism can explain alignment behavior among East Asian states as well as it does among European states. Research on East Asia's response to China's rise that is sensitive to intra-regional variations in U.S. and Chinese military and economic capabilities also challenges assumptions of an emerging Chinese regional hegemony or of a costly region-wide U.S.-China competition.     

Economic Interdependence and the Balance of Power

To account for variance in great powers responses to threats and the implications for the peacefulness of the international system since the late nineteenth century, this article elucidates a theory which refines and synthesizes economic liberal perspectives and realist balance of power theory. I argue that different patterns and levels of economic interdependence in the great power system generate societal-based economic constraints on, or incentives for, state leaders of status quo powers hoping to mobilize economic resources and political support to oppose perceived threats. This mobilization process influences strongly the preferences of status quo powers, other states beliefs about those preferences, and the interpretation of signals in balance of power politics. In this way, economic ties influence the strategies great powers pursue. Firm balancing policies conducive to peace in the international system are most likely, I then hypothesize, when there are extensive economic ties among status quo powers and few or no such links between them and perceived threatening powers. When economic interdependence is not significant between status quo powers or if status quo powers have strong economic links with threatening powers, weaker balancing postures and conciliatory policies by status quo powers, and aggression by aspiring revisionist powers, are more likely. I then illustrate how these hypotheses explain the development of the Franco-Russian alliance of the 1890s and its effectiveness as a deterrent of Germany up to 1905, British ambivalence toward Germany from 1906 to the First World War, the weakness of British, French, Soviet, and American behavior toward Germany in the 1930s and World War II, and the American and European responses to the Soviet threat, including the NATO alliance, and the "long peace" of the post-1945 era.     

2011年南亚地区形势分析与展望

2011年,尽管南亚的热度不及中东北非、南海等问题,但仍然引起了世界的广泛关注。在这一年里,南亚主要国家政局基本保持稳定,经济保持快速发展的势头,大国外交、地区外交活跃,但通货膨胀严重、社会发展滞后。反恐不仅未给南亚带来和平与稳定的社会环境,反而给巴基斯坦和阿富汗的社会安全局势增添了许多问题。2012年在全球经济前景不明朗的大背景下,南亚经济快速发展的势头可能会受到影响。     

Probing the Democratic Peace Argument Using Linguistic Fuzzy Logic

Did disputes between non-great powers in the New World, 1816–1989, escalate to war if the disputes involved roughly equal sides or not? Metaphorically and practically, “balances of power” are about measurement, but many of the usual measures prove to be incorrect. Proper assessments of the balances of fighting power qualify counts of the material resources by considering the political-organizational capacity of the state to employ what is counted, the geopolitical location and logistics, and what bystander states might do if the dispute were to escalate. A modest correlation exists between rough equality in power capabilities and war, not peace, in the Americas, 1816–1989. A bare majority of the wars in the Americas from 1816 until 1989 were fought between equal sides, and equal disputants were thirteen times more likely to escalate to war than non-equals were. This relationship found among non-great powers is much less strong than the relationship found among the great powers.     

The Feature and Trend of the Relationship Among the Big Powers in 2003

Theyearof2003haswitnessedbigchangesandreadjustmentsintherelationshipamongtheworldbigpowers熏featuringtheapparentdivisionandre鄄alignmentofvariousmajorforcesintheworld熏moreintensifiedstrategicrivalryandinterestsscrambleamongthecountries.Theinternationalsituationwascharacterizedbyturbulenceandintranquility.Con鄄tradictionofvariouskindswerefurtherdeepened.Thepostureofmutualcompetition熏coordinationandcooperationamongbigpowerswasfurtherstrength鄄ened.InfluencedbyIraqwar熏KoreaPeninsulanu鄄clear…     

南亚地区战略态势出现明显变化

南亚多数国家由于国内存在深刻的政治与社会矛盾，不得不实行“联盟政治”政府；在国际金融海啸的冲击下，南亚各国经济遭受严重危害；区域大国军备升级正在进行；暴力恐怖肆虐，各国安全形势持     

“9·11”事件与东北亚地区间的大国关系

恐怖主义在世纪交替之际成为国际政治舞台上的一个突出现象,“ 9·11”事件引发的美国反恐怖主义战争,从本质上来说带有“宗教战争”的色彩,这就注定了要铲除国际恐怖主义的根源不是一朝一夕所能完成的。“ 9·11”事件引发的东北亚地区间大国关系的调整以及对该地区政局的影响,可以被看作是全球政治舞台上大国关系调整的一个缩影。     

大国战略与大国关系

力量对比决定了美国在今后一个时期内仍是惟一的超级大国,由于其他大国或国家集团的力量在增长,尤其是某些地区大国正在崛起,美国“独霸”的局面将被打破。今后一个时期的大国关系将是斗争中有合作,合作中又有斗争。     

Investing in international security: rising powers and organizational choices

How do rising powers choose to allocate their finite resources among the multiple global and regional security organizations? Building on the literatures on forum shopping and rising powers, we argue that the different organizational investment choices of rising powers are explained by varying regional ideational affinities. Organizational settings have ideational foundations that can look very different from region to region. We argue that regional ideational affinity leads rising powers to invest in regional rather than global organizations. However, if the ideational composition of the region is highly diverse, global organizations are a better vehicle to accommodate rising powers’ emergent ambitions. To demonstrate our argument, we examine the choices of Brazil and South Africa in terms of their material and ideational investments in regional and global organizations.     

东北亚大国关系中第三方因素及地区安全共同治理

中日关系经济上的合作依存度与政治上的纷争摩擦常态化这一结构性的矛盾日趋显现.从更深层次上探究中日政治经济所处的这种分裂状态根源,从本质上讲背后蕴涵着东北亚大国关系中的域外因素:即美国的第三方因素,其对东北亚的和平稳定发挥着特殊作用.东北亚大国在地区的竞争摩擦时常较为突出,但中美日在东亚地区还是蕴涵着许多重大的共同利益.东北亚传统的"管制型"安全模式需向大国共同"治理型"模式转变趋向,意味着大国区域安全治理的权利、利益、责任的平等与分享,地区安全治理是在大国协作框架下的共同治理,应注重大国在地区安全事务中的关键作用.     

Imperfect adaptation: how the WTO and the IMF adjust to shifting power distributions among their members

How do international institutions adjust to shifting power distributions among their members? We argue that institutional adaptations to the rise of emerging and the decline of established powers are different from what power transition theories (PTTs) would lead us to believe. Institutional adaptations are not impossible, as pessimist PTT variants hold; and they are rarely easy to attain, let alone perfect, as optimist PTT variants imply. To bridge the gap between these versions of PTT, we propose an institutionalist power shift theory (IPST) which combines insights on the conditions and mechanisms of institutional change from functionalist, historical and distributive variants of rational institutionalism. IPST claims that institutional adaptations will succeed or fail depending on whether or not emerging powers are able to undermine the international institution and to make credible threats to this effect. To demonstrate IPST’s plausibility we analyze: (1) how India and Brazil gained the agreement of established powers to their membership in the WTO core negotiation group (“Quad”), which had previously been dominated by developed countries; and (2) how China reached agreement with established powers on (more) even-handed surveillance of IMF members’ financial stability, which, up to then, had focused on developing countries and exchange rate issues.     

地区次大国缘何接受地区大国的领导

在地区权力结构不平衡的背景下,地区大国争取地区领导权的研究往往认为体系内的中小国家在功能上具有同质性,从而忽略了地区次大国的特殊性。事实上,地区次大国与地区小国的行为逻辑出发点不同,且对是否接受地区大国领导的态度表现存在差异。从地区等级的视角出发,可对全球各地区等级体系进行划分,并将主导地区等级体系变迁的内生动力归为地区权威的演化。基于此,本文依托地区权威二重性建立了以地区权威类型为核心解释变量的分析框架,呈现出地区次大国应对地区领导的因果机制。研究表明:地区次大国的态度取向与行为选择受到地区权威支配性(双边实力位差)与正当性(大国威胁程度、地区制度化水平和战略文化趋同性)的影响。在关系型权威下,地区次大国倾向于选择追随或承认战略;而在象征型权威下,地区次大国对地区大国易于表现为抵触或制衡行为。文章结合类型化与统计分析等方法对符合当今地区等级体系的总体经验事实进行跨地区全样本案例分析,结果验证了研究假设。充分把握地区等级体系中的次大国与大国互动规律对于地区大国领导力的平稳提升和地区战略稳定具有重要意义。     

美国新中亚战略评析

美国公布新的中亚战略包含四方面调整,即将中亚地区视为独立的地缘政治板块、将阿富汗视为中亚一部分、明确将在中亚加强对俄罗斯和中国的遏制、重新界定美国在该地区的比较优势。新中亚战略的实施将会对中亚地区稳定和主要大国在该地区互动产生一定影响。但由于美国在实施该战略中投入力度有限、比较优势不明显,中亚国家不会轻易改变自身多元平衡外交政策、对阿富汗及其局势的认知与美有明显差异,以及美国在中亚地区的战略冒进可能引发大国反制,新战略的实施不会一帆风顺。     

全球化时代海陆关系的超越与中国的选择

在全球化时代,海陆关系发生着实质性的改变。从理论上来看,传统地缘政治的内涵、外延以及逻辑起点都发生了变化,因此,海陆关系要突破地理环境决定论、对抗性思维以及形而上学的思想桎梏,由片面的、静止的海陆关系向联合、互动的方向转变;从实证角度看,通过回顾海陆大国处理地缘政治关系的历史事实,提出当今海陆大国合作意愿不断加强,融合性思维逐渐替代对抗性思维的论断。全球化时代的背景下,中国在处理海陆关系上需要突出合作思想,把握地缘政治重点,处理好大国关系。     

Theory of Land-Ocean Peaceful Cooperation: a Geopolitical Study of the Sustainable Security of One Belt One Road

The joint establishment of One Belt One Road is a practice of international cooperation initiated by China and actively participated by other countries. One of the important issues is how to ensure sustainable common security, and what kind of geopolitical theory should be employed for guidance. Traditional geopolitical theories, such as sea power theory, land power theory and Rimland theory, mainly serve for the fi ght for geopolitical hegemony or military strategy. They are in sharp contrast with the goal of One Belt One Road, which is of mutual interest and a win-win situation. However, One Belt One Road is still regarded by some countries from the traditional geopolitical perspective. To equip One Belt One Road with new geopolitical concepts, the author hereby proposes the theory of land-ocean peaceful cooperation, which is a non-alliance network community of common interests, security and destiny. This community would be established for mutual benefi ts, between ocean countries and land countries, among ocean countries and among land countries. It could help policy communication among participant countries of One Belt One Road, and the establishment of an open net-like system of peaceful operation and common development. The theory of land-ocean peaceful cooperation of sustainable security, together with the practice of international cooperation of One Belt One Road, will undoubtedly break through the vicious cycle of the Eurasian geographical fi ght and confrontation between sea powers and land powers illustrated by the traditional geopolitics.     

中国和平发展与东亚合作机制构建

地区合作机制的创设能力不仅是大国崛起的一般性标尺,也是大国崛起的内在要求。参与和创设东亚合作机制是保证中国和平发展的重要条件,它有助于奠定中国和平发展的地区性根基,构筑平衡的大国关系,咒化经济结构和扩大对外开放。同时,中国的制度化行为也拉动了地区经济增长,缓解了地区安全困境,促进了东亚地区一体化。实际上,中国和平发展和东亚合作机制是一种相互促进的关系。     

Democracy promotion and the challenges of illiberal regional powers: introduction to the special issue

This special issue examines Western efforts at democracy promotion, reactions by illiberal challengers and regional powers, and political and societal conditions in target states. We argue that Western powers are not unequivocally committed to the promotion of democracy and human rights, while non-democratic regional powers cannot simply be described as “autocracy supporters”. This article introduces the special issue. First, illiberal regional powers are likely to respond to Western efforts at democracy promotion in third countries if they perceive challenges to their geostrategic interests in the region or to the survival of their regime. Second, Western democracy promoters react to countervailing policies by illiberal regimes if they prioritize democracy and human rights goals over stability and security goals which depends in turn on their perception of the situation in the target countries and their overall relationships to the non-democratic regional powers. Third, the effects on the ground mostly depend on the domestic configuration of forces. Western democracy promoters are likely to empower liberal groups in the target countries, while countervailing efforts by non-democratic regional powers will empower illiberal groups. In some cases, though, countervailing efforts by illiberal regimes have the counterintuitive effect of fostering democracy by strengthening democratic elites and civil society.     

联盟的起源：理性主义研究新进展

联盟作为具有战略意义的一种国家间关系,对其研究在国际关系理论中占据了一个十分重要的位置,也有助于学者们将具有普遍意义的国际关系理论运用于具体的国际关系研究。围绕着联盟的起源这一主题,理性主义国际关系理论提出了许多重要的见解。在最近的十多年来,这一主题的研究又与单极体系内的联盟现实相结合,提出和分析了如下方面的核心问题：联盟需要什么样的共同利益基础;制衡性的联盟为何没有出现;国际结构如何塑造大国的联盟选择;地理因素如何影响联盟的形成以及联盟起源的其他根源有哪些。理性主义国际关系理论的这些研究都具有一定的启发意义,但总的来看,现实主义范式的研究占据了主流地位,系统性的理论创新不够,并没有提出解释联盟起源的新的核心概念,即如果把联盟界定为一种明确、稳定的战略关系,而非仅仅是针对安全威胁的军事同盟的话,仅有结构现实主义和威胁平衡理论是不够的;联盟起源的理论研究仍然具有较为广阔的空间。建构一种更加普遍的、有强大解释力的利益关系概念,在此基础上推导出国家的联盟选择战略,将会有助于更加具体深入地了解联盟的起源。     

评《东北亚大国关系》

一、《东北亚大国关系》内容概要 《东北亚大国关系》一书的作者罗伯特·A·斯卡拉皮诺是美国加州大学伯克利分校政治学终身教授，美国人文社科学术委员会成员，美国美中关系国家委员会的创始者、第一任主席。他的研究集中于中国、日本、政府治理及日本对华政策，共发表文章500多篇，出版著作38部。除了获得加州大学伯克利分校杰出贡献奖外，斯氏还获得中国、日本、韩国、蒙古等亚洲各国的学术嘉奖。     

Civil war mediation and integration into global value chains

How does the globalization of production affect interstate behavior? While scholars have paid significant attention to the effect of global value chains on trade and political economy, there has been substantially less focus on the interaction between globalized production and conflict behavior. However, the changing economic landscape has the potential to alter the decision calculus of leaders on a variety of issues, including conflict mediation. In this research note, I argue that when deciding how to allocate scarce mediation resources, major powers pay attention to the position of potential beneficiaries in the global production network. In particular, among states involved in intrastate conflicts, those that are more heavily involved in the production and sale of intermediate inputs are more likely to receive mediation from major powers. I test this argument using data on intermediate trade and civil war mediation between 1991 and 2011. The results of the analysis are consistent with the theory, suggesting that major powers are more likely to provide mediation for producers of intermediate goods, but not for consumers.