Confronting a Powerful China with Western Characteristics

The rapid rise of Chinese economic and military power has produced the most fundamental change in the global system since the end of the Cold War, and it poses vital questions about China's future direction. Many Western analysts argue that China's great power will cause it to become more like the West, i.e., like Western great powers. Other Western analysts believe that China will continue to be the same, i.e., like the China of the past few decades. An alternative interpretation, however, is that China's new power will enable it to become even more Chinese than it is now, i.e., to become more like the traditional and imperial China that existed before the Western intrusions of the 19th century. This China was the “Central State” of a distinctive Chinese world order, operating with distinctive conceptions about diplomatic relations, military strategy, and economic exchange. However, the new China will be unlike the old China in at least two important ways. It will be a naval, and not just a land, power, and it will be a financial, and not just a trading, power. In other words, it will be a powerful China with Western characteristics. As a formidable naval and financial power, China will present fundamental challenges to the United States and to both the long-standing U.S. security order in the Western Pacific and the long-standing “Washington Consensus” about the global economic order.     

Beyond the American Century: Walter Lippmann and American Grand Strategy, 1943–1950

As the United States became a world Power, journalist and intellectual Walter Lippmann feared that it would become its own worst enemy. During and after the Second World War, he tried to steer the country towards coherent statecraft, to define the national interest and the limits of power, and give geopolitical expression to the role of the United States as the core of an Atlantic strategic system. But in response to world war, the Truman Doctrine, and the Korean War, he became pessimistic about the country's ability to conduct strategy effectively. In the prophetic tradition, he believed that a fatal symbiosis between America's growing strength and domestic politics led it towards crisis. Though at times ahistorical, Lippmann's concept of strategy deserves attention for its dialogue between power and identity, for its questioning of “ends” as well as means, and for its focus on the danger of self-defeating behaviour.     

China's Naval Rise and the South China Sea: An Operational Assessment

Over the last fifteen years, the steady rise of China's naval capabilities has received a level of attention unmatched since the Soviet navy's expansion following the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet much of that attention has focused on what that rise has meant for Taiwan's security or a possible contest with the United States.¹ But Beijing's seaward territorial concerns also reach far into the South China Sea. And it is there that the military balance has most swiftly swung in China's favor as a result of its modernization program. This article will examine not only how the military balance has shifted, but also what Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, could do to best preserve their territorial interests in response to that shift.     

A Rising Naval Challenger in Asia: Lessons from Britain and Japan between the Wars

The end of Great Britain's standing as a superpower conjures up a frightening picture of how a post-American world might come about, not by a gradual, managed decline of the United States, but rather by a sudden defeat at sea. Some 70 years ago, Britain's navy suffered staggering losses at the hands of an emerging peer competitor in Asia. Could a reversal of fortune of this magnitude—the world's leading naval power being soundly beaten by a rising challenger—happen again? Britain's naval downfall in Asia provides a sobering parable, warning of potential dangers looming for the United States in the twenty-first century.     

How Could China Bargain for a Peaceful Accommodation?

China's rise is a bargaining process between China and the outside world—especially with the United States. This article suggests two strategies, “socialization” and “legitimation,” which a rising power can use to seek “accommodation for identity” with the hegemon. Using China's peaceful rise after the Cold War as a case study, the essay then examines how China employed these two strategies to reach bargaining deals on the arms control regimes and anti-separatist movements in Xinjiang with the outside world. It concludes that the United States needs to take China's bargaining efforts seriously and consider possible peaceful accommodation with China.     

Nation-Building in the Philippines: Rooseveltian Statecraft for Imperial Modernization in an Emergent Transatlantic World Order

The acquisition of the Philippines in the wake of the Spanish–American War gave Theodore Roosevelt's presidency an unprecedented mandate for conflict resolution, post-war reconstruction and development through modernization and democratization. A network of bilateral inter-colonial relations contributed to the extension of triangular transatlantic reciprocal influence. The lessons of America's continental empire-building, assessment of competing colonial experiments, and modern attempts at public diplomacy fed into a strategy of preventive containment of Japanese expansionism through popular consent. The intention was to institute an enduring “special relationship” to build up America's power in the Pacific, and to transform the Philippines into a model that would then “naturally” expand into a transcontinental informal empire by proxy.     

The power triangle in the Indian Ocean: China,India and the United States

The Indian Ocean is increasingly becoming the point of focus in assessing Asia's future security challenges. As both India and China are building up their naval presence in the Indian Ocean and as China's stakes in the region (protecting its maritime trade) interact with India's aspirations (being the regional dominant power and security provider), tensions are likely to rise. The United States has an established role in the Indian Ocean, and its approach to the contestation between Indian and Chinese interests may play a key role in limiting frictions. These developments have led many analysts to foresee the emergence of a balance of power system in the Indian Ocean region and East Asia which would be comparable to that of nineteenth-century Europe. In presenting the interplay between the three major stakeholders in the Indian Ocean, this paper aims to outline the implications of a balance of power system in the Indian Ocean region and demonstrate that it may not guarantee peace and stability, but, with regard to Organski's ‘power transition’ theory, could lead to quite the contrary.     

The Pivot in Perspective: American Naval Power,Then and Now

The article examines the reorientation of the defense policy of the United States, initiated during the Bush and Obama Administrations, toward giving increased priority to the Asia Pacific region. It begins with the historical perspective of the development of American naval power in the twentieth century. The world wars, in which Europe represented the primary theater of conflict, had the effect of shifting a greater share of American military assets toward the Euro-Atlantic theatre, while the onset of the Cold War after 1945 required the United States to develop a navy of truly global strategic reach in which Atlantic and Pacific commitments were kept in balance. With the diminished concern for European security since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the People's Republic of China as a strategic competitor in the Asia Pacific region, the United States is required in an age of defense austerity to refocus attention again to the Pacific.     

War Makes the State,but Not as It Pleases: Homeland Security and American Anti-Statism

The shock of war is thought to be closely associated with the growth of the state, in the United States and elsewhere. Yet each proposal to significantly expand state power in the United States since September 11 has been resisted, restrained, or even rejected outright. This outcome—theoretically unexpected and contrary to conventional wisdom—is the result of enduring aspects of America's domestic political structure: the separation of powers at the federal level between three co-equal and overlapping branches, the relative ease with which interest groups access the policy-making process, and the intensity with which executive-branch bureaucracies guard their organizational turf. These persistent aspects of u.s. political life, designed by the nation's founders to impede the concentration of state power, have substantially shaped the means by which contemporary guardians of the American state pursue “homeland security.” War does make the state, but not as it pleases. Theoretical approaches to state building should recognize that domestic political institutions mediate between the international shock of war and domestic state building.     

The “Japan Card” in the United States Rapprochement with China, 1969–1972

United States rapprochement with China should be re-examined by taking into consideration the American negotiating approach towards Beijing regarding the role of Japan, the United States' major Asian ally and China's long-term rival in East Asia. Whilst announcing the Nixon Doctrine, which increased pressure on Japan to strengthen its defense and regional responsibilities, Nixon and Kissinger used the so-called “Japan Card,” Japan's possible military resurgence and China's long-term fear of it, as a tacit negotiating tool to justify to Chinese leaders the continued United States military presence in East Asia. This article examines the impact of the United States rapprochement with China on the American negotiating process with Chinese leaders for the continuation of the United States–Japan Security Treaty and to what extent it changed China's policy toward American relations with Japan.     

“The Most Sophisticated Intervention We Have Seen”: The Carter Administration and the Nicaraguan Crisis, 1978–1979

In May 1977, in a public forum, President Jimmy Carter laid out the foundations of a distinctive foreign policy programme for the United States. He offered a striking shift away from the Cold War realpolitik of previous American administrations. Human rights, he declared, would be a central component of United States foreign policy. The growing instability in Central America, especially in Nicaragua, during Carter's term of office provided a major test of his Administration's new programme. And its ultimate response to Nicaraguan instability thus provides key insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the thirty-ninth President's attempt to move beyond traditional, hard-line Cold War diplomacy.     

Command,Strategic Contest,and Confidence-building in the South China Sea

Wealth and power have steered global prestige from East to West and back again. History's serial relocations of economic growth and corollary power changed the character of the South China Sea into a conflictual conduit for Eastern and then Western colonialism, a strategic sea space in world war, and now a cockpit of contest to maintain or revise the rules-based international order. For the first time in several centuries, a Chinese blue water navy is projecting power across the Indo-Pacific and prosecuting a national maritime security strategy to transform the South China Sea into China's sovereign territory. In large part, the winner of the Sino-American struggle for preponderance in the South China Sea will steer the course of the twenty-first century in the Indo-Pacific.     

Progressive Era Diplomat: Lloyd C. Griscom and Trade Expansion

The Progressive Era, from the late 1890s to the entry of the United States into World War One, was marked by a professional commitment to global trade expansion on the part of the State Department and the McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson administrations. Philosophically, the United States embraced the belief that a liberal, democratic, free-enterprise political and economic system would advance human progress on every continent, and that global free trade would remove many causes of war and conflict. Such a policy position attracted young and talented foreign service officers to serve in the American diplomatic corps. One young man was Lloyd C. Griscom, heir to one of the great American shipping fortunes. Griscom's career as a diplomat in Turkey, Persia, Japan, Brazil, and Italy between 1899 and 1909 revealed much about American political and economic interests during a period when the United States emerged as a major power.     

If Not Soft Balancing,Then What? Reconsidering Soft Balancing and U.S. Policy Toward China

Some scholars argue that soft balancing is a typical state behavior against the hegemon under unipolarity. Others contend that soft balancing against the hegemon is ineffective. We challenge both arguments and suggest that soft balancing is not only a product of specific configurations of the power distribution in the system, unipolarity, but also a rational behavior under another condition, economic dependence. We argue that the interplay between power disparity and economic dependence shapes a state's decision in choosing different balancing strategies. The higher the power disparity and economic dependence, the more likely a state chooses soft balancing to pursue its security. Using U.S. policy toward China after the Cold War as a crucial test, we suggest that the huge power gap and increasing economic interdependence between the United States and China shape U.S. soft balancing rather than hard balancing toward China. We conclude that future U.S.-China relations depend on whether the United States declines as a result of China's rise and on the degree of economic interdependence between the two countries.     

China's Periphery: Implications for U.S. Policy and Interests

The major, middle and small powers on China's periphery are often portrayed as passive objects of great power competition between the United States and China, but in fact the foreign policy strategies of these states plays a significant role in shaping Sino-U.S. relations and the overall order in Asia. Before examining the actors on China's periphery in this important FPRI conference, therefore, it is worth starting at the macro-level of international relations in Asia within which they operate.     

Dilemmas About Security Dilemmas

Numerous analysts have criticized George W. Bush's Middle Eastern policies for their strong ideological content. This article agrees with a core premise of these critiques, but it does so for very different reasons from most analyses. Ideological rigidity on some issues, paradoxically, prevented the Bush administration from taking advantage of the full range of ways in which ideologies shape international relations. There were three major opportunities to advance US interests in the Middle East during Bush's presidency that were created by the effects of ideologies. First, liberalizing parties in otherwise illiberal regimes tended to be significantly more supportive of US interests than other ideological groups in the same country at the same time. Second, major ideological differences among different types of illiberal enemies of the United States enhanced America's ability to adopt “wedge” strategies toward various hostile coalitions. Finally, the existence of different types of ideological enemies in the Middle East created incentives for some illiberals to align with the United States because of mutual ideological enmity for a third ideological group. The Bush administration, however, failed at key times to take advantage of these openings. If Bush administration officials had been less ideologically dogmatic while, somewhat paradoxically, making better strategic use of ideologies’ major international effects, America's security would have been significantly advanced in critical cases.     

Why unipolarity doesn't matter (much)

This article first argues that states have not balanced against US unipolar power because the potential balancers do not view the United States as a major threat, because they believe it has benign security-seeking motives, at least with regard to other major powers. This explanation runs counter to the Brooks–Wohlforth argument, which holds that states are not balancing because the magnitude of the United States’ power advantage makes balancing essentially infeasible. The second part of the paper challenges the conventional wisdom on the benefits of unipolarity, arguing that the benefits the United States derives from unipolarity are generally overrated. More specifically, US security need not be significantly reduced by growth in China's economy that supports a return to bipolarity.     

Point of Departure: A Reassessment of Charles de Gaulle and the Paris Summit of May 1960

This article argues that the Franco–American antagonism of the 1960s, which culminated with France's partial withdrawal from NATO in 1966, stems from French president Charles de Gaulle's decision in the aftermath of the failed May 1960 Paris Summit to radically redirect French foreign policy away from its post-World War Two Atlantic orientation to a more European one. By linking the failed summit to de Gaulle's new perception of the Cold War, this article moves de Gaulle scholarship away from interpretations of his foreign policy as the product of anti-Americanism or an anachronistic vision of French power to an understanding rooted in his recognition that the changing dynamics of the Cold War required the Western Europeans to reduce their military dependence on the United States. Since American leaders would never willingly relinquish their dominant position in European security affairs, de Gaulle's new design almost ensured a rising Franco–American tension.     

Propaganda,effect, and the cold war: Gauging the status of america's “war of words”

The article examines the interrelationship among propaganda, effect, and the Cold War during congressional debates over America's first peacetime propaganda program. Although the rise of the communication research paradigm affected the production of statistical evidence to measure the effectiveness of America's Cold War propaganda, this case study argues that the “war of words” metaphor further heightened the need for empirical proof of America's status in that conflict, Just as with any physical battle that relies on body counts and land measurements to determine the success of America's war efforts, the criteria for measuring the status of America's “war of words” were driven by a similar demand for “objective” proof. The longevity of the Cold War helped ensure the institutionalization of the communication research paradigm, which rejected the use of anecdotal evidence as support for the program's impact.     

Devant L'Empire: France and the Question of “American Empire,” from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush

Many observers of contemporary French politics would find it difficult to resist the temptation to conclude that France, alone among the European allies of the United States, has consistently had the greatest difficulty in adjusting to the reality of America's power. When that power occasions, as it frequently does, debates about “American empire,” French opposition to American influence seems to become even more pronounced. In fact, there has in recent decades been a distinctive French negative assessment of the merits of American empire, but it would be a mistake, or so this paper argues, to assume that French interests have invariably been at odds either with American power or with American empire. Using four eponymous figures to illustrate the French perspective on American empire in the past 100 years, this essay highlights how and why that assessment has evolved.