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251. U.S.-China 21 The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping

Author:
Kevin Rudd
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
The future relationship between China and the United States represents one of the great mega-changes and mega-challenges of our age. Unlike other such changes, the consequences of China’s rise are unfolding gradually, sometimes purposefully, but most of the time imperceptibly while the world’s attention is drawn to more dramatic events elsewhere. With the rise of China, we are observing the geopolitical equivalent of the melting of the polar ice caps. Slowly the ice thins, cracks appear and one day a large sheet of ice spectac- ularly peels away. If captured on camera, the world momentarily sits up and pays attention before CNN returns our gaze to the drama of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s most recent atrocity.
Topic:
International Relations, International Cooperation, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
China and America

252. Racing toward Tragedy? China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma

Author:
G. John Ikenberry and Adam P. Liff
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claims that China's rapid economic growth and surging military spending are fomenting destabilizing arms races and security dilemmas are widespread. Such claims make for catchy headlines, yet they are rarely subject to rigorous empirical tests. Whether patterns of military competition in the Asia Pacific are in fact attributable to a security dilemma–based logic has important implications for international relations theory and foreign policy. The answer has direct consequences for how leaders can maximize the likelihood that peace and stability will prevail in this economically and strategically vital region. A systematic empirical test derived from influential theoretical scholarship on the security dilemma concept assesses the drivers of bilateral and multilateral frictions and military competition under way in the Asia Pacific. Security dilemma–driven competition appears to be an important contributor, yet the outcome is not structurally determined. Although this military competition could grow significantly in the near future, there are a number of available measures that could help to ameliorate or manage some of its worst aspects.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Cold War
Political Geography:
China and Asia

253. David Martin Jones, Nicholas Khoo and MLR Smith, Asian Security and the Rise of China: International Relations in an Age of Volatility

Author:
Dylan Kissane
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
If there is one issue in contemporary international relations that continues to provoke interest in academic and policy making circles alike it is how states, regions and the world should react to a rising China. While the influence of the People's Republic is being felt from Africa and the Global South through to the developed economies of North America and Europe, it is in East Asia where a re-emerging China has most focused the minds of diplomats and strategists, leaders and scholars and, indeed, the military men and women who must navigate this increasingly precarious great power polity. Within this East Asian context this new volume by David Martin Jones, Nicholas Khoo and MLR Smith delivers thoughtful and attentive analysis to the problem of responding to China's rise. The book is neither a historical account of the rise of China, though it does offer sufficient historical contextualisation for the reader, or another collection of prescriptive policy suggestions, though there are clear conclusions made about which regional and state strategies have best dealt with the rise of the Sinic superpower. Instead, this book is a theoretically informed, consistently argued and well written account of how states in a broadly defined East Asia have and continue to react to the changing security environment that confronts them in the first decades of the twenty-first century.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Economics, and Environment
Political Geography:
Africa, China, America, and Asia

254. Rethinking the IR theory of empire in late imperial China

Author:
Joseph MacKay
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
International relations scholars have recently taken increased interest in empire. However, research has often focused on European colonial empires. This article aims to evaluate imperialism in a non-Western historical setting: Late Imperial China. The article first compares extant international relations (IR) accounts of empire (one broad and one narrow) to theories of the East Asian hierarchical international system. Second, to further specify analysis, I evaluate IR theories of empire against the historical record of the Ming and Qing dynasties, addressing Chinese relations with surrounding 'tributary' states, conquered imperial possessions, and other neighboring polities. I argue that while IR theories of empire capture much of the region's historical politics, they nonetheless underspecify it. Theories of East Asian hierarchy suggest additional mechanisms at work. The historical cases suggest extensive variation in how empires expand and consolidate. I conclude that there is room for further theory building about empire in IR and suggest possible areas of emphasis.
Topic:
International Relations and Politics
Political Geography:
China and East Asia

255. The Rise of China and Chinese International Relations

Author:
Emilian Kavalski
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The discussion of China's growing prominence in international life has attracted the increasing attention of policy-makers, the public and scholars alike. Usually sidelined by the mainstream, such interest in China's role and position in global politics has grown exponentially in the context of the deepening concomitant economic, social and political crises across Europe and North America – which, until very recently, were considered the traditional locales of power and influence in world politics. Indicative of the emerging weight and significance of non-Western actors on the global stage, the trend set by China seems to challenge the conventional framework of the study and practice of International Relations (IR).
Topic:
International Relations and Economics
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and North America

256. African Agency in International Politics

Author:
Candice Moore
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The use of the concept of agency in relation to Africa's foreign relations has, up to now, been very limited. This has often related to the actions of individual pivotal states, such as South Africa or Libya. Indeed, there has not yet been an in depth examination of African agency in international relations, making this volume a welcome addition. Admittedly, this is an enormous subject, one that has grown in significance and relevance given the deepened involvement of actors such as China on the continent since the end of the last century. Questions started to be asked about how African states could structure their engagement with an actor so obviously superior in economic and political power. However, this is not the first time that African agency has been addressed, as these questions were previously inspired by the post-colonial experience and the analysis of enduring Great Power involvement in African affairs, during and after the Cold War.
Topic:
International Relations and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Libya

257. From Greater Europe to Greater Asia? The Sino-Russian Entente

Author:
Dmitri V. Trenin
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The rupture between Russia and the West stemming from the 2014 crisis over Ukraine has wide-ranging geopolitical implications. Russia has reverted to its traditional position as a Eurasian power sitting between the East and the West, and it is tilting toward China in the face of political and economic pressure from the United States and Europe. This does not presage a new Sino-Russian bloc, but the epoch of post-communist Russia's integration with the West is over. In the new epoch, Russia will seek to expand and deepen its relations with non-Western nations, focusing on Asia. Western leaders need to take this shift seriously.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, and Europe

258. Overcoming Barriers to U.S.-China Cooperation

Author:
Maral Noori, Daniel Jasper, and Jason Tower
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In 2011, U.S. president Barack Obama announced plans to "pivot" toward Asia. In 2012, Chinese president Xi Jinping expressed his hope for "a new type of relationship" with the United States. A lack of strategic trust between the two countries, however, prevents critically needed productive cooperation. This Peace Brief addresses the misunderstandings behind this mistrust and a possible way to move beyond them.
Topic:
International Relations, Communism, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States and China

259. United States, Latin America and the XXI Century World: Forging a New Geopolitical Space

Author:
Severino Cabral
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
The paper aims to analyze the relationship of the United States and Cuba considering the post-Cold War international environment, characterized by the rise of a multipolar order and Chinese influence, and the emergence of the Latin world and other relevant regional actors in a new era of global economy.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Cuba, Latin America, and North America

260. The idea of order in ancient Chinese political thought: a Wightian exploration

Author:
Yongjin Zhang
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
All great thinkers, while historically conditioned, are all philosophically contemporaneous. It is a great privilege to have this extended version of my Martin Wight Memorial Lecture published in International Affairs—all the more so in this 90th anniversary issue of the journal. International Relations theory and English School thinking have been well represented in International Affairs: since Sir Herbert Butterfield delivered the inaugural Martin Wight Memorial Lecture 38 years ago in 1975, 21 Martin Wight lectures have appeared in these pages. I am delighted, therefore, to be continuing that tradition and very much hope that this trend will endure for many years to come.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
China and Ecuador