Debate question
China's emergence is customarily referred to by Chinese authorities as a its "peaceful rise". This confounds the conventional expectation that emerging powers become great powers largely by building up military power and through the use of war. In this view, major shifts in world order are seldom accomplished peacefully, suggesting that war, in particular between "rising" China and the "declining" USA, is likely, if not inevitable. Is China a rising power of a different kind? Has military power become redundant in world affairs?
YES
- Implications of interdependence. The key reason why China's rise has been, and will continue to be, peaceful is that it is taking place within an international system shaped by globalisation. Globalisation reduces the incidence of war in two main ways. First, rising states such as China no longer need to make economic gains by conquest because globalisation offers a cheaper and easier route to national prosperity, in the form of trade. Second, by significantly increasing levels of economic interdependence, globalisation makes a Chinese recourse to war almost unthinkable. This is because of the economic costs that war would involve - destroyed trade partnerships, lost external investment, and so on.
- "Soft" balancing. Neorealist theorists argue that, confronted by a rising or major power, other states will tend to "balance" (oppose or challenge that power for fear of leaving itself exposed), rather than "bandwagon" (side with that power; that is, "jump on the bandwagon"). However, China's inclination to "balance" again the USA will be confined to the adoption of "soft" (non-military) balancing strategies, because the latter's huge military dominance is unlikely to be abandoned in the near future. Similarly, the likelihood that the USA will adopt "hard" (military) balancing strategies against China has greatly reduced due to the difficulties it experienced in waging the "war on terror".
- Sino-US bipolar stability. As the twenty-first century progresses, world order may be reshaped on a bipolar, rather than multipolar, basis. The military, economic and structural strengths of the USA are not going to fade soon, and China, already an economic superpower, is clearly not merely one of "the rest". Sino-US relations may, as a result, come to replicate US-USSR relations during the "long peace" of the Cold War period. In other words, bipolarity will, once again, prove to be the surest way of preventing rivalry and hostility spilling over into aggression, as it provides the most favourable conditions for a stable balance of power.
- Multipolar instabilities. China's rise is part of a wider restructuring of world order, in which global power is being distributed more widely. Neorealists argue that such multipolarity creates conditions that are inherently prone to conflict and instability, making it increasingly unlikely that China will maintain its "peaceful rise". As multipolarity favours fluidity and uncertainty, shifting alliances and power imbalances, it creates opportunities (just as in the run-up to World War I and World War II) for ambitious states to make a bid for power through conquest and expansion. As states seek to maximise power, and not merely security, such circumstances make great powers prone to indiscipline and risk-taking (Mearsheimer, 2001).
- Cultural and ideological rivalry. Sino-US bipolarity may pose and greater threat to global peace than did Cold War bipolarity. Whereas antagonism between the USA and the USSR was primarily ideological in character, in the case of "liberal-democratic" USA and "Confucian" China ideological differences are rooted in deeper cultural divisions. These may provide the basis for growing enmity and misunderstanding, in line with the "clash of civilisations" thesis. The transfer of hegemony from the British Empire in the nineteenth century to the USA in the twentieth century may, thus, have remained peaceful only because of cultural similarities that allowed the UK to view the "rising" USA as essentially unthreatening.
- Flashpoints. There are various flashpoints that have the potential to turn tension and hostility into aggression. Chief amongst these is Taiwan, where US support for an independent and "pro-western" Taiwan clashes with China's quest to incorporate Taiwan into "greater China" (Carpenter, 2006). Other issues that may inflame Sino-US relations include Tibet, where Beijing's policy of aggressive "Sinofication" conflicts with Washington's unofficial support for Tibet independence; human rights generally, but especially China's treatment of "pro-democracy" dissidents; and the future of disputed islands in the East and South China Seas.
References
- Mearsheimer, J. (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton).
- Carpenter, T. G. (2006) America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
