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| 1 |
ID:
170417
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| Summary/Abstract |
The rise of China raises fundamental questions about the future of the liberal international order (LIO) at a time when it is under ever more strain. Although China’s focus for some years was on joining and participating in existing multilateral institutions, today China is increasingly building its own. Prominent among them is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), launched in late 2014. Against the background of contending theoretical expectations, this article examines the extent to which the AIIB either reinforces or challenges the LIO and highlights what this tells us about China’s broader relationship with the LIO. We provide a definition of the LIO that is based on its social purpose rather than on its formal characteristics. State-centric approaches offer insights into China’s decision to engage in new institution building via the AIIB, but we argue that a focus on social purpose is necessary to assess the AIIB’s broader implications for the LIO. We find that, while conforming in large measure to existing institutional models, the AIIB promotes China’s integration into global social networks, strengthens state-led development pathways, and is associated with the Chinese norm of non-interference. The AIIB, thus, foreshadows the possibility of an institutionalised international order indifferent to liberalism. In sum, the AIIB reflects the tensions between the socialising effects of the LIO and China’s growing externalisation of its own non-liberal, state-led model of political economy.
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| 2 |
ID:
170416
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| Summary/Abstract |
While the Obama administration’s Asia rebalance strategy received some praise from scholars and practitioners, it generated three problems that caused the USA to overlook many opportunities and neglect vital concerns. First, the strategy left Asia less stable by undermining US relations with China and smaller states in Southeast Asia. Secondly, it weakened America’s influence outside Asia by committing fewer resources. Finally, the rebalance was executed out of a relatively small cadre of government officials, allowing primarily civilian agencies to dictate Asia policy and excluding key branches of government. Furthermore, although the strategy competed with the strategies of restraint and offshore balancing, it never had the solid support of any international relations theories, leaving few scholars to directly associate it with a theory. Ultimately, the rebalance’s multiple logics prevented it from achieving intellectual hegemony in the American foreign policy discourse, and its substantive flaws and theoretical inconsistencies made difficult its acceptance as an enduring strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.
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ID:
170418
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The rapid rise of China and other emerging economies has led many to believe that the world order is in transition. The relative strength of the major trading countries (the international trade configuration) in the international trade arena has changed significantly; the growth of international trade, meanwhile, has slowed down since the global financial crisis in 2008–2009. Some observers claim that there is disorder, or at least a new type of normative order emerging in international trade. This anxiety peaked when President Donald Trump took office and adopted a set of protectionist and unilateral trade policies detrimental to US trade partners. This article develops an analytical framework to measure international trade in 1996–2017 in order to explore whether or not the international trade order still exists or, as many claim, it has changed. The results suggest that international trade in 2017 remains in order, and that the normative type of this order has not changed compared to that in 1996, when the World Trade Organization was freshly established. This suggests, therefore, that changes in the international trade configuration do not necessarily lead to changes in the international trade order. Although the Trump administration’s trade policies challenge the stability of this normative order, the influence of the United States on such order is largely limited by the diverged rule-making power in multilateral frameworks. More importantly, the United States seems interested in revising detailed trading rules to suit American interests, rather than in challenging current trading principles. Therefore, this article argues that the current international order will not be eliminated, and that a normative order of this type is unlikely to be replaced by another one.
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| 4 |
ID:
170419
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Some view recent, high-profile Chinese aid and investment agreements that have followed changes in the leadership of recipient states as evidence of China’s intent to compete for political influence in countries that are traditionally close to the United States and its allies. We examine how patterns of China’s development investment vary with changes of domestic leadership in potential recipient states, and argue that domestic coalition turnover may plausibly create uncertainty as to whether recipient countries will shift political allegiance towards or away from Chinese influence. If China indeed views development finance as a tool to acquire or maintain influence in developing countries, the timing of coalition changes in such countries should coincide with increases in China’s development commitments. We use AidData’s Global Chinese Official Finance Dataset and an extended version of the Change in Source of Leader Support (CHISOLS) Dataset of domestic coalition changes to evaluate the relationship between Chinese finance and leader turnover in non-OECD countries throughout the period 2000–2014. Our analysis provides some statistical evidence that political turnover influences the allocation of more concessional, ODA-like finance from China. We also find evidence that the relationship between domestic coalition changes and Chinese financial flows varies according to the recipient’s alliance status with the United States and regime type.
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ID:
170415
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| Summary/Abstract |
The rise of China is one of the most notable events in the early 21st century. The strategic impacts of its rise and interactions between the hegemonic power and the rising power have become focal points for scholars in the field of international relations. This article uses prospect theory, power transition theory, and nuclear deterrence theory as the basis for constructing a theory of strategic competition to explain the relationship between the hegemonic power and the rising power, and the strategic interactions between them during the power transition process. This new theory of strategic competition maintains that states take diplomatic actions not just to seek gains, but also to avoid losses. Building upon a critical review and revision of power transition theory, the theory of strategic competition proposes that before the rising power overtakes it, the hegemonic power will take action to avoid incurring losses, and that in response the rising power will passively take action to avoid its own losses. After the rising power has overtaken the hegemonic power, however, it will take action to expand its interests, and the hegemonic power will then passively take action to avoid its own losses. Under the inhibitive influence of nuclear deterrence, strategic competition between the hegemonic power and the rising power is limited to peaceful measures including diplomatic means. This article tests the theory of strategic competition through examining the paradigm shifts in diplomacy of the US and China that have occurred since 2010.
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