Review Essay - China’s Rise

China’s Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia

By: William W Keller and Thomas G Rawski (eds.), 

University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2007, 284 pp.

America and China: Asia-Pacific Rim Hegemony in the Twenty-First Century, 

By: Randall Doyle, 

Lexington Books, Plymouth, 2007, 199 pp.

‘China’s rise’ is an increasingly prevalent term used by academics, politicians, political commentators and economists alike to describe China’s rapid emergence in recent decades as an economic, political and military power and as a significant presence in both regional and global affairs. In an attempt to assuage international fears of the potential consequences of this rise and mask any expansionist tendencies and regional leadership ambitions, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has successively coined and promoted the phrases ‘heping jueqi’ (‘peaceful rise’), ‘heping fazhan’ (‘peaceful development’) and ‘hexie shijie’ (‘harmonious world’) to describe its seemingly benign grand strategy of integrating itself into the world order instead of challenging it. In order to achieve such a strategy, the regime’s self-professed immediate goals are to raise its people out of poverty by embracing economic globalisation and pursuing mutually beneficial relations with other states.

Two recently published books seek to examine the true nature of China’s rise and the likely future impact this ascension to power will have within the Asia-Pacific region. China’s Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia is a collection of multidisciplinary analytical essays which provide a multifaceted examination of the impact of China’s rise on Asia’s shifting strategic and economic landscape, while America and China is one academic’s appraisal of the current transition of balance-of-power relations within the Asia-Pacific region.

China’s Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia is divided into two parts which examine elements of China’s upward trajectory and the nature of regional responses to this phenomenon respectively. While the overall focus of this book is undoubtedly its in-depth analysis of China as an economic juggernaut, it explores this issue with the broader intent of examining whether such economic power has translated into a commensurate level of diplomatic or political influence within the Asia-Pacific region.

Of particular interest is Robert S Ross’s examination of the current status of Asian balance of power politics in Chapter Six, wherein he contends that regional ties building and economic integration with China has been the generic focus of Asian nations. Such efforts are rightly identified as part of a conscious geopolitical and security strategy aimed at embedding China in a web of interdependence and as part of a practical effort to ride China’s economic coattails in line with an old Chinese idiom, which roughly translates as ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’.

Robert S Ross also highlights a disparity in regional accommodation of Chinese interests. He argues that in those areas of the Asia-Pacific where the relative rise of Chinese economic and military power correspond and China is altering America–China balance of power, secondary states such as South Korea and Taiwan are accommodating Chinese interests. In those other areas where the rise of Chinese power is limited to relative economic gains, and where China’s military power holds less significance and potential impact, secondary states are balancing the rise of Chinese power and offsetting their growing economic dependence on the Chinese economy by strengthening and consolidating security cooperation with America, as evidenced particularly in South-East Asian nations such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

China’s present and future economic prosperity depend heavily on her continued and expanded access to overseas markets, particularly markets for raw materials and natural resources. The authors of this volume of work collectively argue that China intends to maintain and protect this access through a variety of tools such as commercial or ‘chequebook’ diplomacy. This particular tool has enabled China to open up and exploit new opportunities for influencing and contributing to the management of political, economic, social and security issues throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Of particular note for Australia are the significant inroads China has made into our immediate area of interest, the South Pacific region, through its utilisation of this form of diplomacy.

In recent years China has also actively sought to constructively engage Asia-Pacific nations and regain some of its lost prestige and influence through such measures as its founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2001, its signing of a Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN in 2004 and its participation in the first East Asian summit in 2005. These and other diplomatic efforts to advance multilateralism are a distinct departure from China’s historical isolationism and are therefore evidence of a shift to a more proactive foreign policy.

The issue of whether China remains a status quo power in Asia, concerned with engaging in multilateral diplomacy, or whether it pursues a different course as a revisionist power concerned with establishing itself as a regional hegemony, is currently an issue of much debate and scholarly discussion. The contributing authors to this book do not dismiss the contention that China’s current level of interaction and engagement with Asia are part of a ‘charm offensive’ designed to buy time for her to become economically and militarily powerful enough to exert regional hegemony; however, they collectively see no cause for immediate international action or alarm. They refer to the current enormity of China’s domestic concerns and challenges as motivation enough to sideline any such hegemonic ambitions and place the creation of a stable international environment necessary to address these internal development issues as the primary goal of its current foreign policy. The authors do note, however, that China’s other prominent goals of security, prestige and maintenance of national honour and unity are unlikely to be subordinate to the objective of economic growth and that any kind of legitimacy crisis, such as Taiwan declaring independence, therefore has the potential to derail the mainly status quo orientation of this foreign policy.

While the authors deem the international system to be sufficiently flexible and adaptive to support a peaceful accommodation of China’s rise, the choices and actions of America are assessed to be decisive in leading the international response to this phenomenon. The authors share a collective concern about America’s seeming indifference and disengagement from Asia at a time when the balance of influence between China and America in the region appears to be shifting in China’s favour, with China actively pursuing a variety of Asian centric economic and trade initiatives, backed by an expanding array of diplomatic, educational, technological and security links. This collective concern relates to the policies, actions and sentiments of the Bush administration—as both books predate the inauguration of President Barack Obama—and his declared intent to initiate stronger ties and greater engagement with Asia. The new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, signalled this intent in her inaugural overseas visit to North Asia and Indonesia in February 2009.

Of particular note for military scholars is this book’s examination of China’s military modernisation and the consequences of this reformation. China’s economic growth is undoubtedly funding the development of national military power, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now recognised as capable of waging a high-intensity and modern high-tech conflict near its territory. The authors contend, however, that Chinese military ambitions are limited in scope and largely target local objectives such as protecting its borders, supporting its claim to great power status and strengthening its leverage over Taiwan’s political future, rather than global force projection. The uneven scope and domain of the rise of Chinese military power is evidenced by its apparent balancing act with the American military in distinct theatres rather than throughout the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. In the case of Taiwan, the authors contend that the continued rise of Chinese economic power and its growing stranglehold over Taiwan’s economy has established an irreversible trend of Taiwanese accommodation of Chinese power due to the far greater and unacceptable costs it is likely to suffer in a future war.

Another issue explored within this volume of work is the role of the CCP in China’s rise. The current regime’s ability to successfully maintain its ruling position and ideological control of the party-state while determinedly pursuing economic growth is largely attributed to its willingness to compromise, reform and adjust its traditional communist ideals. The likely future of the regime remains largely unexplored, however, leaving the reader to make up his or her own mind about whether Chinese communism is likely to survive these turbulent years of growth and change. A greater analysis of this issue would have served this volume of work well, as it is somewhat crucial to understanding the likely future domestic impact of China’s current forward trajectory of economic growth, reform and openness.

The contributing authors of this book ultimately reach the conclusion that this trajectory will continue, and that China’s economic, diplomatic and technological transformation is proceeding hand in hand with a major upgrading of Chinese military capabilities. They collectively view China’s peaceful rise as a plausible outcome and more than wishful thinking, although they also implore America to rethink its approach to the region and adopt a comprehensive, integrated and long-term policy towards Asia in order to avoid marginalisation in the face of China’s apparently inevitable continued expansion. It certainly already appears as if the Obama administration is reviving and attempting to redefine America’s relations in the region to this effect.

This overall positive view of China’s rise is not uniformly shared across academic circles, which widely debate the potential of this ascent to unleash global economic dislocation and considerable instability on the international system. The economic analysis which this book offers readers is hard to dispute; such is the level of statistical detail and evidence provided. The same level of detail is not afforded to an analysis of China’s long-term ambitions, however, both regionally and globally, which leaves some doubt as to whether China’s rise will continue to be peaceful once it passes this initial term of growth and consolidation of power.

Randall Doyle’s America and China is similarly divided into two parts. The first part examines the historical background of America’s key post-war Asia-Pacific alliances with Australia, Japan and South Korea and, while interesting and informative, it mainly serves to provide a context for the book’s subsequent exploration of contemporary issues affecting relations between Asia-Pacific nations. The second part examines the new Asia-Pacific regional order post 11 September 2001 and amidst China’s meteoric rise to potential superpower status. It offers some valid and interesting insights into the hegemonic power politics playing out in the Asia-Pacific and attempts to seriously tackle the issue of the possible regional and global consequences of China’s rise. As one would expect for any study completed by an academic (Professor Randall Doyle is visiting assistant professor of history at Central Michigan University), competing theories and opinions are examined in order to contextualise the author’s own stance on the prevailing issues. Doyle conducts a comparative analysis of balance of power theory and realism in order to assess the likelihood of China’s ascension to power, resulting in either a balance of power equilibrium or a real-politik conflict—explained as an inevitable conflict between an established hegemonic power and an aspiring power that possess the same regional or global expansionist agenda and is rising to hegemonic status.

Doyle ultimately seeks to answer whether China’s future relationship with America will take the form of geopolitical adversaries, strategic competitors, or regional partners. With China now recognised as the third largest economy in the world, Doyle identifies China’s aggressive economic behaviour as the means through which it is currently becoming established as a regional and global power, and highlights China’s growing economic interdependence with the outside world. Interestingly, his examination of China’s serious domestic challenges such as unemployment, pollution, corruption, and ever-widening economic disparities concludes that such issues have the potential to cause a domestic implosion that could possibly derail the economic juggernaut and that pose a threat to the long-term leadership of the CCP. Doyle also highlights that these institutional and structural weaknesses give realists reason to believe that China’s stunning growth levels are vulnerable to being seriously undermined and plunged into chaos, thereby creating a significant degree of instability throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Doyle argues that China’s massive military modernisation has given her the confidence and the potential means to compete for hegemonic leadership in the Asia-Pacific region and oust America as the established hegemonic power. This assertion is supported by evidence provided in the July 2005 US Department of Defense Annual Report to US Congress titled The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China and the Pentagon’s 2006 Quadrennial Defence Review, which identifies China as the greatest threat to America’s military supremacy throughout the world. Doyle contends that as China has not directly challenged American leadership or any of its key alliances yet, the ultimate future for the region therefore greatly depends on how America responds to China’s economic and military rise. Doyle asserts that America and China have very similar and yet increasingly conflicting agendas and vital interests within the Asia-Pacific region. He argues that although it is possible for the two countries to recognise their mutual interests and find new common ground, the creation of such a new and powerful dynamism will require visionary leadership and groundbreaking diplomacy. Doyle subsequently laments America’s seeming lack of a functional, proper and perhaps visionary framework for the region. Again, such commentary and analysis predates the inauguration of the Obama administration and the declared shift to greater engagement with the region and an overall foreign policy strategy of ‘smart power’. It therefore remains to be seen whether, in the coming months and years, and as the world financial crisis continues to unfold, further inroads can be made in the relationship.

Doyle also acknowledges that America’s footprint or hegemonic capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region will diminish. He identifies, with some foresight given the publication date of his work, the threat of a looming domestic financial crisis which could compromise America’s capacity to project global power and influence global events. Doyle also highlights America’s attempts to implement ‘soft’ containment upon China through the active creation of a new web of acknowledgments, alliances, agreements, and understandings with countries throughout the Pacific Rim and Central Asia in an attempt to achieve the hard objective of minimising China’s future influence in East Asia. He contends, however, that neither war nor this implementation of soft containment is the right remedy for America to confront the present geostrategic challenges concerning China’s rise in the Asia-Pacific. He advocates instead for visionary leadership in order to harness the golden opportunity which currently exists for America and China to redirect history and pave a new path of peaceful and prosperous coexistence.

A more ominous observation is made in the chapter Doyle devotes to Australia’s relations with both America and China, wherein he posits that a real-politik drama is evolving for Australia due to the recent period of both economic prosperity and relative national security. He deems Australia to be dancing with two different and very powerful partners by our simultaneous courting of America as our principal ally and China as our most promising regional market and biggest trade partner. He forecasts that the ultimate endgame of this situation of ‘serving two masters’ is an unexpected regional crisis that forces Australia to definitively choose in which direction our future lies—America or Asia. He predicts that this choice will subsequently affect Australia’s future relations with regional nations and will forever alter the future path and history of this country. Doyle argues that Australia will ultimately continue to side with America but will be economically punished by China and its supporters as a result.

China’s rise, whether peaceful or otherwise, has significant implications for the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and therefore is of immediate interest and concern for Australia. Before he was elected to the office of Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd asserted in a speech to Washington’s Brookings Institution in July 2007 that there is currently no clear articulation of how China will use its wealth and power, once obtained, to shape the future international order. He rightly identified this point in time as a critical historical juncture for both Australia and America in our relations with China and other Asia-Pacific nations and stated that the subsequent actions taken, or not taken, will shape the history of this century.

In another more recent speech to the Brookings Institution, Prime Minister Rudd identified the long term management of the America–China relationship as the crucial determinant of whether this century will be a truly ‘Pacific Century’ and called for continued American strategic presence, strategic engagement, and regional military alliance structures in the region. He also advocated for a synthesis between the Chinese regime’s stated goal of building a ‘harmonious world’ with the concept of China as a responsible global stakeholder. This concept was first outlined in 2005 by the then US Deputy Secretary of State, Bob Zoellick (now the chief of the World Bank). At the time Zoellick argued that China should work actively to sustain the stability of the regional and global rules-based order that has enabled its growth and accommodated its development requirements.

Both of the aforementioned books highlight the plausibility of a peaceful rise of China, although they also highlight numerous challenges and potential obstacles to this eventual outcome. In analysing this issue of whether China will be satisfied to remain a status quo power within the Asia-Pacific or whether it will seek regional hegemony as a revisionist power, Western scholars, political commentators and politicians alike would do well to consider the deep-rooted sense of history of the Chinese people which enables them to plan and aspire with the long term in mind. Professor Ross Terrill, author of The New Chinese Empire, is quoted within America and China for his ominous identification of the emergence of a savvy, ambitious and dangerous Chinese empire which ‘is a construct both of domestic repression and of international aspiration. Its arsenal of weapons includes ... a sense of history that enables it to take a long view of China’s interests and ambitions’. The humiliating defeats to both colonial and Asian powers endured by China last century, combined with a deep-rooted pride in their ancient civilisation, have served to shape the aspirations of China’s rulers and embed in them a profound sense of nationalism and a desire to reclaim China’s rightful place in the international system. It may therefore take more than a generation to reveal the true nature of China’s aspirations.