Power transition and China - US conflicts

Chinese Journal of International Politics

Volumn 1, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 35-55

  Tammen, Ronald L ^a   Kugler, Jacek ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 57349111734     PISSN: 17508916     EISSN: 17508924     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cjip/pol003     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Jacek Kugler et al., 'Integrating Theory and Policy: Global Implications of the War in Iraq', International Studies Review, Vol. 6, No. 4 (2004), pp. 163-79.
2. This article gives recognition to various collaborative research efforts conducted by Ron Tammen, Jacek Kugler, Doug Lemke, Brian Efird and Siddarth Swamingthan including articles in Asian Perspective, International Studies Review and International Interactions, which published articles from the Power Transition Conference held in August 2003 in Carmel, CA. Analysis of the Taiwan situation is a continuation of the logic outlined in Power Transitions and an extension of an article and series of lectures given by Ron Tammen in Taiwan in 2004. See Ronald Tammen et al., Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century (Chatham: Chatham House, 2000).
3. National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future (Washington, DC: GPO, 2004); Ronald Tammen et al., Power Transitions.
4. The key concepts for strategic vision include variations in power, commitment to the status quo, population, productivity and political capacity. Variation in the components of power-population, productivity and political capacity-are important to decision makers because they provide the preconditions to war, peace and integration. The propensity to engage in either war or policy integration is driven in part by the relative power among nations and in part by the degree of compliance or rejection of norms and rules that compose the status quo. Dominant nations cannot effectively control differential growth rates in the output of other nations, but their foreign policy can generate political satisfaction or dissatisfaction with existing rules in the hierarchy.
5. Four dimensions pose certain display limitations.
6. Under balance of power, relative power equilibrium insures the peace. Under power parity or power transition, relative power equilibrium increases the probability of war. Figure 2 is a graphical display of the balance of power concept for comparison with the preponderance model in Figure 1.
7. A.F.K. Organski, World Politics 2nd Edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968)
8. Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke eds, Parity and War: Evaluations and Extensions of the War Ledger (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)
9. Ronald Tammen et al., Power Transitions.
10. Like in elections within a single party, two satisfied nations may wage a war of low severity, but under similar circumstances, like in elections across parties, two dissatisfied nations will wage total war of high severity.
11. Nazli Choucri and Robert North, Nations in Conflict: National Growth and International Violence (San Francisco: Freeeman, 1983).
12. John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, (New York: W. Norton, 2001).
13. Karl Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 28-38. Such arguments are also constant with expectations of Black's median voter theorem where a dominant party should prompt smaller organizations to join a large winning coaltion.
14. Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
15. Feng Yi, Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance: Theory, Data Analysis, and Case Studies (Boston: MIT Press, 2003).
16. Organski and Kugler, using the record of major wars among the main Western powers, show that power parity and transition set the necessary conditions for major wars waged between 1870 and 1970. See A.F.K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980). Likewise, Woosang Kim, Houweling and Siccama, and Bremer and Cusack show that in the last two centuries parity is a pre-condition for the most severe confrontation in the international system. Moreover, Werner and Kugler show that if one considers all protracted crises emerging from the presence of a festering dispute, parity accounts for almost all the incidences of major power war recorded in the last two centuries when a challenger manages to outspend the defender in military preparedness. See Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke eds, Parity and War.
17. An important extension of the power parity perspective by Lemke demonstrates that the same principles that hold true among the major powers at the global level also hold true among regional leaders. Lemke's contribution is essential because he shows that severe conflicts of all types follow conditions of power parity. His empirical tests, based on very diverse regions of Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, demonstrate that the same conditions that lead to major confrontations among the largest nations in the international system hold true for major competitors in key regions. See Douglas Lemke, Regions of War and Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
18. Finally, Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman use a sophisticated bounded rationality approach to show formally that while conditions for conflict and peace in the balance of power are inconsistent, the conditions identified by power parity are consistent with the prevailing evidence. See Bueno de Mesquita and David Lalman, War and Reason: Domestic and International Imperatives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
19. Extensions of this approach to nuclear deterrence demonstrate the consistency of the parity argument with post-war behaviour, but indicate that Mutual Assured Destruction is logically a tenuous strategy as deterrence may fail when risk propensity is high and prone to instability, see Jacek Kugler and Frank Zagare, The Stability of Deterrence (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987).
20. Frank Zagare, 'Reconciling Rationality with Deterrence: A Re-Examination of the Logical Foundations of Deterrence Theory', Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol.16, No. 2. (2004).
21. Suzanne Werner and Jacek Kugler, 'Power Transitions and Military Buildups: Resolving the Relationship between Arms Buildups and War', in Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke eds, Parity and War, pp. 187-207.
22. See A.F.K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger; Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke eds, Parity and War.
23. National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future.
24. A.F.K. Organski et al., 'The Mosaic of International Power: Reflections on General Trends', in Bouda Etemad et al., eds, Towards and International Economic and Social History: Essays in Honor of Paul Bairoch (Geneva, 1995);
25. Ronald Tammen et al., Power Transitions.
26. Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke eds, Parity and War.
27. We hedge our conclusion here as a courtesy to the arguments that (a) China may collapse internally such as the USSR; (b) China may decentralize and the provinces will withhold revenues from the central government; (c) China will self destruct economically or face a severe economic downturn that could disrupt its current growth trajectory and (d) China will become a practicing democracy and fall victim to the democratic peace proposition. We find all of these alternatives as being less likely than our previous primary conclusion.
28. National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future; Mearsheimer (2004) unpublished paper; Jacek Kugler and Ronald L. Tammen, 'Regional Challenge: China's Rise to Power' in J. Rolfe (ed). The Asia-Pacific; a Region in Transition, Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.
29. Realists-particularly Mearsheimer (2004)-argue, following the logic of the tragedy of the great powers, that a conflict between the US and China is all but inevitable.
30. John A. Vasquez, The War Puzzle, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
31. Paul R. Hensel, 'Charting a Course to Conflict: Territorial Issues and Interstate Conflict, 1816-1992', Conflict Management and Peace Science Vol. 15, No. 1 (1996), pp. 43-73;
32. Paul Huth, Standing Your Ground (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996);
33. Michelle Benson, The Ties that Bind: Status Quo Preferences, Democracy and Conflict, PhD Dissertation, Claremont Graduate University, 1999.
34. Not including activities associated with World War II.
35. Three distinct options loom in the future. Option 1: Taiwan seeks independence. Timing here is crucial. We believe that the time when Taiwan can seek independence with US support and without a military reaction by China has passed. Independence cannot now be achieved without immediate military confrontation and even if the United States intervenes and wins that localized conflict over Taiwan, the long-term consequences would be severe. Following a military loss, China would have every reason to be a permanently dissatisfied power and when it reaches parity, the prospects for global war would be increased significantly. In the longer run, as China grows in power and reaches parity with the United States, and the existing alliances are restructured in response to declining US dominance, the possibility for a peaceful accommodation over Taiwan diminishes. The danger in the independence calculation resides in the stipulation that Taiwan's allies in the United States will force the administration in power to come to its aid if attacked after a declaration of independence. This calculation represents the highest stakes of any global game and is based on a series of complex assumptions that cannot be confirmed in advance.
36. Option 2: Taiwan is incorporated into China. Such reunification could take place in a 'smooth' and 'evolutionary' manner. Incorporation could result from direct or indirect negotiations between the two parties with or without the participation of the United States. We hesitate to suggest the terms of this complex issue but undoubtedly there will have to be specific guarantees reinforced perhaps by some outside body (United Nations or regional security complex) dealing specifically with local economic, social and political freedoms at the expense of relinquishing foreign policy jurisdiction to Beijing and some long-term arrangement for shared national security obligations. An incorporation or merger or joint venture, call it what you like, would help preserve the international peace by eliminating a territorial flash point between China and the United States.
37. Option 3: Continuing the status quo. Tensions over Taiwan most likely will continue with repeated crises between China and the United States resulting in periods of high drama and perhaps increasing frustration on the Chinese side. Nationalism probably will increase during the Chinese developmental cycle. Under such conditions, as China approaches power parity with the United States sometime in the period 2020-2050, an attempt by China to use coercive means to re-incorporate Taiwan into China would force the US to make either of the two difficult choices. It could choose to look the other way and not intervene to protect Taiwan or it could commit its military to the defence of that island. In the former case, it would represent a de facto passing of the mantle of preeminence from the United States to China. In the latter case, it would represent the prospect of a severe war.
38. Suzanne Werner and Jacek Kugler, 'Power Transitions and Military Buildups'.
39. An alternate explanation would be systematic corruption at the highest levels. Or the behind the scenes influence of the People's Liberation Army (PLA)-bureaucratic warfare and the flexing of political muscle.
40. We have made the case in other places that it is too late for Taiwan to declare its independence. Our previous analyses have indicated that Taiwan's position was eroding with the relative change of capabilities of the United States and China. We still maintain that is the case. See Tammen, Ronald et al., Power Transitions.