Hegemonic transition in East Asia? the dynamics of Chinese and American power

Review of International Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 95-112

  Beeson, Mark ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 67749114254     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210509008341     Document Type: Article

References (120)

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2. There is another, currently less influential school of 'panda huggers', which believes that China should be engaged rather than contained, and which is optimistic about the pacific influence of greater economic interdependence on Chinese foreign policy. See David Shambaugh, 'Containment or engagement of China? Calculating Beijing's responses', International Security 21 (1996), pp. 180-210;
3. International Herald Tribune, 5 October 2005.
4. Y.-W. Sung, The Emergence of Greater China: The Economic Integration of Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005).
5. See, for example, Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006).
6. Joseph S. Nye, The Paradox of American Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
7. See, for example, Barry K. Gills, 'The hegemonic transition in East Asia: A historical perspective', in S. Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 186-212.
8. For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see M. Beeson, 'American ascendancy: Conceptualising contemporary hegemony', in M. Beeson (ed.), Bush and Asia: America's Evolving Relations with East Asia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2006), pp. 3-23.
9. See, Jeffrey W. Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, 'Is anybody still a realist?' International Security, 24 (1999), pp. 5-55.
10. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 48.
11. Christopher W. Hughes and Akiko Fukushima, 'US-Japan security relations: Toward bilateralism plus?', in E. S. Krauss and T. J. Pempel (eds), Beyond Bilateralism: US-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 55-86.
12. Kent E. Calder, 'Securing security through prosperity: The San Francisco System in comparative perspective', Pacific Review, 17 (2004), pp. 135-57.
13. Mark Beeson, 'Re-thinking regionalism: Europe and East Asia in comparative historical perspective', Journal of European Public Policy, 12:6 (2005), pp. 969-85.
14. Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan Since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
15. Richard Stubbs, Rethinking Asia's Economic Miracle (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005).
16. Even Japan had what has been described as a 'soft' authoritarian government, a pattern that was replicated even more forcefully in other parts of the region. See, Meredith Woo-Cumings (ed.), The Developmental State (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
17. Mark Beeson and Iyanatul Islam, 'Neoliberalism and East Asia: Resisting the Washington Consensus', Journal of Development Studies, 41:2 (2005), pp. 197-219.
18. Robert Latham, The Liberal Moment: Modernity, Security, and the Making of Postwar International Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
19. David P. Rapkin and Jonathan Strand, 'Is East Asia under-represented in the International Monetary Fund?', International Relations of the Asia Pacific, 3 (2003), pp. 1-28.
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21. Robert W. Cox, Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987);
22. Stephen Gill, 'Globalisation, market civilisation, and disciplinary neoliberalism', Millennium, 24 (1995), pp. 399-423.
23. For one of the most sophisticated expositions of this possibility, see William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2004).
24. Craig N. Murphy, 'Global governance: Poorly done and poorly understood', International Affairs, 76 (2000), pp. 789-803.
25. See respectively, Ivo H. Daadler and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2003);
26. Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
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28. Philip G. Cerny, 'Globalisation, governance, and complexity', in A. Prakash and J. A. Hart (eds), Globalization and Governance (London; Routledge, 1999), pp. 188-212.
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31. Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, 'The sources of American legitimacy', Foreign Affairs, 83 (2004), pp. 18-32.
32. See, America's Image Slips, But Allies Share US Concerns Over Iran, Hamas (Washington: Pew Research Center, 2006) Available at: .
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34. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, 'American primacy in perspective', Foreign Affairs, 81 (2002), pp. 20-33.
35. John E. Mueller, Retreat From Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989);
36. Raimo Vayrynen (ed.), The Waning of Major War (London: Routledge, 2006).
37. Michael Mastanduno, 'Incomplete hegemony and security order in the Asia-Pacific', in G. J. Ikenberry (ed.), America Unrivalled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), pp. 141-70.
38. Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan Since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
39. Richard Tanter, 'The New American-led Security Architecture in the Asia Pacific: Binding Japan and Australia, containing China', Australian, 13 March 2007. Japan Focus, 17 March 2007.
40. Mark Beeson, 'The declining theoretical and practical utility of 'bandwagoning': American hegemony in the age of terror', British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9 (2007), pp. 618-35.
41. Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: Allen Lane, 2006).
42. Stubbs, Rethinking.
43. Giovanni Arrighi, 'Hegemony unravelling-2', New Left Review, 33 (2005), p. 115.
44. On Iraq, see George Packer, The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005). On the recent 'revolution' in US foreign policy, see Daadler and Lindsay, America Unbound.
45. Gabriel Kolko, Century of War (New York: New Press, 1994), p. 464.
46. Muthiah Alagappa, 'Asian practice of security: Key features and explanations', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 625.
47. Richard W. Hu, 'China in search of comprehensive security', in J. C. Hsiung (ed.), Twenty-First Century World Order and the Asia Pacific (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 309-25.
48. Yongnian Zheng and Liang Fook Lye, 'Political legitimacy and reform in China: Between economic performance and democratization', in Lynn White (ed.), Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia (New Jersey: World Scientific, 2005), pp. 183-214.
49. Alastair I. Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
50. See, for example, Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2006).
51. An authoritative report by the Rand Corporation projected that China's defence spending would remain less half that of the US, even if its leaders made it a major priority, something they considered unlikely given the need to continue pushing economic development and managing demographic and social change. See, Keith Crane et al., Modernizing China's Military: Opportunities and Constraints (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2005).
52. David Shambaugh, Modernizing China's Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002).
53. Robert S. Ross, 'Assessing the China threat', The National Interest (Fall 2005), pp. 81-7.
54. See, Peter H. Gries, China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).
55. Robert Ross makes the important point that, not only have Taiwan's leaders actually become more reluctant to acquire new weapons systems from the US with which to defend themselves against China, but Taiwanese business leaders and investors are effectively acting as a 'fifth column' as the mainland assumes an ever greater economic importance to Taiwan. See Robert S. Ross, 'Balance of power politics and the rise of China: Accommodation and balancing in East Asia', Security Studies, 15 (2006), pp. 355-95.
56. Avery Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 39.
57. David M. Lampton, 'China's foreign and national security policy-making process: Is it changing, and does it matter?', in David M. Lampton (ed.), The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 36.
58. Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis, Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000).
59. T. V. Paul, 'Soft balancing in the age of US primacy', International Security, 30 (2005), pp. 46-71.
60. Alastair I. Johnston, 'Socialization in international institutions: The ASEAN way and international relations theory', in G. J. Ikenberry and M. Mastanduno (eds), International Relations and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 107-62.
61. Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
62. Christopher R. Hughes, 'Nationalism and multilateralism in Chinese foreign policy: Implications for Southeast Asia', Pacific Review, 18 (2005), pp. 119-35.
63. Mark Beeson and Richard Higgott, 'Hegemony, institutionalism and US foreign policy: Theory and practice in comparative historical perspective', Third World Quarterly, 26:7 (2005), pp. 1173-88.
64. Rosemary Foot, 'Chinese strategies in a US-hegemonic global order: Accommodating and hedging', International Affairs, 82 (2006), pp. 77-94.
65. Alice D. Ba, 'China and Asean: Renavigating relations for a 21st-century Asia', Asian Survey, 43 (2003), pp. 622-47.
66. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 August 2005.
67. AsiaTimes, 21 February 2007.
68. David Shambaugh, 'China engages Asia', International Security, 29 (2004/05), pp. 64-99.
69. ASEAN+3 includes the Southeast Asian nations of ASEAN, plus China, Japan and South Korea. See, Richard Stubbs, 'ASEAN Plus Three: Emerging East Asian Regionalism?', Asian Survey, 42 (2002), pp. 440-55. Other initiatives, like the East Asian Summit, have been down-played by the ASEAN+3 grouping and suffer from the same sort of potential incoherence that has plagued APEC.
70. Mark Beeson, 'American hegemony and regionalism: The rise of East Asia and the end of the Asia-Pacific', Geopolitics, 11:4 (2006), pp. 541-60.
71. Joseph S. Nye, The Paradox of American Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002);
72. Ikenberry, 'American power'.
73. Michael Mastanduno, 'Models, markets, and power: Political economy and the Asia-Pacific, 1989-1999', Review of International Studies, 26 (2000), pp. 493-507.
74. Beeson and Islam, Resisting.
75. For a more detailed discussion of this claim and of the developmental state more generally, see Mark Beeson, Regionalism, Globalization and East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007).
76. Joshua C. Ramo, The Beijing Consensus (London: The Foreign Policy Centre, 2004), p. 4.
77. See Ian Taylor, 'China's oil diplomacy in Africa', International Affairs, 82 (2006), pp. 937-59.
78. International Herald Tribune, 29 July 2007.
79. Shaun Breslin, 'Power and production: Rethinking China's global economic role', Review of International Studies, 31 (2005), p. 736.
80. The Economist, 11 January 2007.
81. Guillaume Gaulier, Francoise Lemoine and Deniz Unal-Kesenci, China's Emergence and the Reorganisation of Trade Flows in Asia (Paris: CEPPI, 2006).
82. It was thought that Southeast Asia's role as a source of low-skill, cheap labour for foreign multinationals would inhibit indigenous capitalist development - an idea that still has some resonance. See, Kunio Yoshihara, The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia (Quezon City: Manila University Press, 1988).
83. Financial Times, 28 August 2007.
84. Despite widespread fears about the impact of China's rise on Southeast Asia in particular, ASEAN's exports to China continue to grow. Dominic Ziegler', Reaching for a renaissance: A special report on China and its region', The Economist, 31 March 2007.
85. Financial Times, 5 April 2007.
86. By contrast, Japan has been reluctant to open up its domestic market, something that has undermined its regional leadership ambitions and heightened concerns about the impact of its neo-mercantilist policies. See, Walter Hatch, and Kozo Yamamura Asia in Japan's Embrace: Building a Regional Production Alliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
87. The Economist, 14 April 2007, p. 87.
88. Neil C. Hughes, 'A trade war with China?' Foreign Affairs, 84 (2005), p. 94.
89. International Herald Tribunal, 9 March 2007.
90. Arrighi, 'Hegemony', p. 70.
91. International Herald Tribunal, 4 April 2007.
92. The establishment of the China Investment Corporation with $200bn to invest is indicative of this potential, as was China's $3bn investment in the initial public offering of Blackstone, a US private equity group. See Financial Times, 29 July 2007.
93. This is clearly something the Chinese authorities are aware of themselves. See, Financial Times, 16 March. It is also precisely the same situation Japanese policymakers confronted in the 1980s and '90s, but which they conspicuously failed to act upon. See R. T. Murphy, 'East Asia's dollars', New Left Review, 40 (2006), pp. 39-64.
94. International Herald Tribune, 24 August 2007.
95. Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, 'Finance and American empire', in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds), The Socialist Register: The Empire Reloaded (London: Merlin Press, 2004), p. 69.
96. There is now a very real prospect that New York's position as the centre of global finance will be overtaken by London, something that could further erode both the influence of Wall Street and the importance of the US dollar. See, Merril Stevenson, 'Britannia redux: A survey of Britain, The Economist, 1 February 2007.
97. Leonard Seabrooke, US Power in International Finance (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).
98. Robert H. Wade, 'The invisible hand of the American empire', Ethics & International Affairs, 17 (2003), pp. 77-88.
99. Robert G. Sutter, China's Rise: Implications for US Leadership in Asia. Policy Studies 21 (Washington, DC: East-West Center, 2006).
100. Nicholas R. Lardy, Integrating China into the Global Economy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2002), p. 104.
101. In a revealing example of American attitudes, the US government refused to allow the take-over over Unocal, by China's state-owned oil company CNOOC on national security grounds. See, Francis Schortegen, 'Protectionist capitalists vs capitalist communists: CNOOC's failed Unocal bid in perspective', Asia Pacific: Perspectives, 6 (2006), pp. 2-10.
102. Brent Boekestein and Jeffrey Henderson, 'Thirsty Dragon, Hungry Eagle: Oil Security in Sino-US Relations', IPEG Papers in Global Political Economy, 21 (November 2005).
103. Subodh Atal, 'The new great game', The National Interest, 81 (2005), pp. 101-5.
104. Richard Katz, Japan: The System That Soured (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998).
105. Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).
106. Murray S. Tanner, 'China rethinks unrest', Washington Quarterly, 27 (2004), pp. 137-56.
107. For an insightful discussion of China's modest state capacity in comparison with other pasts of East Asia, see Thomas G Moore, China in the World Market: Chinese Industry and International Sources of Reform in the Post-Mao Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
108. This was how similar patterns of inter-locking, mutually-satisfying political, bureaucratic and business elites were described in Japan, a country that highlights all that can go right and wrong with the developmental process. See, Kent E. Calder, Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Public Stability in Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
109. Minxin Pei, China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 207.
110. David Hale, 'China's Growing Appetites', The National Interest, 76 (2004), pp. 137-47. But some observers remain broadly optimistic that China can manage its energy dependence if it can achieve effective reform and international integration. See, Tatsu Kambara and Christopher Howe, China and the Global Energy Crisis: Development Prospects for China's Oil and Gas (Edward Elgar, 2007).
111. Elizabeth C. Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 25.
112. The Guardian, 17 August 2006.
113. John Agnew, Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2005), p. 35.
114. William C. Wohlforth, 'The stability of a unipolar world', International Security, 24 (1999), pp. 5-41.
115. Joseph Quinlan and Marc Chandler, 'The US trade deficit: A dangerous obsession', Foreign Affairs, 80 (2001), pp. 87-97.
116. James N. Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in an Turbulent World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
117. The Guardian, 18 April 2007.
118. See, Peter Dauvergne, Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).
119. The Independent, 19 October 2005.
120. Paul Harris, Confronting Environmental Change in East and Southeast Asia: Eco-politics, Foreign Policy, and Sustainable Development (UN University Press, 2005).