China Rising

Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia

David Kang

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780231512060
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Throughout the past three decades East Asia has seen more peace and stability than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. During this period China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over nine percent economic growth per year since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, and Chinese exports have begun to flood the world. China is modernizing its military, has joined numerous regional and international institutions, and plays an increasingly visible role in international politics. In response to this growth, other states in East Asia have moved to strengthen their military, economic, and diplomatic relations with China. But why have these countries accommodated rather than balanced China's rise?

David C. Kang believes certain preferences and beliefs are responsible for maintaining stability in East Asia. Kang's research shows how East Asian states have grown closer to China, with little evidence that the region is rupturing. Rising powers present opportunities as well as threats, and the economic benefits and military threat China poses for its regional neighbors are both potentially huge; however, East Asian states see substantially more advantage than danger in China's rise, making the region more stable, not less. Furthermore, although East Asian states do not unequivocally welcome China in all areas, they are willing to defer judgment regarding what China wants and what its role in East Asia will become. They believe that a strong China stabilizes East Asia, while a weak China tempts other states to try to control the region.

Many scholars downplay the role of ideas and suggest that a rising China will be a destabilizing force in the region, but Kang's provocative argument reveals the flaws in contemporary views of China and the international relations of East Asia and offers a new understanding of the importance of sound U.S. policy in the region.

PART I

THE PUZZLE AND THE ARGUMENT

The temporary hegemony of Western European civilization [over Asia] has distorted our view of the past and made our interest one-sided. Because the world has been dominated by the West for a hundred twenty years—a short span of time yet, in retrospect, an eternity—the West came to consider itself as the focus of world history and the measure of all things.

—W. F. WERTHEIM, “EARLY ASIAN TRADE: AN APPRECIATION OF J. C. VAN LEUR,”

FAR EASTERN QUARTERLY

★ ★ ★

CHAPTER 1

THE PUZZLE AND CHINA’S AMAZING RISE

THE PUZZLE

In 2006, Chan Heng Chee, Singapore’s ambassador to the United States, gave a speech in Houston, Texas, about relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). She began her largely positive assessment by discussing the fifteenth-century Ming dynasty’s peaceful relations with Southeast Asia, noting, “Dynastic China’s relations with Southeast Asia were to a large extent based on ‘soft power.’… It was China’s economic power and cultural superiority that drew these countries into its orbit and was the magnet for their cultivation of relations.” She concluded her speech by saying, “there is one message I would like to leave with you today: that there is much optimism in Southeast Asia.”¹ Although Singapore is often viewed correctly as one of the closest allies the United States has in East Asia, Ambassador Chan’s remarks reveal the complexity and depth of East Asian states’ relations with both China and the United States.

Singapore’s situation reflects a pattern that has occurred throughout East Asia over the past thirty years. As a region, East Asia since 1979 has been more peaceful and more stable than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839–1841. Only two states, Taiwan and North Korea, fear for their survival. Furthermore, East Asian states have become increasingly legitimate and stable; they have strengthened regional multilateral institutions; and they have increased their bilateral economic, cultural, and political relations. During that time, China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over 9 percent economic growth since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, while Chinese exports have begun to flood world markets. China is modernizing its military, has joined numerous regional and international institutions, and is increasingly visible in international politics. At the same time, East Asian states have moved to increase their economic, diplomatic, and even military relations with China.² China appears to have emerged as a regional power without provoking a regional backlash.

Why have East Asian countries accommodated rather than balanced China’s rapid economic, diplomatic, and political emergence over three decades? Why has East Asia become increasingly peaceful and stable in that time? This book makes two central arguments. First, East Asian states are not balancing China; they are accommodating it. This contradicts much conventional international relations theory, which says that the rise of a great power is destabilizing. Second, this accommodation of China is due to a specific constellation of interests and beliefs—a particular mix of identities and the absence of fear. Identities are central to explaining the sources both of stability and of potential instability in East Asia, but not to the exclusion of the relative capabilities and interests that traditional realists champion.

Accurately describing East Asia is a critical first step toward explaining how the region came to be as it is. Taiwan is the only East Asian state that fears the Chinese use of force, and no other East Asian state is arming itself against China nor seeking military alliances with which to contain China. Although state alignment strategies are often posed as opposites—military balancing against an adversary, or bandwagoning with the stronger power in hopes of gaining benefits or neutralizing the threat—as a strategy, accommodation lies between these poles. While not balancing China, East Asian states are not bandwagoning with it in all areas, either, and have no intention of kowtowing. East Asian states also vary in their strategies toward China—Japan is far more skeptical of Chinese power than is Vietnam, for example.

The absence of balancing against China is rooted in interests as well as identities. In terms of interests, rising powers present opportunities as well as threats, and the Chinese economic opportunity and military threat for its regional neighbors are both potentially huge. Yet East Asian states see substantially more opportunity than danger in China’s rise. Furthermore, the East Asian states prefer China to be strong rather than weak because a strong China stabilizes the region while a weak China tempts other states to try to control the region.

Identity is also central in framing how regional states interpret China’s rise. East Asian states view China’s reemergence as the gravitational center of East Asia as natural. China has a long history of being the dominant state in East Asia, and although it has not always had warm relations with its neighbors, it has a worldview in which it can be the most powerful country in its region and yet have stable relations with other states in it. Thus to East Asian observers and other states, the likelihood that China will seek territorial expansion or use force against them seems low. Most see China as desiring stability and peaceful relations with its neighbors.

Although those East Asian neighbors share a common lack of fear regarding China, each relationship with China is distinct. Taiwan is a good example. Few claim that China threatens Taiwan as part of an expansionist strategy, or that control of Taiwan would tip the balance of power in the region. Taiwan is not an issue because of power politics; it’s an issue because of competing conceptions of whether Taiwan is an independent, sovereign nation state, or whether it is a part of China. For China, the question is nation building, not expansion. Thus Taiwan is not an exception to the general trend in East Asia; it is categorically different from other states. While formally the United States and most other nations agree with China’s claim, privately many view Taiwan as “obviously” an independent nation-state, with its own government, currency, economic system, and culture. As a result of this disagreement over Taiwan’s identity, Taiwan’s status remains an issue in international politics.

Regarding the rest of East Asia, China claims—and East Asian states increasingly believe—that its continued economic growth and domestic stability are predicated on deep integration with, and openness to, the regional and international economies. This grand strategy is often called “peaceful rise.”³ Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party’s main claim to legitimacy is its economic record. China realizes explicitly that it would gain very little from starting conflicts with its neighbors but has much to gain from warmer ties.⁴ As the best way to advance its interests, “peaceful rise” represents a pragmatic choice. But determining whether this strategy is merely tactical or whether it represents the true nature of China involves an assessment of its identity. In this respect, then, China’s concern for sovereignty and nation building is arguably more important to its identity than are nationalistic memories of a “century of shame.”

The East Asian states tend to share a view of China that is more benign than conventional international relations theories might predict. South Korea’s foreign policy behavior is perhaps the most vivid example of this. Although China could threaten South Korea militarily, and North Korea actually does threaten South Korea, capitalist and democratic South Korea itself seems eager to embrace communist and authoritarian China and North Korea. Furthermore, South Koreans appear to feel more threatened by potential Japanese militarization than they do by actual Chinese military power. This has caused consternation and even anger in Washington because South Korea appears willing to pursue this strategy to the detriment of relations with its longtime democratic ally and protector, the United States.

Much of South Korea’s approach to regional relations is based on its interest in avoiding a costly war or a collapse of the North Korean regime, which would directly harm South Korea. However, the key to explaining South Korea’s seemingly perplexing foreign policy lies in Korean national identity. For many Koreans, their single most important foreign policy priority is unification of the divided peninsula, and this has led the South to prioritize economic engagement with North Korea and the integration of the peninsula as more important than pressuring the North over its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Indeed, both China and South Korea agree that engagement is the proper strategy to follow with North Korea, in contrast to the United States, which in the early twenty-first century focused on eliminating North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs through a strategy of coercion and isolation. Furthermore, Korea has had a long history of close and stable relations with China and, in contrast, has not fully resolved its difficult relationship with Japan. Although South Korea has no intention of returning to the subservient role with China that it played for centuries, it also has little fear of Chinese military aggrandizement. South Koreans view peaceful relations with China as normal, and they are rapidly increasing cultural, economic, and diplomatic ties with China.

Southeast Asia also has a long history of stable relations with China, and in the present era all the states of Southeast Asia are rapidly deepening their economic and political relations with China. Southeast Asians also do not fear Chinese use of force, and their militaries are overwhelmingly focused on border control and internal defense. Even on issues such as the contested ownership of the Spratly Islands, the trend has been toward more cooperation, not less. Indeed, the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Philippine national oil companies are currently engaged in joint exploration in the Spratlys, and all the major claimants have formally agreed not to use force to settle their disputes. While much of this can be explained with reference to economic interdependence, the member states of the ASEAN and China have similar views about respecting sovereignty and about noninterference in national matters. The countries of Southeast Asia also have deep ethnic, cultural, and historical ties with China. This affinity, most notable in the extensive Chinese ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia known as the “bamboo network,” is not only responsible for significant investment in China, it is also helping create a regional economy where Chinese growth and East Asian growth are thoroughly intertwined.

Japan’s identity crisis lies at the heart of its foreign policy, best exemplified by the decades of speculation about whether or not it could become a “normal” nation. Because postwar Japan did not pursue military or diplomatic policies commensurate with its economic power, observers within and outside of Japan have been unsure about whether this was temporary or permanent, and remain unsure about how Japan views itself and its role in the region. Japan is the one country in the region that has the material capability to challenge China, and Japan remains the most skeptical East Asian country regarding China. Japan will not lightly cede economic dominance to China, and it also remains unsure of Chinese motives. The course of Japan’s grand strategy is in flux, and debate within Japan centers on how it should respond to China, on how it can best manage its alliance with the United States, and how it can balance the needs both for military power and economic wealth.

However, the East Asian states do not expect Japanese leadership in the region, and Japan itself is unsure about what its role in Asia should be. There is little in Japanese history, institutions, or worldview that would lead to the conclusion that it will attempt a leadership role today. Even after Japan became the world’s second-largest economy, it did not challenge U.S. predominance but rather embraced it through a close security alliance. And Japan failed to translate its economic advantage into regional political leadership or even sustained goodwill with its neighbors. Despite Japan’s more assertive foreign policy in the past few years, it remains deeply entwined in its alliance with the United States and is unlikely to directly compete with China by itself.

Finally, U.S. power complicates but does not fundamentally alter these East Asian dynamics. The United States remains the most powerful nation in East Asia, and all states—including China—desire good relations with it. Decisions the United States makes will have an impact on East Asian regional stability, and the United States has been increasingly debating its stance toward China. However, even the United States has not yet chosen an outright balancing strategy, and it is thus unsurprising that East Asian states also have not. Furthermore, East Asian states have generally not been eager for greater U.S....

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Part I. The Puzzle and the Argument
• Part II. East Asia Responds to China
• Part III. East Asia and the United States
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index