Since the last half-century, the United States has been the single most influential actor in the International Community. Since 1980, China has rapidly seen an economic, political, and military rise never before seen in history. With China’s rise, a new sense of threat in the international community has begun to form. US-China relations have become more important than ever, as China has begun to threaten the hegemony of the United States and the balance of power in the International Community. Washington has slowly taken notice as China’s growth has led to it strengthening its defensive measures. The United States has taken that defensive measure as distrustful leaving the United States questioning its national security. The literature review will open up by discussing a concept called the Security Dilemma. Later the review will examine how China has increased its military expenses leading to more aggressive action against its neighbors over its territorial rights. As the dispute has gained more attention the United States has taken up itself to protect US allies and interests in the region. This chapter will examine how past scholars have touched on China’s growth and discuss how the world has been affected including US-China relations throughout history. The literature review will help readers distinguish if China’s rise is peaceful or a threat to the world. Many analysts now agree that increasing distrust between China and the United States in recent years has posed a significant challenge not only to US-China relations but also to regional peace and security at large.
Literature Review
China’s rise has thrust them into the international spotlight with the world watching and taking notice. China's rapid rise has two created two separate scenarios for the United States. Either China's rise is peaceful and does not pose a threat to the United States and is actually a betterment for the region and world. Or China's rise does pose a threat to the United States creating a Security Dilemma. Only after examining the Security Dilemma, Territorial disputes, and China’s soft power will scholars better understand US-China relations. My thesis is that China's rise poses no threat to the United States and is for the betterment of the region and its neighbors. US-China relations over the past three decades have shown scholars how each other has responded to certain actions.
Realist state that the international system is anarchic; leaving the role of the state as the most important figure in International Relations. With this view, due to the lack of authority in the International System states naturally do not trust one another leaving states to focus on strengthening their national security, rather than cooperation between states. Due to the increase of national security in one actor other state actors feel a new sense of threat creating friction due to the lack of security caused by the increase of security by the opposing actor creating a Security Dilemma. Scholars have turned to previous scholars to better understand the Security Dilemma. The first person to write about the Security Dilemma is John Herz who coined the term itself. Herz stated that the security dilemma is formed when groups or individuals living in such a constellation must be, concerned about their security from being attacked, subjected, dominated, or annihilated by other groups and individuals. Striving to attain security from such attacks, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of others Hertz describes this as the “vicious cycle”.
Following Herz, a scholar by the name of Robert Jervis began to write about the Security Dilemma. Jervis defined the security dilemma as these unintended and undesired consequences of actions meant to be defensive… many of the means by which a state tried to increase its security decrease the security of others…one state’s gain in security often inadvertently threatens others. Jarvis focused on seven stressful points about the Security Dilemma. First, the security dilemma was structural from its origin. Due to the increase in fear between nations Jarvis stated states must regard present and future actions of other states to better create a proper plan for tackling their Security Dilemma. Jarvis felt that one actor’s increase in security leads other actors to increase their security leading to an unintentional decrease in their own security. Defense actions by states can be seen as an unintended threat that may even lead to unintended consequences such as wars. Jarvis concluded by adding that the security dilemma causes wars but is not the single reason states go to war. The security dilemma is in its own sense self-reinforcing. Following the examination of the security, dilemma scholars turned to try and understand how China’s overall rise does threaten the United States.
China’s budget increase has left scholars questioning China’s true motives for its increase in military expenses. The Pentagon has identified China as the only potential hegemon on the horizon that stands a chance of challenging the unipolar power of the United States. Officials of China have defended the overall military expenses of its nation stating that compared to the United States military budget China’s is relatively small. Yet critics state that China is withholding information and is increasing its focus on acquiring new power-projection capabilities to increase China’s influence on the regional balance of power. A clear picture of China’s military spending is essential for an understanding of the country’s unfolding conception of itself, for any analysis of Northeast Asian regional politics, and ultimately, for the future trajectory of global geopolitics
In China, the Ministry of Defense annually releases a report on China’s overall military budget. Scholars have questioned the annual report due to discrepancies found by outside analyzes. Critics argue that this is due to the lack of transparency by China. China has stated that its overall defense cost has gradually increased over time. In 2006, the Chinese total defense expenditures had cost $42.635 billion by 2009 those figures had only risen to $70.3 billion dollars. China’s White Paper states: In the past three decades of reform and opening up, China has insisted that defense development should be both subordinated to and in the service of the country’s overall economic development and that the former should be coordinated with the latter. As a result, defense expenditures have always been kept at a reasonable and appropriate level. On average from 1998 to 2007 China's overall Gross Domestic Project was 12.5 percent meanwhile its military expenditures increase by 18.4 percent backing up China’s overall argument that its expenses are consistent with its overall economy. Despite these overall numbers, the U.S. government remains skeptical of China’s overall reported figures and its justification for them.
The U.S. Department of Defense presents its own annual report to Congress regarding China’s military capabilities and expenditures. In the latest report, the Defense Department estimates China’s real military expenditure to be somewhere between $105 billion and $150 billion. While the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that the total amount of China’s 2008 military expenses is $84.9 billion. The discrepancies show scholars that clearly China is not accounting for every item. Many of China’s weapons acquisitions were subsequently not reflected in its expenditures, including a large number of fighter aircraft, destroyers, submarines, and surface-to-air missiles purchased from Russia over the years. Scholars argue that due to the increase in discrepancies between China and the United States military budget the Security Dilemma has already been created.
The Security Dilemma has affected both China & the United States. Diplomatically the two nations have drifted apart under the Obama Administration since the end of 2009. China has taken into account US actions towards Asia. Both the Chinese public and elite believe that the Obama administration’s pivot to rebalancing to Asia is a thinly veiled attempt to restrain and counterbalance, if not encircle or contain, a rising China. Due to the United States renewed focus on Asia, China has taken a more aggressive approach to protect its interest in the South China Sea. The two powers are increasingly trapped in an action-reaction cycle, so much so that many lament that the United States and China are doomed for a “strategic collision.”
As scholars have tried to seek an understanding of China’s rise to power most have considered China’s rise not a threat to the region. Past studies have shown that China's main focus is to maintain its regime security leading to territorial disputes. As seen in the Security Dilemma, China’s true motives have various different variables. Scholars have been puzzled by China’s willingness to compromise its own territorial disputes and seek to better understand what China’s true intentions are. A realist understands that China has not used its power advantages to bargain hard over contested land, especially with its weaker neighbors. Nor has it become less willing to offer concessions over disputed territory as its power has increased. Of its 23 territorial disputes with other governments, China has settled 17, including settlements over the past decade with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The future of peace and stability in the East depends on China’s behavior. In China's case, territorial disputes show whether states are willing to follow the status quo or are revisiting foreign policy threatening the security of regional actors. Scholars understand that China’s case is unique in it is not a democracy. For states with similar ideologies a study by Paul Huth’s path-breaking 1996 study, found that democracy, alliances, disputes over land with economic value, the existence of multiple disputes, and prior defeat in armed conflict over contested land significantly increased the odds of settlement being reached. Democracies are more willing to negotiate a peaceful dispute with other democracies, yet in the International Community, they represent a minority.
To better understand why and when states might compromise in territorial disputes scholars have presented an argument about the effect of domestic conflict on foreign policy. Scholars argue that an internal conflict creates conditions for cooperation instead of the war producing a “diversionary peace”. In territorial disputes, leaders are more likely to compromise when confronting internal threats to regime security, including rebellions and legitimacy crises. Facing these types of internal threats, leaders are more likely to trade territorial concessions for assistance from neighboring states, such as suppressing rebels or increasing bilateral trade War is less likely to occur in conditions where leaders have a strong desire to pursue cooperation to better strengthen their domestic political security. In China, their leader's main focus was on maintaining political power leading them to maintain a higher willingness to cooperate with regional actors. China has been successful in achieving its goals through peaceful means. Partnerships with Africa and Latin America are proof of this. China’s “soft” power is focused on forging closer relationships.
As summarized in recent years by Joseph Nye, soft power is a directing, attracting, and imitating force derived mainly from intangible resources such as national cohesion, culture, ideology, and influence on international institutions. Soft power is the ability to achieve what you want through attractiveness rather than by force or money. China has no desire to use force to spread its interest and therefore is not an actual threat. China’s strengthening of its military and desire to settle disputes peacefully show a peaceful solution can be found in the South China Sea. Examination of China’s soft-power resources in the areas of culture, political values, and diplomacy shows that, while China’s soft power is increasing, Beijing faces serious constraints in translating these resources into desired foreign-policy outcomes. Since the post-Mao dynasty leader in China has focused on adopting a constructed approach in regional and global affairs. China has helped hundreds of millions of people out of poverty due to its soft power initiative.
The Belt and Road Initiative seeks to bring together the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road through a vast network of railways, roads, pipelines, ports, and telecommunications infrastructure that will promote economic integrations from China, through Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, to Europe and beyond. China has taken charge of investing in international projects such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. China has contributed $50 billion of the AIIB initial capital to help stabilize the international project. Beijing has also pledged $40 billion for its Silk Road Fund, $25 billion for the Maritime Silk Road, and another $41 billion to the New Development Bank to help stabilize the overall region. China's ability to contribute to the region speaks volumes about its true intentions. Over the last three decades, US-China relations need to be examined to better understand their relationship and to help deconstruct the South China Sea dispute.
Relations between China and the United States during the first decade of the twenty-first century are indeed much smoother than those of the last decade of the twentieth century. In the second half of the 1970s, China perceived an increasing Soviet threat and called more explicitly for an international united front against Soviet hegemony. This gave China-America relations a common enemy to help develop better cooperation between the two states. As China adopted modernization in technology and economics its relationship with the United States grew. These trends toward strategic and economic cooperation with the West gave momentum to Sino-United States normalization, which had been at an impasse for most of the decade. China relied heavily on its relationship with the United States in the ’80s and ’90s. As its economy grew its influence did too. The United States help better invest in the Chinese markets and help China become a member of the World Trade Organization opening up its economy to the international markets. China has learned that relations with the United States are beginning to be strained more and more as China’s military strength increases and influence increase. This strained relationship has become noticeable as China’s acted aggressively over its territorial waters in the South of China. For example, in 2009, a Chinese submarine collided with a U.S. destroyer’s towed sonar array. The United States has grown more nervous about Chinese true intentions as China has captured ship crews in contested waters, strengthened its military, and disagreed with regional neighbors over the military dispute.