The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia

Abstract

A central focus of China’s grand strategy has been to reassure other states that its rise is non-threatening. Yet, a large theoretical literature indicates that rising states’ reassurance signals should not be credible. Rising powers with hostile intentions have a strong incentive to misrepresent by behaving cooperatively, in order to avoid a balancing response from other states.This chapter identifies two ways in which the United States, by posing a threat to Russia, has facilitated China’s credible reassurance of Russia since the end of the Cold War. First, the presence of the US has reduced China’s incentive to misrepresent any hostile intentions toward Russia it might hypothetically hold, making China’s cooperative actions toward Russia more credible signals of its long-term intentions. Second, the US places enduring constraints over China’s behavior, which incentivizes China’s continued cooperation with Russia. These novel theoretical mechanisms help account for both Russia’s increasingly optimistic beliefs about China’s intentions and increasing China-Russia cooperation in the post-Cold War era, which realist balance of power and threat mechanisms cannot.