China’s rise and US hegemony: Renegotiating hegemonic order in East Asia?

Abstract

China’s resurgence has prompted an increased interest among English School theorists in assessing the great power strategies adopted to deal with that change in Beijing’s status, as well as a focus on the degree of challenge that a resurgent China poses to what is commonly recognized as US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s material rise into the ranks of great powers has brought with it certain expectations and responsibilities for great power management that Beijing has tried in various ways to fulfil. While it has chosen only selective contestation of the material and normative pillars of the extant US-led regional order, Beijing has begun to outline a regional vision and to use its material power in ways that are leading to renegotiation of some of the primary institutions of East Asian hegemonic order. However, China’s partial bid for hegemonic transition has so far been stymied by a mismatch between the vision of order it has promulgated and some of the policy actions that Beijing has taken. As a result of this mismatch, a current or future Chinese search for hegemonic status already has met various forms of resistance, including the prompting of networked forms of defence cooperation in the region.