Grand Theory Perspectives on Sino-U.S. Relations

Abstract

As has been highlighted in Chapter One, the scholarly and public discourse on the relationship between the ascending People’s Republic of China and the hegemonic United States has been decisively shaped by two alternative grand theories, or what Lamy still calls the “[c]ontemporary mainstream approaches”: neoliberalism versus neorealism (Lamy 2014: 126; 127-139). Based (inter alia) on the analyzed (post-Cold War) structural frame of Sino-U.S. ties – which has been marked by strong, slightly asymmetric bilateral (economic) interdependence, a relatively fast economic power transition under way as well as slow to moderate shifts in military power – the two (structuralist/rationalist) IR grand theory pictures of Sino-U.S. relations will be eclectically (re-)constructed in the following. Subsequently, a neoliberal and a neorealist hypothesis on China’s post-Cold War (relational) foreign policy behavior in the Taiwan issue and in the North Korea issue will be deduced – and naturally alike for the respective U.S. (relational) foreign policy behavior. This results in eight empirically verifiable, competing hypotheses on post-Cold War PRC and U.S. (relational) foreign policy behavior concerning these two central Sino-U.S. flashpoints or “triggers for confrontation” (Zhao 2007: 625).