Abstract
Few would argue against the fact that China today is on the verge of becoming a great power defined as a nation that is capable of wielding a considerable degree of influence over the making and diffusion of the structures and rules of international politics and economics.1 Yet, more than three decades ago, when China first embarked upon the path of systemic reforms, the international community cast many doubts and posed as many questions regarding whether the Communist regime could break out of the ideological cast and whether Beijing’s ambitious policy platforms could really work.2 Worse yet, the downfall of Deng Xiaoping’s hand-picked successors, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, and the tumultuous Tian’anmen tragedy of 1989, along with the implosion of the Soviet Union and the demise of the East European bloc in 1991, jointly gave birth to a so-called China collapse thesis, making China’s reform appear less likely to succeed.3
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Notes
International relations literature is rather vague on the concept of great power as it generally refers to one “that performs a major role, manages the international system, or sustains the international order” without specifying the components embedded in it. See, for instance, Jack S. Levy, War in the Modern Great Powers System 1495–1975 (Lexington, KY: University Press of America, 1983), p. 76; James L. Richardson, Crisis Diplomacy: The Great Powers since the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 5; Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: MacMillan, 1995), 2nd ed., p. 6; Paul A. Papayoanou, “Great Powers and Regional Orders: Possibilities and Prospects after the Cold War,” in David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan (eds.), Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1997), p. 125.
As for China’s open-ended processes of reform, see Joseph Fewsmith, Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 19–20; Jae Ho Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Chapter 3. And for the West’s initially negative projections about China’s reforms, see Thomas G. Rawski, “The Political Economy of China’s Declining Growth,” in P. J. Lloyd and Xiao-guang Zhang (eds.), China in the Global Economy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2000), p. 29.
See Arthur Waldron, “Warlordism versus Federalism: The Revival of a Debate,” The China Quarterly, No. 121 (March 1990), pp. 116–128; Maria H. Chang, “China’s Future: Regionalism, Federation, or Disintegration,” Studies in Comparative Communism, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 1992), pp. 211–227; Edward Friedman, “China’s North-South Split and the Forces of Disintegration,” Current History. Vol. 92, No. 575 (1993), pp. 270–274; Jack Goldstone, “The Coming Chinese Collapse,” Foreign Policy, Vol. 99, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 35–52; Gordon Chang, The Coming Collapse of China (New York: Knopf, 2001); Ni Jianzhong, Daguo zhuhou (Feudal Princes in China) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui chubanshe, 1996); Tong Zhongxin, Shiheng de diguo (The Empire Off Balance) (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 2001).
See Ye Zicheng, “Zhongguo shixing daguowaijiao zhanlue shizai bixing” (“China’s Implementing a Great-Power Diplomacy Is Indeed an Imperative”), Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi (World Economy and Politics), No. 1 (2000); Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American Order (New York: Norton, 2008), Chapters 3–4.
Zhiqun Zhu, US-China Relations in the 21st Century: Power Transition and Peace (London: Routledge, 2006); Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York: Public Affairs, 2009); Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York: Penguin, 2012); David P. Rapkin and William R. Thompson, Transition Scenarios: China and the United States in the Twenty-First Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).
The best example in this regard would be China’s near-helplessness vis-à-vis North Korea’s provocative acts despite the former’s possession of diverse leverages over the latter. See Jae Ho Chung and Myeonghae Choi, “Uncomfortable Allies or Uncertain Neighbors? Making Sense of China-North Korean Relations, 1949–2009,” Pacific Review, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2013), pp. 243–264.
See, for instance, A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kuglar, The War Ledger (New York: Knopf, 1980), Chapters 1 and 2.
See Ted C. Fishman, China INC: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World (New York: Scribner, 2006); Arvind Subramanian, Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2011); Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: Norton, 2011); Hugh White, The China Choice: Why We Should Share Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araujo, China’s Silent Army: The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers Who Are Remaking the World in Beijing’s Image (New York: Crown, 2013); Geoff Dyer, The Contest of the Century: The New Era of Competition with China—and How American Can Win (New York: Vintage, 2014).
Timothy Beardson, Stumbling Giant: The Threats to China’s Future (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013); Mel Gurtov, Will This Be China’s Century? A Skeptic’s View (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013); Jonathan Fenby, Will China Dominate the 21st Century? (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2014); Regina Abrami, William Kirby, and F. Warren McFarlan, Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2014).
Jae Ho Chung (ed.), Charting China’s Future (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Larry Wortzel, The Dragon Extends Its Reach: Chinese Military Power Goes Global (Washington, DC: Potomac, 2013); David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
See George Modelski, “Long Cycles of World Leadership,” in William R. Thompson (ed.), Contending Approaches to World Systems Analysis (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1983), pp. 126–127; Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation: Structures of the World Economy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), Chapter 9.
A spectrum of different views as to the duration of America’s unipolar moments exists. See Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 1 (1990/1991), pp. 23–33; Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Rise,” International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 5–51; Michael Mastanduno, “Preserving the Unipolar Moment,” International Security. Vol. 21, No. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 49–88; Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,” National Interest, Vol. 70 (Winter 2002/2003), pp. 5–18; Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States’ Unipolar Moment,” International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2 (October 2006), pp. 7–41.
A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Alfred K. Knopf, 1968), 2nd ed; Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson, The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490–1990 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994).
Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experiences of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Zara Steiner, “The Fall of Great Britain: Peace, Stability and Legitimacy,” in Geir Lundestad (ed.), The Fall of Great Powers: Peace, Stability and Legitimacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 59–74.
For the Japanese case, see Akira Iriye, “Japan’s Drive to Great-Power Status,” in Marius B. Jansen (ed.), The Emergence of Meiji Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 268–329; Bruce Cumings, “Japan’s Position in the World System,” in Andrew Gordon (ed.), Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 34–63. And for the Soviet path, see Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), pp. 488–514; Matthew Evangelista, “Internal and External Constraints on Grand Strategy: The Soviet Case,” in Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein (eds.), The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 154–178; Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), Chapter 9; Lu Nanquan, Sulian xingwangshilun (History of the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 2004).
Jae Ho Chung, “Gangdaegukghwa eui jokon gwa jungguk eui busang” (“Conditions for a Great Power and the Rise of China”), in Jae Ho Chung (ed.), Jungguk eui gangdaegukhwa (China’s Path to a Great-Power Status) (Seoul: Gil Publishing, 2006), pp. 11–52.
Yong Deng, China’s Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); William A. Callahan, China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014); Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower (New York: Henry Holt, 2015).
Guangming ribao (Guangming Daily), July 25, 2013; Wang Yizhou, Quanqiu zhengzhi yu zhongguo waijiao (Global Politics and Chinese Foreign Policy) (Beijing: Shijiezhishi chubanshe, 2003), Chapter9; Xuexi Xi jinping zongshuji zhongyao jian-ghua (Key Speeches by General Secretary Xi Jinping) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2013), pp. 70–79.
Chase-Dunn, Global Formation; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Chapter 3; Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 12–20; Chalmers Johnson, “The Developmental State: Odyssey of a Concept,” in Meredith Woo-Cumings (ed.), The Developmental State (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 314–319.
See Amy Chua, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall (New York: Anchor, 2009).
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), Chapter 2; Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Ha-Joon Chang and Robert Rowthorn, “Introduction,” in Ha-Joon Chang and Robert Rowthorn (eds.), Role of the State in Economic Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 17–19.
See, respectively, Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion,” p. 5; Kenneth Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000), p. 32.
Dennis Phillips, “Upper Volta with Rockets: Internal versus External Factors in the Decline of the Soviet Union,” in Ralph Summy and Michael E. Salla (eds.), Why the Cold War Ended: A Range of Interpretations (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995), pp. 123–138; Gail W. Lapidus and Edward W. Walker, “Nationalism, Regionalism, and Federalism: Center-Periphery Relations in Post-Communist Russia,” in Gail W. Lapidus (ed.), The New Russia: Troubled Transformation (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), pp. 79–114.
This is a conclusion analogous to Jae Ho Chung, “Assessing the Odds against the Mandate of Heaven: Do Numbers on Popular Protest Really Matter?” in Jae Ho Chung (ed.), Charting China’s Future (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, pp. 107–128; Martin Whyte, Myths of the Social Volcano: Perceptions of Inequality and Distributive Injustice in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).
John Measheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), p. 5.
Rasler and Thompson The Great Powers and Global Struggle, p. 18; Papayoanou, “Great Powers and Regional Orders,” p. 64; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Chapter 3; Richard Harding, Seapower and Naval Warfare, 1650–1830 (London: Routledge, 1999).
See, for instance, Task Force (chaired by Harold Brown), Chinese Military Power (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2003); Shambaugh, China Goes Global, Chapter 7.
For the assessment of China as America’s “regional peer competitor,” see Michael A. McDevitt, “The China Factor in Future U.S. Defense Planning,” in Jonathan D. Pollack (ed.), Strategic Surprise (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2003), p. 153. For a positive assessment of China’s ground forces, see Martin Andrew, “The Dragon Breathes Fire: Chinese Power Projection,” China Brief, Vol. 5, No. 16 (July 19, 2005), p. 5. Also see Wortzel, The Dragon Extends Its Reach.
See, for instance, Michael D. Swaine, et al., China’s Military and the US-Japan Alliance in 2030: A Strategic Net Assessment (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013).
The quote is from Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), Chapter 3. Of course, there were also racial, cultural and civilizational common denominators between the two. See Duncan Andrew Campbell, Unlikely Allies: Britain, America and the Victorian Origin of the Special Relationship (New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2007).
Joseph Chamberlain, “Retaliation” (The Town Hall, Greenock, October 7, 1903), in Charles W. Boyd (ed.), Mr. Chamberlain’s Speeches (London: Constable, 1914), Vol. 2, pp. 178–179. I thank Doo Hwan Ahn for sharing this material with me.
See Zheng Bijian, “China’s Peaceful Rise to Great-Power Status,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 5 (September–October, 2005), pp. 18–24; Robert L. Suettinger, “The Rise and Descent of ‘Peaceful Rise,’” China Leadership Monitor, No. 12 (Fall 2004), http://www.chinaleadershipmonitor.org; Xia Liping, Zhongguo hepingjueqi (China’s Peaceful Rise) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 2004), Chapters 7–10; Peng Peng (ed.), Heping jueqilun (Theory of Peaceful Rise) (Guangzhou: Guangzhou renmin chubanshe, 2005), pp. 13–26.
For the importance of system-level calculations of the future distribution of power, see Barry Buzan and Ole Waver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 35. For China’s efforts on the front of enhancing soft power, see Men Honghua, Zhongguo Ruanshili fan-glue (China’s Soft Power Strategy) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2007); Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); David M. Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), Chapter 4; Li Mingjiang, Soft Power: China’s Emerging Strategy in International Politics (Lamham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); Guo Shuyong, Zhongguo ruanshili zhanlue (China’s Strategy for Soft Power) (Beijing: Shishi chubanshe, 2012).
Susan Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” International Organization, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Autumn 1987), pp. 551–574; Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Washington, DC: Public Affairs, 2004), Chapter 1.
Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 45; Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 198–199.
On China’s meticulous study of historical precedents, see Ren Donglai, “Daguo jueqi de zhidu kuangjia he sixiang chuantong” (“Institutional Frameworks and Philosophical Tranditions in the Rise to a Great Power”), Daguo (Great Power), No. 1 (2004), pp. 75–86; Ding Xin, “Heping baoguo yu wuli jueqi de duijue” (“The Competition between Peaceful Security and Military Rise”), Daguo, No. 2 (2005), pp. 124–134; Peng, Heping jueqilun, Chapter 2.
See Charles A. Kupchan, “Benign States and Peaceful Transition,” in Charles A. Kupchan, Emanuel Adler, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Yuen Foong Khong, Power in Transition (New York: Unted Nations University Press, 2001), Chapter 2; Barry
Buzan and Rosemary Foot (eds.), Does China Matter? A Reassessment (London: Routledge, 2004). Also see Francois Godement, Divided Asia: Implications for Europe (Paris: European Council on Foreign Relations, 2013).
For exemplary works in this genre, see Alastair I. Johnston and Robert S. Ross (eds.), Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power (London: Routledge, 1999); Herbert Yee and Ian Storey (eds.), China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002); David Shambaugh (ed.), Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); William W. Keller and Thomas G. Rawski (eds.), China’s Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007); Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (eds.), China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); Shiping Tang, Mingjiang Li, and Amitav Acharya (eds.), Living with China: Regional States and China through Crises and Turning Points (London: Palgrave, 2009); Jae Ho Chung, “East Asia Responds to the Rise of China: Patterns and Variations,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 4 (2010), pp 657–675; Ian Storey, Southeast Asia and the Rise of China: The Search for Security (London: Routledge, 2011); Robert G. Sutter, Michael E. Brown, and Timothyu J. A. Adamson, with Mike. M. Mochizuki and Deepa Ollapally, Balancing Acts: The US Rebalance and Asia-Pacific Stability (Washington, DC: Sigur Center for Asian Studies, August 2013).
Great Britain, keenly aware of the fact that America’s economic prowess outweighed its own in the early 1870s, still gave its hegemonic control over to Washington in less than 70 years. For an optimistic projection in favor of the United States in the upcoming power contest, see Nina Hachigan and Mona Sutphen, The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008). Also see the so-called “Pax Americana-II” scenario in Rapkin and Thompson, Transitions Scenarios, Chapter 7.
There are concerns, however, that chances or little things could ignite big troubles between Washington and Beijing. See Richard Rosecrance, “Contingency as a Cause (Or Little Thins Mean a Lot),” in Richard Rosecrance and Steven Miller (eds.), The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of US-China Conflict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), Chapter 14.
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Chung, J.H. (2015). Assessing China’s Power. In: Chung, J.H. (eds) Assessing China’s Power. Asan-Palgrave Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137534613_1
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