風蕭蕭_Frank
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If the China continues growing rapidly, the US will once again face a potential peer competitor, and great-power politics will return in full force.
With the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union two years later, the United States emerged as the most powerful state on the planet. Many commentators said we are living in a unipolar world for the first time in history, which is another way of saying America is the only great power in the international system. If that statement is true, it makes little sense to talk about great-power politics, since there is just one great power.
But even if one believes, as I do, that China and Russia are great powers, they are still far weaker than the United States and in no position to challenge it in any meaningful way. Therefore, interactions among the great powers are not going to be nearly as prominent a feature of international politics as they were before 1989, when there were always two or more formidable great powers competing with each other.
To highlight this point, contrast the post–Cold War world with the first ninety years of the twentieth century, when the United States was deeply committed to containing potential peer competitors such as Wilhelmine Germany, imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. During that period, the United States fought two world wars and engaged with the Soviet Union in an intense security competition that spanned the globe.
After 1989, however, American policymakers hardly had to worry about fighting against rival great powers, and thus the United States was free to wage wars against minor powers without having to worry much about the actions of the other great powers. Indeed, it has fought six wars since the Cold War ended: Iraq (1991), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001–present), Iraq again (2003–11), and Libya (2011). It has also been consumed with fighting terrorists across the globe since September 11, 2001. Not surprisingly, there has been little interest in great-power politics since the Soviet threat withered away.
The rise of China appears to be changing this situation, however, because this development has the potential to fundamentally alter the architecture of the international system. If the Chinese economy continues growing at a brisk clip in the next few decades, the United States will once again face a potential peer competitor, and great-power politics will return in full force. It is still an open question as to whether China’s economy will continue its spectacular rise or even continue growing at a more modest, but still impressive, rate. There are intelligent arguments on both sides of this debate, and it is hard to know who is right.
But if those who are bullish on China are correct, it will almost certainly be the most important geopolitical development of the twenty-first century, for China will be transformed into an enormously powerful country. The attendant question that will concern every maker of foreign policy and student of international politics is a simple but profound one: can China rise peacefully? The aim of this chapter is to answer that question.
To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory of international politics that explains how rising great powers are likely to act and how the other states in the system will react to them. We must rely on theory because many aspects of the future are unknown; we have few facts about the future. Thomas Hobbes put the point well: “The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all.” Thus, we must use theories to predict what is likely to transpire in world politics.
Offensive realism offers important insights into China’s rise. My argument in a nutshell is that if China continues to grow economically, it will attempt to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. The United States, however, will go to enormous lengths to prevent China from achieving regional hegemony. Most of Beijing’s neighbors, including India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia, and Vietnam, will join with the United States to contain Chinese power. The result will be an intense security competition with considerable potential for war. In short, China’s rise is unlikely to be tranquil.
It is important to emphasize that my focus is not on how China will behave in the immediate future, but instead on how it will act in the longer term, when it will be far more powerful than it is today. The fact is that present-day China does not possess significant military power; its military forces are inferior to those of the United States. Beijing would be making a huge mistake to pick a fight with the U.S. military nowadays. Contemporary China, in other words, is constrained by the global balance of power, which is clearly stacked in America’s favor. Among other advantages, the United States has many consequential allies around the world, while China has virtually none. But we are not concerned with that situation here. Instead, the focus is on a future world in which the balance of power has shifted sharply against the United States, where China controls much more relative power than it does today, and where China is in roughly the same economic and military league as the United States. In essence, we are talking about a world in which China is much less constrained than it is today.
The remainder of the chapter is organized as follows. The next section contains a brief review of the core elements of my theory, which are laid out in detail in Chapter 2. I then summarize my discussion of America’s drive for hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, which is considered at length in Chapter 7. It is clear from this story that the United States has acted according to the dictates of offensive realism for most of its history. The subsequent section focuses on how an increasingly powerful China is likely to behave. I maintain that it, too, will act according to my theory, which is another way of saying it will effectively emulate the United States. In the next section, I explain why the United States as well as Beijing’s neighbors are likely to form a balancing coalition to contain China. Then I consider the chances that a Sino-American war will break out, making the argument that it is more likely than a war between the superpowers was during the Cold War. In the penultimate section, I attempt to refute the two main counterarguments to my gloomy forecast. Finally, I argue in a brief conclusion that the best reason to think my prognosis may be wrong has to do with the limits of social science theory.
OFFENSIVE REALISM IN BRIEF
In its simplest form, my theory maintains that the basic structure of the international system forces states concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of every great power is to maximize its share of world power and eventually dominate the system. In practical terms, this means that the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world while also ensuring that no rival great power dominates another area.
The theory begins with five assumptions about the world, which are all reasonable approximations of reality. First of all, states are the key actors in international politics, and no higher authority stands above them. There is no ultimate arbiter or leviathan in the system that states can turn to if they get into trouble and need help. This is called an anarchic system, as opposed to a hierarchic one.
The next two assumptions deal with capabilities and intentions, respectively. All states have offensive military capabilities, although some have more than others, indeed sometimes many more than others. Capabilities are reasonably easy to measure because they are largely composed of material objects that can be seen, assessed, and counted.
Intentions are a different matter. States can never be certain about the intentions of other states, because intentions are inside the heads of leaders and thus virtually impossible to see and difficult to measure. In particular, states can never know with complete confidence whether another state might have its gun sights on them for one reason or another. The problem of discerning states’ intentions is especially acute when one ponders their future intentions, since it is almost impossible to know who the leaders of any country will be five or more years from now, much less what they will think about foreign policy.
The theory also assumes that states rank survival as their most important goal. This is not to say it is their only goal, for states invariably have numerous ambitions. However, when push comes to shove, survival trumps all other goals, basically because if a state does not survive, it cannot pursue those other goals. Survival means more than merely maintaining a state’s territorial integrity, although that goal is of fundamental importance; it also means preserving the autonomy of a state’s policymaking process. Finally, states are assumed to be rational actors, which is to say they are reasonably effective at designing strategies that maximize their chances of survival.
The Rise of China Will Not Be Peaceful at All
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/The-Australian-November-18-2005.pdf?
The Australian, November 18, 2005
By John Mearsheimer
President Bush hopes the Asian giant will be a friendly one, but John
Mearsheimer is a pessimist
THE question at hand is simple and profound: will China rise peacefully?
My answer is no.
If China continues its impressive economic growth over the next few
decades, the US and China are likely to engage in an intense security
competition with considerable potential for war. Most of China's
neighbours, to include India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia and
Vietnam, will join with the US to contain China's power.
To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory that explains how rising
powers are likely to act and how other states will react to them.
My theory of international politics says that the mightiest states attempt
to establish hegemony in their own region while making sure that no rival
great power dominates another region. The ultimate goal of every great
power is to maximise its share of world power and eventually dominate
the system.
The international system has several defining characteristics. The main
actors are states that operate in anarchy which simply means that there is
no higher authority above them. All great powers have some offensive
military capability, which means that they can hurt each other. Finally, no
state can know the future intentions of other states with certainty. The
best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible,
relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that
another state will attack it.
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“The Rise of China Will Not Be Peaceful at All”
The great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest great power,
although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the
hegemon, the only great power in the system. But it is almost impossible
for any state to achieve global hegemony in the modern world, because it
is too hard to project and sustain power around the globe. Even the US is
a regional but not a global hegemon. The best that a state can hope for is
to dominate its own back yard.
States that gain regional hegemony have a further aim: to prevent other
geographical areas from being dominated by other great powers.
Regional hegemons, in other words, do not want peer competitors.
Instead, they want to keep other regions divided among several great
powers so that these states will compete with each other. In 1991, shortly
after the Cold War ended, the first Bush administration boldly stated that
the US was now the most powerful state in the world and planned to
remain so. That same message appeared in the famous National Security
Strategy issued by the second Bush administration in September 2002.
This document's stance on pre-emptive war generated harsh criticism,
but hardly a word of protest greeted the assertion that the US should
check rising powers and maintain its commanding position in the global
balance of power.
China -- whether it remains authoritarian or becomes democratic -- is
likely to try to dominate Asia the way the US dominates the Western
hemisphere.
Specifically, China will seek to maximise the power gap between itself and
its neighbours, especially Japan and Russia. China will want to make sure
that it is so powerful that no state in Asia has the wherewithal to threaten
it. It is unlikely that China will pursue military superiority so that it can go
on a rampage and conquer other Asian countries, although that is always
possible.
Instead, it is more likely that it will want to dictate the boundaries of
acceptable behaviour to neighbouring countries, much the way the US
makes it clear to other states in the Americas that it is the boss. Gaining
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“The Rise of China Will Not Be Peaceful at All”
regional hegemony, I might add, is probably the only way that China will
get Taiwan back.
An increasingly powerful China is also likely to try to push the US out of
Asia, much the way the US pushed the European great powers out of the
Western hemisphere. We should expect China to come up with its own
version of the Monroe Doctrine, as Japan did in the 1930s.
These policy goals make good strategic sense for China. Beijing should
want a militarily weak Japan and Russia as its neighbours, just as the US
prefers a militarily weak Canada and Mexico on its borders.
What state in its right mind would want other powerful states located in
its region? All Chinese surely remember what happened in the 20th
century when Japan was powerful and China was weak. In the anarchic
world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.
Furthermore, why would a powerful China accept US military forces
operating in its back yard? American policy-makers, after all, go ballistic
when other great powers send military forces into the Western
hemisphere. Those foreign forces are invariably seen as a potential threat
to American security. The same logic should apply to China.
Why would China feel safe with US forces deployed on its doorstep?
Following the logic of the Monroe Doctrine, would not China's security be
better served by pushing the American military out of Asia?
Why should we expect the Chinese to act any differently than the US did?
Are they more principled than the Americans are? More ethical? Less
nationalistic? Less concerned about their survival? They are none of these
things, of course, which is why China is likely to imitate the US and
attempt to become a regional hegemon.
It is clear from the historical record how American policy-makers will
react if China attempts to dominate Asia. The US does not tolerate peer
competitors. As it demonstrated in the 20th century, it is determined to
remain the world's only regional hegemon. Therefore, the US can be
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expected to go to great lengths to contain China and ultimately weaken it
to the point where it is no longer capable of ruling the roost in Asia. In
essence, the US is likely to behave towards China much the way it
behaved towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
China's neighbours are certain to fear its rise as well, and they too will do
whatever they can to prevent it from achieving regional hegemony.
Indeed, there is already substantial evidence that countries such as India,
Japan, and Russia, as well as smaller powers such as Singapore, South
Korea and Vietnam, are worried about China's ascendancy and are looking
for ways to contain it. In the end, they will join an American-led balancing
coalition to check China's rise, much the way Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, and even China, joined forces with the US to contain the
Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Finally, given Taiwan's strategic importance for controlling the sea lanes
in East Asia, it is hard to imagine the US, as well as Japan, allowing China
to control that large island. In fact, Taiwan is likely to be an important
player in the anti-China balancing coalition, which is sure to infuriate
China and fuel the security competition between Beijing and Washington.
The picture I have painted of what is likely to happen if China continues
its rise is not a pretty one. I actually find it categorically depressing and
wish that I could tell a more optimistic story about the future.
But the fact is that international politics is a nasty and dangerous
business and no amount of goodwill can ameliorate the intense security
competition that sets in when an aspiring hegemon appears in Eurasia.
That is the tragedy of great power politics.
John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of
Chicago and the author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (W.W.
Norton, 2001).
