Relations internationales

C13(c) - The Rise of China

Date: Jun 4 | Heure: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Salle:

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Yanzhuo Xu (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

True self-help: Internal balancing and China’s non-alliance strategy since the 1990s: Ronaldo Au-Yeung (University of Notre Dame), Alsu Tagirova (Simon Fraser University)
Abstract: Why has post-Cold War China chosen not to form an alliance system, while it is the most likely candidate to balance against the United States? This article addresses a major critique to the balance-of-power theory – the absence of a counter-American alliance system – by submitting a neorealist explanation to the question. It argues that while China has consistently pursued internal balancing, the power distribution in the system has made external balancing a nonviable option. As a non-pole in the early post-Cold War period, Beijing pursued internal balancing in unipolarity because it faced limited alliance candidates and considerable power disparity vis-à-vis the resident hegemon. Additionally, as a superpower in today’s bipolarity, China’s alliance choice in short to medium run is constrained by two structural intervening variables: continued alliance partner unavailability and fears of entrapment, both of which are determined by the power distribution in the previous unipolar moment.

Audience Costs, Humiliation, and Social Creativity Strategies: An Experimental Study on How Beijing Boosts Citizens’ Esteem in International Conflicts: Seanon Wong (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Abstract: Can Beijing afford to appear weak, especially after threatening an adversary to escalate in an international crisis? According to audience costs theory, the more high-profile a threat is, the more difficult it would be for a government to back down. Its citizens expect it to stand firm and punish it if it does not. One explanation for the “micro” logic of audience costs is that from a socio-psychological perspective, backing down sullies the national honor. It harms an in-group’s collective self-esteem vis-à-vis the adversarial out-group. The humiliation that citizens endure would compel them to punish their government. In this paper, I examine how humiliation can be redressed proactively. I argue that governments – in this case, that of China – may not just brace for a backlash. They resort to a range of what scholars of Social Identity Theory in psychology call “social creativity strategies” in their propaganda to alleviate their citizens’ sense of humiliation. Such strategies may arrest the damage done to the in-group’s collective self-esteem. I present and elaborate on ten such strategies. I subject them to test in a vignette-based survey experiment conducted in China, with excerpts modified from op-eds published in the Global Times in the aftermath of Japan’s “nationalization” of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (2012). Its results show that the social creativity strategies the government used successfully lessened the humiliation the Chinese people presumably experienced during the crisis.

The Refusal to Accommodate: China and the Western World: Shaun Narine (St. Thomas University)
Abstract: Since the beginning of the Obama Administration, and particularly over the past eight years, the United States has adopted an increasingly hostile approach to its relations with China. The Trump Administration began an economic and technological war designed to cripple China’s development. The Biden Administration has intensified these efforts. The US has also tried to organize economic and military blocs among its allies and neutral countries that exaggerate and exacerbate the idea of a “China Threat.” It has increased the number of military bases it has surrounding China. These American efforts to “contain” China are driven by considerations of power politics. The US rightly sees China as its major challenger to global domination and is trying to use its current structural advantages to cripple China now, while it still can. This paper evaluates these measures and argues that the US and its Western allies are unnecessarily turning China into an enemy. A far wiser and more productive course of action is to “accommodate” China within the existing international system. China, in fact, is not a particularly disruptive actor and is heavily invested in the existing system. However, Western actions to keep China in a subservient international position have led it to begin to construct an alternative international system. This response from China risks dividing the world and isolating the West, which has failed to appreciate and accept that a multipolar world system is emerging.

Networks of Influence: An Analysis of China's Multilateralism: Benjamin Toettoe (University of Montreal), Mamoudou Gazibo (University of Montreal)
Abstract: China’s international influence has, in recent years, garnered significant attention in both academic studies and public discourse. Many states worry that trade and investment flows linking them with the country could lead to detrimental effects on their political autonomy and economic security. However, an in-depth understanding of the sources of Beijing’s economic influence remains elusive. One aspect of China’s international economic linkages that has not been fully incorporated into existing studies on its influence is the fact that they result in the creation of transnational networks. Indeed, beyond bilateral economic ties, the country’s international economic outreach has also occurred through the creation of multinational institutions and frameworks of cooperation. Among these, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) stands out as the most prominent example. Even though frameworks such as the BRI are multilateral, studies focusing on them have not investigated how they result in network effects that could shape outcomes among their signatories. In this project, I will first determine the network structure of China’s international economic linkages. Secondly, I will examine how identified structures shape the country’s international influence by considering key indicators of political and economic closeness.