Joseph S. Nye
Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: (617) 495-1123
Fax: (617)-496-3337
Email: Joseph_Nye@harvard.edu
AP Photo
March 8, 2011
"Zakaria's World"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Foreign Policy
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the United States not only draws on a talent pool of 7 billion, but can recombine them in a diverse culture that enhances creativity in a way that ethnic Han nationalism cannot."
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February 14, 2011
"The Misleading Metaphor of Decline"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...American power is based on alliances rather than colonies, and it is associated with an ideology that is flexible and to which America can return even after it has overextended itself. Looking to the future, Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton argues that America's culture of openness and innovation will keep it central in an information age when networks supplement, if not fully replace, hierarchical power."
February 1, 2011
The Future of Power
Book
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
The influential policy thinker who coined the term "soft power" examines the changing nature of power since the Cold War, the new ways in which it is exercised, and how those changes impact America's role in the world.
AP Photo
January 18, 2011
"China's Hubris Colours US Relations"
Op-Ed, BBC News
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
When Barack Obama became US president, one of his top foreign policy priorities was to improve relations with China. Yet on the eve of President Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington, US-China relations are worse, rather than better.
AP Photo
January 12, 2011
"Asia in the Balance"
Op-Ed, The Korea Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
India is thus unlikely to develop the power resources to become an equal to China in the next decade or two. And, while the two countries signed agreements in 1993 and 1996 that promised a peaceful settlement of the border dispute that led them to war in l962, it is worth noting that, just prior to India's nuclear tests in March l998, India's defense minister described China as India's "potential enemy number one." More recently, in 2009, the border issue flared again....Rather than becoming an ally, India is more likely to become one of the Asian countries that will tend to balance China's strategic rise.
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December 6, 2010
"[PS] North Korean Enigma"
Op-Ed, The Korea Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"China does not want a nuclear or belligerent North Korea, but it is even more concerned about a failed state collapsing on its border. China has tried to persuade Kim's regime to follow its market-oriented example, but Kim is afraid that an economic opening would lead to a political opening and loss of dictatorial control. So, while China is trying to moderate the current crisis, its influence is limited."
AP Photo
October 2010
"American and Chinese Power after the Financial Crisis"
Journal Article, Washington Quarterly, issue 4, volume 33
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...Asia has its own internal balance of powers, and in that context, many states continue to welcome an American presence in the region. Chinese leaders have to contend with the reactions of other countries, as well as the constraints created by their own objectives of economic growth and the need for external markets and resources. Too aggressive a Chinese military posture could produce a countervailing coalition among its neighbors that would weaken both its hard and soft power. A poll of 16 countries around the world found a positive attitude toward China’s economic rise, but not its military rise."
AP Photo
July 12, 2010
"The Dollar and the Dragon"
Op-Ed, The Journal of Turkish Weekly
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Judging whether economic interdependence produces power requires looking at the balance of asymmetries, not just at one side of the equation. In this case, interdependence has created a "balance of financial terror" analogous to the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union never used their potential to destroy each other in a nuclear exchange."
AP Photo
May 19, 2010
"China's Century is Not Yet upon Us"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Unlike India, which was born with a democratic constitution, China has not yet found a way to solve the problem of demands for political participation (if not democracy) that tend to accompany rising per capita income. The ideology of communism is long gone, and the legitimacy of the ruling party depends upon economic growth and ethnic Han nationalism. Some experts argue that the Chinese political system lacks legitimacy, suffers from a high level of corruption and is vulnerable to political unrest should the economy falter. Whether China can develop a formula that can manage an expanding urban middle class, regional inequality and resentment among ethnic minorities remains to be seen."
AP Photo
March 11, 2010
"China's Bad Bet Against America"
Op-Ed, Daily News Egypt
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...[T]he fact that China holds so many dollars is not a true source of power, because the interdependence in the economic relationship is symmetrical. True, if China dumped its dollars on world markets, it could bring the American economy to its knees, but in doing so it would bring itself to its ankles. China would not only lose the value of its dollar reserves, but would suffer major unemployment. When interdependence is balanced, it does not constitute a source of power."
