China's Challenge to Pax Americana

Journal Article, Washington Quarterly

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security

This article argues that, although China has been a mostly reactive power for the past fifty years, its leaders have begun to articulate a decidedly alternative vision of the underlying principles of international relations.  In nearly every significant aspect, this emerging Chinese approach to world order is diametrically opposed to the prevailing American view of international statecraft.  This strategic world view has emerged gradually and in an ad hoc fashion over the past four years.  But most important, it has emerged primarily as an inadvertent consequence of China''s concern with the Taiwan problem.  It touches the most essential bread-and-butter issues of international politics:  How should international relations be organized?  Who should make decisions about global security?  What is the appropriate role of military force?  Who should decide international law?  What is the meaning of globalization?  What should be the role of the United Nations?  Are alliances legitimate?  The longer the Taiwan problem persists, therefore, the more likely that these strategic ideas will become more systematic -- and, thus, institutionalized -- in Chinese foreign policy.  Over time, a single cause, the Taiwan problem, may give birth to a consistent and institutionalized set of Chinese strategic ideas that will challenge the predominant American approach to issues that lie at the foundations of international politics.  

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