Ascending China and the Hegemonic United States

The rise of large newly industrializing countries like China and India belongs to the most fundamental constitutive processes in the evolving international system of the 21st century. Especially since the world economic crisis in 2007-2009 and the subsequent state debt and economic issues in the old industrialized triad of the world economy (in Europe, the United States, and Japan as well), the “new”/resurgent players in world politics have received greater scholarly and public attention. Their economic and political ascent has spurred a vibrant debate in the humanities, the economic and social sciences, and particularly in the discipline of International Relations (IR), a debate whose origins can be traced back at least to the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Dealing with the research issue and the research design of the thesis (as well as giving a review of respective scholarly literature), Chapter One has highlighted the ongoing, vibrant debate in the academia, policy circles and the media/public on the rise of China and the (post-Cold War/future) relationship with the hegemonic United States, and has indicated the two most influential (grand) theory perspectives therein. Naturally, it has been the rapid increase and huge potential of Chinese, and the slower relative growth of U.S. capabilities as well as the extent of Sino-U.S. interdependence that has stimulated this vivid deliberation and provided it with a global momentousness. The neoliberal-neorealist divide thereby makes clear that scholars’ differing points of view partly result on the one hand from diverging ontological assumptions about the essence of the (social) world, the trans- and international system, and state action therein (Goldstein 2007: 639; Keohane/Nye 1989: 23; Christensen 2006: 81f.). On the other hand, participants in the debate also vary in their interpretation of the numerous empirical parameters on Sino-U.S. interdependence, capabilities, and their extrapolation to the future.

As has become evident, the Taiwan issue and the North Korea issue have been among the central “hot spots”, “flashpoints” or “triggers for confrontation” in (also post-Cold War) Sino-U.S. (and Asia-Pacific) relations (Acharya/Goh 2007: 10; Tammen et al. 2000: 167; Foot 2007: 93f.; Goldstein 2007: 674f.; Lampton 2001: 46; Chase 2005: 162; Khalilzad et al. 1999: 86; Zhao 2007: 625; Wagener 2011b: 246; 249). Formulated more drastically, Kugler argues that “Taiwan and Korea have replaced the Cold War’s Berlin as focal points for potential Great Power conflict” (Kugler 2006: 40). Having developed, based on the (post-Cold War) structural frame of Sino-U.S. ties, an eclectic neoliberal and an eclectic neorealist picture of world politics and Sino-U.S. relations in particular, and having derived four neoliberal and four neorealist hypotheses on post-Cold War PRC and U.S. (relational) foreign policy behavior in the Taiwan issue and the North Korea issue, four respective case studies will in the following empirically verify these neoliberal and neorealist deductions – and thus answer if the ascent of the People’s Republic of China has evoked a post-Cold War relationship with the hegemonic United States characterized rather by economically based cooperation or by strategic power politics.

Based inter alia on the analyzed (post-Cold War) structural frame of Sino-U.S. ties, the thesis (re-)constructed a neoliberal and a neorealist IR (grand) theory perspective on post-Cold War Sino-U.S. relations – and then empirically verified these theoretical alternatives. Since “[s]ocial science (…) seeks to develop and evaluate theories” (King et al. 1995: 475), and “[t]he clash of theories (…) across competing research programs is essential to progress in the social sciences” (Walt 1997: 934), the thesis thus stands in a major research tradition. Ultimately, and to the extent possible by a case study design, the research question – if the ascent of the People’s Republic of China has evoked a post-Cold War relationship with the hegemonic United States characterized rather by economically based cooperation or by strategic power politics – has been answered in support of the latter; this confirms a neorealist picture of Sino-U.S. relations and world politics. More precisely, since the empirical confrontation of alternative theories in the same cases remains among the most effective research designs in the social sciences (Opp 2005: 191-203; Eckstein 1975: 125f.; McKeown 1999: 182), and the empirical confrontation here of neoliberalism and neorealism in four (“most likely/least likely”) cases regarding post-Cold War PRC and U.S. (relational) foreign policy behavior in the Taiwan issue and the North Korea issue revealed greater explanatory power of the neorealist (grand) theory perspective, one may conclude that confidence in the (post-Cold War) validity of neorealism has risen (King et al. 1994: 103).

As has become evident, China’s significant (post-Cold War) rise belongs to the most fundamental constitutive processes in the evolving international system of the 21st century. The reaction of the hegemonic United States to the Chinese increase in capabilities and influence (which might once enable China to potentially become a regional or even global U.S. challenger) – not to say Sino-U.S. relations in general – remain thereby crucial for the further course of the Asia-Pacific, world politics, and the world economy. Regarding the scholarly, public, and policy debate on this so significant relationship between ascending China and the hegemonic United States, one finds the discourse strongly shaped by two IR grand theory perspectives on (future) superpower ties: neoliberalism and neorealism.