1. Opening the Floor: The Rivalry Between Eagle and Dragon in Asia-Pacific

The episode depicted above references, of course, an incident happening between the USS Cowpens and the Liaoning battle group in early December 2013. For more information see Fisher, Richard D./Crochet, Mike/Hardy, James (2014): ‘Liaoning Completes Successful First South China Sea Trip’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 06th January 2014, Starr, Barbara (2013): ‘US, Chinese Warships Come Dangerously Close’, CNN, 13th December 2013, http://​edition.​cnn.​com/​2013/​12/​13/​politics/​us-china-confrontation/​ (21.09.2015) and Thayer, Carl (2013): ‘USS Cowpens Incident Reveals Strategic Mistrust Between US and China’, The Diplomat, 17th December 2013, http://​thediplomat.​com/​2013/​12/​uss-cowpens-incident-reveals-strategic-mistrust-between-u-s-and-china/​ (21.09.2015).

See also Thompson, Kenneth W./Clinton, W. David (2005): ‘Foreword. The Continuing Relevance of Politics Among Nations’, in Morgenthau, Hans (2005 [1948]): Politics among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. xvii-xxxix, p. xxii.

See for instance Yong, Deng/Moore, Thomas G. (2004): ‘China views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics?’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 117–136 and Wagener, Martin (2011): ‘Die aufgeschobene Konfrontation: Warum die USA mit China (noch) kooperieren’, Internationale Politik, No. 2, pp. 112–119. In his insightful 2009 review essay Christopher Layne described how the so far largely academic discussions on the competition between China and the US and the scholarly debates over the challenges to American primacy slowly became part of the public discourse on US foreign policy. Layne, Christopher (2009): ‘The Waning of US Hegemony – Myth or Reality? A Review Essay’, International Security, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 147–172, part. p. 152.

For a good overview on US unipolarity ibid.: 148–151. Other authors point out that US hegemony might have been a myth that was only true for a short period of time following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. See Beardson, Timothy (2013): Stumbling Giant. The Threats to China’s Future. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 278ff.

Layne, Christopher (2006): ‘Impotent Power? Re-examining the Nature of America’s Hegemonic Power’, The National Interest, September/October 2006, No. 85, pp. 41–47, p. 41.

Ikenberry, G. John (2001): After Victory. Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and The Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, p. 270. Note that Ikenberry expected resistance to American primacy and was rather puzzled that it did not emerge quicker after the end of the Cold War. For his institutional theory of order he (among other things) pointed to the asymmetrical power relations among great powers at the time—which have changed considerably since the time of his writing.

Ferguson, Niall/Kotlikoff, Laurence J. (2003): ‘Going Critical. American Power and the Consequences of Fiscal Overstretch’, The National Interest, Fall 2003, No. 73, pp. 22–32, p. 32.

Zakaria, Fareed (2008): ‘The Future of American Power. How America can Survive the Rise of the Rest’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 3, pp. 18–43, p. 43.

Schweller, Randall L./Pu, Xiaoyu (2011): ‘After Unipolarity. China’s Visions of International Order in an Era of US Decline’, International Security, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 41–72, p. 42. Schweller and Pu believe that a multipolar world is in the making, but that this structural transformation of world politics does not necessarily imply conflict among the poles.

Allison, Graham (2012): ‘Thucydides Trap Has Been Sprung in the Pacific’, Financial Times, 21st August 2012, http://​www.​ft.​com/​intl/​cms/​s/​0/​5d695b5a-ead3-11e1-984b-00144feab49a.​html#axzz3UOWmaOx2 (10.03.2015).

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (2015): ‘Fred Graph Civilian Unemployment Rate and Civilian Employment-Population Ratio’, FRED Economic Data, 18th September 2015, http://​tinyurl.​com/​p2ptf45 (18.09.2015).

Patton, Mike (2016): ‘US Government Deficit is Rising Again’, Forbes, 28th April 2016, http://​www.​forbes.​com/​sites/​mikepatton/​2016/​04/​28/​u-s-government-deficit-is-rising-again/​#6ebd50547146 (12.05.2016).

Younglai, Rachelle (2011): ‘Economist List US Budget Deficit as No. 1 Worry’, Reuters, 28th February, http://​www.​reuters.​com/​article/​2011/​02/​28/​us-usa-economy-survey-idUSTRE71R1LF201​10228 (25.02.2014).

US Treasury (2016): Debt Position and Activity Report. Report for June 2016, https://​www.​treasurydirect.​gov/​govt/​reports/​pd/​pd_​debtposactrpt_​0616.​pdf (13.07.2016).

US Treasury (2010): Debt Position and Activity Report. Report for January 2010, http://​www.​treasurydirect.​gov/​govt/​reports/​pd/​pd_​debtposactrpt_​1001.​pdf (25.02.2015).

Unz, Ron (2012): ‘China’s Rise, America’s Fall. Which Superpower is More Threatened by its ‘Extractive Elites’?’, The American Conservative, 17th April, http://​www.​theamericanconse​rvative.​com/​articles/​chinas-rise-americas-fall/​ (06.02.2015).

Ibid.

See for instance Zakheim, Dov S. (2014): ‘Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century’, Orbis, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 8–14.

According to one prominent estimation the costs for both wars have summed up since 2001 to more than US$4.4 trillion until June 2014. See Watson Institute (2015): Costs of War. http://​costsofwar.​org (25.02.2015).

Goldman, Emily O. (2011): Power in Uncertain Times. Strategy in the Fog of Peace. Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 174.

Ibid.

Maher, Richard (2011): ‘The Paradox of American Unipolarity: Why the United States May Be Better Off in a Post-Unipolar World’, Orbis, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 53–68.

Marsh, Kevin (2014): ‘Descending Eagle: The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review & the Decline of US Power’, Orbis, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp. 604–620.

Obama, Barack (2009): Remarks by President Barack Obama at Suntory Hall (Tokyo, Japan), 14th November 2009, http://​www.​whitehouse.​gov/​the-press-office/​remarks-president-barack-obama-suntory-hall (08.01.2010).

Kirk, Ron (2009): Remarks by Ambassador Ron Kirk at the US-Korea Business Council, 5th November 2009, http://​www.​ustr.​gov/​about-us/​press-office/​speeches/​transcripts/​2009/​november/​remarks-ambassador-ron-kirk-us-korea-busine (08.01.2010).

Clinton, Hillary (2010): America’s Engagement in the Asia-Pacific, 28th October 2010, http://​www.​state.​gov/​secretary/​20092013clinton/​rm/​2010/​10/​150141.​htm (08.11.2011).

Vaughn, Bruce/Morrison, Wayne M. (2006): ‘China-Southeast Asia Relations: Trends, Issues, and Implications for the United States’, CRS Report for Congress, 4th April 2006, p. 2, https://​www.​fas.​org/​sgp/​crs/​row/​RL32688.​pdf (08.02.2014).

Tellis, Ashley J. (2013): ‘No Escape: Managing the Enduring Reality of Nuclear Weapons’, in Tellis, Ashley J./Denmark, Abraham M./Tanner, Travis (eds.): Strategic Asia 2013–14. Asia in the Second Nuclear Age. Seattle and Washington: National Bureau of Asian Research, pp. 3–32, p. 31.

Oertel, Janka (2014): China and the United Nations. Chinese UN Policy in the Areas of Peace and Development in the Era of Hu Jintao. Baden-Baden: Nomos & Bloomsbury, p. 16.

Drèze, Jean/Sen, Amartya (2013): An Uncertain Glory. India and Its Contradictions. London: Allen Lane, p. x.

Sally, Razeen (2010): ‘The Shift to the East’, Economic Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 3, p. 94.

Marsh (2014): 613 and Sloan, Elinor (2011): ‘US-China Military and Security Developments’, International Journal, Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 265–283.

See Morrison, Wayne M. (2013): ‘China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States’, CRS Report for Congress, No. RL33534, 17th December 2013, http://​fas.​org/​sgp/​crs/​row/​RL33534.​pdf (10.09.2014), p. 4.

Samuelson, Robert J. (2014): ‘Economic Power Shifting in China’s Favor’, The Washington Post, 14th May 2014, http://​www.​washingtonpost.​com/​opinions/​robert-samuelson-economic-power-shifting-in-chinas-favor/​2014/​05/​14/​bee0d608-daf3-11e3-b745-87d39690c5c0_​story.​html (09.07.2014) Note that it is important to be cautious with the application of economic models that use current economic data to extrapolate trends. For the case of China’s future economic development this means, for instance, that even though the country has experienced almost four decades of impressive growth rates in the past and has overtaken other major economies, such a development might very well change in the future as over time currently not anticipated internal or external developments (which are thus not included in the models) come into play. See on this for instance Babones, Salvatore (2011): ‘The Middling Kingdom’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 5, pp. 79–88.

Roach, Stephen S. (2009): The Next Asia. Opportunities and Challenges for a New Globalization. Hoboken: Wiley, p. 381f; Gaullier, Guillaume/Lemoine, Françoise/Ünal-Kesenci, Deniz (2007): ‘China’s Emergence and the Reorganization of Trade Flows in Asia’, China Economic Review, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 209–243; Drysdale, Peter (2010b): ‘China and Japan in Landmark Shift in Asian Economic Power?’, East Asia Forum, 6th September 2010, http://​www.​eastasiaforum.​org/​2010/​09/​06/​china-and-japan-in-landmark-shift-in-asian-economic-power-weekly-editorial/​ (09.11.2010); Ahn, Byung-Joon (2004): ‘The Rise of China and the Future of East Asian Integration’, Asia-Pacific Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 18–35; Jaques, Martin (2009): When China Rules the World. The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World. London: Allen Lane, p. 357. Jaques also holds that any economic sanctions against China would—due to China’s manufacturing being a “fundamental element in a complex global division of labour operated by the major Western and Japanese multinationals”—hit other countries (particularly in East Asia) involved in the production process much more and that disconnecting China from global manufacturing chains “would be well-nigh impossible”.

A good overview can be found in Chung, Chien-peng (2010): China’s Multilateral Cooperation in Asia and the Pacific. Institutionalizing Beijing’s “Good Neighbour Policy”. London and New York: Routledge. A more detailed analysis on China’s behaviour in the United Nation is provided by Oertel (2014).

Morrison (2013): 5.

Ibid.: 7. By using total factor productivity one account for the part of a growing economic output which is not reflected by the growth in inputs (i.e. labour and capital) and thus can subsequently be used to estimate the effects of technological change within a national economy.

World Bank (2015): ‘GDP per capita, PPP (current international $)’, International Comparison Program Database, http://​data.​worldbank.​org/​indicator/​NY.​GDP.​PCAP.​PP.​CD (06.02.2015).

Unz (2012).

Arrighi, Giovanni (2010): The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times. London and New York: Verso, p. 380.

Yahuda (2011): 269. The nature of such a new order is closer discussed in Mendis, Patrick (2014): Peaceful War. How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a Pacific New World Order. New York: University Press of America, part. pp. 219–236.

Arrighi (2010): 382, emphasis added.

Ibid.: 385. Arrighi notes, however, that China’s growing economic weight does not in itself guarantee a world dominated by a China-centred East Asia and stresses that “a Western dominated universal empire remains a possibility”. Yet, he remarked that while the latter will likely be marked by a weaker US, the first possibility is much more probable than in the early 1990s. Ibid.

Haour, Georges/von Zedtweitz, Max (2016): Created in China. How China is Becoming A Global Innovator. London: Bloomsbury. Note that Beijing at times is relying on controversial methods to enhance its domestic innovation ability. For instance, Chinese firms are backed by a “cocktail of policies that create [sic] unequal conditions for competition between domestic and foreign firms, [which] effectively help the former to steal overseas technologies and designs, and force foreign companies to share technologies against their will”. Tselichtchev (2012): 182.

Office of the Secretary of Defence (2014): Military and Security Developments Involving the People’ Republic of China. Annual Report to Congress. http://​www.​defense.​gov/​pubs/​2014_​DoD_​China_​Report.​pdf (17.09.2014).

Ibid.: 6.

Roach (2009): 327.

Empirical research suggests that an alteration of the power capabilities of nation states considerably increases the probability that these states will become involved in an intense conflict. Ferris, Wayne H. (1973): The Power Capabilities of Nation-States. International Conflict and War. Lexington: Lexington Books, pp. 86–110, 115f.

Schweller, Randall L./Pu, Xiaoyu (2011): 72.

Pew Research (2013a): ‘United States and China: The Image of the Globe’s Two Superpowers’, Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 18th July 2013, http://​www.​pewglobal.​org/​2013/​07/​18/​united-states-and-china-the-image-of-the-globes-two-superpowers/​ (24.11.2014).

Ibid.

Pew Research (2013c): ‘How Developing Nations See the Economy, China, the US’, Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 23rd July 2013, http://​www.​pewglobal.​org/​2013/​07/​23/​how-developing-nations-see-the-economy-china-the-u-s/​ (24.11.2014).

Pew Research (2013b): ‘World’s Leading Economic Power’, Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 18th July 2013, http://​www.​pewglobal.​org/​2013/​07/​18/​worlds-leading-economic-power/​ (24.11.2014).

Drake, Bruce (2012): ‘American, Chinese Public Increasingly Weary of the Other’, Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 1st November 2012, http://​www.​pewglobal.​org/​2012/​11/​01/​american-chinese-publics-increasingly-wary-of-the-other/​ (24.11.2014).

Beardson (2013): 282.

Ibid.

See for instance White, Hugh (2005): ‘The Limits of Optimism: Australia’s Future between Washington and Beijing’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 469–480. The term ‘Vasco da Gama epoch’ was probably coined by the Indian scholar and diplomat Sardar K. M. Panikkar. Panikkar, Kavalam M. (1959): Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the Vasco da Gama Epoch of Asian History, 1498–1945. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Kissinger, Henry (2011): China. Zwischen Tradition und Herausforderung. München: C. Bertelsmann, pp. 515–521; Dong, Wang (2003): ‘The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern China’, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 399–425; Rudd, Kevin (2013): ‘Beyond the Pivot. A New Road Map for US-Chinese Relations’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92, No. 2, pp. 9–15, p. 10. The memory of the Unequal Treaties imposed on Qing China after having lost the two Opium Wars is today also used both domestically and abroad by the Chinese leadership as an instrument to foster own influence. See Wang, Zheng (2012): Never Forget National Humiliation. Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.

Waldron, Arthur (2014): ‘China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’ Enters Turbulence’, Orbis, Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 164–181, part. pp. 170ff and Czarnezki, Jason J. (2011): ‘Climate Policy & US-China Relations’, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 659–674, p. 673.

Cited in Allison, Graham/Blackwill, Robert D. (2013): ‘Will China Ever be No. 1?’, Foreign Policy, 16th February 2013, http://​foreignpolicy.​com/​2013/​02/​16/​will-china-ever-be-no-1/​ (24.11.2014).

Note that when speaking of International Relations or IR (in capital letters) it is referred to the sub-discipline of political science that is mostly concerned with international relations (in small letters) among states.

These are: Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China (as well as Hong Kong and Macao), DR Korea, Fiji, French Polynesia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Northern Mariana Islands, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Island, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States, Vanuatu, and Vietnam. While two very important extra-regional players are included (the US and Russia), it should be noted that Republic of China (ROC)/Taiwan is not. This is not because Taipei lacks diplomatic recognition (although it is not a member state of the UN and only 21 UN member states (plus the Holy See) have recognised the ROC diplomatically), but due to the more practical consideration that the construction of the composite indicator relies on an enormous amount of statistical data, which in most cases cannot be provide for Taiwan. Still, with the exception of Taiwan these 44 selected political entities are basically all the internal and (relevant) external actors in what Barry Buzan and Ole Waever have called the “Asian supercomplex” in their intriguing theory on regional security complexes. See Buzan, Barry and Waever, Ole (2005): Regions and Powers. The Structure of International Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 99. Also the IISS is using a comparable delineation of ‘Asia’ as a region (yet, following the US ‘AfPak’-theory they also only include Afghanistan). See IISS (2015): The Military Balance 2015, London: Routledge, p. 210.

Dyer, Geoff (2014): The Contest of the Century. The New Era of Competition with China – and How America Can Win. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 81.

As will become clear following the discussion of the relational power understanding, it is necessary to limit a relational power analysis to specific issue areas.

Stratfor (2010): China: Power and Perils. Austin: Stratfor Press, p. 264.

Reuters (2012): ‘Debating China’, U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney outline China policy in final Presidential debate, 23 October 2012, http://​www.​reuters.​com/​video/​2012/​10/​23/​debating-china?​videoId=​238602596 (18.12.2012) Kissinger—following Joshua Cooper Ramo—states that one should rather see the Sino-US relationship as one of ‘co-evolution’ instead of ‘partnership’, i.e. both sides try to pursue an own agenda dominated by domestic demands and national interests, while actively working to minimize conflict between them by identifying and developing complementary interests. Kissinger (2011): 540.

Cit. in Mardell, Mark (2012): ‘US pivots, China bristles’, BBC, 18 November 2012, http://​www.​bbc.​co.​uk/​news/​world-us-canada-20387131

John Mearsheimer prominently argues that Washington would react with “outrage” if China would try to get Mexico or Canada in an own military alliance—hinting that after almost 200 years since the Monroe Doctrine first ‘banned’ any intervention in the Americas by outside powers such a move would still be unacceptable for the US political and military leaderships. Mearsheimer, John J. (2014): ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault. The Liberal Delusions that Provoked Putin’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 93, No. 5, pp. 1–12, p. 6. A similar point regarding the differing standards in regional intervention between China and the US is made in Roy (2013): 59.

Given the sheer amount of literature on this issue, the subsequent discussion can only provide a snapshot of the most prevalent arguments, which basically can be sorted into three camps: the primacist (future strategic competition), the exceptionalist (peaceful rise of China) and the pragmatist (competitive coexistence) school. See Evans, Michael (2011): ‘Power and Paradox: Asian Geopolitics and Sino-American Relations in the 21st Century’, Orbis, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 85–113. Additionally, not only Western but also Asian scholars participate in the ‘power shift’ narrative and discuss the possibility that China’s increasing economic weight might alter regional and global relations. See for instance the insightful article from Ming, Li (2005): ‘The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy: Exploring Historic Possibilities in the 21st Century’, Science & Society, Vol. 69, No. 3, pp. 420–448, part. 434–440 and the interesting overview in Hagström, Linus (2012): “Power Shift’ in East Asia? A Critical Reappraisal of Narratives on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Incident in 2010’, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 267–297, part. 291–295.

Ibid.: 74.

Betts, Richard K. (1993): ‘Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War’, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 34–77, p. 35. See also the insightful analysis of Roy, Denny (1996): ‘The ‘China Threat’ Issue: Major Arguments’, Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp. 758–771.

Ibid.: 36.

Ibid.: 53f.

Ibid.: 520.

Ibid.: 168.

Ibid.: 156–165.

Ibid.: 20. Indeed, as Evgeniy Bazhanov did show, closer collaboration between Russia and China was a primary aim of the anti-Western forces within the Russian elites after the demise of the Soviet Union in order to regain some of the lost geopolitical clout. Bazhanov, Evgeniy (1998): ‘Russian Perspectives on China’s Foreign Policy and Military Development’, in: Pollack, Jonathan D./Yang, Richard H. (eds.): In China’s Shadow. Regional Perspectives on Chinese Foreign Policy and Military Development. RAND Report, pp. 70–90, part. pp. 72f. Since then the collaboration between Beijing and Moscow has flourished remarkably. For a comprehensive overview see Schoen, Douglas E./Kaylan, Melik (2014): The Russia-China Axis. The New Cold War and America’s Crisis of Leadership. New York & London: Encounter Books.

Ibid.: 155.

The notion of weaking US unipolarity but rising economic prosperity for all was (and is) widely shared among Chinese academics and led to the concept of China’s ‘peaceful rise’, which was later altered into the concept of ‘peaceful development’. See for instance Yan, Xuetong (2001): ‘The Rise of China in Chinese Eyes’, Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 10, No. 26, pp. 33–39 and Wang, Jianwei (2009): ‘China’s Peaceful Rise: A Comparative Study’, EAI Fellows Program Working Paper, No. 19, http://​www.​eai.​or.​kr/​data/​bbs/​eng_​report/​2009052017544710​.​pdf (11.07.2014). Insightful on the history of the term are Dhaojiong, Zha (2005): ‘Comment: Can China Rise?’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 775–785 and Glaser, Bonnie S./Medeiros, Evan S. (2007): ‘The Changing Ecology of Foreign-Policy Making in China: The Ascension and Demise of the Theory of ‘Peaceful Rise”, The China Quarterly, No. 190, pp. 291–310. Glaser and Medeiros also identified eight major criticisms (among others: no threat to Taiwan anymore, lack of historic precedence, term can undermine public support for military modernization) towards the term raised by Chinese scholars. See ibid.: 302–306.

Ibid.: 20.

Bernstein and Ross (1997): 21.

Ibid.: 29. Both moreover argued for a stronger remilitarization of Japan in order to help Washington containing China. Ibid.: 31f.

Kupchan, Charles A. (1998): ‘After Pax Americana. Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity’, International Security, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 40–79, p. 40. Other scholars hold that even though China and other major players are rising, this should be seen as a dilution of the Pax Americana not the end of it. See Macdonald, James (2015): When Globalization Fails. The Rise and Fall of Pax Americana. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 256f. One of the best theoretical texts on rising powers is probably Layne, Christopher (1993): ‘The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 5–51.

Kupchan (1998): 41.

Ibid.: 65.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 40.

Cunha, Derek Da (1998): ‘Southeast Asian Perceptions of China’s Future Security Role in its ‘Backyard”, in: Pollack, Jonathan D./Yang, Richard H. (eds.): In China’s Shadow. Regional Perspectives on Chinese Foreign Policy and Military Development. RAND Report, pp. 115–126, e.g. p. 117 and 120. See on this also Funabashi, Yoichi (2008): ‘Keeping Up With Asia: America and the New Balance of Power’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 5, pp. 110–125, p. 115f & 117ff.

Banlaoi, Rommel C. (2003): ‘Southeast Asian Perspectives on the Rise of China’, Parameters, Summer, pp. 98–107, p. 99. On the economic challenges for the US economy of China’s rise see Lardy, Nicholas R. (2003): ‘The Economic Rise of China: Threat or Opportunity’, Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 1st August 2003.

Banlaoi (2003): 106.

Dutta (1998): 91f, emphasis added. Dutta furthermore outlined the contradiction between Chinese political elite’s claims since Mao that China does not want to be a superpower yet nevertheless seeks to achieve the status of a ‘first class power’. See particularly the interesting quotes collected by Dutta in ibid.: 112, FN 15. The importance of the ‘status question’ for China is also emphasised in an interesting article by Reinhard Wolf, who contrasts the current competition between China and the US with the Anglo-German antagonism that led to the First World War. Wolf, Reinhard (2014): ‘Rising Powers, Status Ambitions, and the Need to Reassure: What China Could Learn From Imperial Germany’s Failures’, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 185–219.

The argument that China is a not a traditional great power seeking to extent its influence is also brought forward by Bijan, Zhen (2005): ‘China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’ to Great-Power Status’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 5, pp. 18–24, part. pp. 22 & 24.

Ibid.

See Funabashi (2008): 111.

Christensen, Thomas J. (2001): ‘Posing Problems Without Catching Up: China’s Rise and Challenges for US Security Policy’, International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 5–40, p. 7. His consequent discussion how China could very much pin down US forces in the region through asymmetric means is very insightful. Note that also other scholars were sceptical about China’s potential to effectively challenge the US. See Brooks, Stephen G./Wohlforth, William C. (2002): ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 4, pp. 20–30, part. p. 26.

Ibid. One Chinese scholar tried to counter Huntington’s worries about a potentially more ‘robust’ foreign policy by Beijing by referring to China’s comparatively peaceful past in its external relations over the last 2,000 years. Ironically, he fails to mention the quite impressive military build-up of military assets (that i.e. were used in the Taiwan Crisis of 1996 and underpinning a stronger Chinese foothold in the SCS) at the time of his writing due to its growing economic prosperity. See Zhang, Wei-Wei (2004): ‘The Implications of the Rise of China’, Foresight, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 223–226. In contrast, Daojiong Zha made Taiwan’s international status to the linchpin of future Sino-American relations and argued that “[a]t the level of grand strategy, China and the United States are on a definite collision course”. Dhaojiong (2005): 778, emphasis added.

Though Johnston could additionally show that up to then no clear evidence of an offensive or proactive Chinese strategy had emerged.

Johnston (2003): 54ff. For the differing yet interconnected ‘China threat’ discourses in China and the US see Callahan, William A. (2005): ‘How to Understand China: The Dangers and Opportunities of Being a Rising Power’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 701–714. The idea that China’s growing international activeness can be seen as a consequence of greater global US unilateralism (particularly during the presidency of George W. Bush) was also brought forward by Robert A. Pape. He argued that Beijing (like other major powers) was forced to follow a strategy of ‘soft balancing’ in order to cautiously challenge those foreign polices of Washington which were directly detrimental to Chinese national security interests (such as the establishment of an US ballistic missile defence system or Washington’s bypassing of international bodies of global governance such as the UN Security Council thus not taking into account Beijing’s security concerns). Pape, Robert A. (2005): ‘Soft Balancing against the United States’, International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 7–45. See also Schweller and Pu (2011): 52–70.

Ibid.: 361ff. He noted that scenario two would make a gradual American retreat from the region necessary, something he described as unlikely.

Ibid.: 364.

Ibid.: 365.

Ibid.: 125.

Kang, David C. (2006): ‘Why China’s Rise Will be Peaceful: Hierarchy and Stability in the East Asian Region’, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 551–554, p. 552. In an earlier article Kang had already argued that the region is historically accustomed to a Sino-centric order, making it unlikely that regional states would join sides with the Washington against Beijing, but will bandwagon with it. See Kang, David (2003): ‘Getting Asia Wrong: The Need for New Analytical Frameworks’, International Security, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 57–85.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 412.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 417.

Ibid.: 420.

Ibid.: 23.

Shambaugh (2005a): 90ff. Also other authors emphasised the urgency for the US to make room for a growing China. See for instance Zweig, David/Bi, Jianhai (2005): ‘China’s Global Hunt for Energy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 5, pp. 25–38, p. 27 & 38.

Shambaugh (2005a): 90ff. 92.

Cited in Zweig and Bi (2005): 36. Note that Zweig and Bi were much more optimistic about potential future energy conflict between China and the US.

Ibid.: 155.

In general, hedging is a strategy that seeks to avoid tight ties with other states particularly in the field of military alliances. In other words, states that pursue a hedging strategy seek to cooperate with all states and try to avoid situations in which they might have to take sides between warring factions. See also ibid.: 164, FN 1.

Ibid.: 158.

Ibid.: 727. France against Prussia in 1870 and Austria against Serbia in 1914 come to mind here.

See on this also Funabashi (2008): 113ff.

Zweig and Bi (2005): 30.

Ibid.: 32. From a US perspective this might apply to Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan and Venezuela.

Ibid., emphasis added.

Ibid.: 35. An in-depth analysis of China’s military development is provided by Fisher, Richard D. Jr. (2010): China’s Military Modernization. Building for Regional and Global Reach. Stanford: Stanford University Press. He moreover links China’s military build-up to “an antidemocratic and even anti-American foreign policy agenda”. Ibid.: 251. A brief overview of China’s cyber warfare capabilities is provided in Beardson (2013): 339–353.

Ibid.: 48.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 162.

Mearsheimer explicitly named Wilhelmine Germany (1900–1918), Imperial Japan (1931–1945), Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and the Soviet Union (1945–1989). Mearsheimer (2006): 161.

Ibid.: 162.

Ibid.: 33.

Ibid.

This was also called for by Funabashi (2008): 123f.

Ibid.: 2.

See for instance ibid.: 55ff. Sutter was thus much more optimistic about the regional effects of the hedging strategies pursued by China and the US than other authors. For a different perspective see Medeiros (2005).

Sutter (2006): 42.

Ibid.: 48.

Ibid.: 61.

Ibid.: 62.

Ibid.: 63. Sutter even went so far as to describe China’s prominent role in intra-Asian trade as “less significant than it figures would suggest”. Ibid.

A grouping encompassing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Drezner was particularly concerned about India and China. A statistic of the US National Intelligence Council he cited estimated that by 2025 China and India will be the second and fourth largest global economies. Ibid.: 34. Interestingly, China had already achieved this by 2010 and India became the third biggest economy in 2013 (GDP in PPP).

Ibid.: 35 & 44.

Interestingly, the founding of the BRICS’ New Development Bank in July 2014 (equipped with US$50 billion) as an alternative to the World Bank as well as the establishment of the BRICS’ Contingent Reserves Arrangement (equipped with US$100 billion) as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) actually shows that Drezner’s warnings were neither unreasonable nor taken into account by US foreign policymakers. Additionally, it seems that China could not be convinced to become what Robert Zoellick called 2005 a ‘responsible stakeholder’—at least following an US understanding of the term, i.e. becoming more integrated into the US orbit. Quite opposite, from a Chinese perspective, it is actually the US which should be seen—in the words of China’s former chief WTO negotiator—to be an ‘irresponsible stakeholder’. See Daniel, Frank J. (2014): ‘Shanghai most likely headquarters for BRICS development bank’, Reuters, 14th July 2014, http://​uk.​reuters.​com/​article/​2014/​07/​14/​uk-brics-summit-idUKKBN0FJ19I201​40714 (25.07.2014) and Li, Zhongzhou (2007): ‘An Irresponsible Stakeholder’, China Daily, 26th June 2007, http://​china.​org.​cn/​international/​opinion/​2007-06/​26/​content_​1215148.​htm (25.07.2014).

Narlikar is particularly sceptic about integrating China and ‘socialising’ it to accept the current international norms. See Narlikar (2010): 159f.

Ibid.: 4.

Ibid.: 5. See also Tselichtchev and Debroux (2009): 127ff and 139ff.

Keller and Rawski (2007): 6.

See van der Pijl, Kees (2006): Global Rivalries. From the Cold War to Iraq. London & Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, p. 329. Not that in June 2014 China owned more than 21 % (i.e. US$1268.4 billion) of all US treasury securities (bonds, notes etc.). Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board (2014): Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities. 14th August 2014, http://​www.​treasury.​gov/​ticdata/​Publish/​mfh.​txt (12.09.2014).

National Intelligence Council (2008): Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. Washington: US Government Printing Office, p. 7, emphasis added.

Ibid.: 29.

Ibid.: vi.

Ibid.: xi. It has to be noted in this context that the authors considerably underestimated the year in which China’s economy overtook that of the US by two decades (2035 instead of 2014). See ibid.: 6.

Ikenberry mentioned the work of Robert Gilpin and Paul Kennedy in this context. For their Hegemonic Decline Theory see Gilpin, Robert G. (1981): War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press as well as Kennedy, Paul (1987): The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House. Another important theoretical body on power shifts not mentioned by Ikenberry is the Power Transition Theory established primarily by A.F.K. Organski. For an overview see Organski, Abramo F.K. (1968): World Politics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, part. pp. 338–376. For a revised version of PTT see Tammen, Ronald L./Kugler, Jacek/Lemke, Douglas/Abdollahian, Mark A./Asharabati, Carole/Efird, Brian/Organski, A.F.K. (2000): Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century. Washington: CGPress. Many other scholars worked on/with PTT. Dong Sun Lee, for instance, used PTT (and addressed its minor logic flaws in the process) and discovered in his impressive comparison of power shifts occurring from 1860 to 1945 among great powers in Asia, America and Europa that only 2 out of 12 (sic!) shifts did not lead to war. Dong was also able to show that the military strategy of the declining state is decisive for predicting the result of the power struggle: Counter to intuition, a strategy of manoeuvre (based on Liddell Hart the goal of such a strategy is to achieve victory by strategic paralysis of the opponent, i.e. putting the enemy state into a strategically hopeless situation) will make war more likely than a strategy of attrition (i.e. using sheer force on a number of occasions against the military strongholds of the enemy), which will make violent conflict actually unlikely. Interestingly, only in half of the assessed cases by Dong were the rising challengers actually successful in permanently altering the balance of power in their favour. See Dong, Sun Lee (2006): ‘When Are Power Shifts Dangerous? Military Strategy and Preventive War’, Journal of International and Area Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 53–71. The original PTT is also prudentially discussed in Rauch, Carsten (2014): Das Konzept des friedlichen Machtübergangs. Die Machtübergangstheorie und der weltpolitische Aufstieg Indiens. Baden-Baden: Nomos, part. pp. 68–77. The high likelihood of war between rising and declining states in times of power transitions are also documented in Yuen, Foong Khong (2001): ‘Negotiating ‘Order’ During Power Transitions’, in: Kupchan, Charles A./Adler, Emanuel/Couicaud, Jean-Marc/Yuen, Foong Khong (eds.): Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 34–67. However, Schweller and Pu (2011) use Gilpins theory of hegemonic transition to argue that conflict is only one possible development—particularly due to the existence of nuclear weapons.

Ikenberry (2008): 28.

Ibid.: 24. Morris is sceptical that integration of China into a Western-designed system would eventually Westernize China. Morris, Ian (2010): Why the West Rules – For Now. The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 588f. In the same vein Jaques sees it as “Western hubris” to belief that China will join Western-led institutions and consequently become more ‘Western’ itself. Instead, he sees Chinese modernity to be much different than Western modernity and links China’s rise to the end of Western universalism. Jaques (2009): 416 & 429–435. Within China the Westernization of domestic institutions (i.e. towards liberal democracy) is far from being embraced by everybody. Schweller and Pu (2011): 61.

Ibid.: 26.

A similar argument is also made by Wolf (2014): 218.

Ibid.: 37.

Khanna, Parag (2008): The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. New York: Random House, p. xv.

Ibid.: 260f. On the Eurasian heartland see Mackinder, Halford J. (1919): Democratic Ideals and Reality. A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction. London: Constable and Company Ltd., part. pp. 93–146. The concept of sea power is first described in Mahan, Alfred Th. (1987 [1894]): The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660–1783. New York: Dover Publications, part. 26–69.

Ibid.: 300–306.

Ibid.: 323–334.

Some authors argue that the GFC should actually be understood as an American or Western Financial Crisis. According to one analyst, the interplay between unaffordable consumption, rising households’ debts, ‘gambling capitalism’ encouraged by structured financial products like Asset Backed Securities (ABS) as well as the failure of state regulation, corporate governance and business morality lead to a financial crisis that hit Western economies particularly harder than non-Western ones. Tselichtchev, Ivan (2012): China Versus the West. The Global Power Shift of the 21st Century. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 81–94. See also Kissinger (2011): 514.

Layne (2009): 165.

Ibid.

Mahbubani, Kishore (2008): The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. New York: PublicAffairs PBG, p. xi. The view of a “moral failure” of Western capitalism is also expressed in Tselichtchev (2012): 93.

Dobson, Wendy (2009): Gravity Shift. How Asia’s New Economic Powerhouses Will Shape the Twenty-First Century. Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press, p. 183.

Jaques (2009): 359.

Ibid.: 360.

Ibid.

Ferguson, Niall (2011): Civilization. The West and the Rest. London: Allen Lane, p. 308. His rich historical analysis links civilizational decline and collapses with fiscal crises and great power wars. In this, context, global public opinion sees the US in decline vis-à-vis China particularly since the beginning of the GFC. See Pew Research (2013a).

Layne (2009): 166. He actually questioned Washington’s credibility and legitimacy to lead institutional reform.

Ibid.

Most notably a very high supply of money (which triggers inflation) given the massive amounts of dollars the US Treasury pumped into the system (under the euphemistic label ‘quantitative easing’), continuing high budget deficits, a continuing great reliance on consumption, too less production as well as high public and private debts. Ibid.: 168. For an intellectually sharp piece on fiscal overstretch (not to be confused with, yet in many ways related to strategic overstretch) see also Ferguson and Kotlikoff (2003). For a closer discussion of the position of a borrower state that is issuing an international core currency (i.e. the US) see Cohen, Benjamin (2006): ‘The Macrofoundations of Monetary Power’, in: Andrews, David M. (ed.): International Monetary Power. New York: Cornell University Press, pp. 31–50, part. p. 43–46.

Layne (2009): 168.

Ibid.: 169. Kirshner, Jonathan (2008): ‘Dollar Primacy and American Power: What’s at stake?’, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 418–438 and Helleiner, Eric (2008): ‘Political Determinants of International Currencies: What Future for the US Dollar?’, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 354–378.

Ibid. Steyn is also worried about the linkage between interest rates on US Treasury securities (paid by US taxpayers) and China’s large of these securities. Ibid. 6. Note that the United States are not alone with the problems that come from high public debts, the welfare models of most NATO countries in Europe are likewise coming under increasing pressure. Tselichtchev (2012): 103–112.

Pape (2009): 21.

Ibid.: 29.

Ibid.: 26f. He saw the demise and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as the only example that surpasses the decline of the US.

Ibid.: 30f. This argument can also be found in Dobson (2009): 184. On soft balancing see Pape (2005). Others call this “’cost-imposing’ strategies” and “practice of resistance”. See Schweller and Pu (2011): 48f.

The term was coined by Robert Gilpin and is usually used to refer to wars between a rising and a declining state or between a set of coalitions that encompass the two. However, the same reasoning behind the term can already be found in Organski (1968): 371.

Pape (2009): 31.

Ibid.: 32.

Ibid.: 360.

Ibid.: 372.

Roach (2009): 327. Like many others also Roach, the long-time chief economist of Morgan Stanley, worries that respective domestic economic patterns are beginning to change the bilateral relationship and lead to an economic disequilibrium that would add to the sources of tensions. Ibid.: 328ff and 386–393. He warns that policymakers on both sides should not count on the peace-inducing effects of complementary trade ties (the US as a consumer and low saver, China as a producer and high saver) because “it may well be that US-Chinese symbiosis is nothing more than a passing phase—reflecting a coincidence of mutual interests that will exist for only a relatively brief period of time”. Ibid.: 388. For his analysis of the domestic economic problems of the US that affect its (increasingly detrimental) trade relations and the resemblance of the ongoing ‘China bashing’ with the ‘Japan bashing’ of the early 1980s see ibid.: 332–343 and 357–361. With regards to the trade relationship between China and the US, Stanford historian Ian Morris gloomily remarks that “Chimerica may have been merely a layover on the road to Eastern rule”, yet if it “splits abruptly and vindictively it will mean financial disaster for both partners”. Morris (2010a): 586 & 606. See also the detailed discussion on Sino-American co-dependency in Roach (2014).

Art (2010): 372.

Ibid.: 18.

Ibid.: 22f. He notes, however, that conflict between them is not inevitable.

Ibid.: 19.

Ibid.: 526–537.

Ibid.: 538f.

Ibid.: 59.

Ibid.: 59ff. ‘Finlandization’ describes a situation in which a state is economically strongly dependent on another more powerful state and/or militarily marginalised by it. This allows the more powerful state to play a very prominent role in the weaker state’s foreign policy formulation, although the weaker state remains officially sovereign of its international affairs.

Ibid.: 68.

Ibid.: 69.

Ibid.

For a pessimistic view on the prospect for such an endeavour see Kurth, James (2012): ‘Confronting a Powerful China with Western Characteristics’, Orbis, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 39–59. American steps to make China to become liberal were depicted by some (in quite strong words) as an escalation of “America’s anti-China brinkmanship”. Roach (2009): 365.

Friedberg (2011): 2. Friedberg also argues that only one of the views according to which time is either on Washington’s or Beijing’s side can be correct.

Ibid.: 3.

Reinventing and reviving the US economy is also seen as the only real strategic option (out of a fundamental strategic necessity) by Kurth (2012): 58f.

Ibid.: 33ff.

Ibid.: 4.

Ibid.: 8.

Ibid.: 38. For his insightful discussion of the seven factors see ibid.: 38–56.

Ibid.: 57.

Ibid. See on this also Schweller and Pu (2011): 53ff.

Friedberg (2011): 166. This is also one of the major themes in Dyer (2014). While Dyer is more optimist about Washington’s resourcefulness vis-à-vis a rising China, he also acknowledged that “[t]he US is also entering a critical period in which its economic problems are starting to undermine its role in the world”. Ibid.: 278.

As I have argued elsewhere, this is one of the major reasons why China helped to establish institutions like the SCO and the BRICS Investment Bank. See interview in Ebbighausen, Rodion (2014): ‘Anti-westliche Allianz in Asien’, Deutsche Welle, 11th September 2014, http://​dw.​de/​p/​1D9oo (17.09.2014) as well as Fels, Enrico (2014): ‘The Regional Significance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Light of Afghanistan’s Instability’, in: Jonboboev, Sunatullo/Rakhmimov, Mirzokhid/Seidelmann, Reimund (eds.): Central Asia Today: Countries, Neighbors, and the Region. Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, pp. 323–346, p. 328f.

Friedberg (2011): 166–180.

Ibid.: 265f.

Ibid.: 57.

Ibid.: 59.

Roach (2009): 367.

Ibid.: 60f.

Ibid.: 63.

Ibid.: 66f.

Ibid.

Lai (2011): 76.

Ibid.: 77.

Ibid.: 81. Note that an important reason for why he excludes the first scenario is the existence of nuclear weapons. A key reason for his dismissal of scenario two are the different overall capabilities gap (and the potential for further capabilities) between Great Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century compared to the current situation between China and the United States.

Ibid.: 97.

UNCLOS stands for the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea, which is in force since 1994. It integrates most of the international maritime laws into one legal body and established among other things an international maritime tribunal in Hamburg. More than 160 UN member states and the European Union have signed the UNCLOS-treaty so far. While the US participated in the negotiation rounds and considerably shaped the treaty text, it is part of only a small group of UN member states that have not yet ratified the treaty.

Ibid.: 99 & 173–176.

Ibid.: 187.

Ibid.: 189. Note that China and the US have only a handful of military contacts and Lai describes even those few as “rather superficial”. Thus, in times of tensions, these mil-to-mil contacts can hardly help to defuse a clash of interests. Ibid.: 199.

Ibid.: 201f. Note, however, that the Power Transition Theory, which Lai refers to frequently, holds that due to their declining or rising trajectories respectively both contenders nevertheless have great incentives to militarily engage the other one during at distinctive points in time in the power transition process: the rising state (i.e. China) as soon as he believes to be strong enough to alter the existing order by force, the established hegemon (i.e. the US) as long as he feels confident to still being able to defeat the rising rival. See Organski (1968): 371.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 19. They mention currency values, US arms sales to Taiwan, international sanctions against Iran and climate change negotiations.

Ibid. Note that this does not mean that Foot and Walter do not acknowledge and discuss several important economic imbalances in China’s growth model. Additionally, they critically discuss the Chinese dependence on US export market and the US reliance on Chinese financing. See ibid.: 293f.

Ibid.: 21.

Ibid.: 302. They argue that “the perception in some quarters that the global and bilateral power balance is shifting rapidly raised the likelihood of this outcome”. Ibid. While this might be very valid in terms of a sound warning against a self-fulfilling prophecy (what they probably aimed for), this statement can also be understood to be a liberal call from the authors to stop talking about (or acknowledging, for that matter) what seems to become more and more a driving force in the bilateral relationship of China and the US—just in order to not make ‘the problem’ bigger. Whether such a call for sticking one’s head in the sand would indeed be useful either in academic or in political terms is a different kettle of fish. The problem of such a reluctance to face and discuss unpleasant facts was also critically addressed in Friedberg (2011): 5f.

Ibid.: 49.

Ibid.: 2.

For an overview on the challenges the US is facing see Roach (2009): 382–386. China’s challenges are addressed in Tselichtchev and Debroux, Philippe (2009): 127ff and 139ff as well as in Morris (2010): 587.

Ibid.: 3. Also other authors are concerned about.

Ibid.: 5. The define strategic distrust as a “perception that the other side will seek to achieve its long term goals at concerted cost to your own side’s core prospects and interests”. Ibid.

Ibid.: 34.

Ibid.

For a closer discussion see ibid.: 35ff.

Ibid.: 39.

Ibid.: 39. Wang and Lieberthal conclude their report by mentioning a couple of new initiatives and fora in order to reduce and as far as possible defuse the existing strategic distrust. Given that there are already more than 60 governmental process between the two countries, however, it is questionable what kind of difference additional talks would really have.

Ibid.: 49. In this context it is important to note that just a year earlier Friedberg saw political liberalisation as the only factor with the capacity to limit confrontation and bring about stable and lasting peace. See Friedberg (2011): 49–52.

Friedberg (2012): 51.

Ibid.: 53. Patrick Mendis is entirely sceptic that an US-like democracy can ever be established in China. See Mendis (2014): 226.

Friedberg (2012): 55f.

Ibid.: 56.

George Kennan cited in ibid.: 58.

Different to Friedberg Morris does not believe such a strategy to be successful. Instead, he concludes his impressive historic study with the observation that “[t]he shift in power and wealth from West to East in the twenty-first century is probably as inevitable as the shift from East to West that happened in the nineteenth century”. Morris (2010a): 615, emphasis added. He reasons that as long as Washington can muster enough resources to act as a “globocop”, major wars should be rare—just as they were during Great Britain’s reign as the nineteenth century “globocop”. Morris estimates that “somewhere between 2025 and 2050, America’s lead over the rest of the world will narrow, as Britain’s did after about 1870, and the risk of a new world war will increase”. Ibid. It should be noted that no other scholar reviewed here made such a bold prognosis.

Ibid.: 91.

Ibid. For the academics the numbers would be 30 % (Middle East/North Africa) and 9 % (Western Europe) accordingly.

Ibid. In this context it is important to note that only 16 % of the respondents saw themselves working in a realist tradition, while scholars with a clear attachment to either the constructivist (22 %) or the liberal (21 %) schools considerably outnumbered the realist camp. Given the differing ontologies of the three schools in general and their perceptions and predictions towards great power interaction in particular this explains to some extent the low probability the combined results for the scholars attest to war between China and the United States. Interestingly, an overwhelming majority of scholars also stated to adhere to left-wing views on both economic (65 %) and social (79 %) issues (in contrast to the meagre 17 % and 9 % conservative view for both issue areas), making a more pacifistic positioning towards the issue more likely. To some extent this might explain the divergence between the strategic emphasis placed on East Asia on the one hand and the disregard for great power war in that area on the other. Ibid.: 92.

Ibid.: 91.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 9.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 169.

Ibid.: 169f.

Roy (2013): 1.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 2.

Ibid.: 4f, 39f & 66.

Roys understanding of hegemonic transition and the dangers of hegemonic war is clearly grounded in PTT and the work of Robert Gilpin. See ibid.: 36f.

Ibid.: 38.

Ibid.: 34. Roy provides a good overview of the general strategic aims that China already tries to achieve. Ibid.: 20f.

Beardson (2013): 397.

Roy (2013): 41.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 42.

Ibid.

Ibid.: 43.

Ibid.: 44, emphasis added.

Ibid.: 51, 55 & 58.

Ibid.: 53.

Ibid.: 57.

Ibid.: 258. In a brief overview of Chinese history he shows that China in the past did engage in offensive military actions several times when it saw its national interests threatened—rendering Chinese allegations on supposedly Eurocentric presumptions on great power behaviour groundless. Ibid.: 26–29.

Ibid.: 259f. Roy sees the role that the US should play in Asia-Pacific’s future as the most important issue on which both sides disagree.

Ibid.: 312f.

Levi, Michael (2013): The Power Surge. Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America’s Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 17.

Kennedy (1987): xxii.

White (2010): 19.

Kennedy (1987): xxii, emphasis in original.

Zakaria (1999): 4.

Thus, the research design is basically outcome-centric instead of factor-centric. For the difference see Gschwend, Thomas/Schimmelfennig, Frank (2011a): ‘Introduction: Designing Research in Political Science – A Dialogue between Theory and Data’, in: ibid. (eds.): Research Design in Political Science. How to Practice What They Preach. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–18, pp. 7–10.

For a good overview on these ‘great debates’, namely the first between idealists/utopianists and realists, the second between traditionalists and behaviourists/scientists and the third between neorealists and institutionalists/neoliberals see Gu, Xuewu (2010): Theorien der internationalen Beziehungen. München: Oldenbourg Verlag, pp. 29–47. Gu furthermore provides a sound discussion on whether IR might enter a fourth debate between neorealist-institutionalist scholars and post-positivist/alternative ones sometime in the future. Ibid.: 47ff. See also Schmidt, Brian C. (2013): ‘On the History and Historiography of International Relations’, in: Carlsnaes, Walter/Risse, Thomas/Simmons, Beth A. (eds.): Handbook of International Relations. Los Angeles Sage Publications, pp. 3–28 as well as the intellectually interesting critique on what he calls the “realist-idealist ‘Great Debate’ myth” in Ashworth, Lucian M. (2014): A History of International Thought. From the Origins of the Modern State to Academic International Relations. London and New York: Routledge, part. pp. 137–239.

Spindler and Schieder (2014): ‘Theory in International Relations’, in: Schieder, Siegfried/Spindler, Manuela (eds.): Theories of International Relations. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–21, pp. 2.

Gu (2010): 34.

Ibid.: 3.

See Frisby, David (1972): ‘The Popper-Adorno Controversy: the Methodological Dispute in German Sociology’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 105–119 and Louzek, Marek (2011): ‘The Battle of Methods in Economics. The Classical Methodenstreit – Menger vs. Schmoller’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 439–463.

On the historic roots and the alleged difference (because social sciences can actually employ both, and theories in general encompass an explaining component) between ‘understanding’ (Verstehen), that is often portrait to be a characteristic of natural sciences, and ‘explaining’ (Erklären) in the social sciences see the insightful discussion in Wright, Georg H. von (2000): Erklären und Verstehen. Berlin: Philosophische Verlagsanstalt, pp. 16–41. An interesting critique on the still common distinction between ‘explaining’ and ‘understanding’ is provided by Abbott, Andrew (2004): Methods of Discovery. New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 26–30. On the different paradigms and research traditions in the social sciences see also Sil, Rudra/Katzenstein, Peter J. (2010): Beyond Paradigms. Analytical Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 4–9.

Spindler and Schieder (2014): 3.

Ibid.

Gu (2010): 40 (stillschweigender Waffenstillstand, own translation).

Ibid. and Meyers, Reinhard (1993): ‘Grundbegriffe, Strukturen und theoretische Perspektiven der internationalen Beziehungen’, in: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (BpB) (ed.): Grundwissen Politik. Bonn: BpB, pp. 229–334, p. 243. Note, however, that proponents of post-positivism continue to challenge the positivist premise according to which real, factual and observable elements of experience lead to knowledge. See also Gu (2010): 48 as well as Spindler and Schieder (2014): 9f and 14, FN 8. The same ‘modesty’ in the epistemological debate on research paradigms between contemporary social scientists was also described in Mahoney, James/Rueschemeyer, Dietrich (2003): ‘Comparative Historical Analysis. Achievements and Agendas’, in: ibid. (eds.): Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–38, 16f.

Following King, Keohane and Verba’s excellent summary, “[i]nference is the process of using the facts we know to learn about facts we do not know”. Ibid.: 46.

In short, ontology is a theory of being, i.e. a conception of how the world is and what it is made of. Epistemology, on the other hand, is a theory of knowledge, i.e. it provides answer on how knowledge of the world can be obtained and also relates to a scholars conception of philosophy of science. See Gu (2010): 14f and Spindler and Schieder (2014): 5–8.

See ibid.: 233f.

Furlong and Marsh (2010): 186 & 210, Spindler and Schieder (2014): 14, FN 17 and Gu (2010): 16.

Also other ontological and epistemological classifications are available. See for instance Reinhard Meyers, who subsumes positivism and realism into scientism and refers to interpretivism under the term traditionalism, or Xuewu Gu, who distinguishes in general between positivism and post-positivism, but also employs the distinction between behaviourists and traditionalists when it comes to IR and the second ‘great debate’ on epistemological issues. Meyers, Reinhard (2010): ‘Internationale Beziehungen/Internationale Politik’, in: Nohlen, Dieter/Schultze, Rainer-Olaf (eds.): Lexikon der Politikwissenschaften. Theorien, Methoden, Begriffe. Band 1: A-M. Munich: Beck, pp. 427–437, p. 434 and Gu (2010): 15 & 34–40.

Note that this has nothing to do with classical or structural realism as IR theories.

Furlong and Marsh (2010): 204f.

Note that epistemological realism is not the same as the realist school of IR. On the connection of ontology, epistemology and methodology as well as an extensive discussion of their respective positions see ibid.: 186–205.

Silverman quoted in Lewis and McNaughton Nicholls (2014): 53.

King et al. (1994): 34.

To be even more precise, the study is rooted in what has been called critical realism. See Maxwell, Joseph A. (2012): A Realist Approach for Qualitative Research. Los Angeles & London: Sage, part. pp. 1–67 as well as Patomäki, Heikki (2000): ‘After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 213–237.

Meyers (2010): p. 437.

Gschwend and Schimmelfennig (2011a): 2.

Gu (2010): 16.

Ibid.: 43. For other ways to sequencing mixed methods see ibid.: 42–44.

Maxwell (2012): 64 & Ormston et al. (2014): 22. See on the interplay of both kinds of methodology also Freedman, David A. (2010): ‘On Types of Scientific Enquiry: The Role of Qualitative Reasoning’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 300–318. On the question of reliability and validity/plausibility (i.e. the replicability of research findings and the correctness of research reading) see Maxwell (2012): 127–148 and Lewis, Jane/Ritchie, Jane/Ormston, Rachel/Morrell, Gareth (2014): ‘Generalising from Qualitative Research’, in: Ritchie, Jane/Lewis, Jane/McNaughton Nicholls, Carol/Ormston, Rachel (eds.): Qualitative Research Practice. A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. Los Angeles & London: Sage, pp. 347–366, esp. pp. 354–359.

A good description of analytical eclecticism as well as a significant selection of studies that employ it can be found in Sil and Katzenstein (2010).

See also King et al. (1994): 118.

Other quantitative methods are for instance survey research and content analysis.

See on the general problematic on making casual inference in social science George and McKeown (1985): 43, King et al. (1994): 45f as well as.

Ibid.: 79.

King et al. (1994): 79, emphasis added. They also state that “no experiment can solve the Fundament Problem of Causal Inference”, yet see stating the “plausibility of a causal inference” (low values in an independent variable lead to low values in an dependent one and vice versa) as a way to deal with this problem. Ibid.: 125 & 141. King, Keohane and Verba take a very strong position on this aspect, but studies that use a randomised control trial (RCT) design might actually be an important, yet quite complex exemption to their general, in most cases still probably correct take on causal inference. I am grateful to Katja Marie Fels for pointing this out to me.

Vladimir V. Putin cited in Schattenberg, Susanne (2011): ‘Das Ende der Sowjetunion in der Historiographie’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 49–50, http://​www.​bpb.​de/​apuz/​59630/​das-ende-der-sowjetunion-in-der-historiographie?​p=​all (17.11.2014), own translation.

Kaplan, Robert D. (2000): ‘Who lost Russia?’, New York Times, 8th October 2000, http://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2000/​10/​08/​books/​who-lost-russia.​html (17.11.2014).

Bell, Coral (2005): ‘The Twilight of the Unipolar World’, The American Interest, Vol. 1, No. 2, http://​www.​the-american-interest.​com/​2005/​12/​01/​the-twilight-of-the-unipolar-world/​ (17.11.2014); Allison, William Th. (2008): ‘Primacy and Unipolarity. The Debate on American Power in an Asymmetrical World’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. V, No. 1, pp. 91–103; Jaques (2009): 354. According to Jaques US unipolarity “overwhelmingly [is] a military phenomenon”.

Bhagwati, Jagdish (2007): In Defense of Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Herzog, Roman (2014): Europe neu erfinden. Vom Überstaat zur Bürgerdemokratie. Munich: Siedler, p. 68; Jaques (2009): 351ff. Jacques furthermore sees a shift between Washington and Beijing in relative gains made by economic globalization, transforming China “into a formidable competitor of the United States, with its huge trade surplus, its massive ownership of US treasury bonds, its consequent power over value of the dollar, and the fact that it has undermined key sectors of American manufacturing industry, with growing numbers of workers being made redundant.” Others argue that both China and the US clearly gained economically by getting involved in globalisation and that the picture is much more complicated when it comes to globalisation-induced benefits in the past (although there seems to be a gap between the 1990s and the 2000s, the latter being more positive in terms of new economic growth and income development for China than the US). See Bertelsmann Stiftung (2014): Globalization Report 2014. Who benefits most from Globalization? http://​www.​bfna.​org/​sites/​default/​files/​publications/​Globalization%20​Report%20​2014.​pdf (17.11.2014).

In the early 1990s, for the first time more than one million hosts were registered—the numbers reached more than 100 million by the end of the decade. Moreover, in mid-1991 the HTML and HTTP standards were developed in CERN, which established the World Wide Web (WWW) and was a “killer application” for accelerating the growth of Internet usage. 1993 saw the birth of Mosaic, a free Internet browser that allowed to use the WWW. Within a year HTTP traffic grew by a factor of 3416. See Mowery, David C./Simcoe, Timothy (2002): ‘Is the Internet a US Invention? An Economic and Technological History of Computer Networking’, Research Policy, Vol. 31, No. 8–9, pp. 1369–1387, part. p. 1375 & 1377f.

On the validity of this argument see also King et al. (1994): 47.

Lewis and McNaughton Nicholls call for “judgements made alongside pragmatic considerations” when it comes to time frame selections and assortments. Lewis and McNaughton Nicholls (2014): 60.

See King et al. (1994): 55–63 as well as Pevehouse, Jon C./Brozek, Jason D. (2010): ‘Time-Series Analysis’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 456–474.

See for instance Zartman, I. William (2009): ‘The Quest for Order in World Politics’, in: ibid. (ed.).: Imbalance of Power. US Hegemony and International Order. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 1–23, p. 5; Hunger, Iris (2005): Biowaffenkontrolle in einer multipolaren Welt. Zur Funktion von Vertrauen in internationalen Beziehungen. Frankfurt (Main): Campus, pp. 103 & 216; Knorr, Klaus (1975): The Power of Nations. The Political Economy of International Relations. New York: Basic Books, pp. 54 and 86; Friedberg (2011): 227; Tselichtchev and Debroux (2009): 99ff and 143; Danilovic, Vesna (2002): When the Stake are High. Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 30, 32, 34 & 89. Acharya (2007): 237–251, p. 240; Johnston (2003): 13; Nye, Joseph S. (2004): Soft Power. The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: PublicAffairs books, p. 37; Huntington, Samuel P. (1996): The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 55, 60f, 65, 84–88, 104, 118 and 206; Organski (1968): 146, 210ff and 214; Dobson (2009): 13, 35, 40, 48, 131 and 151; Roach (2009): 129 an 181f; Kahn, Herman (1961): On Thermonuclear War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 506f; Hogan, Warren P. (1962): ‘Economic Relationships and the SEATO Powers’, in: Modelski, George (ed.): SEATO. Six Studies. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, pp. 253–288, p. 255ff, 259f, 264, 270 and 285; Mearsheimer (2001): 64, 66, 71, 74, 187, 220, 241, 248, 282, 295, 303, 305 and 352; 176f, 224, 288 and 309; Ikenberry (2001): 74, 86f, 120f and 277–280. Jaques (2009): 30, 172 and 282; Arrighi (2010): 136, 175, 344 & 347; Fisher (2010): 149 & 235; Ferguson (2011): 82, 147 & 322; Beardson (2013): 144 & 147; Drèze and Sen (2013): 6 and 113.

I am grateful to Katja Marie Fels and David Luhr for our fruitful discussions on qualitative research.

See Yin (2009): 53f & 59–64. Note that the case study design here is not one with what Yin has called a ‘comparative structure’ (i.e. repeating the same case study several times with alternative descriptions and explanations. Rather it uses multiple-cases and seeks to answer the same research questions by using the same research methodologies and research logic. Following the typology of Yin, one could describe it as haven a ‘linear-analytic structure’. See ibid.: 176.

Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003). See also Brüsemeister, Thomas (2008): Qualitative Forschung. Ein Überblick. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 54–98 & 199–219.

Note that CHA is related to what Benoit Rihoux has called Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QHA), i.e. a method used for small-n studies to analyse whether cases with certain commonalities yield similar outcomes. This can then be used “to unravel causal complexity”. See Rihoux, Benoit (2010): ‘Case-Oriented Configurational Research: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), Fuzzy Sets, and Related Techniques’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 722–736, part. pp. 723–727.

On case studies see also Lewis and McNaughton Nicholls (2014): 66f as well as Gschwend and Schimmelfennig (2011a): 5f.

Lijphart, Arend (1971): ‘Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 682–693, p. 683. He contrasts this method to two other ones, i.e. experimental and statistical methods. On the history of comparative research see Hall, Peter A. (2003): ‘Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Research’, in: Mahoney, James/Rueschemeyer (eds.): Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 373–404, part. pp. 375–381.

Yin (2009): 61.

King et al. (1994): 44. For another useful overview of case studies next to Yin (2009) see also McKeown, Timothy J. (2004): ‘Case Studies and the Limits of the Quantitative Worldview’, in: Brady, Henry E. and Collier, David (eds.): Rethinking Social Inquiry. Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Lanham, New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., pp. 139–167.

Yin (2009): 4.

Ibid., emphasis added. In the same context, the three authors moreover warned that in IR causality is often difficult to establish. They also described endogeneity as a common problem of research in political science (i.e. explanatory variables can be a consequence rather than a cause of the dependent variable). See ibid.: 185–195. On the methodological challenges that the complexity of the political reality poses see Hall (2003): 384–387.

Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 7.

On the usefulness of small-n studies see the interesting discussions in Hall (2003): 396ff, McKeown (2004): 146–153, Lange, Matthew (2013): Comparative-Historical Methods. Los Angeles & London: Sage, p. 14 as well as Mahoney, James/Terrie, P. Larkin (2010): ‘Comparative-Historical Analysis’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 737–755, p. 746ff.

Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 20.

Mahoney and Terrie (2010): 744, emphasis added.

Ibid.: 747.

Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 7. Note that the research project at hand does not seek to provide a comparative micro-analysis of single cases (e.g. which domestic factors lead to Australia’s decision to grant stationing rights to US Marines and how was this influenced by domestic structures and institutions), but instead is more concerned with the aforementioned macroscopic level. Thus, a macro-perspective is taken that seeks to trace and subsequently compare the foreign policies of selected countries towards China and the United Stated over the selected time-frame and analyse the effects of these developments on the regional relational power of Washington and Beijing. This approach thus mirrors the so-called “macrocausal analysis” as defined by Skocpol and Somers. See Skocpol and Somers cit. in Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 11. On the benefits of macroscopic, historically informed social science see also Skocpol (2003): 417.

Kalberg, Stephen (2001): Einführung in die historisch-vergleichende Soziologie Max Webers. Heidelberg: Springer, p. 119.

Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 8. One of these new methodologies is process tracing. Process tracing, in short, equally links theory and empirical work and seeks to identify the various stimuli actors attend to and their actual behaviour in specific settings by historic analysis. It is therefore a methodological variant of CHA’s within-case analysis, yet certainly of more use in studies that are less concerned with the macro-level and rather concentrate on analysing a case by seeing it as a sequence of events on a micro- and meso-level and showing how these different events are linked by the differing interests and strategic situations the involved groups or individuals face. It faces the problem of ‘infinite regress’, i.e. becoming too detailed in the description of the processes. See also George, Alexander L./McKeown, Timothy J. (1985): ‘Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making’, in: Coulam, Robert F./Smith, Richard A. (eds.): Advances in Information Processing in Organisations, Vol. 2. Greenwich: JAI Press, pp. 21–58, p. 35, Goldstone, Jack A. (2003): ‘Comparative Historical Analysis and the Knowledge Accumulation in the Study of Revolutions’, in: Mahoney, James/Rueschemeyer (eds.): Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 41–90, p. 47–52, Bennett, Andrew (2010): ‘Process Tracing’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 702–721, part. 704ff as well as King et al. (1994): 227f.

Katznelson (2003): 273.

Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 10.

Skocpol (2003): 419.

Ibid.: 424.

Goldstone (2003): 43. A useful overview over the various methodological approaches is provided in Mahoney, James (2003): ‘Strategies of Causal Assessment in Comparative Historical Analysis’, in Mahoney, James/Rueschemeyer (eds.): Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 337–372.

Ibid.: 360ff.

Ibid.: 360. The other two methods are process tracing and casual narrative. See also ibid.: 368.

Ibid.: 361. Mahoney refers to the work of Jack A. Goldstone on revolutions during the beginning of modernity as a useful exemplification for such an approach.

George and McKeown (1985): 43.

King et al. (1994): 45f. This take is also favourably mentioned in Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 13. An akin method was developed by Hall. He labels it ‘systematic process analysis’ and describes it as a method that seeks to closely examine processes in detailed cases that caused specific outcomes. However, systematic process analysis is more theory-oriented (i.e. establishing different hypotheses that rely on different theories and test them with the data) than both pattern-matching and process tracing and should thus rather be used to test the validities of theories, something that goes beyond the research focus of the study at hand. Hall (2003): 391–395.

Mahoney (2003): 362f. Skocpol very much welcomed research designs linking quantitative analysis of aggregated data with qualitative within-case analysis via CHA. Skocpol (2003): 421–424.

Consequently, this research sections has both a contextual and an explanatory research function. See Ritchie and Ormston (2014): 31ff.

Mahoney and Terrie (2010): 750. On the strengths of multimethod research projects see also Fearon, James D./Laitin, David D. (2010): ‘Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Methods’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 756–776, p. 773ff as well as Collier, David/Elman, Colin (2010): ‘Qualitative and Multimethod Research: Organizations, Publication, and Reflections on Integration’, in: Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M./Brady, Henry E./Collier, David (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 779–795, part. pp. 780–783 and 791f.

In-depth interviews and text/discourse analysis can also count as qualitative methods. Note that while for the analysis of the selected countries’ bilateral relations text/document-based techniques will be employed, this study is not pursuing a systematic study of primary texts via quantitative content analysis. Vromen (2010): 250.

Mahoney and Terrie (2010): 749.

Following Yin’s classification, this can be labelled ‘documentation’ as source of evidence. See Yin (2009): 101–105. He also encouraged his readers to collect information from multiple sources in order to corroborate facts and phenomena. Ibid.: 116ff. Moreover, his advice on selectiveness emphasised the need to concentrate on the most critical evidence when reporting on cases. Ibid.: 188f. On documentary analysis see also Spencer, Liz/Ritchie, Jane/O’Connor, William/Morrell, Gareth/Ormston, Rachel (2014): ‘Analysis in Practice’, in: Ritchie, Jane/Lewis, Jane/McNaughton Nicholls, Carol/Ormston, Rachel (eds.): Qualitative Research Practice. A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. Los Angeles & London: Sage, pp. 295–345, p. 342. On the benefits and limitations of secondary data analysis see Rathke, Julia (2011): ‘Achieving Comparability of Secondary Data’, in: Gschwend, Thomas/Schimmelfennig, Frank (eds.): Research Design in Political Science. How to Practice What They Preach. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 103–124, esp. pp. 104f. On the use of data in comparative historical analysis see Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003): 18, FN 40.

This final evaluation thus may differ to explicit explanations, i.e. those of participants’ (politicians, scholars, journalists) and their accounts and interpretations of the situation. Ibid.: 345. Following King, Keohane and Verba it shall also be mentioned here that the author does not speak the national language of most of the selected case countries (with the exception of that of Australia). This might unintentionally have led to a subtle reduction in the variance of observed variables during later stages of research (i.e. a researcher fluent in the languages of all case countries might have decided for different aspects to look at), although the reliance on a specific theoretical school of IR (i.e. realism) strongly reduces the likelihood for this potential selection bias to cause considerable interference. See King et al. (1994): 127 & 202 on this general challenge for qualitative research.

On the criteria for judging the quality of research designs see Yin (2009): 40–45.