Global Power Shift

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberts Cynthia ◽  
Leslie Armijo ◽  
Saori Katada
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Extensive Data ◽  
Power Shift ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Rise Of China

This chapter evaluates multiple dimensions of the global power shift from the incumbent G5/G7 powers to the rising powers, especially the members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Taking note of alternative conceptualizations of interstate “power,” the text maps the redistribution of economic capabilities from the G7 to the BRICS, most particularly the relative rise of China and decline of Japan, and especially Europe. Given these clear trends in measurable material capabilities, the BRICS have obtained considerable autonomy from outside pressures. Although the BRICS’ economic, financial, and monetary capabilities remain uneven, their relative positions have improved steadily. Via extensive data analysis, the chapter finds that whether one examines China alone or the BRICS as a group, BRICS members have achieved the necessary capabilities to challenge the global economic and financial leadership of the currently dominant powers, perhaps even the United States one day.

Conditional Convergence and the Rise of China: A Political Economy Approach to Understanding Global Power Transitions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Beckley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Conditional Convergence ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Growth Prospects ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
The Rise Of China

Abstract Many scholars predict that China will soon challenge the United States for global primacy. This prediction is largely based on power transition theory, which assumes that rising challengers inevitably “converge” economically and militarily with reigning hegemons. Economists, however, have shown that convergence is a conditional process: sometimes poor countries grow faster than rich countries, but sometimes they fall further behind. Determining whether a US-China power transition will occur in the years ahead, therefore, requires specifying the drivers of long-term economic growth and assessing each country's growth prospects in light of these factors. This article does exactly that. Drawing on recent research in economics, I show that there are three main growth drivers—geography, institutions, and demography—and that the United States scores highly across these factors whereas China suffers from critical weaknesses. These results suggest that a US-China power transition is unlikely.

The People’s Republic of China

2020 ◽  
pp. 170-195
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Power Projection ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
To Come ◽  
Innovation Economy ◽  
The Rise Of China

This chapter analyzes the rise of China and the threat it poses to the United States and its allies. Some argue that we must begin to come to grips with what life will be like “when China rules the world.” Others maintain that the rise of China and decline of the United States could result in World War III. Fortunately, these predictions are much too dire. This chapter argues that a China led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unlikely become the world’s leading state. Its autocratic model is not well suited to building a world-beating, innovation economy, to winning friends and allies around the world; or to constructing a lethal military force with global power-projection capabilities. China has a storied past, and it will likely always remain a great power, but it is unlikely to overtake the United States as the world’s leading state any time soon.

Central America and the Caribbean’s Relations with China and the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Bernal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The U.S

The United States has been and continues to be the dominant and unchallenged global power in Central America and the Caribbean. Meanwhile, China’s economic, diplomatic, and psychological presence in the Caribbean and to a lesser extent in Costa Rica has increased during the last decade. This economic rise of China and its growing involvement in international affairs has prompted a discussion about whether China’s growing presence in the Caribbean is a trend about which the U.S. should be concerned and whether it portends a challenge by China in the way that it is jousting with the U.S. over influence in the Pacific Ocean and Asia. This chapter begins with a brief review of U.S.-China relations and the Obama administration’s China policy, and then examines the diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations between Central America and the Caribbean and China. It concludes that China’s increased presence in the Central America and the Caribbean and the deepening of its relations with some of these countries does represent a challenge to the position and traditional role of the United States in this region.

Alexander Hamilton and the Early Republic in Edwardian Imperial Thought

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick M. Kirkwood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alexander Hamilton ◽  
George Washington ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Federalist Papers

In the first decade of the twentieth century, a rising generation of British colonial administrators profoundly altered British usage of American history in imperial debates. In the process, they influenced both South African history and wider British imperial thought. Prior usage of the Revolution and Early Republic in such debates focused on the United States as a cautionary tale, warning against future ‘lost colonies’. Aided by the publication of F. S. Oliver's Alexander Hamilton (1906), administrators in South Africa used the figures of Hamilton and George Washington, the Federalist Papers, and the drafting of the Constitution as an Anglo-exceptionalist model of (modern) self-government. In doing so they applied the lessons of the Early Republic to South Africa, thereby contributing to the formation of the Union of 1910. They then brought their reconception of the United States, and their belief in the need for ‘imperial federation’, back to the metropole. There they fostered growing diplomatic ties with the US while recasting British political history in-light-of the example of American federation. This process of inter-imperial exchange culminated shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles when the Boer Generals Botha and Smuts were publicly presented as Washington and Hamilton reborn.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberts Cynthia ◽  
Leslie Armijo ◽  
Saori Katada
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Global Finance ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Outside Options ◽  
Power Shift ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Sustainable Economic Growth

The chapter analyzes the prospects for continued BRICS collective financial statecraft. Contrary to initial expectations, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have hung together by identifying common aversions and pursuing common interests within the existing international order. Their future depends not only on their bargaining power, but also on their ability to overcome domestic impediments to the sustainable economic growth that provides the basis for their international positions. To continue successfully with collective financial statecraft, the members must tackle the so-called middle-income trap, as well as their preferences for informal rules originating from their own institutional weaknesses or regime preferences. This study shows that, in the context of a global power shift, the BRICS club has operated to protect the member countries’ respective policy autonomy, while also advancing their joint voice in global governance. Recently, the BRICS have made concrete institutional gains, giving them expanded outside options to achieve specific objectives in global finance.

The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Murray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Peaceful Rise ◽  
Rising Power ◽  
Struggle For Recognition ◽  
Power Transitions

How can established powers manage the peaceful rise of new great powers? With The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations, the author offers a new answer to this perennial question in international relations, arguing that power transitions are principally social phenomena whereby rising powers struggle to obtain recognition of their identity as a great power. At the center of great power identity formation is the acquisition of particular symbolic capabilities—such as battlesheips, aircraft carriers, or nuclear weapons—that are representative of great power status and that allow rising powers to experience their uncertain social status as a brute fact. When a rising power is recognized, this power acquisition is considered legitimate and its status in the international order secured, leading to a peaceful power transition. If a rising power is misrecognized, its assertive foreign policy is perceived to be for revisionist purposes, which must be contained by the established powers. Revisionism—rather than the product of a material power structure that encourages aggression or domestic political struggles—is a social construct that emerges through a rising power’s social interactions with the established powers as it attempts to gain recognition of its identity. The question of peaceful power transition has taken on increased salience in recent years with the emergence of China as an economic and military rival of the United States. Highlighting the social dynamics of power transitions, this book offers a powerful new framework through which to understand the rise of China and how the United States can facilitate its peaceful rise.

Where Great Powers Meet

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shambaugh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Stable Region ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
The Cold War

After the end of the Cold War, it seemed as if Southeast Asia would remain a geopolitically stable region within the American imperious for the foreseeable future. In the last two decades, however, the re-emergence of China as a major great power has called into question the geopolitical future of the region and raised the specter of renewed great power competition. As this book shows, the United States and China are engaged in a broad-gauged and global competition for power. While this competition ranges across the entire world, it is centered in Asia, and here this text focuses on the ten countries that comprise Southeast Asia. The United States and China constantly vie for position and influence in this enormously significant region, and the outcome of this contest will do much to determine whether Asia leaves the American orbit after seven decades and falls into a new Chinese sphere of influence. Just as important, to the extent that there is a global “power transition” occurring from the United States to China, the fate of Southeast Asia will be a good indicator. Presently, both powers bring important assets to bear. The United States continues to possess a depth and breadth of security ties, soft power, and direct investment across the region that empirically outweigh China’s. For its part, China has more diplomatic influence, much greater trade, and geographic proximity. In assessing the likelihood of a regional power transition, the book looks at how ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the countries within it maneuver between the United States and China and the degree to which they align with one or the other power.

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