One master, one sovereign

Author(s):  
Salvatore Babones

Contrary to declinist narratives, the dominance of the United States in the contemporary world-system is increasingly solid and stable. The US economy remains vibrant, but the US benefits also from the desire of people to participate in the global economic system that has the United States at its core. The fact that the American Tianxia acts on an individual basis at least as much as on an international one massively privileges US individuals, organizations, and institutions. Others pay this price due to the network externalities gained from membership in the system. These flows counteract political entropy -- the tendency of imperial political systems to disintegrate. The American Tianxia thus does not fit the "new medievalism" model of international relations; as Vladimir Putin protests, it is a unipolar system with "one master, one sovereign." Advocates of a return to multipolarity (including Vladimir Putin) point to the rise of China as their main hope, but forecasts of China's continuing economic rise are vastly oversold.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (04) ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Weixing CHEN

The rise of China has shaken, to some extent, the pillars sustaining the US dominance in the world. Facing structural challenges from China, the United States has responded on three levels: political, strategic and policy. The Donald Trump administration has adopted a hard-line approach while attempting to engage China at the structural level. The China–US relationship is entering uncertain times, and the reconstruction of the relationship could take a decade.


2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK BEESON

AbstractThe ‘rise of China’ is seen by some observers as a precursor of inevitable hegemonic competition in East Asia. At the very least, it seems likely that China’s influence in East Asia will grow at the expense of the United States. Whether this will eventually amount to a form of ‘hegemonic transition’ is far less clear. It is, therefore, an opportune moment to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of China and the US in East Asia. This paper suggests that the nature of hegemonic competition and transition is more uncertain and complex than some of the most influential theoretical understandings of hegemony would have us believe.


2016 ◽  
Vol 226 ◽  
pp. 538-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Garver

The rapid growth of China's power combined with the intensification of rivalry between the United States and China over the past several years has triggered a re-thinking of US policy toward the rise of China. America's traditional policy of supporting China's rise as a rich, strong and peaceful country in hopes of building a cooperative and generally friendly relation with China over the long term, is being called into question. Critics charge that that traditional policy is backfiring, playing into Beijing's wiles and producing a China so powerful it could well become the greatest challenge to the United States in its history. Other analysts offer a less jaundiced view of China, but all manifest apprehension over whether China will use its growing power to challenge the US. Earlier iterations of a similar debate have come and gone, but the closing distance between US and Chinese military, economic and technological power has brought this debate much closer to the US mainstream. Indeed, one or two of these books may represent the mainstream of US thinking. Together, the four books lay out the topography of the US debate.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Bilmes

AbstractThe United States has traditionally defined national security in the context of military threats and addressed them through military spending. This article considers whether the United States will rethink this mindset following the disruption of the Covid19 pandemic, during which a non-military actor has inflicted widespread harm. The author argues that the US will not redefine national security explicitly due to the importance of the military in the US economy and the bipartisan trend toward growing the military budget since 2001. However, the pandemic has opened the floodgates with respect to federal spending. This shift will enable the next administration to allocate greater resources to non-military threats such as climate change and emerging diseases, even as it continues to increase defense spending to address traditionally defined military threats such as hypersonics and cyberterrorism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Syed Muhammad Saad Zaidi ◽  
Adam Saud

In contemporary times, the geo-political agenda and geo-economic strategy of the world is being dominated by the ongoing US-China hegemonic competition. Where the United States is trying to prolong the ‘unipolar moment’ and deter the rise of China; China is trying to establish itself as the hegemon in the Eastern hemisphere, an alternate to the US. The entirely opposite interests of the two Great Powers have initiated a hostile confrontational competition for domination. This paper seeks to determine the future nature of the US-China relations; will history repeat itself and a bloody war be fought to determine the leader of the pack? or another prolonged Cold War will be fought, which will end when one side significantly weakens and collapses? Both dominant paradigms of International Relations, Realism and Liberalism, are used to analyze the future nature of the US-China relations.


Author(s):  
I. Danilin

The “technological war” between the United States and China that started in 2017–2018 raises a number of questions about the future role of technological development as a factor in relations between superpowers. Analysis shows that for the United States this conflict is caused by changing balance of risks and benefits of the liberal model of globalization due to the rise of China`s power and growing geopolitical tensions between the two nations. In this context, emerging, especially digital, technologies appear to be a new battlefield between superpowers. Within the realist framework, actors consider emerging technologies as a key factor for strengthening their global postures. This, among other things, contributes to securitized technological agenda and strengthens its geopolitical dimension. Neo-technonationalism has become the platform that integrates different processes and goals into new U.S. policy. Although historically neo-technonationalism took its roots in Asia, the evolving market situation prompted the United States to rethink existing approaches and to upgrade the techno-nationalist dimension of its policy. Considering similar policies of China and the EU (i. e. the European digital sovereignty policy), this trend shapes new realities of technological “blocs”, the struggle for expansion of technological platforms, and technological conflicts. Taking into account prospective development needs of the global economy and future specification of mutual interest areas, as new digital technologies mature, the ground for normalizing the dialogue between the superpowers will emerge. However, at least in the U.S.–China case, this issue will be complicated by geopolitical contradictions that leave little room for any serious compromise.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Greenhalgh ◽  
Megan Carney

For years now, the United States has faced an "obesity epidemic" that, according to the dominant narrative, is harming the nation by worsening the health burden, raising health costs, and undermining productivity. Much of the responsibility is laid at the foot of Blacks and Latinos, who have higher levels of obesity. Latinos have provoked particular concern because of their rising numbers. Michelle Obama's Let's Move! Campaign is now targeting Latinos. Like the national anti-obesity campaign, it locates the problem in ignorance and calls on the Latino community to "own" the issue and take personal responsibility by embracing healthier beliefs and behaviors. In this article, we argue that this dominant approach to obesity is misguided and damaging because it ignores the political-economic sources of Latino obesity and the political-moral dynamics of biocitizenship in which the issue is playing out. Drawing on two sets of ethnographic data on Latino immigrants and United States-born Latinos in southern California, we show that Latinos already "own" the obesity issue; far from being "ignorant," they are fully aware of the importance of a healthy diet, exercise, and normal weight. What prevents them from becoming properly thin, fit biocitizens are structural barriers associated with migration and assimilation into the low-wage sector of the US economy. Failure to attain the normative body has led them to internalize the identity of bad citizens, assume personal responsibility for their failure, naturalize the conditions for this failure, and feel that they deserve this fate. We argue that the blaming of minorities for the obesity epidemic constitutes a form of symbolic violence that furthers what Berlant calls the "slow death" of structurally vulnerable populations, even as it deepens their health risks by failing to address the fundamental sources of their higher weights.


Author(s):  
Paul K. MacDonald ◽  
Joseph M. Parent

This chapter asks the central question, outlines the three main arguments, and explains the value added of the work. It underscores why the question matters to theories of international politics and policy debates on the rise of China and the decline of the United States. It also defines decline and retrenchment,relates retrenchment to a spectrum of grand strategies, and provides a map of the rest of the book.


2020 ◽  
pp. 205-229
Author(s):  
D. Hugh Whittaker ◽  
Timothy J. Sturgeon ◽  
Toshie Okita ◽  
Tianbiao Zhu

Compressed-development influences increasingly flow from developing to developed countries. Reversing our lens to look at the United States and Japan, we observe that the technological and organizational changes that have spurred compressed development in recent developers are also responsible for changes in industry structure, rising inequality, and employment duality in developed economies. A ‘Red Queen’ effect sees developed countries running faster and undertaking parallel socioeconomic changes to stay in the same privileged place. In some ways ‘we are all compressed developers now’. Looking ahead, and returning to our dyadic pairs, the chapter further considers how the ‘digital economy’ may affect developing–developed country interrelations, and whether we are finally entering an age of ‘great convergence’ with the rise of China and a more multipolar economic and geopolitical structure.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document