Key Elements of China’s Foreign Strategy

Author(s):  
LI SHAOJUN

This chapter seeks to overcome the problem of strategic misunderstanding of China by setting out some of the cultural traditions and strategic concepts that underpin its behaviour. It does not deny that China has a long tradition of realpolitik but locates this internally in the desire for a ‘reliable defensive capability’; externally, China's strategy is geared towards institutional integration with international society. The discussion holds that China faces problems with regards to a world order centred on the United States (USA). Unipolar order means accepting US hegemony, but promoting multipolarity could mean confronting the USA and an end to China's peaceful rise. As a result, China should move away from a polarity perspective and concentrate on fulfilment of national interests by ‘joining and adapting’.

Author(s):  
Yale H. Ferguson ◽  
Richard W. Mansbach

This chapter addresses the erosion of the postwar liberal global order and the accompanying disorder in global politics. It describes the perceptions of declining US hegemony during the Obama administration of American decline and the return of geopolitical and economic rivalries that are undermining the liberal order. The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 in the United States was the most significant manifestation of national populism that has emerged in recent years in Europe and elsewhere. The profile of supporters of national populism are much the same globally. They oppose so-called elites and immigrants (especially minorities) whom they blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs. After defining national populism, the chapter describes how it fosters isolationism and malignant nationalism and focuses on national interests rather than global cooperation. Such policies threaten the movement of goods and people, multinational global organizations, and the postwar order in which globalization thrives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (4/2020) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
Marina Kostic

Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on measures for further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms (“New START”) is the last pillar of the arms control regime on which the end of the Cold War and the new world order rested. Its expiration on 5 February 2021 is a top security challenge and indicates a possible new strategic arms race. However, can the United States and Russia still preserve the existing strategic arms control by extending the Treaty for another five years? What are the prospects, the opportunities and obstacles for this extension? What are the most pressing issues USA and Russia face with in order to preserve strategic arms control and are they willing to do so? In order to answer to these research questions author analyses several key issues that are of paramount importance for extension of the New START: nuclear modernization processes, invention of new weapons and emergence of new warfare domains; transparency and verification and broader confidence building measures; missile defence and prompt global strike; tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and Asia; general US-Russia relations which include question of democratic capacity; and broader influence of this Treaty on nuclear non-proliferation regime. By using content and discourse analysis author concludes that, although it is obvious that the extension of the New START would be primarily in favour of Russia and that the USA has not much to gain, the character of strategic stability in the Third Nuclear Age gives reasons to believe that the New START will be extended for another five years.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 132-153
Author(s):  
Evgeny N. Grachikov

Over the past few years, the global political landscape has changed dramatically. Trump’s aggressive foreign policy has broken the precarious balance between the centers of world politics established in the past two decades. The U.S. trade war with China and accusations of creating COVID-19 have added a significant imbalance to the distribution of power in global governance. The current political global space is characterized by a tough struggle between the main centers of power for spheres of influence in macro regions, global power and redistribution of world incomes. In fact, it is a struggle for competition in setting the principles, norms and models of the future world order. Most of the developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are distancing themselves from the West on many international issues, and advocating the creation of national concepts of world order (in “non-West,” “post-West,” “outside the West” formats), which would take into account the political and cultural traditions of their countries, and the specific experience of their interaction with neighboring states and the world as a whole. Thus, the competition in global governance between the United States and China is for a new global order, including influence on the vast Global South. This article offers an analysis of China’s strategy of global governance and Chinese academic discourse on this issue. The paper also examines China’s instrumentation for formatting its own structure of global governance and forms of strategic rivalry with the United States.


Author(s):  
L. L. Fituni

The article lays out a hypothesis that the global order slides into a new bipolarity in the context of the escalating geo-economic and geopolitical confrontation between the two poles that currently dominate the world - the United States and China. The neo-bipolar construction cannot yet be regarded as an established new world order, but the general movement of the world economy and international relations in this direction is obvious. The neo-bipolar bipolar confrontation manifest itself with varying intensity in different regions of the world. The author argues that at present the peripheral regions which are strategically important for the prospects of competition are becoming an important testing ground for relatively “safe” elaboration of methods and tactics of geo-economic rivalry and h mutual exchange of systemic attacks. Today, Africa has become practically the leading theater of the new bipolar confrontation. The article analyzes the economic, military and strategic aspects of the rivalry between the United States and China on the African continent. It provides a comparative analysis of the new African strategies of the two superpowers adopted at the end of 2018. The author asserts that in the context of the emerging global bipolarity, the strategies of the USA and China represent antagonistic programs based on fundamentally different initial messages. In the case of the US strategy, this is to deter by denial the spread of the competitor’s influence using tough policies, including forceful (while not necessarily military) confrontational actions. While China seeks to neutralize the opposition of the United States and its allies to Beijing’s expansion on the continent and to win the freedom of interaction with any partners in Africa causing minimal direct confrontation possible. Therefore, despite the seemingly “peripheral” importance of the confrontation on the continent, for the establishment of a neo-bipolar world order, the proclamation of the new US regional geopolitical strategy, which focuses on the containment of China in the name of protecting democracy and independence, can serve not only for Africa, but for the whole planet the same milestone signal as Churchill’s Fulton speech for the final advent of bipolarity in the postwar world.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Szuster

The article is an attempt to capture improvisational theater as a modern dynamic phenomenon through analyzing its features, definitions and traits in order to characterize the genre and to systematize the current state of knowledge on the subject matter. By comparing and contrasting various aspects and notions of impro(v) in Poland and the United States, the study not only looks at the theater of improvisation through the prism of the “relocation” of the form from its original grounds and implementing it in within a different tradition, but also shows the experimental flexibility of the genre within different cultural traditions and structures. Based largely on interviews with Polish and American improvisers alike, this article is an in-medias-res case study of the contemporary improvised theater in Poland and the USA.


Author(s):  
E. S. Sadovaya

The article analyzes the achievements and problems, which US President Donald Trump encountered during the implementation of his election program to transform the country. Author consider these subjects in the broad context of the transformation of the modern world order and the change in the narratives of global geopolitics. The author emphasizes that the United States is committed to the re-industrialization and nationalization of the American economy in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and the general global uncertainty of the prospects for world development. Main components of such politics are the struggle for jobs for Americans and competition for highly skilled labor in the global labor market. The main topic of research is focused on migration policy is an essential component of the overall reform plan. Taking into account that until recently the USA was the largest economy in the world, the author concludes that the US migration policy has a multifaceted global impact on the international labor market, since the USA is the main importer of labor. The main factors that have a decisive influence on the effectiveness of the implementation of the declared course are the features of the functioning of the American labor market (including the high cost of local labor and the lack of qualified personnel in a number of sectors of the American economy). Analyzing the effect of these factors, the author notes their contradictory effect on the country's economy and concludes that the measures taken are insufficient due to the situation of tough confrontation between the main political forces in modern America. The author claims that the growing global competition for highly qualified personnel will remain one of the main trends of the upcoming era. The aim of the work is conceptualization of approaches to the study of migration processes in the conditions of the technological transformation of the modern world and the interpretation of international experience in the reform of migration policies.


Author(s):  
M.S. Batagaeva ◽  
◽  
A.D. Rakhimova ◽  

The paper evaluated the impact of the of the trade war between China and the United States on the Russian economy. The main spheres of the Russian economy affected by the international conflict are highlighted and the impact on them is assessed.


Author(s):  
A. Shakirov

The article considers the aims and practices of the United States’ foreign assistance provided to other, especially developing, states. The aims include the promotion of the international development, on the one hand, and the achievement of US own national interests in security, economic and political spheres, on the other hand. Official foreign assistance (OFA) of the United States is divided into two types: economic assistance and military-technical one. Currently, the USA is the world's largest donor of both types of the official foreign assistance. This author discusses structure and factors influencing the OFA provided to the developing countries, as well as the experience of cooperation in this sphere between Russia and the United States.


Author(s):  
Attila Mezei

China has been a rising power in East Asia for decades. The end of the Cold War and the increasing effects of globalization brought the country in the forefront of attention on the international scene. The economic importance of the East Asian giant cannot be denied. Its economic power has been translating into a powerful tool to upset the balance of power tremendously. China has been expanding its influence around the globe and challenging the status quo more than ever before. The United States, the strongest state in the current international system has to pay attention to the increasingly assertive China. The USA uses several strategies to mitigate the threat China poses to the world order that the USA built. The structural forces of the international system, the Covid-19 pandemic, and American domestic politics make the threat of rising China more challenging. In my paper, I try to identify the balancing strategies of the United States in the 21st century against China. In my opinion, the application of neoclassical realist school of international relations can foreshadow the possible paths of the conflict. The United States of America has to use a wide variety of balancing strategies in order to counter the threat. A heavier reliance on allies is inevitable for the United States if it wants to contain the increasing influence of China around the globe. The USA should increase its hard-, soft-, and asymmetrical balancing methods mixed with smart power strategies to remain on the top of the international system. In my opinion, the showdown between China and the United States of America will be inevitable in the medium term. If the USA uses its position right, the peaceful containment of Chinese ambitions is possible. The successes of the above-mentioned strategies will decide how the competition of these two countries shape the international relations in the coming decades.


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