What is likely to be the future character of the relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China? Will it be marked by convergence toward deepening cooperation, stability,...

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The Future of U.S.-China Relations: Is Conflict Inevitable?

The emerging transition from unipolarity to a more multipolar distribution of global power presents a unique and unappreciated problem that largely explains why, contrary to the expectations of balance of power theory, a counterbalancing reaction to U.S. primacy has not yet taken place. The problem is that, under unipolarity and only unipolarity, balancing is a revisionist, not a status quo, behavior: its purpose is to replace the existing unbalanced unipolar structure with a balance of power system. Thus, any state that seeks to restore a global balance of power will be labeled a revisionist aggressor. To overcome this ideational hurdle to balancing behavior, a rising power must delegitimize the unipole's global authority and order through discursive and cost-imposing practices of resistance that pave the way for the next phase of full-fledged balancing and global contestation. The type of international order that emerges on the other side of the transition out of unipolarity depends on whether the emerg...

After Unipolarity: China's Visions of International Order in an Era of U.S. Decline

The United States needs support from other states to carry out global governance, particularly from rising powers such as China and Russia. Securing cooperation from China and Russia poses special problems, however, because neither state is part of the liberal Western community, ruling out appeals to common values and norms. Nevertheless, an alternative approach that is rooted in appreciation of China's and Russia's heightened status concerns may be viable. Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese and Russian foreign policy has been shaped by the goal of restoring both countries' great power status, which received major blows after China's Tiananmen Square repression and the Soviet Union's breakup and loss of empire. This desire for status can be explained by social identity theory, which argues that social groups strive for a distinctive, positive identity. Social identity theory provides a typology of strategies that states may use to enhance their relative status and suggests appropriate responses to sta...

Status Seekers: Chinese and Russian Responses to U.S. Primacy

The small and medium-sized states in Southeast Asia have faced significant geostrategic changes with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China. Over the last decade, scholars have debated how these countries would cope with growing Chinese power, and how their relations with the other major powers in the region would change. Some analysts have suggested that the region is shifting toward a more China-centered order, but this view is premature. Eschewing the simple dichotomy of balancing versus bandwagoning, Southeast Asian countries do not want to choose between the two major powers, the United States and China. This avoidance strategy is not merely tactical or time-buying; instead, Southeast Asian states have actively tried to influence the shape of the new regional order. Key Southeast Asian states are pursuing two main pathways to order in the region: the “omni-enmeshment” of major powers and complex balance of influence. They have helped to produce an interim power distribution outcome, which is a...

Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing Regional Security Strategies

Most scholars hold that the consequences of unipolarity for great power conflict are indeterminate and that a power shift resulting in a return to bipolarity or multipolarity will not raise the specter of great power war. This article calls into question the core assumptions underlying the consensus: (1) that people are mainly motivated by the instrumental pursuit of tangible ends such as physical security and material prosperity and (2) that major powers’ satisfaction with the status quo is relatively independent of the distribution of capabilities. In fact, it is known that people are motivated powerfully by a noninstrumental concern for relative status, and there is strong empirical evidence linking the salience of those concerns to distributions of resources. If the status of states depends in some measure on their relative capabilities and if states derive utility from status, then different distributions of capabilities may affect levels of satisfaction, just as different income distributions may affect levels of status competition in domestic settings. Building on research in psychology and sociology, the author argues that even capabilities distributions among major powers foster ambiguous status hierarchies, which generate more dissatisfaction and clashes over the status quo. And the more stratified the distribution of capabilities, the less likely such status competition is. Unipolarity thus augurs for great power peace, and a shift back to bipolarity or multipolarity raises the probability of war even among great powers with little material cause to fight.

Unipolarity, Status Competition, and Great Power War

China's increasing economic and military capabilities have attracted much attention in recent years. How should the world, especially the United States, respond to this emerging great power? A sensible response requires not only figuring out the speed and extent of China's rise, but also answering a question that has received much less attention: What is China's grand strategy? This book describes and explains the grand strategy China's leaders have adopted to pursue their country's interests in the international system of the 21st century. The author argues that their strategy is designed to foster favorable conditions for continuing China's modernization while also reducing the risk that others will decide a rising China is a threat that must be countered. Why did China's leaders settle on this grand strategy and what are its key elements? What alternatives were available? Is the current approach yielding the results China anticipated? What does this grand strategy imply for international peace and security in the coming years - and, most critically, what are the prospects for an increasingly prominent China and a dominant United States to rise to the challenge of managing their inevitable disagreements?

Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security

In recent years the apparent success of the Mindanao Moros in the Philippines and the failure of the Patani Malay Muslims in Thailand raises an important question: what has led to the relative success of the Moros and the failure of the Malay Muslims? In the late 1960s, Samuel Huntington stated that a revolution or a violent separatist movement occurs in a political system that is incapable of accommodating the democratic participation of the separatist group.1 According to some scholars, however, a separatist movement may rise up due to "relative deprivation," the determination of an ethnic group to retain control of their own culture, language, and territory," "manipulation of ethnic sentiment by ethnic minority elites for promoting their own career and status," or a combination of factors.2 Whatever the historical, political, or social circumstances of a separatist movement, Huntington argues that in order to be successful it must be led by a political organization headed by strong leaders able to mobilize both internal and external supports. A competing view is offered by Ted Gurr. In a recent study, he argued that the success of a separatist movement depends on four factors: (i)

The Islamic Independence Movements in Patani of Thailand and Mindanao of the Philippines

The year 1975 saw dramatic changes in the political environment of Bangladesh In January, through a "constitutional coup," a presidential system of government replaced the parliamentary form In June, all political parties were banned and were asked to join the newly formed national party, Bangladesh Krishak Shramik Awami League In August, a bloody military coup took place in which President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his whole family, except two daughters, were killed On November 3, there was another abortive countercoup and, on November 7, there was a "sepoy mutiny" in which Dacca's strong man, General Ziaur Rahman, consolidated his power in Bangladesh The fall of Mujib in August and the "sepoy mutiny" of November 7, from which General Ziaur Rahman (Zia) emerged as the de facto military ruler, profoundly altered the state system in Bangladesh A "new state" emerged, which seemed to follow a pattern that had been set in preliberation Bangladesh; a marriage of convenience between civil and military bureaucrats, similar to that existing in Pakistan before its collapse in 1971, evolved in Bangladesh after the November 7 coup In a postcolonial society like Bangladesh, it would seem that after an army take-over of the state apparatus, the military bureaucracy forms an alliance with the civil bureaucracy in order to consolidate power at both the national and local levels The civil and military bureaucrats share one commonality, that is, they maintain a corporate administrative group identity Perhaps it is this administrative elite identity that leads the bureaucracy to build an "administrative state" In the administrative state, the civil-military bureaucracy adopts, on the one hand, various measures for its increasing dominance in the state apparatus, and seeks, on the other, legitimacy for the regime through various means Despite the attempts toward obtaining legitimacy, the state may subsequently

The State in Bangladesh under Zia (1975-81)

The Politics of Islamic Identity in Southeast Asia

For Bangladesh, the year 1986 marked a unique departure from the past four years in politics, the economy, and foreign affairs' In politics, the year began with the restoration of open political activities and a resolve from all concerned to make a transition from martial law to constitutional rule Eventually, the country completed the transition process by means of two national elections-parliamentary and presidential-and also the passage of the seventh amendment bill to the constitution In the economy, 1985-86 was the first fiscal year of Bangladesh's Third Five Year Plan (1985-90) Internationally, Bangladesh's prestige was enhanced in the comity of nations as President Hossain Muhammad Ershad and Foreign Minister Humayun Rasheed Chowdhury became, respectively, the first chairman of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and president of the 41st session of the UN General Assembly

Syed Serajul Islam

Papers

Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security

The Islamic Independence Movements in Patani of Thailand and Mindanao of the Philippines

The State in Bangladesh under Zia (1975-81)

The Politics of Islamic Identity in Southeast Asia

Bangladesh in 1986: Entering a New Phase