Realism is the oldest paradigm of international relations. Although realists constitute a diverse group, they share the core assumption that international politics is defined as a struggle for power. According to the realist paradigm, states are the most important actors in world politics that seek power, calculate their interests in terms of power and are motivated primarily by their national interests.
By Dario Kuntić
Realism is the
oldest paradigm of international relations. Although realists constitute a
diverse group, they share the core assumption that international politics is
defined as a struggle for power. According to the realist paradigm, states are
the most important actors in world politics that seek power, calculate their
interests in terms of power and are motivated primarily by their national
interests. The basic motive driving states is survival. No state can ever be
certain another state will not use its offensive military capabilities.
Realists assume that law and morality have a subordinate place in international
relations, share a generally pessimistic view of human nature and believe that
the international system is anarchic. Under these conditions, each state
struggles to ensure its security. In sum, realists emphasize the constraints on
politics imposed by human selfishness (egoism) and the absence of international
government (anarchy), which require the primacy of power and security in all
political life (see Donnelly in Burchill and Linklatter 2013: 32).
Image Attribute:
The daily flag-lowering ceremony at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (ä¸æ£ç´€å¿µå ‚),
Taipei. / Source: Wikimedia Commons
In the
international system, realists argue, states answer to no higher authority and
are in constant conflict with other states. Hans Morgenthau writes that anybody
who operates in international relations enters a conflict with others who also
strive to achieve their interests by force (Morgenthau 1985). In their view, a
gain to one party means a loss to the other. Regardless of variations, all
realists tend to view power politics as a zero-sum game and anticipate conflicts
of interests between the established major power and rising challengers.
Thucydides and Machiavelli demonstrated that the quest for dominance in any
competitive political environment is, by necessity, continuous and relentless,
with all political entities, whether they be individuals or states, seeking to
expand their power whenever they can do so without undue penalty because their
circumstances simply permit it (Tellis in Shambaugh 2013: 82).
Some realists
believe that a conflict can be postponed, and a rising peer competitor deterred
in the short to medium term, but in the longer term the intrinsic imperative of
survival drives states into prolonged – and dangerous – competition (Shambaugh
2013: 82). Since the world is composed of opposing interests, conflict among
competing states is inevitable. Realists only disagree over the degree of its
intensity.
Realists
identify major powers that constitute the system’s poles in the international
system, as well as middle powers and smaller states that seek to define their
relations with the major powers. The classic power transition pathway pits a
rising great power against the status quo leading state and it expects that
conflict –and perhaps war – will be generated as the rising state reaches parity
with the declining lead state (Ikenberry 2008: 111).
When a major
power is gradually displaced by a new rising power, whose ascent to primacy
would challenge the existing international order, the international system
becomes highly unstable. This is known in neorealist thinking as
power-transition theory. The term “power transition” comes from Kenneth Organski’s
classical work, World Politics. It refers to several important aspects of
international relations. First, it is about a significant increase of national
power in a big nation (in terms of its territorial and demographic size) as a
result of its genuine and rapid economic development. Second, it is the impact
of this growing power on the international system, especially on the hegemonic
position of the dominant nation in this international system (Lai 2011: 5).
Power transition theory holds that the period when a rising power approaches
parity with the established power is the most unstable and prone to conflict –
what Organski and Kugler described as the “crossover” point (see Shambaugh
2013: 10-11). Historically, such great power transitions have been fertile
ground for confrontation, since the established power typically resists the
rising country’s efforts to strengthen its military, seize territory and
colonies, and otherwise remake its region into a sphere of influence in which
the other countries must constrain their foreign and sometimes domestic
politics in ways acceptable to the new hegemon (Weiz 2013: 9).
As a new rising
entity challenges the existing balance of security in the system, the
established power has to deal with the issue whether and to what extent this is
a peaceful shift or a conflictual transition. The sense of strength and
weakness upsets the balance of security in the international system and results
in a security dilemma. According to classical realists, “structural anarchy,”
or the absence of a central authority to settle disputes, is the essential
feature of the contemporary system, and gives rise to the “security dilemma”:
in a self-help system one nation’s search for security often leaves its current
and potential adversaries insecure, any nation that strives for absolute
security leaves all others in the system absolutely insecure, and it can
provide a powerful incentive for arms races and other types of hostile
reactions (Holsti 2004: 54). As a result, a vicious circle of spiraling
(in)security arises in the international system.
To confront a
rising power, the dominant state can sustain its primacy through “balancing”
and “strategic hedging” tactics. Realists differentiate internal balancing,
which reallocates resources from other purposes to national security, from
external balancing, carried out through alliances and other (formal and
informal) agreements (Donnelly in Burchill and Linklatter 2013: 38). Morgenthau
observed that alliances constitute “the most important manifestation of the
balance of power” in international systems (See Tow in Robinson and Shambaugh
1994: 119). Already Thucydides wrote that a state must care of its security by
making alliances with other states. It is possible for a dominant state to
engage with a rising power.
This engagement
can be based on either balancing or containment strategy to serve as insurance
against uncertain current and future intentions of a rising power. Henry
Kissinger emphasizes that the balance of power is the only way to ensure
international peace. In other words, no single entity within the international
system should be allowed to gain predominance over others. Thus, security is
enhanced when power is distributed to limit or curb the quest for hegemony.
With respect to
middle powers and smaller states, they seek either to align (bandwagon) with or
against (balancing) a superior power. Bandwagoning means that a state aligns
itself with a threatening power to either neutralize the threat or benefit from
the spoils of victory (Kang 2007: 51). Conversely, a weaker state can balance a
major power by aligning itself to another great power to avoid submission or
destruction. A state’s inability to provide for its own security forces it to
rely on external assistance. Maintaining close relations with a powerful ally,
a small state can increase its stake in the balance of power game and preserve
its freedom and independence from absorption by a preponderant power. Realists
argue that stability and order in the international system are the result of
skillful manipulations of flexible alliance systems (Evans and Newnham 1998:
466).
Realists use a
concept of power shift to explain the rise of China and the challenge this rise
poses to the global domination of the United States. As rapid economic growth
and technological modernization enabled China to expand its political and
military power, some observers argue that this trend, if it continues, could
undermine the U.S.-dominated unipolar international system and even dethrone
the United States from a position of a sole global superpower. According to the
realist paradigm, a gain for China would result in a loss for the United
States.
That China might
already be on the way to overtake the US raises a prospect of a power
transition within the international system. Thus, whether China is a status quo
power or one that seeks to revise the international system has become a
critical issue in Sino-American relations. As China’s rise includes not only
economic and political power, but also the policy that enhances its military
capabilities, the United States feels less secure and consequently threatened.
Whether China’s rise will be peaceful or violent is a question that preoccupies
scholars and statesmen alike … Scholars who examine the consequences of China’s
rise through the lenses of either power transition theory or offensive realism
predict a future of conflict (Fravel 2010: 505). Under these assumptions, the
push to change the existing distribution of power in China’s favor will raise
the stakes between the two powers so high that this could send China and the
United States on a collision course.
Many realists
treat China as an assertive destabilizing power. From a regional perspective,
many argue that Beijing is challenging Washington’s interests in East Asia.
They see China as a country that could become a global superpower accompanied
by an aggressive foreign policy contradicting U.S. interests in the
Asia-Pacific region. Some U.S. observers suspect that China’s strategic
ambition is to push the United States out of East Asia and become the dominant
regional hegemon, akin to the Sino-centric order of China’s imperial period
(Bergsten at al 2006: 125). Henry Kissinger highlights that some American
strategic thinkers argue that Chinese policy pursues two long-term objectives:
first, to displace the United States as the preeminent power in the Western
Pacific; and second, to consolidate Asia into an exclusionary bloc deferring to
Chinese economic and foreign policy interests (Kissinger 2012: 499). In his
writings, John Mearsheimer expounds his “iron law”: that all powers seek
hegemony, are discontent with balance of power, and therefore the United States
and China are no exceptions. This presents, in his view, a grave and future
danger to the United States and its own hegemonic position in Asia and the
world. Aaron Friedberg essentially shares Mearsheimer’s view that the United
States and China are locked in a “contest for supremacy” (Shambaugh 2013: 11).
Robert Kagan emphasizes that China aims “in the near term, to replace the
United States as the dominant power in East Asia and in the long term to
challenge America’s position as the dominant power in the world (See Dou in
Peng Er and Wei 2009: 12). Zbigniew Brzezinski anticipated that a strong China
could seriously challenge U.S. interests in the region and might be much more
tempted to resolve the issue of Taiwan by force, irrespective of America’s
attitude (Brzezinski 1997).
Whether China is
a status quo power or one that seeks to revise the international system has
become a critical issue in the United States. In recent years, a number of
analysts argued that the rise of modern China resembles the rise of Wilhelmine
Germany a century ago. Fareed Zakaria has written that “like Germany in the
late 19th century, China is also growing rapidly but uncertainly into a global
system in which it feels it deserves more attention and honor. China’s military
is a powerful political player, as was the Prussian officer corps” (Zakaria
1996). Charles Krauthammer has written that “modern China is the Germany of a
century ago – a rising, expanding, have-not power seeking its place in the sun”
(Krauthammer 2010). As Wilhelmine Germany seized the opportunity to confront
Britain as the ruling hegemon, some scholars and policy advisers argue that the
perceived decline of U.S. power could encourage China to challenge U.S.
hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.
The realist
paradigm has its protagonists among Chinese scholars and its military
establishment as well. This concept stems from ideological orthodoxy of
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought. China may have discredited Maoist ideology,
but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has definitely not abandoned Marxist
socialism or Leninist authoritarianism – and certainly has not abandoned the
ideology of being a great power (Shambaugh 2013: 7). It has also remained
attached to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought that competition among great
powers would inevitably lead to war. Although Marxism has waned in the post-Mao
era, the perception that great powers are doomed to collide still persists in
the minds of many Chinese leaders who in their youth have been socialized and
imbued with Marxist notions such as hegemony, imperialism, exploitation,
struggle, conflict, and the correlation of forces. Simply put, the generation
of leaders schooled in Marxism and Maoism in China is sensitive to the notion
and reality of power and conflict. This residual Marxist-Maoist legacy of
viewing international relation as conflict and struggle is compatible to
Western international relations theory of realism (Dou in Peng Er and Wei 2009:
12-13). Many younger Chinese policy analysts embraced the theory of offensive
realism which holds that a country will try to control its security environment
to the full extent that its capabilities permit. According to this theory, the
United States cannot be satisfied with the existence of a powerful China and
therefore seeks to make its ruling regime weaker and more pro-American. Chinese
analysts see evidence of this intent in Washington’s calls for democracy and
its support for what China sees as separatist movements in Taiwan, Tibet, and
Xinjiang (Nathan and Scobell 2012).
Some leading
strategists of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) believe that “hegemonism of
the superpower(s) is still the long term threat to national security” which may
pose new security challenges to the PRC. It is implied that these superpowers
are a “competing United States and Japan” (See Wang 1996: 45). Thus,
hard-liners in the CCP and within the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army
urged Beijing to adopt a more assertive policy toward Washington. One prominent
example of this assertive policy is a book, Unrestricted Warfare, published in
1999 by two colonels in the PLA. In addition to the military analysis, the
underlying assumption of Unrestricted Warfare is that the United States is an
implacable enemy of China and that someday the PRC must confront its adversary
militarily (Carpenter 2005: 3). In a clear reference to the United States, in
April 2013, the official People’s Liberation Army Daily stressed that China needed
to beef up its defenses to deal with a hostile West, bent on undermining it.2
As insecurity can easily give rise to hostility, whether Chinese leaders will
translate perceived U.S. provocations in an aggressive policy toward the United
States remains the central question in a Sino-American great power game.
About The Author:
Dario Kuntić is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Political
Science, University of Zagreb. His doctoral thesis deals with the problem of
global Jihad as a response to U.S. global supremacy. Dario earned his bachelor
degree at the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb and master degree at the
University of Bologna. His research interests lie in the area of international
relations, diplomacy, and security. Dario was a speaker and participant at
numerous international conferences and workshops in Canada, the United States,
Iran and Taiwan. He spent seven months as a visiting fellow at the European
Union Centre in Taiwan, National Taiwan University. In 2013, he organized an
international seminar “Taiwan: Challenges and Achievements” at the Faculty of
Political Science in Zagreb. In 2014, Dario Kuntić became a coordinator of the
international academic course “Politics and Economy of East Asia” at the
Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb.
Publication Details:
This work is an extract from an article - "The Ominous
Triangle: China-Taiwanthe United States relationship by Dario Kuntić", Croatian
International Relations Review. Volume 21, Issue 72, Pages 239–280, ISSN
(Online) 1848-5782, DOI: 10.1515/cirr-2015-0008, March 2015.
© 2015. This
work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
