Introduction to the Special Issue

Special Issue of Asian Perspective 38 (3), 2014

Asian Perspective, 2014

The widespread debate on an East Asian power shift is generally based on the crude notion that power and capability are interchangeable. We critique this view and offer the alternative that power is the capacity of actors and discourses to produce effects— what we call relational and productive power, respectively. We also engage in a reflexive exercise by addressing the productive power of the power-shift debate itself, and emphasize the danger that this debate might enable the kind of realpolitik that it forebodes. KEYWORDS: Japan, power shift, productive power, relational power, rise of China.

2005

The program is on this book, Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics. David Shambaugh had the wisdom and foresight to see several years ago that something very important was going on in Asia as a result of China's accumulating power. This wasn't just quantitative, it was qualitative. And he brought together some of the best minds on China and its relations-myself excepted-to examine the subject, and the result is that book. I'll make one small advertisement. The book will be on sale at the break and after this session, so get your wallets out. What we're going to do this afternoon is to talk about the findings of the book with some of the authors. We're going to start right away with David talking about the book, and then examine some general issues. Before we do so, I would like to thank my staff for all their help on the arrangements, and Elizabeth Brooks of the China Initiative and the staff of the Communications Department here at Brookings. Without them, none of this would have been possible. Without further ado, David Shambaugh. DR. SHAMBAUGH: Well, thank you, Richard, not only for the introduction but, more importantly, to you and Jeff Bader and CNAPS and the China Initiative at Brookings for hosting today's event and book launch. Publishing a book is sort of like having a baby, except the pregnancy period is much longer-in this particular case, almost three years from, shall we say, conception to publication. Brookings Briefing Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics 4 If I could summarize the findings in one sentence-which is a dangerous thing to do when you have 17 or 18 chapters in a book-it's that power is shifting toward China in the Asian region, but not absolutely and not equally across different realms. We found, generally speaking, that it is shifting toward China most in the economic realm, less so but still noticeably so in the diplomatic-political realm, and least so in the security sphere; and that-and I'll come back to this point in my closing remarks-international relations in the Asian region are a very complex mix of multiple trends, not simply the rise of China. I'll come back to that. But as I say, this book is a culmination of three years of work and also intensive collaboration, I'm pleased to say, amongst the 17 authors who contributed to it-17 authors from six different countries, many of whom, I think, are the world's leading specialists in their particular areas. So I'm delighted to have collaborated with them. This is truly a collaborative effort. When we began the project three years ago, as Richard suggested, nobody was paying a lot of attention to China's regional role. But I had sensed that there were some important changes afoot qualitatively and quantitatively and that it had important implications for the regional order. So we went into the project, A, to explore empirically what China was doing in its region and what those implications were. During the intervening three years since we launched this project and had a conference two years ago, almost exactly, in which the initial drafts were presented, the subject did begin to attract attention, largely from journalists and secondly from diplomats in the region. Journalists such as Jane Perlez of the New York Times published a series of articles-she wasn't the only one-on China's regional role, and diplomats, around the region but also here in Foggy Bottom, began to pay increasing attention to China's regional role and, in the case of Foggy Bottom and the Americans, began to wring their hands about "China eating our lunch in Asia." I've heard that phrase many times over the last two or three years, China eating America's lunch in Asia. I don't know if that's the case, but there was clearly a sense of angst amongst American diplomats about China's new proactive regional diplomacy. Scholars, I would say, have been slower than journalists or diplomats to study and follow and understand China's new regional role. But scholars have begun to do so. This book is the second book to appear on this subject in the last six months, the other being Robert Sutter's very fine volume, "The Rise of China in Asia," I think is the title of it-Rowman & Littlefield-and I commend that book to you as well. Now, what I'd like to do in just a very brief time, 10 minutes or so, is to give you a sort of summary overview of the contributions to the book and finish up with the kind of principal argument about "so what?"-what does it mean for the regional order in Asia? Brookings Briefing Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics 5 First of all-and I do encourage you to go out and perhaps buy a copy later-but there are flyers that describe the table of contents. Let me briefly do so for you. First there's an introduction by the editor of the first section, on China's strategy in the region, in which I have a chapter but also two leading Chinese scholars, Zhang Yunling and Tang Shiping from the Academy of Social Sciences Asia Pacific Institute, both of whom, I would say, have been instrumentally involved themselves in helping to think through in a think-tank kind of way what China's strategy should be in Asia. And they've been very involved in the ASEAN senior officials meeting and the various events that have led up to the first Asia Pacific summit-what was it called?, the East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur in December. Brookings Briefing Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics 6 will, and a number of sub-elements of that. And then a chapter by Michael Swaine from the Carnegie Endowment, next door, on China's regional military posture, the hard security, if you will. And this chapter by Swaine is really a tour de force, I think. It's a very up-to-date assessment of where the PLA is today, but also where it's going in the next 5 to 10 years, so good one-stop shopping for those of you who want to know what the state of the PLA is and where it's going to be. And then we move-there are two final sections to the book, both of which ask the "so what?" question. Section 5 of the books asks, What does it mean for the United States? Section 6 asks, What does it mean for the region, for the international relations of the Asia Pacific region? The two chapters concerning the United States, implications for the U.S., are by David Lampton, from SAIS, across the street, and Robert Sutter of Georgetown University, respectively. And they come to two rather different conclusions in their chapters. Lampton, in essence, argues that the United States need not look at China's regional rise in a zero-sum light, that China's influence around its periphery is very uneven, but that-and to quote him-"the overall direction in which China's regional policy has moved is consistent with fundamental U.S. interests" and that, if intelligently managed, the Sino-American relationship can indeed be very conducive to regional stability. Professor Sutter differs from that viewpoint and is less sure. He argues that China's influence in Asia actually remains quite limited, particularly when contrasted with that of the United States-a sub-theme that in fact Professor Garver's chapter also notes. And Sutter disagrees with those, like myself, who believe that American influence has diminished in the region. Sutter thinks that it's still very strong. Moreover, he argues that while it does not seem apparent that China is explicitly moving to evict the United States from the Asia Pacific region or to diminish American influence in the Asia Pacific region, Sutter argues that implicitly this is exactly China's strategy and that, while not wanting to confront the United States directly, around the margins, wherever they can, the Chinese are working to diminish American influence in the region. So you have two-in these two chapters, Lampton and Sutter-two very different perspectives on what China's regional diplomacy means for the U.S. in Asia. So I commend those to you. Then we examine in the final section, professors Yahuda and Pollack, respectively, what it means for the regional order. And I'm going to not try and summarize their chapters because that's the subject of the first panel. So that is a sort of thumbnail sketch, if you will, of what's in the book, in the 17 chapters. It's very rich in empirical detail, I think. There's a lot of data and, I think, some pretty sound judgments and analysis in the book, too. It is not a sort of journalistic analysis of the subject. So I encourage you to buy and read it for yourselves.

Asian Perspective, 2019

"POWER" REMAINS A CENTRAL, IF NOT INDISPENSABLE, CONCEPT IN THE SOCIAL sciences and humanities. In no discipline is this clearer than international relations (IR), where the distribution of power is believed to explain many outcomes in international politics, particularly the propensity for war and peace (Mearsheimer 2010; Friedberg 2011). The importance of the concept notwithstanding, academic and policy debates about international power have long occurred within overly restrictive conceptual boundaries, focusing on the distribution of power defined as tangible assets to explain international politics at the expense of other ways in which power is exercised. Even though this materialist theory of power has failed to help us understand some of the most conspicuous international developments of recent decades, it continues to permeate the literature about international politics. There are few places in the world where power is as crucial to shaping international dynamics as in East Asia. The critical question of whether a power shift is ongoing in the region, from Japan and the United States to China, is a central preoccupation of contemporary IR. Given the actors that are involved, the region is arguably the epicenter of a possible global power shift from the West to the East, and from the North to the South. In the East Asian region, a power shift has been seen as impending for more than two decades (Betts 1993; Friedberg 1993; Roy 1994). Today, the concept of a regional power shift is widely accepted both among scholars and observers outside of academia (Shambaugh 2005; Mearsheimer 2010; Layne 2018). A consensus has emerged that there has been a redistribution of capabilities among the major players in the region, although there are different opinions about the extent and outcome of such power shift (Li and Kemburi 2014; see also the Asian Perspective special issue "The East Asia Power Shift: A Critical Appraisal," vol. 38, no. 3, 2014; of particular interest is the introduction by Linus Hagström and Bjorn Jerden). This special issue goes beyond materialistic power theory to examine the role and impact of narratives themselves in the (apparent) power shift in East Asia. It investigates the extent to which the narratives produced and spread by key actors succeed in producing effects on third [End Page 215] parties, exploring if and how they succeed in shaping their preferences, interests, and identities regarding contested issues in East Asia. Its focus is on the narratives about China, Japan, and the United States. The underlying idea is that it is the narrative(s) that ultimately define(s) the dynamics of the East Asian security setting and IR more broadly, creating a framework for what actions are possible, when, and for whom. In short, it is ultimately the victorious/dominant narratives that themselves define what is seen as legitimate and illegitimate, what is normal and abnormal, and ultimately what is within the realm of possibility and what is not. Special emphasis is put on third parties, as it is they who are the audiences and ultimately the judges of what narrative to accept or is most attractive. For example, the fact that narratives about a more "assertive" and "threatening" China have received increased attention and acceptance is limiting China while at the same time opening new space for Japan and US foreign policy, as they are perceived as important to manage China's purported rise. This special issue starts with an article by Mikael Weissmann titled "Understanding Power (Shift) in East Asia: The Sino-US Narrative Battle about Leadership in the South China Sea." Weissmann analyzes competing US and Chinese narratives about the South China Sea. He argues that the practice of calculating power shifts in terms of changing distribution of material capabilities is inadequate. The article aims to complement existing literature by taking ideational and normative dimensions of power into account. The article asks what the Chinese narrative of power and leadership in the South China Sea looks like and how it is perceived by others in comparison with the dominant US narrative. Weissmann concludes that while a "hard" power transition is ongoing, China's preferred narrative has yet to become widely accepted and...

This works (which will develop into a full-scale book) examines the Asian road to global power. It has been long since the view that Asia is going to be the main player in world’s economy and politics was heralded by few only - mainly Asia watchers. It is now a commonly held opinion, reflected in the Asia Sections of most major newspapers and Television Stations. That the 21st Century will be “The Asian Century” is widely accepted as an absolute Truth. The questions that are asked and the debates held, in this context, are mainly about the magnitude of the Asian power, the division of this power amongst Asian countries and the implications of this reality with regard to the traditionally Western world domination.

2019

East Asia has attracted great interest not only due to its economic, demographic and cultural potential, but also thanks to its rapidly rising international position. While in the past it was Japan that could be considered as a forerunner of economic and societal changes on the Asian continent, at present it is China that holds a dominant position in terms of economic, political and military power. China’s rapid rise has led both to increase in tensions in East Asia and to intensification of the efforts to institutionalize multi­lateral dialogue in the region. This edited volume aims to analyze the changes in distribution of power in East Asia at the beginning of the 21st century as well as their implications for the development of relations between Asian and European countries. The multi-dimensional analysis of political, economic, and societal shifts in East Asia will contribute to better understanding of the complex factors influencing Asia-Europe relations.

QS VUW Subject Focus Summit Proceedings, 2020

QS VUW Subject Focus Summit on Politics and International Relations "Power Shifts in the Asia-Pacific: Large and Small States Perspectives" Victoria University of Wellington, February 19-21, 2020 This QS summit will bring leading academics and policy-makers to Wellington New Zealand to explore different perspectives on the changing geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics of the Asia-Pacific region. In the face of increasing great power rivalry and competition in international economics and trade, how are regional relationships and institutions evolving? How can small-states maintain their influence and autonomy in more unstable times? What is the role of middle-powers? How does the shifting balance of power affect policy-making over non-traditional security issues like migration, climate change and people-trafficking?