Robert G. Sutter

China's rise in Asia : promises and perils

Chapter 1 Salient Determinants of Chinas Recent Approach to Asia and its Implications for the United States Chapter 2 Recent Chinese Domestic and Foreign Policies and Priorities Chapter 3 Chinas Relations with the United States Chapter 4 Chinas Relations with Russia Chapter 5 Relations with Japan Chapter 6 Relations with the Korean Peninsula Chapter 7 China-Southeast Asia Relations Chapter 8 Relations with Taiwan Chapter 9 Relations with South Asia Chapter 10 Relations with Central Asia Chapter 11 Conclusion: Chinas Peaceful Approach to Asia and its Implications for the United States

China and Japan: Trouble ahead?

The past few years have seen Chinas influence and activism in East Asia grow while Japans has relatively declined. Some see conflict ahead, but binding forces for positive Sino‐Japanese relations exist. Now 30 years after normalization, what does the future hold?

Why does china matter

Based on its size, strategic location, and rising economic and military power, China exerts worldwide economic influence and is the leading military and political power in Asia, but Chinese leaders are not inclined to assert influence in world affairs more forcefully.

American policy toward Beijing, 1989–1990: The role of president Bush and the White House staff

The Tiananmen massacre of June 1989 created a major crisis in U.S. policy toward China. President Bush and his aides on the National Security Council staff took the lead in formulating the U.S. response to the crisis. The president took charge personally in dealing with various issues during the next two years. He strove hard to maintain a balanced policy that would allow for continued U.S. involvement with the people and leaders of China.In the crisis atmosphere of 1989–1990, the president appeared to judge that it was important to narrow sharply the circle of officials who would manage U.S. policy toward China. In part, this was because the president was attempting to strike a difficult balance in U.S. policy. On the one hand, he was attempting to elicit positive gestures from Beijings beleaguered leaders in the wake of Tiananmen. On the other hand, he was attempting to avoid what he judged were overly punitive and counterproductive U.S. measures against China, which were being pressed on the administration by U.S. leaders in the Congress, media and elsewhere. The president and his close advisors took steps to ensure that State Department and other U.S. officials avoided comment on the most sensitive policy issue of 1990—the extension of most-favored-nation tariff treatment to China.By the end of 1990, however, the presidents policy efforts had not stilled congressional debate or restored a consensus in U.S. China policy. President Bush still labored under the misperception in many quarters that he was less interested than others in human rights in China, was overly attentive to the interests of Chinese leaders, and stressed excessively Chinas alleged strategic importance for the United States. In fact, the Chinese governments relatively constructive role in world affairs, especially over such vital issues as the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf crisis, appeared to do more to win U.S. support for the presidents carefully balanced approach to China than the efforts by administrative leaders to explain the policy.

American Policy Toward Taiwan-China Relations in the Twenty-First Century

Examining US policy toward Taiwan-China relations since the mid-1990s, this chapter explains why recently rising tensions in cross-Strait relations and hardening of the Obama administration’s approach to China did not spill over to change US policy toward Taiwan. It goes on to assess the impact of the US 2015–2016 presidential election debates and its implications for US policy on China and Taiwan in the Donald Trump government.

The impact of the 2015–2016 presidential election campaign on American Asian policy debates

The 2015–2016 presidential election campaign had major effects on American debates regarding US policy toward Asia. Going into the campaign, the debates focused heavily on perceived US weaknesses in the face of growing challenges from China. As the campaign progressed, this broad concern with China remained active but secondary. It was overshadowed by strong debate on two sets of issues: international trade and the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) accord, and candidate Donald Trump’s controversial proposals on allied burden sharing, nuclear weapons proliferation, and North Korea. Criticism of the TPP received broad bi-partisan support and posed increasingly serious obstacles to US government approval of the pact. Trump’s controversial proposals were unpopular and seemed unlikely to be easily implemented even if he were elected; they were opposed by senior Republicans in Congress along with many others. Nevertheless, the proposals upset Japan, South Korea, and other Asian partners; they created major complications in US government efforts to reassure them in defining clear objectives toward regional partners and adversaries.

East Asian Security, Policy Debates and American Leadership

Americans are in the midst of debate about how to position the United States in the changing security and other dynamics in East Asia. The administration of President Barack Obama has undertaken various policy initiatives under the rubric of an American “pivot” to the broad Asia-Pacific region, including all of East Asia. The initiatives are multi-faceted covering security economic and political-diplomatic efforts. They were generally welcomed in the region though China objected strongly especially to the security initiatives. European and Middle Eastern allies and associates also worried about their standing as the Obama government focused on the Asia-Pacific (Saunders 2013, 1–5; Sutter et al. 2013, 1–6).

China's Charm Offensive—Frustrations and Implications

I n Japan and China as Charm Rivals: Soft Power in Regional Diplomacy, Jing Sun sets forth a systematic and insightful assessment of the efforts of China and Japan to develop and exert soft power on one another and in nearby East and Southeast Asia, significantly advancing our understanding of international dynamics in this important part of the world. With clear language, careful use of terminology, and logical presentation, Sun provides an effective definition of the soft power employed by Tokyo and Beijing, viewing the state apparatus as especially important in both countries’ efforts at image-building in order to seek diplomatic and other goals. He finds that both governments more often than not have had a hard time achieving their respective goals, even as they sometimes compete with one another for influence in Asia and beyond. Readers will benefit from Sun’s treatment of the concept of soft power; the role of the state in image-building, which naturally overlaps with state-directed propaganda and public-diplomacy efforts; and the limited effectiveness—and the reasons for such mediocre results—of Chinese and Japanese efforts to charm one another as well as neighbors in Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Taiwan.

China’s Growing International Role

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, China has risen to become an international power second only to the United States. China’s burgeoning economy has become a key driver of international economic growth, especially as the global economic recession at the end of the first decade diminished growth in the European Union, the United States and Japan. China’s growth remains heavily resource intensive. This means that it has an important impact on the prices of international commodities, leading to good growth and profits for resource exporters worldwide (Xinhua, 2010).

U.S.-China Relations after the Sixteenth Party Congress: Prospects and Challenges

The leadership changes carried out at the Chinese Party and Government congresses over the past year were widely perceived to have reinforced China’s recent moderate approach toward the United States. Few would have predicted such favorable U.S.-China relations given the poor state of relations only two years earlier. Specialists differed on what caused the shift. Some emphasized the change in the Bush administration policy; others, including this author, gave more emphasis to the design of the Bush administration policy. It effectively undercut the previous utility of Chinese pressure tactics toward the United States. Concurrent international circumstances—notably the unprecedented rise of U.S. power and influence throughout China’s periphery, as well as Chinese domestic preoccupations associated with incomplete leadership transition at the Party and Government congresses—reinforced good U.S.-China relations. Specialists appeared more uniform in warning that U.S.-China cooperation was contingent, as the recent smooth relationship had done little to resolve major differences in the interests of the two powers. Managing those differences over Taiwan, Korea, and a range of bilateral and other issues represent the essence of the challenges China’s new leaders face as they deal with the United States in the first decade in the twenty-first century.