Rising China and Shifting Alliances in Northeast Asia: Opportunities and Challenges facing America and its Allies

Abstract

Should the high growth rate of China’s economy be sustained in the coming decades, ascending China will change the power configuration in Northeast Asia. Whether intended or not, the redefinition of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the 1990s is seen by Beijing as a measure to enhance America’s managerial capacity for possible competition with China over influence in Asia. Relocation of the U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula is likely to exacerbate Beijing’s concerns over America’s potential encirclement of China through the U.S. alliance network. An interesting finding from in-depth interviews conducted in Beijing tells us, however, that Beijing intends to accept the rearrangement of America’s alliances. As long as China’s bilateral relations with the U.S. are good, the state of the U.S. alliances in the region would not be a matter of serious concern to Beijing. The two redefinitions, when completed, are highly likely to lead Beijing to choose its preferred stance between either opposing America’s two alliances or jumping on the bandwagon as a security partner on the network. Opposing the powerful security cooperation network would not serve China’s interests, especially during the time when it should concentrate its efforts on economic growth and domestic unity. The remaining and probably more rational choice before Beijing would be in joining the security cooperation network by trying to transform the two bilateral alliances into a regional security regime such as the ARF or Europe’s OSCE.