How China's Rise Is Changing Asia's Landscape and Seascape: Introduction by the Guest Editor

Asia is undergoing epochal transformations. A central driver of these changes is the rapid and massive growth in power, activism, and influence of the region's most populous and centrally situated country, China. How is China's rise changing Asia's strategic landscape? The articles in this special issue address this question by looking at different major channels through which the changes are brought about. Particularly, they examine how China perceives a critical threat to its rise and envisions a posture in response, how key players in the region are responding to the rise of China, and how China's economic growth is shifting the foundations of the international geopolitical order. In addition to the research articles, this special issue also features a review essay and a Praxis rubric, which complement the research articles with a discussion of the recent scholarship on the rise of China and a view from a seasoned practitioner on the topic. For millennia, the largest external threat to the Chinese heartland came from the continental side. More recently during the Cold War, it was the perceived Soviet threat that led China to switch sides and join forces with the United States, causing a major change in world politics. The first article in this issue shows, however, that this familiar pattern no longer applies. In China's Vision of Its Seascape: The First Island Chain and Chinese Seapower, Toshi Yoshihara reveals through an extensive survey of Chinese strategic writings on the “first island chain” off the Chinese coasts that Chinese strategic thinkers see the largest external threat to their country as coming from the maritime domain. For them, the first island chain really means a heavy chain—a physical obstacle that threatens to drag China's feet in its current rise. Yoshihara notes that “this widespread recognition that China faces a competitive and potentially unfavorable maritime environment reflects a larger debate about Beijing's future geostrategic choices.” Contrary to the simplistic Western depictions of China as a land-bound continental power, the China imagined by its own strategic thinkers is a “composite land-sea power” that needs to strike a delicate balance between continental and maritime prerogatives. As Yoshihara argues, “physical possession of real estate is still the final arbiter of international politics.” These observations lead to the crucial question of how other key actors in the region surrounding China respond to China's rising power and unfolding actions. Following Yoshihara's analysis of the likely interactions between China and the United States, Japan, and Taiwan along the first island chain, Cheng-Chwee Kuik, Nor Azizan Idris, and Abd Rahim Md Nor engage in an examination of the recent U.S. reengagement with Southeast Asia. Their article, titled The China Factor in the U.S. “Reengagement” With Southeast Asia: Drivers and Limits of Converged Hedging, argues that China's growing power and increasingly assertive actions have driven both the United States and ASEAN countries to forge stronger ties with each other. However, Kuik, Azizan, and Rahim point out that both Washington and the Southeast Asian capitals continue to develop multifaceted relations with Beijing, and their moves to counter the latter cannot be seen as pure balancing as classic international relations theory would suggest. Besides offering an explanation of the U.S. “pivot” to Asia that emphasizes “the structural imperative of preserving American primacy in the face of China's rapidly growing power,” their article digs deeper, explaining why the United States and ASEAN countries have adopted a set of mutually counteracting policies amid the geopolitical shift in the Asia-Pacific region. Moving to South Asia, Mohan Malik's article focuses on India's response to a rising China. Here, a detailed investigation of the public debates and foreign policy actions of both countries leads him to conclude that “Sino-Indian balancing and counterbalancing” are the main contours of the big picture. Malik argues that the security dilemma of this mutual balancing is hard to escape because both China and India “aspire to the same things at the same time on the same (contested) continental landmass and its adjoining waters.” The article, titled India Balances China, provides a rich empirical account of how India promotes economic growth, bolsters military might, and strengthens relations with key players in the region and why these are part of a larger search for a balance of power favorable to its own interests in the midst of a growth of Chinese power. Malik's analysis sheds light on the “multilateral shadowboxing” between China and India in the blooming regional forums, showing that these provide yet another arena for the rivalry of the two Asian giants. Closing the circle of China's neighborhood, Rouben Azizian and Elnara Bainazarova's article, Eurasian Response to China's Rise: Russia and Kazakhstan in Search of Optimal China Policy, offers a fresh look into how Russia and Kazakhstan, the largest state in Central Asia, perceive China and prepare themselves for the changes that the rise of Chinese power will bring. Their analysis suggests that the concept of Eurasianism, which is often viewed as deterrence against Western values and geopolitical pressure, is likely to “transition to a set of principles combining the objectives of regime survival against the still-feared Western values and enhanced sovereignty protection against China's economic, cultural, and demographic expansion.” This transition, Azizian and Bainazarova argue, has its root in the rise of China, the decline of Europe, the readjustment of U.S. policy toward the post-Soviet area, and the Russian and Kazakhstani perceptions of these changes. However, both Russia and Kazakhstan lack a long-term China strategy while “it is certain that relations between Russia and China in Central Asia will see more competition in the future.” In The Future of China's Rise: How China's Economic Growth Will Shift the Sino-U.S. Balance of Power, 2010–2040, Alexander L. Vuving shows how China's economic development is shifting the power foundation of the international order. Examining the sources and structure of Chinese growth, he argues that despite strong political will from the top leadership to redress mounting structural imbalances in the economy, China will continue to pursue an investment-intensive growth path. But contrary to a prevalent belief and although this path will eventually lead to multiple “lost decades,” China still has a great chance to overtake the United States as the world's largest economy in a decade or two. Using “high-tech GDP,” an organic combination of wealth and productivity, as an indicator of hard power, the article assesses the prospect of each power surpassing the other in the contest for supremacy. It suggests that boosting productivity will be the key in this contest and that “the U.S.-China competition will be so close that complacence will be the biggest enemy of both protagonists.” After a tour of the geopolitical horizon and a deep look into the future, the review essay by Sorpong Peou provides an insightful discussion of four recent books on the rise of China. These volumes bring to the reader diverse expert opinions on China's quiet rise through integration, a Sino-American contest for supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region, and the responses of other states to the rise of China. As the title of the essay, Keeping the Rise of China in Check, suggests, the rise of China is causing a multitude of efforts to make it peaceful. However, “scholars still disagree on what the future holds.” In light of theory and history, Peou argues that “if peace is to prevail in Asia and last, free trade, hedging, and balancing must be carefully maintained until China becomes democratic.” “Asia must live with a China driving for great-power status” is the main message, and thus the title, of a conversation with former Philippine President Fidel Valdez Ramos by APP's Senior Editor Eduardo Gonzalez. In this Praxis section, Ramos expounds his view on a variety of important issues, ranging from the rise of China and the role of the United States in the region to his vision of a new regional order, Pax Asia-Pacifica, which he believes is the best response to the enormous challenges facing Asia. Contrary to a popular view that China's belligerent stance in the South China Sea was driven by territorial and energy motives, Ramos is convinced that “it was motivated by a desire to challenge U.S. power.” In Ramos's view, the Pax Americana, which “has given the East Asian states the breathing spell to put their house in order and to nurture their economies at the world's fastest rate [but which] is at bottom still guaranteed by U.S. military force . . . will not bring about an enduring Asia-Pacific community” in an age of China's rise. “An Asia-Pacific peace,” he explains, “will be durable only if it is based on a balance of mutual benefits rather than on the balance of power,” and building a Pax Asia-Pacifica to replace the Pax Americana is the “urgent task for Asian statesmen over the next 5–10 years.” This special issue is the result of a continuous and cooperative effort of many. When I first raised the idea of a special issue with several colleagues at the 2011 Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in Honolulu, I did not expect that the challenges would be so massive. Writing this introduction on the last day of the 2012 Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in Toronto, I could not find the words to express how much debt I owe to so many people who have helped me fulfill my role as the guest editor. These people include, but are not limited to, APP editor-in-chief Aileen Baviera; all the authors in this volume but particularly Mohan Malik, who came to my rescue at the last minute; the anonymous reviewers, who did most of the work without any material rewards; Patrick Bratton; David Malone; Andrew Scobell; and Maria Dolores Alicias. My wife, Ha Doan, knows that I can do nothing without her support.

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