Review of “Examining US-China-Russia Foreign Relations: Great Power Politics in a Post-Obama Era”

In Examining US-China-Russia Foreign Relations: Great Power Politics in a Post-Obama Era, G.O. Hall investigates how the three powers coordinate, engage, contain and confront one another in shaping the world order after Obama’s presidency. President Obama had proposed a Tripolar Conflict, Cooperation and Competition (TC3) model. Dr Gregory O. Hall further analyzes how the relevance of American double axes (US–China, Axis-1; US–Russia, Axis-2) has evolved in grappling with the global issues and the regional crises.From my point of view, Hall engages in international relations (IR) and diplomatic studies and provides a comprehensive delineation of the contemporary strategic triangle. Each is scrambling for its respective political, economic, military and cultural advantage, dominance and discourse power by handling a series of international and regional incidents. Rather than exploring arcane IR theories such as realism, neorealism, neoclassical realism and constructivism, Hall focuses on the transformative trajectories of US foreign policies towards China and Russia during Trump’s and Biden’s administrations by drawing on many domestic and international cases.This book is divided into three parts. The first part of the book, composed of three chapters, describes how the relatively smooth and palliative relations within the two US axes of the triangle since the end of the Cold War were progressively worsening. Each was mostly accountable to the individual leaders, their attributes and the domestic variables (p. 3, Chapter 1) when faced with a range of multifarious and complicated situations and environments. USSR was dismantled in late 1991, and Russia declined thereafter. Meanwhile, China gained strength as an ascendant global power in the early 2000s. It gradually assembled a group of states such as Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa of the Global South to challenge America’s post-war unipolar hegemony as influential regional or emerging global powers in a multilateral arena. This mirrors the current intricate background of US–China–Russia strategic triangle of competition, antagonism and confrontation. According to Hall, China and the Global South are reshaping the contours of the Liberal International Order. The power shift among the great powers generally favors China and the non-Western world overall (p. 4, Chapter 1), which adequately demonstrates the shift of the global balance of power to the global south and east.China’s low profile in accomplishing its rapid rise has posed a major threat to US foreign policy and strategic considerations in recent years. Especially with Xi Jinping’s coming to power in 2013 and subsequent China’s overt wolf warrior diplomacy, a confrontational form of public diplomacy adopted by diplomats of the People’s Republic of China in the late 2010s, the Washington-Beijing dyad has become the more predominant axis within the tripolar conflict. Consequently discords have repeatedly emerged between both sides concerning cybersecurity, human rights, the Taiwan issue, trade dispute and technology theft. Therefore, China has apparently become the shaper of the new post-war international order, replacing Russia. According to Thomas Wright, the senior director for strategic planning at the USA National Security Council, with neo-authoritarianism on the rise, the old assumptions undergirding a common set of Western values just will not do (Wright, 2018, p. 1). In addition, with the advent of globalization and the increasingly decisive role of intergovernmental and transnational organizations in the 21st century, conflicts among the major powers began to occur on numerous international occasions.Apart from the foreign policy executives and the different type of political systems, realistic factors such as the domestic environment and external dynamics have constituted the most critical analytical factors for understanding the US–China–Russia relationships. Examples include America’s abrupt policy shift from domestic issues to global anti-terrorism since 9/11, 2001, Russia’s hedge and support for Syria and Iran and China’s significant increase in its voice and influence in the international system. These led to the belief that Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye’s “interdependence theory” is obsolete and inapplicable to the new realities. In their opinions, the interdependency theory in international relations represents a buffer between the concepts of dependence and independence in relations between and among nation states in the international milieu. On the basis of his constant observations, Hall argues that nowadays the tripolar’s relationship is more like a combative pattern than an interdependent mode. In Hall’s opinion, many observers would agree that the international system is in a state of transition at this time, gravitating towards a multipolar order. China has risen to global prominence on the various measures of hard and soft power. National actors like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are regional powers. The current state may become either some form of US–Chinese bipolarity or a “messy” multipolar/multilevel/multilateral order (p. 13, Chapter 1). However, China is selective in its use of force as a bid to promote/maintain multipolarity, and hence prevent others’ infringement of its position (Wang and Song, 2016, p. 60). I do not fully agree with the multipolarity view, because no other country has emerged yet to challenge the predominant position of the Big Three (the USA, China and Russia), even though the EU, Japan, India and the UK are not negligible powers.The strategic triangulation of the US–China–Russia interrelationships began in the 1960s and 1970s against the background of the Cold War, when the mutually hostile and militarily confrontational model prevailed. Thanks to several subsequent prominent leaders’ deliberations and foresight, among them Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy E. Carter, Mao Zedong, Ronald W. Reagan, Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Boris N. Yeltsin, great power relations incrementally returned to détente and moderation in the 1990s and at the turn of the new century. In Hall’s view, the resilient strategic triangle dynamic is playing an important role in ushering in a multipolar order; however, Beijing and Moscow use their own bilateral relationship and their ties with other players to counter Washington’s influence (p. 20–21, Chapter 2). As for China, multi-lateral initiatives and regional associations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have become a frontline vis-à-vis US-led alliances. These include the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (the Five Eyes), the Australia, UK, the USA (AUKUS), the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) between Australia, India, Japan and the USA, which reinforce the US power and help it consolidate and promote its Indo-Pacific Strategy. The two powers ─ the USA and China ─ are thus endeavoring to win over partners and engage in all-around competition.Though China is playing a limited role in shaping global norms and rules and its reputed role as a “price taker [1],” Loh, 2024, p. 4). However, according to the American government’s assessment, the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security is the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences (O’Rourke, 2024, p. 4). As a result, the adverse situation arising from taking an aggressive stance is that China’s trade and investment opportunities were at risk, because China’s leaders only wanted the benefits of a modern economy, but were not willing to create a more open society (Haass, 2017, p. 88).China is becoming the main challenger as a global power in the economic and military spheres, and Russia sees itself as a great power in military strength and natural resources. As a result, the USA may be inadequate in leading the free world versus the neo-authoritarian world, because the former have practically bonded with many regional national actors to grow their international prominence. For that matter, in Part II, Hall reconsiders agency and context in the foreign affairs of the great powers, especially the domestic stimuli in redirecting their diplomatic policies and external discourse. Over the years, China’s implementation of Marxist-Leninist thought, its dream of becoming a superpower, and Xi’s strong leadership, complete with Sino-Russian military cooperation and the Xi-Putin’s personal closeness have further fractured and intensified the triad’s resultant hostility and collisions. One reason is that none of the parties are willing to give in or acknowledge the other side’s political institutions and primacy. In addition, the trilateral sides have been engaging in tit-for-tat in negotiating and in resolving issues such as human rights, economic models, domestic conflicts, energy security, climate change and Russian invasion of Ukraine. Each of these, whether domestic or external, may trigger severe diplomatic and military disputes. From the perspective of the USA, the Sino-Russian partnership poses a “very serious problem”. Public sentiment within the two US axes of the strategic triangle complements and perhaps even reinforces views in the governmental sphere (p. 76, Chapter 6).In the concluding part, Hall makes an appeal to governments of all nations to collaborate to tackle numerous challenges and crises. He recommends this especially because he sees global powers continuing to trend towards the non-western world, and because the world of today looks a lot less like the world of the late 20th century (p. 128, Chapter 8). In his view, to avert conflicts and confrontations, the Big Three should exercise restraints and enhance dialogue and communication in handling the international issues. The dominant factor in the future is that domestic concerns appear to be rising to the fore in great power politics. They will probably become the major variables in transforming the relationship among the major powers. Of special note, nowadays, all countries have come to recognize that the future competition among countries will happen in the domains of high-tech, military, culture and values. The Russia–Ukraine War is central to all these domains, although, from Russia’s perspective, this unpopular aggression is nothing more than a dynamic squabble with once brotherly Ukraine (Kortunov, 2019, p. 27).In the introduction, Hall tells the reader that the book is primarily for students, scholars and practitioners of international relations, international affairs and foreign policy (p. xv, preface). I have found the book to be a professional monograph dedicated to analyzing the current evolution of the relationship between the USA, China and Russia, with detailed documents, numerous case studies and eclectic subjects. However, international relations are changing rapidly and are tough and unpredictable. Hall cannot make a reasonable prediction where the tripolar relationship will be redirected, but he again reflects on the key hot spots such as NATO’s eastward expansion, issues of Georgia and Ukraine, which will trigger an escalating international situation.This book seemed to me to be too conservative and hesitant in determining the role of the European Union and NATO in the Russia-Ukraine War. In addition, it does not employ visible cases to cast light on how the domestic environment of the USA affects the presidential election and the USA foreign relations with particular countries. In addition, Hall’s proposing structure still matters in international affairs, which obscures whether the international organizations or the rectangular political, military and economic structure among the three powers matter most in affecting the imminent trends and events. Furthermore, there is also a lack of in-depth discussion on how the Syrian issue and the Iranian issue impact the international situation, which can probably become the most potential Grey Rhino incidents to profoundly influence the international context.

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