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Power and its distribution have always been the central themes of international law, yet international lawyers have paid limited attention to the correlation between power shifts and legal change. Notably, international law effectively operates when balance of power is sustained. With this qualification, this paper examines the relationship of international law with the change in power distribution, arguing that international law should proactively attend to power in order to contribute to the peaceful reconfiguration of the international system. Furthermore, this paper explores the mechanism of power shift being transmitted to law shift and specifically adduces the process and effectiveness of hegemonic international law change centered on UNCLOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates the evolving defense cooperation between India and Japan in the context of the strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly considering China's rise. The existing literature recognizes China's increasing influence as a significant factor in India-Japanese security cooperation, but tends to overlook the dynamics behind India's shifting stance. The study reveals that India initially hesitated to actively engage in anti-China security cooperation with Japan until the mid-2010s, but later adopted a more proactive partnership. An analysis of policy documents, political speeches, and government records attributes India's initial reluctance to its commitment to non-alignment and strategic autonomy, its desire to balance relations with both China and Japan, and its domestic political priorities favoring economic development over military expansion or strategic alliances. However, growing concerns over China's assertiveness, military modernization, a change in political leadership, and the Quad's development as a regional security platform have prompted India's attitude shift. The research's recommendations not only offer a roadmap for India, Japan, and other Indo-Pacific countries with deep economic ties to China, but also help combat China's military threats to contribute to regional stability and security, address common challenges, and foster a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indo-Pacific region has become a central focus of great power competition. Not surprisingly, a rising China seeks to play an important, if not a leading role in the transformation of Asia's present regional order. The United States, meanwhile, as the unipole, has strong incentives to prevent the rise of a peer competitor. Facing certain structural and domestic constraints, China is disinclined to resort to the strategy of violent revision or subversion historically pursued by previous rising powers. Instead, China has pursued a gradual change of the existing regional order through a combination of internal balancing and external reassurance strategies. Specifically, China's quest for great power status in the region, particularly in response to the Indo-Pacific strategy adopted by the United States since the Trump administration, has prompted its proactive shift to counterbalance the US' vision of order in the region. This paper argues that the balance of power and the balance of alignment constitute two key variables that affect the prospect of Sino-US competition for a preferable regional order. Beijing's balancing strategies have significantly enhanced its economic and military capabilities, reducing the gap with the United States on the one hand and attracted certain regional states to join China-led regional initiatives on the other. However, owing to the complex balancing dynamics in the region and the agency of small and middle powers, the balance of alignment supports neither American nor Chinese dominance of Asia. Contrary to the 'new Cold War' narrative, the contest for order does not entail dividing the region into two rival blocs, but rather creating certain overlapping groupings and coalitions led by the two great powers. It consequently also signifies that the current order transition under a new bipolarity will be prolonged and relatively stable compared to the Cold War bipolarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s economic resurgence augurs the possibility of a recalibration in the global balance of power. Many contend that this process is already underway in East Asia – specifically in relation to the South China Sea. In other parts of the world, China’s growing footprint is discernible through infrastructure projects, under Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. Does China leverage its economic power to realise its interests by forcing smaller nations to accept conditions and agreements which are not in the latter’s interests? This paper examines whether evidence to this effect is visible through a case study of Sri Lanka. The island’s geographic location – astride the Indian Ocean Sea Lanes of Communication – continues to draw the attention of regional and extra-regional powers. Sri Lanka’s constraints in size and poor pace of economic development also grants leeway for India (the regional hegemon) and China to leverage bilateral ties in their interest. Is there evidence to suggest that China has utilised port infrastructure to realise its national interests at the expense of Sri Lanka? Or, has Sri Lanka managed to thread a fine line between the two Asian powers: the neighbouring regional hegemon – India; and the resurgent great power – China? Does the truth lie somewhere in between? This article delves into these questions by examining the approaches and stances which Sri Lanka has adopted towards both nations, particularly during President Gotabaya Rajapakse’s government, from 2019 leading up to the end of 2021. By doing so, it aims to shed light on how Sri Lanka handled bilateral ties with both Asian powers as well as the degree of Sino-Indian competition visible within the island’s port infrastructure landscape. It concludes that the decisions reached with regard to port infrastructure projects represent a mixed picture. A key finding is the ability of domestic interest groups to shape Sri Lanka’s foreign policy during this period, which has significantly dented the island’s ties with other regional allies such as Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As researchers suggested, there is no way back for transatlantic politics; it has suffered severe setbacks that cannot be undone in recent years. Although the Biden win promises opportunities for EU-US cooperation, the EU's drive for strategic autonomy would not turn a halt given that the great leap forward for European policymakers and strategists would be to acknowledge that Europe's "autonomy" is actually in the transatlantic interests. Nevertheless, the transatlantic partnership is torn from a "thickening" tie that has bound the US and EU together for decades. Consequently, President Biden's transatlantic strategy to retie would undoubtedly pose challenges for European relations with China. The United States is increasingly intent on decoupling its economy and its technology sector from China as part of the new cold war cliché between the two. Nevertheless, the EU-China partnership has been working closely for the past few decades, and China's market has a great appeal to the world. The time has come for the EU to consider how to survive the turmoil of US-China decoupling caused by the two superpowers' agendas. This paper analyzes the critical transformation in light of not only the politics of today but also the structural trends in the global balance of power between the US and China. And explains the reasons why the pitfalls of US-China decoupling shape the dynamics of European ties with China in the last decade. This paper focuses on the issues: i) The EU's alterations of the EU-China partnership dealing with an increasingly assertive China; ii) US and China on the path to inevitable economic decoupling; iii) The EU drives for strategic autonomy aiming at enhancing the competitiveness in the high tech sector; iv) EU's ambition of safeguarding and reinvigorating cooperation over climate change and global health through the engagement of EU-China Investment Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to the issues of economic and political integration of the Asia-Pacific region (APR) in the context of a power balance shift in East Asia. Owing to a violent (military) way of resolving country's contradiction, used in the past, is not acceptable in the modern world. So, now, major actors of international relations choose a strategy of integration from the perspective of their national interests (i.e. on favorable terms) instead of a confrontation strategy. When China rise and successfully handles the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and actively makes "the Belt and Road Initiative" come true, now, looks around Asia, most countries in Asia such as ASEAN still incline to choose to deepen economic relations with China at present, for example "ASEAN Framework for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)," it makes China will continue to operate regional integration in Asia to increase their influence. China will be able to transform its economic power into military might. That is, economic integration will has spillover effects on politics or security. China, as the most rapidly developing economy and one of the most active political actors of the region, is in the focus of the paper. In this report, it is proposed to analyze the policy of the three leading actors, that's American, China and Russia in terms of their approach to the integration processes in Asia-Pacific region, in particular, the impact of China's rise and Russia - China relations, China-US relations and their prospects in the nearest future on changing the power balance. Thus, this article will apply two theories, theory of balance of power and integration theory, sums to assess changes in Asia-Pacific power. China-US relations are analyzed from the perspective of their possible strategic rivalry. China-Russia relations are overviewed against the background of Russia's "turn to the East". So, we can find that, integration, especially economic integration in APR, may be a strategic tool for internal and external balancing. America and Russia, especially America, will necessary to seek cooperation partners for shifting balance of power in East Asia, owing to China-US strategic rivalry and China-Russia strategic partnership. Most second-tier Asia-Pacific countries, like Taiwan, Vietnam, India and etc., have to maneuver between the United States and China. The prospects for regional integration of the APR look unclear against the backdrop of this confrontation of world powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on the linkage and leverage theory, the paper aims at reviewing critical issues related to China's economic, cultural and political expansion in EU's Central and Eastern member states. Through the "17+1" format and "One Belt, One Road" initiative, China became an assertive competitor in Europe, acting on a "divide et impera" strategy through bilateral or multilateral negotiations, undermining the EU's cohesion. Also, the European Union is facing a movement of illiberal, nationalist or populist policies that occurred in the former Warsaw Pact countries which are trying to avoid Brussels' norms and therefore they are opened to other alternatives. In order to find out a pattern or relevant arguments for advancing a set of competing hypotheses or scenarios, a structured analytical technique will be applied, respectively "indicators or signposts of change", for the following countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. In this regard, the key indicators will refer to: economic factors, the strength of the civil society, the force of the opposition or of pro-European parties and the degree of Europeanization in the analysed states. Thereby, the article will advance three important questions: 1) Is EU in competition with China and how the confrontation takes place? 2) Which are the EU's countries more likely to strengthen the partnership with China? 3) Which are the EU's own linkages and leverages in its Eastern part and how they can be used for stopping China's advancement? The results will strengthen the idea that China became a real competitive actor, trying to expand in Europe, where the peripheral ex-communist states have been placed in the core of the confrontation. Also, the article will demonstrate that EU facing a real economic rival has the capabilities to stand up and therefore act as an international power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threat perception has been central in the field of international relations, especially in the literature of states' alliances and conflict solutions. International Relations (IR) balance of power and alliance theories have largely equated "threat" to "power." A standard narrative in Singapore's foreign policy toward great powers is its reluctance to choose between both. Singapore's immediate neighbor, Indonesia, the largest archipelagic country in the world, has voiced similar inclinations. Studies have concentrated on the larger power threat interpretation and their responses toward the change in the international order arising from China's growth or the rise of terrorism but rarely examining issues from small states' point of view. According to Realists' logic, small states possess little capacity to influence the fate of their own survival; therefore, they can only choose between balancing and band wagoning. Threat perceptions play an intermediary role in connecting the external environment and state foreign policy behavior. Hence, the study of threat perception is critical as it influences states foreign policies regarding issues ranging from defense spending to states' level of commitment toward international multilateral cooperation. IR scholars have examined how states form threat perceptions from various psychological and non-psychological perspectives. However, these factors are often studied independently. This paper argues that Gestalt principles of threat perception offer a more thorough analysis of Singapore's threat perception by bridging the gap between realist and constructivist studies by demonstrating how Singapore's threat perception as a small state is magnified due to its unique geographical position and its shared cultural affinity with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how Chinese elites understand the proper role of their nation vis-à-vis its 'periphery' and how this self-understanding shapes Chinese strategic policy toward neighboring states. It makes two specific arguments. First, after 2012 China began to understand itself as responsible for actively managing and shaping its periphery. Xi Jinping has overseen an evolution in China's neighborhood strategy that has changed from mere engagement to proactive efforts to shape regional order. Efforts to achieve this goal have come primarily through: institution-building and regional integration via the 'Belt and Road Initiative', strategic partnerships, normative binding, and developmental statecraft. Second, managing newly emerged power asymmetries between China and its neighbors is now a crucial task of Beijing's peripheral policy. The emerging China-led regional order relies on norms that are hierarchical, transactional, and reflect status distinctions. Xi Jinping's neighborhood strategy rests on an asymmetric bargain: respect China's core interests in exchange for benevolence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that China is seeking to establish a balance of power favourable to its interests in South Asia and the adjoining waters to curtail India's rise. Military balancing, economic engagement, and the new multi-regional connectivity project – the "Belt and Road Initiative" – are the key components of China's policy against India. By roping in the South Asian and the Indian Ocean states, China has effectively deployed the "string of pearls" strategy with an express purpose to box-in India within the region so that it cannot challenge China's primacy in Asia and beyond. To neutralise Beijing's assertive activities, New Delhi has evolved its Asia policy with a clear motive to enhance its ties with the key Indo-Pacific states – the US, Japan, Australia, and the Southeast Asian countries – so that it could develop counter-leverages against China and simultaneously manage its rise as a major Indo-Pacific power. Given that both India and China are vying for similar power position in the same region, it is highly likely that their clashing interests might intensify their power competition in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the prospects of U.S.-China relations in the area of human rights? Skeptics maintain that human rights is no longer an issue between the United States and China. A traditional understanding of U.S.–China relations ignores the role of norms, while the constructivist perspective recognizes their independent effects. This paper links the traditional understanding of power politics between the United States and China with the study of constructivist norm research. The three findings of constructivist norm theories are relevant and applied to predict the status of human rights in U.S.-China relations: the historical construction of norms, the long-term and multifaceted effects of norms, and the persistence of norms. Based on these theoretical predictions, it is expected that, although convergence is not completely impossible, the past dynamic of competition and confrontation will continue and human rights will still be a contentious issue in U.S.-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central Asia, the hub of natural resources, has been the battleground of international power politics among the big powers since long. In order to have influence in the region, the Russian and the British Empires indulge in the "Great Game". However, it ended with the collapse of the Russian empire. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 created an unexpected power vacuum in Central Asia followed by a fierce competition between the big three, Russia, China and US. This competition is commonly known as "The New Great Game" in the present day international politics. The rich energy resources are usually considered the main reason of the renewed interests in the region and provide principal motivation for Russia, China and US. However, the role of energy resources is usually overstated. This paper will identify which other factors along with energy resources should be considered in order to have a broader and comprehensive understanding of the present Geo-political scenario in the Central Asia. Using the Neo-Realist approach, this paper will first analyze the significance of the Central Asian states, how they provoke strategic competition between great powers and how pipeline politics translate it. Finally, the paper will analyses the competing interests of Russia, China and US and the strategies adopted by each for the achievements of its objectives. It will be concluded by stating that how Russia, China and US struggle to attain, keep and enhance power and that energy resources are just a mean to this supreme objective. It will also conclude by asserting that although the great powers behave aggressively and self-interestedly they may find a minimum degree of cooperation to tackle common concerns such as a growing radical Islamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"It was the rise of Athens and the fear that it instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable" as Thucydides famously stated. But are we destined to hear echoes of "Carthago delenda est" [Carthage must be destroyed] from Beijing and Washington across the Pacific? With the tension notably on the rise in the issue-specific domains of the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula, there is cause to delve deeper into the contemporary 'Thucydides Trap', as expounded by Graham Allison. This paper will focus on the latest developments of the ongoing Korean Peninsula Nuclear Crisis, post Six-Party Talks, as an issue-specific domain to evaluate the changing power dynamic between an established and a rising power. Here the Thucydides Trap and the challenges presented by policy makers in both China and the USA make special reference to the danger of being plunged into a hegemonic conflict. This analysis covers two trajectories: 1) following the conservative approach - balance of power and conditions of hegemony; and 2) concerning a balance of hierarchies - in which the two hierarchies run parallel to each other. Due to China's rising power in both military and economic fields, it simultaneously presages the relative decline of American power projection. Allison also reconfirms that an established power, in this case the USA, is challenged by a rising power, personified by China, concludes that the likelihood of war has substantially increased. Despite the fact of their growing geopolitical rivalry, both acknowledge the calculus of falling into the trap and realize that a major conflict would devastate their geopolitical positions. Put more directly, finding the great escape from this trap remains the central issue in the contemporary world, raising the conceptionally challenging question as to whether Allison's theoretical construction is heuristically sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to present a framework for understanding the impact of China's rise on the established international order with a special focus on the contradictions and dilemmas facing both China and the order around it. It suggests heuristic insights from two Chinese cultural and linguistic metaphysics in order to denote the dynamic and interactive relationship between the rise of China and the existing order in terms of both opportunities and challenges. The authors argue that both China and the existing order have been going through periods of 'sleeping in the same bed with different dreams', and now they are in the stage of 'riding tiger' in which both sides face dilemmas in their complicated and complex relationship. The paper concludes that the rise of China and the existing order will continue to be intertwined in a dialectic of waxing and waning, and flux and reflux. In order for each to find a regional and global role which the other will accept and support both sides will have to go through a considerable period of struggle, tension and adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security relations of states have always been conducted and observed through a realist lens, i.e. power politics, military alliances or competitions. The last two decades have changed dimensions of state politics in a profound way. The phenomena of globalization and war on terror with subsequent shifts in economic relations among states of different region are bound to have effect on Chinese security policy as well. This paper aims to understand the nexus between questions of traditional and non-traditional security in Chinese policy of cooperation. The regional relationship of China with its neighbours has been contentious and reserve in past. However, since the 1990s, the dynamics of socio-economic and political environment in East Asia is also changing. It is thus necessary to analyze regional and bilateral security cooperation of China comprehensively. This paper therefore explains it evaluates policy coordination through bilateral and multilateral channels against the background of overall security-political relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taiwan Strait has often been referred to as one of the world's most dangerous hotspots and many dire predictions have been made about a military conflict between mainland China and Taiwan, likely involving the United States. Yet, despite several crises in the Taiwan Strait and numerous war speculations, there has been no major armed conflict between Beijing and Taipei since the 1950s. How do we explain the puzzle that an expected war across the Taiwan Strait did not happen after all? This paper first examines the explanations based on military balance of power. Having found the realist/rationalist explanations less convincing, however, this study explores the explanatory power of the 'ethnicity' factor. It suggests that when the Chinese society is no longer divided by ideological differences, the 'ethnicity' may provide a more convincing explanation of why a military conflict has not happened in the Taiwan Strait in the past four decades. This paper also considers several counterarguments, including the neo-liberal argument of economic integration as a driving force for peace in the age of globalization. The paper concludes with a discussion of some policy implications resulting from the 'ethnic peace' thesis and proposes that when actively promoted by the both sides, the Chinese ethnic identity is likely to be the most important strategic guarantee of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for many years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the concept of 'soft power', popularized by the work of Joseph Nye, has gained currency in both China and Taiwan. This paper explores how the Chinese and Taiwanese understand soft power and its sources, and how their understanding differs from Nye's formulation. It discusses why this foreign concept has become so salient in the Chinese and the Taiwanese discourse. It also examines the impact of this concept on the external policies of China and Taiwan. The paper concludes by pointing out the limitations of the concept of soft power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Cold War, the international arena has witnessed two concurrent worldwide trends. One is the gradual prevalence of universalism under the banner of human civilization; the other is the gradual revival of nationalism globally under exactly the same heading. Both trends are evident in China, a country which in the twenty-first century is perceived universally as a rising nation. However, does Chinese nationalism necessarily pose a threat to the world? By examining two debates on the Chinese intellectual response towards Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations in the early twenty-first century, this paper investigates the status of Chinese nationalism. It questions whether it is a fixed set of ideas embraced by a solid entity, or whether it possesses multiple layers with dual elements contributing to both security and insecurity internationally. The paper argues that three separate nationalist processes are occurring concurrently but independently of each other: the construction of civic nationalist values; the development of an international relations strategy assigning responsible power to China; and the detection of alleged anti-Chinese conspiracies. The effect of the first two would be to encourage regional peace, and they could offset fervent nationalist expression. A somewhat counter-intuitive result of Chinese nationalism might be that it also becomes a stabilizing force within and outside China's borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much talk in recent years about an emerging EU-China axis that challenges the United States in a new strategic triangle. The EU-China strategic partnership, which was declared in 2003, suggests that both sides are gaining global influence as a new kind of superpower that seeks to avoid the bloody conflict that characterized the Cold War. Rather than discuss the contours of this new geopolitical axis, this essay argues that EU-China relations are shifting the meaning of security in an emerging arena of global symbolic politics. It analyzes the symbolic politics of EU-China relations through a close reading of two sets of documents: (1) official policy papers from the European Commission and the PRC's State Council, and (2) European think-tank working papers on China policy. It argues that these documents write the narrative of EU-China relations in ways that limit discussion to a specific narrow range of topics. After outlining Europe's approach to the rise of China, it examines how language politics guides China's engagement with the EU. Then it explores how European think tanks follow the concept of 'Europeanization' to frame both how the EU seeks to transform China, and how China policy can help transform the EU. This shows how the rhetorical form of often ambiguous official pronouncements is key in the construction of the content of EU-China relations. The essay concludes that although EU-China relations are getting stronger, predictions of an EU-China axis are over-blown in the sense of being an action to be completed sometime in the indefinite future - 'future imperfect'. Yet while EU-China relations are unlikely to construct a shared sense of a Eurasian self, the major legacy of recent EU-China ties is likely to be found in the negative identity politics of creating the US as the shared Other. This new global symbolic politics will have a serious impact on the US's concrete relations with China and the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neo-Gramscian approach has become popular within academic debates to theorize processes of global neoliberal convergence. But, it has also been challenged in the context of the ever more pronounced regionalizing tendencies of the current multipolar global order. This is especially so with the rise of China which introduces an alternative logic to regional social order formation processes from a typical neoliberal capitalist social order convergence. This paper argues, however, that a Gramscian approach can precisely account for such regional social order formation processes through the concept of regional historical blocs. This is demonstrated through a case study of the social order shaping effects that a Cross-Strait historical bloc forged between China's ‘contender state’-wielding elite bureaucracy and Taiwan's ascendant social forces has had on fostering Taiwan's internationalization toward China. This illustrates that, in addition to a broader global social order convergence process, a neo-Gramscian approach is equally useful to explain similarly defined regional social order convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2011, the United States of America (U.S.) adopted the "pivot to Asia" (also known as "return to Asia") foreign policy. In order to provide a critique of this apparent policy change, this paper has two aims. First, we will contextualize such policy agenda against the Anglo-American strategic culture of "containment" as a strand of geopolitical realism and a foreign policy practice against communism. Second, by providing a case study on the changing relations between the Union of Myanmar (Burma), the People's Republic of China and the United States of America, we will characterize U.S. containment and China's counter-containment strategies through the lens of Suntzu's Art of War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Soviet Union's fall China and United States lost a dangerous foe in East Asia, and it changed enormously the balance of power in this region, transforming the multipolar distribution of power existing previously into a bipolar. In other words, since 1991 China and United states are the only great powers in East Asia. To improve its relative position in the balance of power, the Chinese government has invested substantially on modernizing its armed forces. The issue of this paper is the influence of the Chinese military modernization on regional balance of power, focusing especially in military inventories e its means of use (asymmetrical tactics of anti-access and area denial), mostly on maritime domain. It drives us to the central question of that research: what is the influence of Chinese military modernization on the distribution of power in East Asia. The method utilized is the case study – structured and focused comparison. The comparative has a synchronic approach, in other words are considered the values of variables in only one moment. One concludes that China's military modernization has changed substantially the balance of power in East Asia, favoring the Chinese position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the National Defense Strategies of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in order to verify how the four countries evaluate the strategic landscape of this century, especially regarding the balance of power between the Great Powers, their immediate geographical surroundings and their relationship with the US. This work addresses specifically the similarities and differences among them and how these differences reflect in their respective defense policies. Among the four cases, the Brazilian one will be in especial focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘rise of China’ is proving to be one of the most consequential developments of the early 21 century One of the key questions it raises is about the impact this historically unprecedented process will have on the East Asian region in particular and the world more generally. Will Chinese policy makers will be able to translate the country’s growing material importance into other forms of political power and influence? Equally importantly, will Chinese elites be ‘socialised’ into the practices and norms of extant institutions, or will they attempt to redefine them to further Chinese foreign policy goals? This paper explores these questions by initially looking at the overall historical context in which East Asian regionalisation has occurred, before considering the operation of some of the more important regional institutions. It is suggested that China’s ability to offer regional leadership is constrained both by its own security policies―which are seen as increasingly threatening by many of its neighbours―and by the actions of the USA, which is trying to reassert its own claims to regional leadership. While the outcome of this process is inconclusive, it helps us to understand the more general dynamics reshaping the international system as a result of the emergence of new centres of international power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite emergent trends of geo-economic integration between nation-states, the role of realist-driven geopolitical calculation appears highly enduring. This paper explores the potential contradictions between state-centric geopolitical concerns and transnational geo-economic formation through an exploration of China-US tensions over Taiwan, a territory of indeterminate geo-legal status and which China regards as its own province. I consider how the Taiwan Relations Act, a domestic public law of the US that frames US-Taiwan relations and has a major influence on East Asian geopolitics, could contradict emergent 'China region', and possibly even China-US, geo-economic integration. This is because the US-sustained arms sales to Taiwan rest on imagining and containing China as a 'threat', while geo-economic integration entails enrolling China as a strategic partner, if not an ally. Consequently, the Taiwan issue could stifle the enhancement of Sino-American relations at a historical juncture when the Chinese and American economies are more intertwined than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages the ongoing soft balancing debate by suggesting a new analytical framework for states’ countervailing strategies—a negative balancing model—to explain why states do not form alliances and conduct arms races to balance against power or threats as they previously did. Negative balancing refers to a state's strategies or diplomatic efforts aiming to undermine a rival's power. By contrast, positive balancing means to strengthen a state's own power in world politics. I argue that a state's balancing strategies are shaped by the level of threat perception regarding its rival. The higher the threat perception, the more likely it is for a state to choose positive balancing. The lower the threat perception, the more likely it is for a state to choose negative balancing. I suggest that the hegemon provides security as a public good to the international system in a unipolar world in which the relatively low-threat propensity of the system renders positive balancing strategies incompatible with state interests after the Cold War. Instead, states have employed various negative balancing strategies to undermine each other's power, especially when dealing with us primacy. China's negative balancing strategy against the United States and the us negative balancing strategy against Russia are two case studies that test the validity of the negative balancing model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the strategic hedging framework as a structural theory of interstate competition. Strategic hedging extends the logic of traditional balance of power theory in order to account for a wider range of foreign policy behavior, while maintaining a strong emphasis on structural incentives that critics found lacking in the soft balancing approach. We provide a four-step identification mechanism that allows the analyst to spot potential cases of strategic hedging and then to filter out behavior that is better categorized as hard balancing, normal diplomatic friction, or simple power maximization. We use the case of Chinese energy security strategy as an illustrative case study and employ the identification mechanism to demonstrate its viability as a strong example of strategic hedging. Given the importance of energy security within the context of Sino-American relations, this paper not only contributes to the development of new structural theory in international relations, it presents a new interpretation of an important policy issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]