China's Ascent

Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics

Robert S. Ross, Zhu Feng, Robert S. Ross, Zhu Feng

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780801474446
• eBook ISBN: 9780801456985
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Assessments of China's importance on the world stage usually focus on a single dimension of China's increasing power, rather than on the multiple sources of China's rise, including its economic might and the continuing modernization of its military. This book offers multiple analytical perspectives—constructivist, liberal, neorealist—on the significance of the many dimensions of China's regional and global influence.Distinguished authors consider the likelihood of conflict and peaceful accommodation as China grows ever stronger. They look at the changing position of China "from the inside": How do Chinese policymakers evaluate the contemporary international order and what are the regional and global implications of that worldview? The authors also address the implications of China's increasing power for Chinese policymaking and for the foreign policies of Korea, Japan, and the United States.

Contributors: Robert Art, Brandeis University; Avery Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania; G. John Ikenberry, Princeton University; Byung-Kook Kim, Korea University; Jonathan Kirshner, Cornell University; Jeffrey W. Legro, University of Virginia; Jack S. Levy, Rutgers University; Qin Yaqing, China Foreign Affairs University; Robert S. Ross, Boston College; Akio Takahara, University of Tokyo; Tang Shiping, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Wei Ling, China Foreign Affairs University; Zhu Feng, Peking University

Part I

STRUCTURE, POWER TRANSITIONS, AND THE RISE OF CHINA

CHAPTER 1

Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China

Jack S. Levy

Many scholars writing on the rise of China and its consequences for world politics in the twenty-first century attempt to ground their analyses in power transition theory.1 This is not surprising, given the theory’s emphasis on international hierarchies, differential rates of economic development, power shifts, the transformation of the international order, and the violent or peaceful means through which such transformations occur. I argue that applications of power transition theory to the rise of China are compromised by the failure to recognize both the theoretical limitations of power transition theory and the contextual differences between a potential Sino-American transition and past power transitions. I give particular attention to the theory’s focus on a single international hierarchy and its lack of a conceptual apparatus to deal with global-regional interactions, which are important because China is more likely to pose a threat to U.S. interests in East and Southeast Asia than to U.S. global interests, at least for many decades. I summarize power transition theory, identify logical problems in the theory and empirical problems in its application to systemic transitions of the past, and address the relevance of the theory for analyzing the rise of China and its impact on the emerging international order of the twenty-first century.

Power Transition Theory: A Summary

Although one can find elements of power transition theory throughout the long tradition of international relations theory in the West, it was Organski and then Gilpin who first constructed systematic theories of power transitions.2 Gilpin’s initial treatment was in many respects theoretically richer than Organski’s, but it was not followed by subsequent theoretical and empirical development, while Organski and subsequent generations of students went on to refine the theory, extend it to new empirical domains, and analyze its policy implications.3 Now, a half-century after Organski’s initial conception, power transition theory remains a thriving research program, its relevance enhanced by the end of the bipolar Cold War paradigm, the emergence of American hegemony, and the rise of China.

Organski developed power transition theory to correct for the deficiencies he saw in balance of power theory, as systematized by Hans Morgenthau and others.4 Organski rejected balance of power assumptions that equilibrium is the natural condition of the international system; that a parity of power promotes peace while a preponderance of power promotes war; and that concentrations of power generate counterbalancing coalitions and occasional counterhegemonic wars to restore equilibrium. He also argued that balance of power theory’s conception of power was excessively static, narrowly focused on military power and on the role of alliances in aggregating power against external threats, neglectful of the internal sources of national power, and insensitive to the importance of differential rates of growth among states.

Unlike balance of power theory’s assumptions that hegemonies rarely if ever form in international politics, Organski posits a hierarchical international system, with a single dominant power at the apex of the system and a handful of other great powers and larger numbers of middle and smaller powers. Organski and his colleagues emphasize that while the dominant power controls the largest proportion of resources in the system, it is not a hegemon because it lacks the coercive power to control the behaviors of all other actors. Dominant states can use their power, however, to create a set of global political and economic structures and to promote norms of behavior that enhance the stability of the system while at the same time advancing their own security and other interests.5

The system evolves with the rise and fall of states, their uneven growth rates driven primarily by changes in population, economic productivity, and the state’s political capacity to extract resources from society. Organski and his colleagues measure productivity in terms of GDP/capita. Their aggregate measure of power is the product of GDP and political capacity.6 If a great power increases in strength to the point that it acquires at least 80 percent of the power of the dominant state, it is defined as a “challenger” to the dominant state and to that state’s ability to control the international system.

The threat posed by a challenger is a function of the extent of its dissatisfaction with the existing international system. The dominant power, which plays a disproportionate role in setting up the system, is by definition a satisfied power. Most of the other great powers, and many middle and smaller states, benefit from the existing system and are satisfied states. They support the dominant state, ally with it,7 and help reinforce the international order that it created.8 One or two of the other great powers, along with many weaker states, may not share this satisfaction with the existing international system. They come to believe that the existing system, and the institutions and rules associated with it, provide a distribution of benefits that is unfair and that does not reflect their own power and expectations. Such states prefer to replace the existing system and its leadership. While most dissatisfied states lack the resources to ever pose serious threats to the dominant power and its system, the emergence of a dissatisfied great power might pose such a threat if it continues to grow in power.

A key proposition of power transition theory is that war is most likely when a dissatisfied challenger increases in strength and begins to overtake the dominant power.9 The probability of war is quite low before the challenger achieves parity, and it drops off sharply after the challenger has overtaken the dominant state and established itself as the new dominant power.

It is the combination of parity, overtaking, and dissatisfaction that leads to war, though power transition theorists have been inconsistent regarding the precise relationship among these key causal variables. In the most recent statement of the theory, it appears that dissatisfaction and parity each approximate a necessary condition for war between the dominant state and the challenger.10 The overtaking of the dominant state by a satisfied challenger will not lead to war (the U.S. overtaking Britain in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, for example),11 and a dissatisfied state will not go to war until it reaches approximate parity with the dominant state.12

The importance of satisfaction, for theory as well as for policy, is illustrated by a comparison between the Anglo-American transition at the end of the nineteenth century and the Anglo-German transition a decade or so later. Each involved overtaking and parity, but the first transition was peaceful and the second was not. The key difference—from the perspective of power transition theory—is that the United States shared British political and economic institutions, liberal democratic culture, and the British vision of the desirable political, economic, and legal international order. The U.S. was a satisfied state and believed that its interests could be served by a change in the hierarchy within that system rather than a replacement of that system with a new order. British leaders understood what kind of order the United States was likely to construct when it ultimately achieved a dominant position, and they were willing to accept a somewhat diminished role within that order. In the Anglo-German transition, however, Germany was politically, economically, and culturally different than Britain, and had a different conception of the desirable international order. Thus Germany was a dissatisfied state. British leaders understood this, and consequently they were willing to make fewer compromises and to accept greater risks of war rather than accept a peaceful transition to a different international order in which British interests would be poorly served.13

Another important theme in power transition theory is that once the demographic, economic, and political conditions for power transitions are in place, neither outside actors nor external shocks can significantly affect the process of transition. In addition, war has only a temporary impact on long-term growth rates.14 Societies recover relatively quickly from war, usually within a generation, a pattern that Organski and Kugler describe as the “Phoenix factor.” War has an impact on the probability of future war, however, by increasing the dissatisfaction of the defeated state.15

The near irreversibility of transitions reflects power transition theory’s conception of power. Given a certain population, political capacity, and state of technology, growth is basically endogenous, and in the long term market economies with an efficient distribution of resources tend to follow similar growth trajectories, one reflected by an S-shaped curve. Growth starts off slowly, accelerates rapidly during a period of technological change, and eventually settles into a pattern of more modest but sustained growth. Societies with higher political capacity grow more rapidly than states with lower political capacity (above a certain GDP/capita), but the differences in GDP/capita diminish once economies reach a level of sustained growth.

The central variable is population, which provides a resource pool that can be utilized for a variety of purposes, including economic development and the development of military capabilities. As Tammen et al. argue, “population is the sine qua non for great power status,” and “the size of populations ultimately determines the power potential of a nation.” When societies with similar populations are at different stages of their growth trajectories, one will be dominant. When two countries with similar political capacities reach similar stages of growth, the one with a substantially larger population will dominate. The most dangerous situation, in terms of the likelihood of a major war, is one in which a dominant state has already achieved a position of stable but modest growth and is being overtaken by a rapidly growing, dissatisfied country with a substantially larger population.16

A key assumption here is that of the three key components of national power, population is the least subject to rapid change, either naturally or through governmental manipulation. While governments can intervene economically to enhance productivity and politically to enhance political capacity, it is harder for them to affect population growth rates, particularly in the short term. Consequently, societies with high populations will eventually overtake states with smaller populations, and that there is nothing that the smaller country can to do avoid this outcome. Thus, population has a critical impact on power in the long term; economic growth has a large impact in the medium term; and political capacity has its greatest impact in the short term.

Power transition theory provides a straightforward explanation for the long great power peace after World War II: the United States has been the dominant power, no other state has come close to parity, and consequently there has been no great power war, or even a substantial threat of one. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that nuclear weapons have played a significant role in maintaining peace among the leading powers in the system, power transition theory argues that “the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not a remedy for conflict. . . . Overtakings, dissatisfaction, and nuclear weapons do not mix without serious consequences.”17

For power transition theory, the centrality of population, combined with endogenous growth theory and the hypothesis of convergence, has enormous implications for the Sino-American relationship. The substantial American advantage in economic productivity, defined in terms of GNP/capita, is only temporary, as is the current American dominance in the international system, given the fact that China’s population is four times larger than that of the United States. The question, according to power transition theory, is not whether China will eventually overtake the United States, since that is practically inevitable once China completes its modernization and moves up its growth trajectory,18 but rather when and with what consequences. Power transition theorists equivocate in their discussion of the timing of the transition, but not about the conditions determining whether the transition will be peaceful or warlike.

Power transition theorists argue that two of the three conditions for war (parity and overtaking) will be present in the U.S.-China relationship, and that the presence of nuclear weapons or other technologies will play a minor role at best in avoiding a catastrophic war. The key variable is the extent of China’s satisfaction with or grievances against an international order that the United States did much to shape and still has the power to influence. The primary determinants of Chinese satisfaction will be institutional similarity, economic interdependence, and American strategy. The more China adopts liberal democratic institutions, the greater its economi...

Table of contents

• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I Structure, Power Transitions, and the Rise of China
• Part II International Institutions and the Rise of China
• Part III Chinese Policymaking and the Rise of China
• Part IV Responding to the Rise of China
• Part V Conclusion