China Superpower
China is a global superpower with a significant impact on geopolitics, economics, and trade. It is the world's most populous country and the second-largest economy, with a rapidly expanding influence in international affairs. China's geographic location, with access to both the Pacific Ocean and various land borders, contributes to its strategic importance and influence as a superpower.
6 Key excerpts on "China Superpower"
eBook - ePubThe Maritime Dimension of European Security
Seapower and the European Union
- B. Germond(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...China is still undoubtedly a land Power. Although physical geography does not prevent the development of China’s seapower, geopolitical (continental threats) and ideational (continental thinking) factors may well limit its growth. Kaplan reminds us that ‘since antiquity China has been preoccupied with the threat of land invasions [and only] with the collapse of the Soviet Union, such worries dissipated’ (Kaplan, 2009: 48), allowing China to devote more resources towards seapower and maritime projection. China’s growing maritime interests (such as controlling vital SLOCs) and regional ambitions (such as resolving the Taiwan issue according to Beijing’s terms, and the South China Sea and Senkaku/Diaoyu disputes) also require the development of naval power. The question remains whether any further development of China’s seapower would inevitably result in a confrontation with the US. In sum, whereas geography is only one factor among others that constrains seapower, states have tried not only to overcome geographical constraints but also to make the most of what geography could offer, hence the importance given to maritime geopolitics or geopower. Those considerations now apply to the EU, which is active in projecting material and normative power within its maritime margins and beyond (cf. chapters 8 – 10). Critical geopolitics: The sea and the battle of ideas Framed within post-structuralism, critical geopolitics seeks to research and unveil the link between the production of geographical knowledge (i.e. the spatialisation of world politics) and the power to define (i.e. the construction of ‘one’ world and ‘one’ truth and its naturalisation). Geraroíd Ó Tuathail and John Agnew, two pioneering scholars in the field, conceptualise geopolitics ‘as a discursive practice by which intellectuals of statecraft “spatialize” international politics in such a way as to represent it as a “world” characterized by particular types of places, people and dramas’ (1992: 192)...
- Huiyun Feng, Kai He, Huiyun Feng, Kai He(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...A geopolitical analysis – which considers the influence of geography on international politics – offers a more thorough interpretation. In calculating balances of power and assessing national interests, the geographical proximity of adversaries and allies as well as the locations of topographical and maritime features of critical strategic importance should not be ignored. Meanwhile, constructivism suggests that disputants would also explore non-military ways to manage and, perhaps even resolve through negotiation, disputes over small, remote, and uninhabited rocks and shoals. By contrast, geopolitics highlights the tremendous geostrategic importance of littoral areas – what Nicholas Spykman (1944) called the globe’s “rimland” regions. The centrality of these maritime areas is underscored by the critical importance of seaborne international trade: 90% of the world’s commerce is transported by ship and approximately half of this trade either terminates on the rim of, or traverses, the South China Sea. 5 Accordingly, one analysis describes the body of water as “both the fulcrum of world trade and the crucible of conflict” (Hayton 2014: xvi). This puts into sharper focus why the United States and China have come to view the South China Sea as center stage for their geopolitical maritime rivalry. US–China geopolitical rivalry The United States and China have not faced each other on the field of battle since 1953, and since 1972 have enjoyed generally cordial and cooperative relations along with a dramatic expansion of economic and diplomatic contact as well as military-to-military exchanges and people-to-people interactions. Nevertheless, multiple contentious disputes have emerged along with significant policy disagreements, especially since the end of the Cold War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a series of US–China political-military crises have occurred each raising the specter of escalation to the use of military force...
eBook - ePubChina's Rising Sea Power
The PLA Navy's Submarine Challenge
- Peter Howarth(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...2: THE GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT China – twenty-first-century perturbateur? As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, for the first time for two centuries China no longer confronts a major threat to her security on her land borders. As Robert Ross (1999; 2000: 170) has observed, China was the principal strategic beneficiary in East Asia of the evaporation of Soviet power. Wherever there had been Soviet influence in a third country in Asia, it was replaced by Chinese influence, whether on the Korean Peninsula where Chinese domination replaced Sino-Soviet rivalry or in Indochina where Moscow’s retreat enabled Beijing to re-establish its historic influence. This has resulted, according to Ross, in an East Asia dominated by two great powers, one continental and the other maritime: China dominates mainland East Asia while the United States dominates maritime East Asia. The only exception to this pattern is South Korea’s alliance with the United States which – until the Pentagon’s announced reduction of this number by a third over several years from the end of 2004 – has enabled Washington to station 36,000 troops on the East Asian continent (Rhem 2004). From the perspective of sea power theory, the question that now arises is whether, having re-established its former dominance over continental East Asia, China is displaying the natural tendency of continental powers to want to transform their continental pre-eminence into maritime dominance (Gray 1995: 72). This theory would suggest that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, China is in a position similar to that of France in 1793, Germany in 1905 and 1940, or the Soviet Union in 1945: pre-eminent continental powers in their respective regions, they found their aspirations to exercise uncontested regional hegemony frustrated by the great maritime powers of the era...
eBook - ePubGeopolitics and the Western Pacific
China, Japan and the US
- Leszek Buszynski(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3 The geopolitics of the South China Sea: China’s claim Introduction China’s move to sea power has elevated the strategic significance of the South China Sea, which has become the major axis of China’s geopolitical expansion in the Western Pacific. It has become a pivotal area for China’s strategy, which is intended to dislodge the US from the Western Pacific, to facilitate reunification with Taiwan and to achieve a dominant position in this area. The vehicle of this strategy is China’s navy, which, however, has been constricted by its limited access through the South China Sea and the claims of the ASEAN states. The implementation of this strategy demands that China achieve control over the South China Sea and the enforcement of China’s claim to the area. Initially, China laid claim to the South China Sea to forestall the claims of others interested in the area’s fishing and hydrocarbon resources. China moved deliberately and cautiously against the ASEAN claimants, the Philippines and Vietnam, in an attempt to edge them out. China’s behaviour changed, however, in line with the assertiveness it exhibited during and after the Global Financial Crisis when China resorted to more forceful harassment against the ASEAN claimants. As China redefined its ambitions and long-term goals under Xi Jinping, it pushed for space for its naval strategy in the Western Pacific in which case control over the South China Sea became vital. Once a maritime backwater that did not concern the great powers, the South China Sea has been elevated into prominence because of its geopolitical significance for China’s rivalry with the US. Expansion by stealth China views the South China Sea dispute as an issue in its relationship with the US that prevents it from attaining control over the area...
eBook - ePubChina and India
Asia's Emergent Great Powers
- Chris Ogden(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...INTRODUCTION: GREAT POWER AND THE RISE OF CHINA AND INDIA China and India’s contemporary rise to prominence will significantly impact upon geopolitics over the coming decades. Providing a comparative analysis of their shared emergence as great powers within the international system, this book evaluates the impact of Asia’s two largest powers upon the definition, delineation and nature of power politics. Focusing upon the factors integral to such a phenomenon (from both historical and theoretical perspectives), and through a wide-ranging analysis of our understanding/definition of great power, we will build up a comprehensive and detailed understanding of these two states’ past, contemporary and future global significance. With their world-leading economic prowess, mounting military expenditures and increasingly heard – and sought after – diplomatic voices, both China and India are resolutely on the rise. As a key dimension of present-day international politics, it is the shared emergence of these two immense states that is also of particular significance, especially their geographical presence within the same – if highly complex – world region that is Asia. Their simultaneous analysis therefore not only provides us with an appreciation of their similarities and differences as they endeavour to fulfil a common goal, but also helps us to determine what great power represents and symbolizes in the twenty-first century – a century that appears set to be largely Asia-dominated and Asia-centric. Within traditional Western paradigms, India and China are often expected to rise in much the same way as the current and previous great powers, primarily via the accumulation of traditional material and military measures. This volume strongly contends, however, that domestic political/cultural values and historical identities are central driving forces behind their mutual status ambitions and worldviews...
eBook - ePub- Hongyi Lai, Yiyi Lu, Hongyi Lai, Yiyi Lu(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...As a result, China’s growing power gave rise to the perception of a “China threat” among its weak neighbors. They worried that after China modernized Beijing would seek greater security by developing a sphere of influence in East Asia, a modern equivalent of the traditional tributary system. In response, while China became increasingly active in building a status as the region’s indispensable power, its diplomatic activism was supported by the good neighbor policy that aimed to explore common ground with Asian countries in both economic and security arenas and to convey the image of a responsible power willing to contribute to stability and cooperation in the region. Actively engaging with Asian neighbors by skillful economic and political diplomacy, China tried to reassure its Asian neighbors that in spite of its rising power status, China was to settle border disputes “through consultations and negotiations.” 49 At the same time, it worked hard to develop strategic partnerships and find common ground with Asian countries to resist pressures on market access and human rights issues from Western powers. 50 One development favorable to China was that it became an engine for economic growth for the Asia-Pacific region and that many Asian economies benefited greatly from their economic relations with China. Consequently, China dramatically increased its economic interactions with Asian-Pacific countries to foster its positive image. Indeed, China’s size and rapid growth helped establish it as a powerhouse in the region. While China’s economic growth had been viewed with trepidation in many Asian capitals, China’s surging economy has been welcomed by more and more Asian countries in recent years. For example, “ASEAN has gone from being the anti-China club to China’s partner in trade...
