China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia

Military Review, Jan-Feb, 2009 by David A. Anderson

CHINA RISING: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia, David C. Kang, Columbia University Press, New York, 2007, 296 pages, $24.95.

Whether China's emergence as a global power can peacefully find a place in East Asia and the world is a major issue in today's international political environment. Given the European historical experience and the balance-of-power model, many believe China cannot rise peacefully. Kang writes a refreshing, persuasive, and provocative book stating otherwise. He emphasizes that from a realist perspective, China's rise should already be provoking balancing behavior by its neighbors; however, its rise has generated little of that response. East Asian states are not balancing China; they are accommodating it, because China has not sought to translate its dominant position into conquest of its neighbors. They do not see China's relationship with Taiwan as an indicator of how it would behave toward the rest of the region. More often than not, to promote stability and harmony, China has repeatedly resolved territorial disputes with its neighbors on less than advantageous terms and even signed declarations prohibiting the use of force to settle rival claims.

East Asia states view China's reemergence as the gravitational center of East Asia more as an opportunity than a threat--the rightful natural state of regional equilibrium--and they are rapidly increasing cultural, economic, and diplomatic ties with China to take full advantage of this quickly emerging situation. Kang highlights the huge market China's rise has created for its neighbors, facilitating their economic development. In fact, based on the notion that China poses no military threat and that it seeks to prosper economically along with its neighbors, EastAsian governmental regionalism has grown dramatically in the past few decades (e.g., forming the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Association of South East Asian Nations).

Accompanying these emerging relationships are regional foreign policies more aligned with China than the United States. U.S. diplomatic and military presence in East Asia has significantly diminished with the regional rise of China. The author does not see a strong China as a threat to U.S. regional interests, pointing to a relatively aligned China-U.S. economic and foreign policy toward East Asia. However, he cautions that as the U.S. and Japan shape their views on China and translate them into foreign policy, military balancing between China, the U.S., and Japan will adversely affect the region as a whole and cause it to become increasingly unstable.

Kang soundly supports and articulates his thoughts in a logical and convincing manner. The book is well laid out and easy to read, and its concepts are easy to grasp. Whether you agree with the author's reasoning and conclusions or not, the book is well worth the read for the superb analysis of individual countries within East Asia and their perspectives and pursuits with China.

LTC David A. Anderson, USMC, Retired, Ph.D., Fort Leavenworth, Kansas