Obama and China's Rise

Obama and China's Rise
Author: Jeffrey A. Bader
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2012-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0815722435

"Future presidents will need to find the right balance in China policy, so as to maintain America's strength and watchfulness but not fall into the classic security dilemma, wherein each side believes that growing capabilities reflect hostile intent and responds by producing that reality. I believe that President Obama struck that balance." —From Obama and China's Rise In 2005, veteran diplomat and Asia analyst Jeffrey Bader met for the first time with the then-junior U.S. senator from Illinois. When Barack Obama entered the White House a few years later, Bader was named the senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council, becoming one of a handful of advisers responsible for formulating and implementing the administration's policy regarding that key region. For obvious reasons—a booming economy, expanding military power, and increasing influence over the region—the looming impact of a rising China dominated their efforts. Obama's original intent was to extend U.S. influence and presence in East Asia, which he felt had been neglected by a Bush administration fixated on the Middle East, particularly Iraq, and the war on terror. China's rise, particularly its military buildup, was heightening anxiety among its neighbors, including key U.S. allies Japan and South Korea. Bader explains the administration's efforts to develop stable relations with China while improving relationships with key partners worried about Beijing's new assertiveness. In Obama and China's Rise, Bader reveals what he did, discusses what he saw, and interprets what it meant—first during the Obama campaign, and then for the administration. The result is an illuminating backstage view of the formulation and execution of American foreign policy as well as a candid assessment of both. Bader combines insightful and authoritative foreign policy analysis with a revealing and humanizing narrative of his own personal journey.

Obama's Challenge to China

Obama's Challenge to China
Author: Chi Wang
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317086384

This book explores U.S.-China relations, the most important bilateral relationship in the world, under the leadership of President Barack Obama. Obama took office just as China’s rise to global power accelerated; his decisions set the stage for a new era in U.S.-China relations . In Part I, the book outlines Barack Obama’s own personal worldview and the backgrounds of the advisors that made up his China team, including Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, John Kerry, and Susan Rice. Part II chronologically details the major events in U.S.-China relations from 2009 to 2014, including such high-profile cases as Obama’s first China visit, the ’Pivot to Asia’, the story of blind lawyer Cheng Guangcheng, Xi Jinping’s rise to power, and Edward Snowden’s revelations on U.S. cyberespionage. Part III switches back to a topical organization, addressing Sino-U.S. relations and interactions with regards to various issues: economics, military relations, climate change, human rights, and multilateral cooperation in regional and international organizations such as the APEC, G20 and the United Nations. Finally, the book ends with timely suggestions for how to improve the U.S.-China relationship and ensure a peaceful future.

The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power

The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power
Author: Thomas J. Christensen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2015-06-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0393246612

“A standout . . . a balanced, informative, and highly intelligent guide to dealing with China.”—Fareed Zakaria Many see China as a rival superpower to the United States and imagine the country’s rise to be a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues against this zero-sum vision. Instead, he describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a compelling new assessment of U.S.-China relations that is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the globalized world. The China Challenge shows why China is nowhere near powerful enough to be considered a global “peer competitor” of the United States, but it is already strong enough to destabilize East Asia and to influence economic and political affairs worldwide. Despite China’s impressive achievements, the Chinese Communist Party faces enormous challenges. Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party’s decisions on issues like maritime sovereignty disputes, global financial management, control of the Internet, climate change, and policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. China benefits enormously from the current global order and has no intention of overthrowing it; but that is not enough. China’s active cooperation is essential to global governance. Never before has a developing country like China been asked to contribute so much to ensure international stability. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will falter, but even if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated. Analyzing U.S.-China policy since the end of the Cold War, Christensen articulates a balanced strategic approach that explains why we should aim not to block China’s rise but rather to help shape its choices so as to deter regional aggression and encourage China’s active participation in international initiatives that benefit both nations.

Global China

Global China
Author: Tarun Chhabra
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815739176

The global implications of China's rise as a global actor In 2005, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration expressed the hope that China would emerge as a “responsible stakeholder” on the world stage. A dozen years later, the Trump administration dramatically shifted course, instead calling China a “strategic competitor” whose actions routinely threaten U.S. interests. Both assessments reflected an underlying truth: China is no longer just a “rising” power. It has emerged as a truly global actor, both economically and militarily. Every day its actions affect nearly every region and every major issue, from climate change to trade, from conflict in troubled lands to competition over rules that will govern the uses of emerging technologies. To better address the implications of China's new status, both for American policy and for the broader international order, Brookings scholars conducted research over the past two years, culminating in a project: Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World. The project is intended to furnish policy makers and the public with hard facts and deep insights for understanding China's regional and global ambitions. The initiative draws not only on Brookings's deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also on the tremendous breadth of the institution's security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. Areas of focus include the evolution of China's domestic institutions; great power relations; the emergence of critical technologies; Asian security; China's influence in key regions beyond Asia; and China's impact on global governance and norms. Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World provides the most current, broad-scope, and fact-based assessment of the implications of China's rise for the United States and the rest of the world.

The China-Pakistan Axis

The China-Pakistan Axis
Author: Andrew Small
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2020
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019007681X

"The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hidden from the public eye. This book sets out the recent history of Sino-Pakistani ties and their ramifications for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of its most sensitive aspects, including Beijing's support for Pakistan's nuclear program, China's dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military's planning for crises in Pakistan. It describes a relationship increasingly shaped by Pakistan's internal strife, and the dilemmas China faces between the need for regional stability and the imperative for strategic competition with India and the USA."--Amazon.com.

The United States in the Indo-Pacific

The United States in the Indo-Pacific
Author: Oliver Turner
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-02-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1526135027

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This edited collection examines the political, economic and security legacies of former US President Barack Obama in Asia and the Pacific, following two terms in office between 2009 and 2017. In a region that has only become more vivid in the American political imagination since Obama left office, this volume interrogates the endurance of Obama’s legacies in what is increasingly reimagined in Washington as the Indo-Pacific. Advancing our understanding of Obama’s style, influence and impact throughout the region, this volume explores dimensions of US relations and interactions with key Indo-Pacific states including China, India, Japan, North Korea and Australia; multilateral institutions and organisations such the East Asia Summit and ASEAN; and salient issue areas such as regional security, politics and diplomacy, and the economy. How far has the Trump administration progressed in challenging or disrupting Obama’s Pivot to Asia? What differences can we discern in the declared or effective US strategy towards Asia and to what extent has it radically shifted or displaced Obama-era legacies? Including contributions from high-profile scholars and policy practitioners such as Michael Mastanduno, Bruce Cumings, Maryanne Kelton, Robert Sutter and Sumit Ganguly, contributors examine these questions at the halfway point of the 2017–21 Presidency of Donald Trump, as his administration opens a new and potentially divergent chapter of American internationalism.

American Grand Strategy from Obama to Trump

American Grand Strategy from Obama to Trump
Author: Zeno Leoni
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030547426

This book maintains that the theory of imperialism should incorporate the concept of an “operational code” of political elites to account for agencies’ actions. This concept would explain the strategic continuity and tactical change in US grand strategy from Obama to Trump. While both presidents pursued a strategy of off-shore balancing, their competing worldviews led to tangible differences in the way they sought to restore American power after Bush and to contain the rise of China. This book offers an important contribution after the departure of Bush concluded the 21st century debate on imperialism, at a time when an increasingly post-American world order has undermined the “end of the state” thesis. Indeed, over the last twelve years US grand strategy has emphasized inter-state competition rather than the annihilation of rogue regimes. These events require renewed efforts for the theory of imperialism to contribute to Globalisation Theory at this crucial historical junction.

China's Rise and Australia–Japan–US Relations

China's Rise and Australia–Japan–US Relations
Author: Michael Heazle
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2018-04-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1788110935

One of the most pressing policy challenges for Australia and Japan today is ensuring that China’s rise does not threaten the stability of the Asia-Pacific, while also avoiding triggering conflict with their largest trading partner. This book examines how Australian and Japanese perceptions of US primacy shape their respective views of the Asia-Pacific regional order, the robustness of Asia’s alliance system, and the future of Australia-Japan security cooperation.

Hong Kong in the Shadow of China

Hong Kong in the Shadow of China
Author: Richard C. Bush
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2016-10-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 081572814X

A close-up look at the struggle for democracy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong in the Shadow of China is a reflection on the recent political turmoil in Hong Kong during which the Chinese government insisted on gradual movement toward electoral democracy and hundreds of thousands of protesters occupied major thoroughfares to push for full democracy now. Fueling this struggle is deep public resentment over growing inequality and how the political system—established by China and dominated by the local business community—reinforces the divide been those who have profited immensely and those who struggle for basics such as housing. Richard Bush, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center on East Asia Policy Studies, takes us inside the demonstrations and the demands of the demonstrators and then pulls back to critically explore what Hong Kong and China must do to ensure both economic competitiveness and good governance and the implications of Hong Kong developments for United States policy.