The awakening of China, as was predicted by Napoleon centuries ago, is gradually causing ripples across the world. This is contradictive in that even after engaging the UN militarily in the 1950s conflict with Korea, it later came to be a key factor in Cold War politics, a solid member of the UN Security Council, and today, it is one of the most-evaluated nations on earth as it greatly impacts on global politics. The immediate neighbors of China, that is, Taiwan, Japan, recognize the impact that it has on them in that they remain on their toes as the nation keeps them alert over far-fetched, century-long standoffs. In the past, the nation has also engaged in military activity with the Soviet Union, Taiwan, and other nations in Southeast Asia. …show more content…
He reveals that prior to 1949, China had been perceived of as an enigma and dormant giant. It was Napoleon who had forecasted China’s power by warning that once China woke up, it would threaten or shake the world. This source provides evidence by reporting on several world leaders who had predicted China as potential time bomb as well as those that feared its rise. They include Rudyard Kipling, New Zealands’ former Prime Minister George Waterhouse, and Russia’s President, Vladimir. The presentation of these cases is credible and sufficient in justifying that indeed, China is affecting the way of international politics. This further encourages research on the impact of its rise after 1949. The revelation of China’s rise to be a source of global shift in politics illuminates the thesis of this study in that having provided evidence that China’s rise has threatened former world powers such as the United States and Russia, the need to recognize what has changed arises. Following this, the information in Scott’s book provides the basis of this study in that it asserts that China is one of the most influential nations in the world, and thus, it is indeed causing ripples and inflicting changes in international politics …show more content…
Kavalski reveals that the western approach categorized nations either as supporters of the west or of the Soviet Union. In this way, the capitalist-style knew who to support and who to ignore. Kavalski presents several instances in the past when there has been clear discrimination of “Soviet Union supporters”. Again, the author presents evidence on how China has been ruling out the capitalist style of global politics. This source is useful to this study in that China’s role as a new emerging influence of global politics is highlighted. The author, however focuses mainly on the East-West standoff and in it alienating other global nations. This limitation, therefore calls for further research regarding the East-West standoff, how China is changing it, and more importantly, how this is affecting the international political context. Generally, Kavalski’s book will act as the basis of the study in that it provides a clear distinction that differentiates China (the East) and the
...ities as a responsible state holder. One of the consequences of the international community questioning China’s military capabilities is that the international community could potentially induce an unproductive arms race with China. If China is to participate in the race, China will have a weakened competitive position in the races of economic and intellectual strength. Secondly, China will lose the ability to use its army as a form of soft power therefore making it harder to believe that China can be a responsible state holder since it will seem like propaganda. In terms of China, the world is in a very exciting position with the promotion of the China’s model an alternative governing system is being offered. However, we need to remain vigilant and aware for just as quickly as China rose, it has the potential to fall as well if it doesn’t play it’s cards right.
Moreover, economic interdependence promotes peaceful trade between countries since it is beneficial and avoids war at all cost. For example, “China’s economy is thoroughly integrated in this complex interdependence global economy,” thus it would be suicidal for China to start war (Wong, The Rise of Great Powers, Nov.18). China free trades with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has developed a profitable relationship that led to trade surplus (Kaplan, pg.3). As a result, starting conflicts with the ASEAN will threaten the Chinese economy because it will drastically impact free trade and will cause a downfall in profits. The possibility of war between China and United States is remote because China would rather benefit from resources such as, security, technology, and market that United States provides (Wong, The Rise of Great Powers, Nov.18). Although economic power shifts to China, United States provides security because it has always been the dominant hegemony; therefore, it has a better and powerful economy (Green, pg.34). It is evident that China’s economy is rapidly increasing, but it still has no interest in being the head hegemony and therefore does not challenge United States. That being said, countries choose to avoid conflicts with United States or their trading partners since it will negatively impact their markets and investments.
The Canada-China relationship has been through many fluctuations since China’s establishment in 1949. The Canadian Cabinet decided to give its recognition in the same year as China’s establishment on 16 November. However, the diplomatic relations with China was not formed until 1970, two decades from Canada’s primary consideration. Though there were many factors influencing the Sino-Canadian relations since 1949, due to the limitation in length, this essay will focus on three main reasons, how the political consideration, the attention on human rights problems and Canada’s economic interests influenced its relations with China from 1949 to the 1990s. From 1949 to the 1960s, the relationship between China and Canada was strongly influenced by Canada’s political consideration. With Canada’s gradually pursuing of independent foreign policy together with the change in international climate eventually left the room for Canada’s recognition to China. Since then, the Canadian economic interest started to dominate any other factors in this bilateral relationship, even if Canada paid attention to China’s human rights problem. Thus, the Sino-Canadian relationship after the 1970s is a balance between Canada’s economic interests and human rights issues in China.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon was quoted as stating that his visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “changed the world…to build a bridge across sixteen thousand miles and twenty-two years of hostilities.” By meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, Nixon took groundbreaking first steps to opening relations and formally recognizing the People’s Republic of China. The history of the aforementioned hostilities between the United States and the PRC dates back to the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover of mainland China following its civil war in the post-World War II era. When the PRC was formally proclaimed in 1949 towards the close of the Chinese Civil War, the United States decided against recognizing its establishment and instead chose to back Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China. This decision was a product of its political environment, as President Harry Truman had just established the Truman Doctrine, which sought to check presumed Communist and Soviet aims to expand. In order to remain consistent and credible with its containment policy, a precedent was set and relations between the United States and the PRC remained closed. Tensions were only exacerbated during the Korean War in the 1950’s as the PRC intervened on behalf of the North Koreans and during the War in Vietnam in the 1970’s in their support of the North Vietnamese. Thus it is understandable that to the public eye, Nixon’s meeting with Mao Zedong in 1972 seemed to come out of the blue and was difficult to interpret given the context of Sino-US relations in the two deca...
Odd Arne Westad, Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, explains how the Cold War “shaped the world we live in today — its politics, economics, and military affairs“ (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). Furthermore, Westad continues, “ the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created foundations” for most of the historic conflicts we see today. The Cold War, asserts Westad, centers on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union — escalates to antipathy and conflict that in the end helped oust one world power while challenging the other. This supplies a universal understanding on the Cold War (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union opposed each other over the expansion of their power.
Immigration, the act of coming to live permanently in a foreign country. Throughout the United States’ history, immigrants faced various challenges and especially after 1880. Most immigrants moved to achieve the American dream of having a better life and pursuing their dreams. But, this experience as they moved, was different for every immigrant. Some lives improved while others did not. Immigrants such as Catholics, Italians, and the Chinese were not welcomed into America in the late 19th century and early 20th century because of their differences in beliefs and cultures.
Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Russia all claimed sole trading points to their selected “spheres of influence.” Some of these countries’ even claimed that the territory that lay within their spheres was their own. With the United States’ recent acquisition of the Philippines, they too were now an Asian power just 400 miles away from Mainland China. This closeness resulted in American businesses hoping to take advantage of China’s tremendous resources. The various spheres of influence, however, challenged their ambitions.
Thomas Wright’s “The Fall of the Unipolar Concert” describes the decline of U.S. global power to other states like Russia and China. It claims that these countries have been initiating revisionist and power balancing measures that threaten U.S. global hegemony. Russia brings back a light red scare by annexing Crimea to stop the expansion of the European Union and NATO, building up its military capabilities, and executing special military operations (Wright, 8). China has strengthen its claims on the South China Sea through aggressive marine operations which have created tensions with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and the United States. China has station and intimidated the surrounding countries where they claim as their economic exclusion zones while blocking the U.S.’s freedom to navigate the waters.
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush reached out to the world to back the U.S. in a war to eradicate terrorism. One of the more surprising participants in this coalition, China, had until that point been at odds with U.S. policy but seemed to find sufficient common ground with the U.S. to support the war. In recent months however, China has not been lauded for unprecedented cooperation with its “strategic competitor” but has instead been criticized for using the war on terror as carte blanche to step up its “Strike Hard” campaign in the Uigher Xinjiang Autonomous Region in the northwest, resulting in unprecedented numbers of executions of political prisoners, a suspension of free religious worship, and a general decline in respect for human rights. The western media has claimed that Beijing had been waiting for a chance to crack down on Uigher separatists and is now behaving as an opportunist to pursue these goals while the U.S. is in no position to decry its behavior. However, this opportunism argument only explains some of the recent actions in Xinjiang; in this paper I will seek to show that Beijing’s increased policing of Xinjiang serves primarily to demonstrate to the international community that it will not be excluded from Central Asia.
Post-Cold War Asia has been witness to a China that increasingly focuses its foreign policy on its neighbors rather than on a regional or global context. This stems from China's realization that free markets have triumphed over centrally planned economies and that a world revolution is not going to happen. This has two implications. One, China no longer needs to divert resources to involve itself in global politics since the proletarian revolution is not going to take place. Second, China needs to embark on a program of economic development and modernization (F. Wang p. 32 and J. Wang p. 80).
The Cultural Revolution was a revolution that had happened between 1966 and 1976 and had a great impact on China. The Cultural Revolution used to be known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution but was changed after many years. The main goal of this Revolution was to preserve true communist mainly in China by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. It was also used to re-impose Maoist which was thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Cultural Revolution was basically a sociopolitical movement. But it was mainly for the return of the leader, Mao Zedong, who was the leader of the revolution on and off. Which had led him to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward which paralyzed
Japan had to open ports to foreign commerce when they lost the fight against Europe and America in Tokyo Bay (Bentley 508). After losing, Japan began industrializing and soon enhanced their military by investing in tools from western empires, who had very strong and powerful militaries. Once Japan had built a strong military they began to fight for Korea. They fought China and “demolished the Chinese fleet in a battle lasting a mere five hours,” and they later gained Korea and treaty rights in China (Bentley 550). China’s military was very weak. After losing Hong Kong and many trading ports to western empires following the Opium War, China was in trouble. Chinese people began rebelling against the Qing Dynasty. After the most popular rebellion, The Taiping Rebellion, China began the Self-Strengthening Movement. “While holding to Confucian values, movement leaders built shipyards, constructed railroads, established weapons industries, opened steel foundries with blast furnaces, and founded academies to develop scientific expertise” (Bentley 543). After doing all of these things, China still did not have a strong enough military. They continued to deal with problems from the western
Given these sets of circumstances, china, Taiwan and United States have much to gain and even more to lose if an armed conflict erupts in the Taiwan Strait. All three countries have political, economic, and national security issues involved and united states and china are both in competition economic...
Wei-Wei Zhang. (2004). The Implications of the Rise of China. Foresight, Vol. 6 Iss: 4, P. 223 – 226.
Inkenberry, John. “The Rise of China and the Future of the West.” Foreign Affairs. The Council of Foreign Relations. Jan 2008. Web. 9 Mar 2014.