Strategic Partnership Case Study

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A strategic partnership is a goals-oriented mechanism based on common strategic interests. It involves a rational choice of which state should be the strategic partner. Given this, states forming strategic partnerships have to make choices rationally. Two Chinese scholars traced the concept of strategic partnership using Chinese characters, zhanglue huoban (战略伙伴). They argued that a strategic partnership is a planned mechanism to engage actors in comprehensive cooperation, political and economic, to achieve decisive strategic goals . On the other hand, Wilkins defined strategic partnership as a “structural collaboration between states (or other ‘actors’) to take joint advantage of economic opportunities, or to respond to security challenges …show more content…

He later explained further in his definition of strategic partnerships, saying that strategic partnerships need to take care of their aim, nature, commitment, and concerns. And a goals-based mechanism means that a state will consider the increasing ease of championing her strategic goals before committing to any strategic partnerships. Simply speaking, a goals-oriented strategic partnership can be viewed as a new, loose fore of cooperation in international relations. It is usually originated from some degree of cooperation among parties, especially close economic cooperation. When these partners try to escalate the relationship, they will consider forming strategic partnerships. This aims at expanding the cooperation from emphasizing on economic aspect to a more comprehensive one. The strategic side of the partnership, then, focuses on championing states’ strategic goals. One goal of strategic partnership can be the management of common security threats. Tertrais defined strategic partnerships as “the recognition of common security interests as well as provisions for strong military cooperation to various degrees”. …show more content…

It is better if strategic partners cultivate to strive for common strategic goals. However, it is, at a minimum, the case that strategic partners are constructive of they do not have conflicting views on their strategic goals. If there are existing strategic differences which directly challenges the friendship of the strategic partnership, parties have to carefully manage these challenges. I argue that strategic partners have to build trust to manage these differences. The study of trust in international politics yields two general conclusions about the concept of trust between states and international cooperation. Firstly, a state trusts another state because officials of the state believe the risk of another party of harming one state’s pursuit of strategic interests is low . This dimension of trusting relations is materially and rationally-based. Indeed, the belief of risk of harming one’s pursuit of strategic interests rests largely on calculating material capabilities both sides have. It also calculates the possibility of the use of these capabilities to hinder one’s pursuit of strategic interests. By this token, this is more aligning with confidence on another state of not doing harm to oneself. Secondly, international cooperation will be largely facilitated if a state subjectively believes that another party is

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