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Conflicts between the United States and China
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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. According to Wright, this decline in the unipolar concert “marks the return of geopolitical competition and presents a significant challenge for U.S. strategy” (Wright, 8). Many believe that these country were not too concerned with global power until it saw the U.S. weak …show more content…
The U.S. and Russia have cold war history and ideology still strong among their constituents. The Cold War was also never really over, hence why assuming geopolitics were no longer relevant was a mistake on behalf of Fukuyama’s The End of History. The history of the U.S. and the Soviet Union are described through international proxy wars heavily relying on strategic locations, geopolitics is imbedded in their relationship. They both are always competing for spheres of influence, now not only in regards to Crimea in Ukraine, but also in Syria. Russia will not forget the financial build up of Western states after WW II, the integration of Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic Republics into NATO (Mead, 2), and the containment policy of states around the world that lead to the dissembling of the Soviet
As the United States developed into a world economic power, it also became a military and political power. Certain things led Americans to become more involved in world affairs, such as territorial growth. There were also consequences to the nation’s new role, like conflict between citizens and people of power. United States government and leaders had to learn the “hard way”, the challenges and negativity that they would face, such as loss of money and lack of control between certain nations, and the positive effects such as expansion of territory and alliances.
It is somehow strange for today’s reader to find out that the situation with America’s foreign affairs hasn’t changed much. As some clever people have said, “The History book on the shelf is always repeating itself.” Even after nineteen years, Americans think of themselves as citizens of the strongest nation in the world. Even after the September the 11th. Even after Iraq. And Afghanistan.
Without understanding the importance of foreign relations the American people’s way of life could be at stake. Not only could the economic strength of the U.S. diminish, but the military might of the U.S. could also be compromised. Mead argues that without the centrality of foreign policy being evident in American politics the happiness of the world is at risk. “Since the United States has become the central power in a worldwide system of finance, communications, and trade, it is not only the American people whose happiness and security will be greatly affected by the quality of American foreign policy in coming years (Mead 176). I contend that without a strong emphasis on foreign policy, we could begin to see the end of American
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.
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.
The United States of America has never been content with stagnation. The landmass of the Thirteen Colonies was enough to rival that of the Mother country from which they separated. The forefathers believed that it was the manifest destiny of this nation to eventually claim the expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. By 1890, nearly a hundred years following the original claim of Manifest Destiny, the land that was once open, was now under American control. But no sooner was the Great American Frontier closed, than was the door to East Asian expansion opened with the great gold key of American diplomacy. In a world where imperialism was contagious, and cartographers had to work around the clock to keep up with an ever-changing geopolitical landscape, the United States seized the opportunity to establish herself as a significant world power. With great expansionist minds at her helm, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft the United States began to grow beyond her border to claim stake in this wide-open world. This new expansionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a different institution than its early to mid nineteenth century counterpart. Still, the drive to exercise the sovereignty of the United State and to propel itself over the world’s stage was the same then as it was in the time of Thomas Jefferson. In order to understand this assertion, attention must be given to three levels of analysis. First, the similarities that exist between the drive and purpose of old and new expansion must be taken into account. Second, the differences in the global political scene must be considered. Finally, there exits differences in the means by which expansion occurred.
In my paper "The undone change of American Foreign Policy after the Cold War" I addressed the inability of the U.S. institutions to meet the newly created challenges of the post-Cold War world. I argued that due to a lack of leadership, especially by the President, the opportunity to "reconfigure" U.S. foreign policy institutions; supported by an absent corresponding ideology; the U.S. had missed its chance to change its foreign policy in the post-Cold War world.
In his book Resurgence of the West, Rosecrance claims that after centuries of success, the United States is facing an economic and political decline due to the rise of China. He suggests that the United States can fix this problem by one of two ways. The first is isolationism, but that means the United States will have to completely remove itself from international affairs. On the other hand, Rosecrance proposes that the United States form an economic coalition with Europe, to stand up against rising China and ‘non-western’ countries. Eventually, both regions will witness an economic prosperity through this merger. As a result, this will prompt China and other ‘non-western’ nations to join this alliance.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
China is the most populous state in the world, with over 1.3 trillion inhabitants (Central Intelligence Agency 2010). Because of its large population base, China also has the largest military and a booming economy that is third only America and Japan in terms of GDP; however, economic trends show that Japan’s economy is stagnating, while the American Chinese economies continue to spike upward (Google, Inc. 2010). Despite its growing economy and large military force, China lags behind America in technology and naval power. Chinese Admiral Wu Shengli said, “The Navy will move faster in researching and building new-generation weapons to boost the ability to fight in regional sea wars under the circumstance of information technology” (Xuequan 2009). This quote shows that China wants to remain a regional sea power, and not develop a blue-water navy that can compete with the American navy. Furthermore, a Popular Mechanics article showed the world that China was stealing American military “leap ahead” technology, or technology that is decades ahead of Chinese technology (Cooper 2009).
Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Hard and Soft Power in American Foreign Policy.” In Paradox of American Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 4-17. Print.
Lafeber, W. (2002), America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000. 9th edn. New-York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
One of the most vigorous debates focuses on the current status of the United States hegemony and whether or not it is in decline. This begs the question, if the United States is indeed declining in status, will it still be an influential player or not? I argue that the United States is losing its prominent position as the hegemonic leader of the world, but will still remain an influential player in global politics in the following decades to come. Its decline is an imminent result of their domestic issues, the violation of international laws and economic deficit, which have posed a grave and serious challenge for the United States. On the other hand, I propose that the United States will remain a dominant force due to its innovation, cultural influences around the world, and military prowess. In their articles, “How Americans Can Survive the rise of the Rest”, by Fareed Zakaria and “America and Europe in the Asian Century”, by Kishore Mahbubani, provides two distinctive and thought provoking arguments from a declinist perspective. However, both articles are susceptible to criticism and will be further examined in order to understand the United States prominent role.
The Soviet Union’s collapse at the end of the Cold War left the United States without its major global rival. Now alone at the top, the United States’ strategic imperatives have shifted remarkably. The shift has been significant enough to prompt fundamental questions about the international order and whether this new “unipolar moment” will last. Indeed, since 1989, political scientists have clamored to define the United States’ status relative to the rest of the world. Indispensable nation? Sole super...
With the end of the Cold War emerged two superpowers: The United States and the Soviet Union. The international system then was considered bipolar, a system where power is distributed in which two states have the majority of military, economic, and cultural influence both internationally and regionally. In this case, spheres of influence developed, meaning Western and democratic states fell under the influence of U.S. while most communist states were under the influence of the Soviet Union. Today, the international system is no longer bipolar, since only one superpower can exist, and indisputably that nation is the United States. However China is encroaching on this title with their rapid growth educationally, economically, and militaristically.