International Interactions, 41:480–508, 2015
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0305-0629 print/1547-7444 online
DOI: 10.1080/03050629.2015.1006728
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon: Can
Engagement Moderate China’s Strategic
Competition with America?
XIAOTING LI
East China Normal University
Can US engagement moderate China’s strategic competition with
America? This study indicates that the answer is a qualified yes.
Under unipolarity, a rising state may face both incentives to reach
an accommodation with the hegemon and to expand its own
stature and influence against the hegemonic dominance. The
ambivalence of its intentions is structurally induced and reflects
its uncertain stake in the hegemonic order. Consequently, a strategy of engagement may help the hegemon to promote cooperation
over competition in dealing with an ascending power, but it does
not necessarily eliminate the structural incentives for the competition. Against this theoretical backdrop, this study utilizes both
qualitative and quantitative research to demonstrate that China’s
reaction to American preeminence has long been marked by a profound ambivalence. Specifically, the findings suggest that while US
engagement has some restraining impact on China’s competitive
propensity, Beijing will continue to hedge against American hegemony, as its capabilities grow, by solidifying its diplomatic and
strategic association with the developing world.
KEYWORDS Asia, peace, security
With the proverbial rise of China, the future of the US-led global order
has become a subject of intense debate among the scholarly community.
To some, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States are destined for conflict because China’s burgeoning material power will inevitably
sharpen its ambitions and lead Beijing to challenge the US primacy in the
Address correspondence to Xiaoting Li, School of Advanced International and Area
Studies, East China Normal University, A-406 Science Building, 3663 N. Zhongshan Road,
Shanghai 200062, China. E-mail: lxtusa@yahoo.com
480
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
481
world order (Friedberg 2011; Mearsheimer 2001, 2010). Others are more
optimistic, on the grounds that China’s growing integration into the international system will likely increase Beijing’s affinity with the prevailing order
and dampen its revisionist aspirations (Fingar 2012; Foot and Walter 2011;
Johnston 2003, 2008). Still others steer a middle course, observing that the
Sino-American relationship is a complex mixture of both cooperative and
competitive elements and that the pressing task today is to expand cooperation and limit competition (Lieberthal and Wang 2012; Shambaugh 2013;
Sutter 2012).
Fundamentally, this debate reflects the deep uncertainties surrounding
an old and recurring question in international politics—that is, can a rising state foster a constructive relationship with the hegemon (or the leading
state in the system) over the long run? As a rule, rising states have uncertain intentions because new capabilities may create new aims and interests.
In particular, as will be addressed in the following, China has long regarded
American hegemony with a profound ambivalence; accordingly, PRC strategies often serve the seemingly paradoxical purposes of both accommodating
and undercutting US predominance.
Of course, the ambivalence of intentions does not necessarily prove
an insuperable obstacle to the pursuit of cooperation. After all, from
1972 onward, successive US administrations have adhered to a strategy of
“engaging” China, despite the vast ideological differences between the two
nations. More recently, prominent US officials have reiterated Washington’s
commitment to broadening political and economic exchanges with the PRC,
so as to elevate cooperation above competition (Clinton 2012; Kerry 2014).
However, when governments may tout the efficacy of a policy as a matter of
faith, scholars have to evaluate the issue in terms of competing propositions
and evidence. This study is a tentative attempt to explore how and to what
extent US engagement might help to moderate China’s strategic competition
with America (that is, a competition aimed at countering US primacy).
Theoretically, this study derives from a basic tenet of classical realism—
that is, while seeking power, states also value prudence in international
politics. Under unipolarity, a rising state may thus face both incentives
to reach an accommodation with the hegemon and to expand its own
stature and influence against the hegemonic dominance. The ambivalence
of its intentions is structurally induced and mirrors its uncertain stake in the
hegemonic order. An engagement strategy may help the hegemon to build
trust and advance cooperation with an ascending power, thereby restraining
the latter’s competitive propensity. But it does not necessarily eliminate the
structural cause of the competition.
These theoretical expectations, moreover, accord largely with the complexity of China’s reaction to US predominance since the end of the Cold War.
On the one hand, Beijing welcomes US engagement and seeks to develop
practical and continuous cooperation with Washington. Yet, on the other,
482
X. Li
Beijing views American hegemony and intentions skeptically and persists in
building a diplomatic and strategic partnership with the developing world,
which signals China’s dissatisfaction with the US/Western-dominated world
order. Empirically, therefore, I use PRC leadership travel to other developing nations—including all countries not belonging to the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—as an indicator of
China’s strategic competition with America. As will be seen, such state visits
are part and parcel of Beijing’s efforts to extend its strategic leeway against
Washington. My quantitative findings suggest that while US engagement has
some positive effect in keeping Chinese competition at manageable levels,
it does not overwhelm the structural incentives that lead Beijing to hedge
against American hegemony in the first place.
This study proceeds as follows. The first section contemplates why the
structural contradiction between hegemonic dominance and rising power
breeds strategic competition and why a strategy of hegemonic engagement
may soften, but not resolve, the contradiction. Against this theoretical background, the second section details the enduring ambivalence of Chinese
foreign policy vis-à-vis US primacy and discusses the possible effect of
engagement in inducing Beijing to stress cooperation over competition. The
third section explains why PRC leadership travel to the developing world
constitutes a plausible, first-cut indicator of China’s strategic competition with
America, while the fourth section presents a research design for testing competing hypotheses about the variation in that competition. The results of the
quantitative test are analyzed in the fifth section. The last section concludes
by suggesting some implications for future research.
THE PROMISE AND LIMITATION OF HEGEMONIC ENGAGEMENT
WITH RISING POWER
To realists, it is a structural feature of international politics that “overwhelming power repels and leads others to balance against it” (Waltz 1997:916).
The hegemonic dominance in the international system, in other words, is
in itself a cause for anxiety, resentment, and competition, especially to the
rising states with natural ambitions of rewriting the rules governing the system (Gilpin 1981:187). However, while seeking greater power and influence,
states are also known to value prudence as the supreme virtue (Morgenthau
1948 [1978]:11). Under unipolarity, it is assuredly imprudent to confront the
American hegemon directly, for the following reasons.
First, given the preponderance of US power, other states can reap little
benefit from traditional balancing strategies, through either an arms race or
the formation of a military alliance against the hegemon. Such strategies
are not only costly and futile but likely to provoke hegemonic reprisals
and thereby put the reckless challenger in immediate jeopardy (Brooks and
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
483
Wohlforth 2008; Kapstein and Mastanduno 1999; Mowle and Sacko 2007;
Wohlforth 1999).
Second, as a geographically insular country with a reputation for relatively benign intentions, the United States is not seen by most other states as
a deadly menace (Pape 2005; Paul 2005; Walt 2005). Rather, it is a leading
provider of global public goods, such as economic openness, stability, and
security, which benefit most countries and enable their development (Gilpin
1981; Ikenberry 2011).
Third, while the current international system reflects many of the hegemon’s interests, it is also an open, integrative, and rule-based order that
provides abundant common benefits and opportunities. Consequently, most
nations prefer to pursue their interests within this system, rather than
challenge the hegemonic leadership that undergirds it (Ikenberry 2011).
Thus, realistically, unipolarity requires other countries, including rising
states, to accommodate the hegemonic primacy, instead of rocking the boat
to their own detriment. Yet, on the other hand, it is equally imprudent for an
ascending power to submit to the status quo with resignation. International
politics, after all, is a self-help arena wherein states are never certain of
each other’s intentions (Mearsheimer 2001:30); hence, they need to prepare
for all eventualities. To begin with, there is no guarantee that the hegemon
will always use its colossal power constructively or act benignly toward rising states (Ikenberry 2002, 2011; Kapstein and Mastanduno 1999; Monteiro
2014). For fear of losing its primacy, the hegemon might thwart the rise
of a potential competitor by active containment or even preventive wars
(Mowle and Sacko 2007; Schweller 1999). If an emerging power has dissimilar ideologies and political institutions to those of the hegemon, it might
perceive an even greater threat from the latter and thereby feel constrained
to counterbalance it (Lemke 2004:65).
Furthermore, the hegemon may experience a relative decline over time,
especially if a rising state is able to achieve sustained economic growth at a
faster rate. Under the circumstances, the hegemon may act more belligerently
toward the emerging competitor (see previous), but it may also choose to
retrench from its systemic commitments and even negotiate some leadershipsharing arrangements with the newcomer (Schweller and Pu 2011:68–69;
for an extended discussion, see Monteiro 2014). In either case, prudence
requires the ascending power to strive in advance to expand its own stature
and influence in the system, which has the implicit effect of competing
against and/or countering the hegemonic dominance, as an insurance against
whatever future developments. That is, with the diplomatic and strategic
leverage gained from this endeavor, a rising state will be in a stronger position either to withstand a hegemonic assault if push comes to shove or to
drive a hard bargain when the hegemonic retrenchment occurs.
Thus, it is unsurprising that today’s emerging powers (not just China)
invariably pursue a hedging strategy vis-à-vis the hegemon—that is, avoiding
484
X. Li
direct confrontation with America but meanwhile preserving some independence of action and preparing favorable conditions for possible systemic
changes in the long run. Though short of organizing a formal anti-US coalition (which, as argued earlier, is too risky under unipolarity), this hedging
strategy aims at fostering a network of political and economic relationships
that serves as a protective shield (and a strategic lever too) for the rising
states, maximizing the latter’s ability to act autonomously in the international
arena regardless of changes in the hegemonic position or temperament (Foot
2006; Schweller and Pu 2011; Tessman 2012). In essence, the ambivalent
intentions of those “hedgers” are structurally bred because their rising power
makes the prospect of the current hegemonic order uncertain in the first
place and, relatedly, leaves them with an uncertain stake in the status quo.
Against this backdrop, engagement becomes a sensible strategy for
the hegemon to deal with the ascending powers in some important ways.
According to leading US officials, engagement aims to strengthen political
and economic associations with a rising state (in this case, China) and solidify
its stake in the existing international system, through three mechanisms: promoting trade, broadening interactions through international institutions, and
increasing high-level leadership contacts (Clinton 2012; Zoellick 2005). From
the standpoint of international relations theory, these mechanisms serve the
vital purposes of building trust and advancing cooperation, as elaborated in
the following.
First, the expansion of economic and trade linkages helps deepen interstate understanding and create a common interest in preserving amicable
relations, thereby dampening the prospects for interstate rivalry and conflict.1
Second, as a rule, international institutions help states to improve communication, reduce uncertainty, and ease the management of their disputes.2
Promoting collaborative work through international institutions, therefore,
helps the hegemon to allay other states’ concerns about its arbitrariness and
bolster their faith in the legitimacy of the prevailing order (Ikenberry 2002,
2011). Moreover, by welcoming a rising state into more international institutions, the hegemon not only satisfies the newcomer’s desire for status (by
granting it a “place at the table” of systemic governance) but also fetters it
with greater responsibility for the provision of systemic services. Overall, this
may help fortify an ascending power’s stake in systemic stability as well as
collaboration with the hegemon (Ikenberry 2011; Larson and Shevchenko
2010; Mastanduno 1997).
Third, face-to-face leadership contacts often prove critical to alleviating
states’ mistrust of each other’s intentions (Holmes 2013). As a rising state
1
There is a voluminous literature on this topic. For a classical study that supports the trade-promotes-peace
thesis, see Russett and Oneal (2001); for a classical rebuttal, see Barbieri (2002).
2
Again, there exists a huge literature on this subject. For two classical studies, see Keohane (1984) and
Russett and Oneal (2001).
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
485
normally craves respect and higher status, the hegemon may utilize top-level
leadership visits and dialogues both to convey its respect for the newcomer’s
ascending status and to induce the latter to behave cooperatively in exchange
for higher status (Larson and Shevchenko 2010). This may be a key factor
that increases an emerging power’s satisfaction with the prevailing order and
hence reduces its conflictual propensity (Tammen et al. 2000).
In sum, through engagement, the hegemon may forge a closer relationship with a rising state for the pursuit of mutual gains, thereby restraining
the latter’s competitive proclivities. It is unclear, however, whether this strategy will eventually resolve the contradiction between the old bottle of
hegemonic dominance and the new wine of rising power: For, while engagement may help keep their strategic competition at manageable levels, it does
not eliminate the structural cause of the competition.
In the long term, despite its elevated position and stake in the existing
system, an ascending power may still conclude that it could do even better
under an alternative world order designed and governed by itself (Schweller
and Pu 2011:51). This prospect becomes more likely today because many
rising states have idiosyncratic norms and institutions at odds with the normative foundation of the current hegemonic order (Kupchan 2014). Finally,
as argued earlier, even if the hegemon has perfectly benign and cooperative intentions, an emerging power still has to prepare for the remote but not
unlikely prospect of hegemonic retrenchment, so that it could fill the vacuum
of systemic leadership as much as possible when the critical moment comes.
When the hegemon’s intentions are perceived as less than benign, it becomes
a strategic necessity for a rising state to hedge against the not-impossible
prospect of hegemonic conflict.
As shown in the next section, such ambivalence of intentions has largely
underlain China’s reaction to US predominance since the end of the Cold
War.
CHINESE AMBIVALENCE AND US ENGAGEMENT
Since 1978, successive PRC administrations have placed a premium on integrating China into the international system, for the sake of the country’s
long-term development. Pragmatically, this also requires Beijing to build a
constructive relationship with the United States, which is the primary architect and maintainer of the system. In the sober-minded opinion of Chinese
leaders and elites, American support is critical to China’s efforts to modernize
its economy, participate in global affairs, acquire higher status, and manage
sensitive disputes with neighboring countries. Thus, accommodation with the
hegemon serves China’s interests far better than confrontation (Deng 2008;
Goldstein 2005; Roy 2003; Shambaugh 2013; Sutter 2012).
486
X. Li
Accommodation, however, does not imply contentment. On the
contrary, since the Tiananmen crisis in 1989, China’s leaders have long perceived a grave “America threat.” Deng Xiaoping, for example, asserted in
late 1989 that the United States and the West were waging a “smokeless
world war” against the socialist states as well as the entire developing world
(Deng 1993:344–345, 348). Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) and president of the PRC (1989–2003), kept warning
that US and Western “hostile forces” sought to destabilize and dismember
China and that Beijing must brace itself for a long-term struggle against
their schemes (Jiang 2006, Vol. 1:134–135, 280; Vol. 2:197, 422–423; Vol. 3:8,
83, 139, 450). In November 2011, Jiang’s successor Hu Jintao reiterated the
charge against the “hostile international forces,” stressing the “gravity and
complexity” of this struggle.3
Meanwhile, although China achieves spectacular development under
the prevailing world order, Beijing retains a profound skepticism of US
hegemony. In his political reports to the CCP’s national congresses in
1992–2002, Jiang Zemin repeatedly described “hegemonism” (a euphemism
for US predominance) as a threat to world peace and stability and stressed
China’s support for multipolarity. More significantly, Jiang called for the
establishment of a new, “fair and just” international order that inherently
rejects US/Western supremacy (Jiang 2006, Vol. 1:242–243; Vol. 2:39–41;
Vol. 3:566–567). In 2007–2012, the goals of setting up a new, “fair and just”
international order and of “democratizing” international politics, both signaling Chinese dissatisfaction with American hegemony, continued to occupy a
prominent place in the CCP’s foreign policy thinking.4
Nonetheless, under unipolarity, it is too risky to incur the hegemon’s focused animosity, by adopting an overt counterbalancing posture
against it (see earlier discussions). Accordingly, most countries prefer to
employ subtler strategies of countering and constraining US primacy, such as
strengthening bilateral and multilateral coordination against American preeminence (Pape 2005; Paul 2005; Tessman 2012). China appears no exception
to this rule. As early as the mid-1980s, when frustrated with alleged signs
of US hegemonic arrogance, Deng Xiaoping had proposed to widen China’s
strategic maneuvering room by forging closer collaboration with the developing world (Leng et al. 2004:819, 829, 935, 977). After the Tiananmen crisis,
which caused Sino-American relations to sink to a record low, Beijing made
a conscientious effort to cultivate other developing nations diplomatically, to
buffer the PRC against US pressures (Qian 2003:255–257).
3
See Hu’s speech to the CCP’s Central Committee, available at http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/201201/01/c_122522635.htm.
4
See Hu Jintao’s political reports to the CCP’s 17th and 18th congresses, available at http://cpc.people.
com.cn/GB/64162/64168/index.html.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
487
Indeed, in Beijing’s visions, building a diplomatic and strategic partnership with the developing world holds the key to the construction of a new
world order. Historically, great powers often produce the ideological divisions of the international system that in turn compel them to form divergent
alliances (Braumoeller 2012). Admittedly, the current system is buttressed
by a US-led coalition of advanced liberal democracies, for which China’s
authoritarian development model exerts little appeal. In the abstract, those
developed states may endorse the goal of restoring multipolarity and restraining American hegemony, due to their intermittent frictions with Washington.
But they are unlikely to support any PRC attempts to revise the existing international order substantially, as long as Beijing appears to play for the other
team.
Hence, as the self-proclaimed “largest developing nation,” China has
long regarded the developing world, which provides pivotal support for
Beijing in many global forums (for example, by voting against US/Western
attempts to condemn China’s human rights record), as its staunchest ally in
international politics (Jiang 2006, Vol. 1:313–314; Vol. 2:373). As Jiang Zemin
stated bluntly at a conference of PRC ambassadors in August 1998:
We need not only rich friends, but poor friends as well, because poor
friends often prove more reliable at critical moments. Thus, while developing relations with major powers, we need to strengthen cooperation
with developing nations too, which are more important to us. (Jiang 2006,
Vol. 2:205).
In August 1999, Jiang again stressed: “Strengthening solidarity and cooperation with the Third World countries remains always the cornerstone of
Chinese foreign policy,” especially with regard to Beijing’s cherished goal of
reforming the prevailing, US/Western-dominated world order (Jiang, 2006,
Vol. 2:372–373).
To better engage those “poor friends,” Jiang laid particular emphasis on leadership diplomacy, himself visiting over 50 developing countries
as president of the PRC. During those visits, Jiang invariably accentuated upgrading the collaboration between China and the developing world
against US “hegemonism” and for the establishment of a new international
order (Jiang 2006, Vol. 1:528–529; Vol. 2:402–403, 405–406; Vol. 3:239–241).
Afterward, Jiang’s successor Hu Jintao followed suit, signaling through similarly high-profile visits that China could generate enough leverage in the
developing world against American predominance (Medeiros 2009, chapter 6; Sutter 2012, chapter 12). More recently, the new PRC administration
led by President Xi Jinping has gone further down this well-trodden path
of Chinese leadership diplomacy in cultivating such regional powers as
Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, all literally located in Washington’s strategic
backyard (Oppenheimer 2014).
488
X. Li
Admittedly, like other “soft-balancers” against the United States, Beijing
has hitherto refrained from founding formal military alliances with other
countries, to avoid antagonizing Washington directly (Brooks and Wohlforth
2008:72–75; Walt 2005:121–123). But the strategic implications of China’s
diplomatic activism in the developing world have long been a cause for
concern in Washington. As a Pentagon report noted in November 1998:
“Although China has no plan to lead a faction or block of nations in directly
challenging the United States, its international political activities . . . are
designed to achieve the same result.”5 In other words, if China decides in
the future to convert those international relationships into a formal anti-US
coalition, much of the necessary groundwork will already have been laid.
Still, to this day, most PRC elites seem to agree that American unipolarity
will not end anytime soon and that China still has to develop practical and
continuous cooperation with the United States on a wide range of issues
(Fingar 2012; Sutter 2012, chapter 6). Accordingly, Beijing has long welcomed US engagement, as a means of expanding cooperation and limiting
disagreements. After the Tiananmen crisis, Deng Xiaoping promptly suggested that strengthening dialogues and exchanges was the only way of
improving Sino-American relations (Leng et al. 2004:1296–1300, 1304–1305;
see also Deng 1993:330–333, 350–351). In July 1993, Jiang Zemin also averred
at a conference of PRC ambassadors that stabilizing and improving the SinoAmerican relationship was vitally important to China’s development; hence,
Jiang advocated responding positively to the overtures of the US administration in engaging China, while remaining on guard against American
“hegemonism” (Jiang 2006, Vol. 1:312–313).
Indeed, in November 1993, during his first summit with US President Bill
Clinton, Jiang took the initiative to pledge that “China will not engage in an
arms race, or organize military alliances, to threaten US security.” Agreeing
with President Clinton that the two countries still shared many common interests in promoting world peace and development, Jiang urged holding more
leadership summits in the future, to reduce misunderstanding and resolve
differences in a timely manner (Jiang 2006, Vol. 1:333–334).
In 1994, the Clinton administration formally unveiled its strategy of
“comprehensive engagement” with China. In October 1995, President Clinton
told Jiang Zemin in person that American policy toward China was “not
confrontation, but cooperation; not isolation, but integration; not containment, but engagement,” which impressed Jiang deeply and reinforced his
determination to seek greater cooperation with the United States and to
integrate China further into the international system (Jiang 2006, Vol. 2:203;
Zhong 2006:135–136, 267–274). Thereafter, US engagement seemed to have
some positive impact on Chinese foreign policy behavior. According to Susan
5
See the US Department of Defense, Future Military Capabilities and Strategy of the People’s Republic of
China, available at http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/981100-prc-dod.htm.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
489
Shirk, former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration,
two engagement mechanisms—promoting top-level leadership contacts and
broadening interactions through international institutions—were particularly
important in this respect.
To begin with, the exchange of state visits between Jiang Zemin and
President Clinton in 1997–1998 left Jiang “personally invested in his relationship with President Clinton and in improving relations with the United
States” (Shirk 2007:266). Afterward, when confronted by sudden diplomatic
crises (for example, US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in
1999, and the EP-3 collision incident in the South China Sea in 2001), the
PRC leadership invariably sought to prevent escalation and preserve cooperation with Washington (Jiang 2006, Vol. 3:447–448; Tang 2009:197, 328–339).
In the Asia-Pacific area, until fairly recently, Sino-American cooperation had
actually constituted a significant feature of the regional order, even on the
ultrasensitive Taiwan issue (Huang and Li 2010; Shambaugh 2005, 2013; Shirk
2007).
Meanwhile, Washington supports China’s inclusion in more and more
international institutions (Clinton 2012). In Shirk’s (2007:267) view, “[m]aking
China a member of all important multilateral forums enhances the prestige of
China and its leaders, as well as giving them a strong sense of responsibility
for maintaining world order.” In reality, closer Sino-American interactions in
international institutions appear to have nudged Beijing in a more constructive direction on a wide range of global and regional issues (Foot and Walter
2011; Johnston 2008; Kent 2007; Medeiros 2007; Shirk 2007).
In short, given the complexity of China’s reaction to American primacy, we face two broad possibilities: (1) since China harbors enduring
misgivings about US hegemony and intentions, it will likely persist in
hedging/competing strategically against American predominance; (2) on the
other hand, if Beijing is pragmatic enough to welcome US engagement and
expand cooperation, it will also likely keep competition within controllable
bounds in the meantime. The next section will explain why PRC leadership travel to the developing world may serve as a plausible indicator of
China’s strategic competition with America and present two main hypotheses
correspondingly.
LEADERSHIP TRAVEL AS AN INDICATOR OF STRATEGIC
COMPETITION
In a pioneering study, Kastner and Saunders (2012:165) argue that China’s
diplomatic priorities could be partially inferred from where its leaders travel
abroad, for the triple reasons that such travels are politically salient, involve
a significant commitment of Chinese government resources, and herald the
expansion of Beijing’s political, economic, and diplomatic collaboration with
490
X. Li
other countries thereafter. Corroborating this argument, the preceding analysis shows that Beijing has long put leadership diplomacy at the forefront of
its efforts to bolster the PRC’s stature and influence in the developing world
against American hegemony.
In reality, China’s gains from this endeavor may include: (1) greater
international support for Beijing’s positions in global and regional affairs,
(2) stronger relationships to protect Chinese access to overseas markets and
energy sources (so as to offset any possible deterioration in US-China relations), (3) restrictions on US options toward the countries that benefit from
closer ties with China, and (4) tentative security cooperation that may lay the
foundations of future alliances (Goldstein 2005; Medeiros 2009; Nathan and
Scobell 2012; Shambaugh 2013; Sutter 2012). As a RAND study concludes,
these developments have produced complications in and constraints on US
interactions with many developing nations (Medeiros 2009:211–212).
Viewed in this light, PRC leadership travel to the developing world has
the implicit effect of countering US primacy both symbolically and substantively. Hence, it may be considered a plausible, first-cut indicator of
China’s strategic competition with America. Based on original data collected
by myself (see the next section), Figure 1 graphs the annual number of
Chinese leadership visits to developing/non-OECD and developed/OECD
states respectively in 1982–2012.
Evidently, in the last three decades, China’s top leaders (defined as
the president and the premier in this study) have displayed a much
stronger interest in visiting developing nations. The Tiananmen crisis in
1989 marks a veritable turning point in this respect. In 1982–1988, the
PRC president/premier paid 40 visits to developing states and 28 visits to
FIGURE 1 Chinese leadership travel to the developing and developed countries, 1982–2012.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
491
developed states; in other words, 58.8% of Chinese leadership travel was
directed toward the developing world, with approximately five to six visits per year. By contrast, in 1989–2012, the number of PRC leadership
visits was 267 for developing countries and 117 for developed countries;
in other words, 69.5% of Chinese leadership travel was targeted at the
developing world, with approximately 11 to 12 visits annually (comparatively, there was little change in the yearly average of visits to OECD
countries for the 1982–1988 and 1989–2012 periods). This development corresponds closely with Beijing’s aforementioned foreign policy objective, after
Tiananmen, of seeking greater solidarity with the developing world against
US “hegemonism.”
Nevertheless, there are some interesting variations in this pattern.
In 1996–1998, when US engagement acquired unprecedented momentum,
culminating in the exchange of state visits between Jiang Zemin and
President Clinton, there was a steep decline in PRC leadership travel to the
developing world. In marked contrast, in 1999–2001, when Sino-American
relations were strained once again, China’s top leaders resumed their diplomatic activism in visiting other developing countries. After President George
W. Bush’s visit to China in early 2002, however, the US-China relationship
improved rapidly, with a corresponding, drastic reduction in Chinese leadership travel to the non-Western world. Similar declines in PRC leadership
diplomacy also occurred after 2006, when President Hu Jintao paid a successful visit to the United States; and after 2009, when President Barack Obama
visited China.
Those zigzag changes suggest that US engagement may have something to do with the adjustments in China’s diplomatic priorities. Indeed,
Jiang Zemin indicated as much in his keynote address to the CCP’s 16th
congress in November 2002. While continuing to extol solidarity with the
developing world, Jiang conspicuously assigned a lower priority to this old
theme of PRC diplomacy. Instead, he paid foremost attention to “improving and advancing relations with the developed countries,” with a view
to expanding cooperation and managing differences appropriately (Jiang
2006, Vol. 3:567).6 In other words, Jiang affirmed indirectly that in Chinese
foreign policy, the necessity to engage the West (primarily the United
States) sometimes prevailed over the necessity to engage the developing
world. Thus, if US engagement does induce Beijing to value cooperation
with Washington, China will likely moderate its strategic competition with
America, as manifested by fewer PRC leadership visits to the non-Western
world.
To realists, however, a rising state’s challenge to the hegemonic order is
largely a function of its relative capabilities to do so. Accordingly, in the long
6
Note that in 2007–2012, Hu Jintao made similar statements in his political reports to the CCP’s 17th and
18th congresses, which are available at http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64168/index.html.
492
X. Li
run, US engagement may not be enough to dissuade China from seeking
to undermine American predominance. On the contrary, as its capabilities
grow, Beijing might still expend an increasing effort in solidifying its diplomatic and strategic association with a broad variety of developing nations, as
manifested by more PRC leadership travel to the non-Western world.
Quantitatively, when an outcome phenomenon of interest may be
affected by several explanatory factors, it is often helpful to determine the relative impacts of those competing factors through statistical analysis. To begin
with, I posit the following two hypotheses:
H1: The more powerful China becomes vis-à-vis America, the more likely its
leaders will visit the developing world.
H2: The more China is engaged by America, the less likely its leaders will visit
the developing world.
RESEARCH DESIGN
To examine these hypotheses, I use time-series, cross-section data on
Chinese leadership travel to the developing world in 1990–2012 (see the
appendix available online). In other words, the unit of analysis is the target
country-year. Methodologically, this approach enables us to address several
highly pertinent questions. First, since the PRC leadership never singles out
any particular developing countries as Beijing’s preferred partners, we need
to examine whether the passage of time leads to more Chinese leadership
visits to any and all developing nations. Second, given the varying characteristics of individual states, we have to explore whether the PRC leadership
will, over time, more likely visit some countries than others. Finally, the central purpose of this study is to evaluate the time-series effects of such causal
variables as the growth of China’s relative power or various mechanisms of
US engagement with China.
I collect original data from the authoritative Xinhua Monthly Report
(Xinhua Yuebao), a journal published by the Xinhua News Agency that provides timely accounts of the PRC leadership’s domestic and international
activities. I choose 1990 as the beginning year because it signified to Beijing
the beginning of post-Cold War US hegemony.
My data focus on the two topmost leaders of China, the president (who
serves invariably as the CCP’s general secretary) and the premier, who normally direct Chinese foreign policy. Other top civilian leaders, such as the
Speaker of the National People’s Congress and the Chairman of the National
Political Consultative Conference, have little influence over the relevant policymaking process (Nathan and Scobell 2012:49). Accordingly, as observed
by Kastner and Saunders (2012), the president/premier’s travel abroad is
perhaps the best indicator of China’s diplomatic priorities.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
493
Meanwhile, my research design differs from the work of Kastner and
Saunders (2012) in two aspects. First, it broadens the temporal domain,
as their study deals only with the period 1998–2008. Second, it appraises
the causal impact of key explanatory factors over time, whereas their study
estimates such impact on a state-by-state, but not year-by-year, basis.
As mentioned earlier, I conceptualize the developing world as comprising all countries that are not OECD members. If a state joins the OECD within
the 1990–2012 period, I code it as a developing state until the year of its
OECD admission. Because China’s leaders never visit any country that has no
formal diplomatic relations with the PRC, I exclude any country-year observations wherein the concerned state maintains no diplomatic relationship
with Beijing, to avoid inflating the data unnecessarily.
Within the developing world, the PRC leadership may have a special
affinity with authoritarian states. This is not only because birds of the same
feather tend to flock together but because countries with domestic institutions dissimilar to those of the United States may share a common interest
in counterbalancing Washington (Lemke 2004:65). Thus, I create a subset
of data that includes autocracies alone, to explore whether US engagement
reduces the likelihood of Chinese leadership travel to this particular group
of countries, which are more likely to side with Beijing in an anti-American
struggle. I regard a state as an autocracy in a given year if, according to the
Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World Survey, it is considered “not
free” in that year (such states are invariably coded as “autocracies” by the
widely used Polity IV data set too).
Dependent Variable: Chinese Leadership Travel
My dependent variable is a dichotomous measure—that is, whether or
not the PRC president or premier visits a developing nation in a given
year (0 means no leadership visit, 1 otherwise). I choose this measure
because neither of the two leaders will visit the same country twice in a year
and because they rarely visit the same country in the same year. Regrettably,
I am unable to ascertain the number of days spent by the Chinese leaders
on each trip, because Xinhua Monthly Report does not always supply this
information.
Like Kastner and Saunders (2012), my primary data exclude leadership
visits made solely for the purpose of attending a multilateral international
meeting in a particular developing nation, for two reasons. First, such
“sideline” trips often do not involve a significant commitment of Chinese
government resources (for example, economic aid and investment commitments); hence, they are perhaps of secondary importance in Beijing’s
efforts to cultivate the developing world. Second, such visits are actually
quite sparse: Due to the well-known Chinese penchant for ceremony and
protocol, only 4% of all PRC leadership travels to developing countries in
494
X. Li
1990–2012 occurred in a multilateral context without being accompanied by
a formal visit by the Chinese president/premier to the concerned countries
in the same year (see the appendix). Consequently, in a separate robustness
test, I find that the inclusion of those visits does not affect the results of the
data analysis, which is consistent with Kastner and Saunders’s (2012) earlier
discovery on the same count.
Independent Variables
To measure China’s relative power vis-à-vis America, I create a variable,
CU Relative Power, which is the annual Sino-American GDP ratio (in current US$, from the World Bank database). For robustness tests, I use the
annual ratio of military spending between China and the United States as
an alternative measure, based on the Military Expenditure Database of the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (http://milexdata.sipri.org).
Unsurprisingly, those two measures are in fact highly correlated with each
other (the Pearson’s r is .94).
I choose not to utilize the Correlates of War (COW) project’s National
Material Capabilities (v4.0) data set because its measure of national power
may have greatly overestimated China’s relative capabilities. For example,
according to this data set, the PRC’s material power has exceeded that of the
United States since 1996, which is not a very credible estimation.
I also create the following variables to approximate the three principal mechanisms of US engagement with China—expanded trade, increased
interactions through international institutions, and more high-level leadership
contacts.
The first variable, CU Trade Dependence, is the ratio of China’s annual
trade with the United States to China’s GDP in the same year. The trade
information is taken from the COW Bilateral Trade (v3.0) dataset (Barbieri
and Keshk 2012). I obtain China’s annual GDP data (in current US$) from
the World Bank database. Regrettably, there are no reliable data on China’s
dependence on foreign direct investment from the United States annually, due to the PRC’s inconsistent financial reporting standards before its
accession to the World Trade Organization.
The second variable, CU Joint IGOs, refers to the number of the shared
membership of China and the United States in intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in a given year. This is a widely adopted measure of the extent
of interactions between two nations through international institutions, based
on the COW Intergovernmental Organizations (v2.3) dataset (Pevehouse,
Nordstrom, and Warnke 2004).
The third variable, US Visits, is a dummy variable indicating whether the
US president or vice president visits China in a given year (0 means no such
visit, 1 otherwise). This information is also from Xinhua Monthly Report. For
robustness checks, I create a dummy variable indicating whether the PRC
president, vice president, or premier visits the United States in a given year.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
495
Admittedly, the measures for the independent variables (especially relative power and trade dependence) change only incrementally, though the
trend is toward an increase over time. Nonetheless, Beijing habitually pays
close attention to the trends in its relations with other countries (for example,
see Christensen 2006). Thus, these measures may still matter considerably to
Beijing’s perceptions of its relative power position, and of how it is being
engaged (for example, even one more shared IGO membership breeds more
regularized interactions with Washington in international institutions).
Control Variables
Several competing explanations of Chinese leadership travel require attention
here.
First, Beijing’s diplomatic activism in the developing world derives also
in part from its desire to secure access to overseas markets and strategic
resources, especially oil (Medeiros 2009:148–149). To approximate the economic significance of a country to China, I use three controls, adopted first
by Kastner and Saunders (2012): (1) Population, which is the natural log
of a country’s population in a given year, as recorded in the Penn World
Table Version 7.1 (Heston, Summers, and Aten 2012); (2) Bilateral Trade,
which is the natural log of a country’s annual trade with China (based
on the COW Trade dataset); (3) Oil-Richness, which is the natural log of
a country’s proven oil reserves in a given year, based on the International
Energy Statistics database of the Energy Information Administration of the
US Department of Energy (http://www.eia.gov/countries/data.cfm). The log
function is necessary for reducing the high level of variance in the raw data.
For robustness tests, I also control for a country’s annual GDP and/or
GDP per capita, which are, unsurprisingly, highly correlated with the country’s population and trade with China. Thus, using these alternative measures
does not change the results. Regrettably, due to the lack of reliable data,
I am unable to control for the annual investment flows between China and
another country, or a country’s annual production of other natural resources
that might pique Beijing’s attention.
Second, while welcoming US engagement, China has long sought to
broaden its political and economic contact with the West at large, which
might have decreased Beijing’s interest in the developing world over time,
leading to more PRC leadership travel to OECD states and fewer visits to
developing nations. Thus, I create two controls: (1) CW Trade Dependence,
which is the ratio of China’s annual trade with OECD countries to China’s
total foreign trade in the same year (based on the COW trade dataset); and
(2) CW Visits, which is the total number of PRC leadership visits to OECD
countries in a given year (see the appendix).
Third, since the mid-1990s, China has not only joined more international
institutions but sponsored some intergovernmental organizations within the
496
X. Li
non-Western world (for example, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
and the China-Africa Forum). Given the well-known coordination effects
of IGOs, this might have helped Beijing to coordinate policies with other
developing nations without the trouble of leadership visits. Thus, I create
a control, CD Joint IGOs, which is the shared IGO membership of China
and another developing state in a given year (based on the COW IGO data
set).
Fourth, China’s preoccupation with regional security challenges might
have reduced its incentives for competition with America in other parts of
the world. Thus, I create a control, Local Challenges, to indicate the number of China’s territorial disputes in a given year. In reality, Beijing always
regards sovereignty and territorial integrity as a vital national interest, and
the settlement of each dispute requires a significant commitment of Beijing’s
attention and resources. This information is from Fravel’s (2008:46–47) data
on China’s territorial disputes since 1949 because the Issue Correlates of War
project has not included China yet. I code a territorial dispute as closed after
China signs a boundary agreement concerning that dispute.
Fifth, if the PRC is bent on challenging US preeminence, Beijing would
find it easier to recruit allies from among the countries that are at odds or at
least not closely associated with Washington. Thus, I create three controls,
adopted also by Kastner and Saunders (2012): (1) Rising States, a dummy
indicator of whether a country is a member of the Group of Twenty but not
simultaneously a member of the original Group of Seven (1 if yes, 0 otherwise); (2) US Ally, a dummy indicator of whether a country has a formal
military alliance with the United States in a given year (0 if no alliance,
1 otherwise); and (3) US Sanction, a dummy indicator of whether a country
is the target of US economic sanctions in a given year (0 if no sanctions,
1 otherwise). The information about alliances and sanctions is taken from
the COW Alliances (v4.1) data set (Gibler 2009) and the Peterson Institute
for International Economics (Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot 2007; Hufbauer,
Schott, Elliot, and Muir 2012) respectively.
In robustness tests, I use two alternative measures of a country’s political
association with the United States: (1) Affinity of Interest, a widely adopted
index of the affinity of nations based on the similarity of voting in the
UN General Assembly in a given year (Gartzke 2006; Strezhnev and Voeten
2013); and (2) US Troops, a dummy indicator of whether the United States stations at least 1,000 troops in a country in a given year (1 if yes, 0 otherwise),
as recorded in Kane’s (2006) data set on global US troop deployments.
Finally, I control for a country’s geographical proximity to China by
creating a dummy variable, Asia, to indicate whether the country is located
in Asia (1 if yes, 0 otherwise).
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
497
Methodology
Since my dependent variable takes binary values, I employ logistic regression as the method of estimation. I control for time dependence in the data
by utilizing two alternative corrections—the spline method of Beck, Katz,
and Tucker (1998) and the cubic polynomial method of Carter and Signorino
(2010). The addition of year-dummies, as recommended by those two methods, helps to assess the possibility that there might exist other year-specific
factors influencing Chinese leadership diplomacy that are not accounted for
by the main explanatory variables.
Typically, a PRC leadership visit to a foreign country requires extensive preparations over a long time. As a result, any leadership travel that
occurs in a given year is plausibly planned according to Chinese assessments of changes in key explanatory factors in a previous year. Thus, I lag
all explanatory variables by one year, except those that are time invariant
(for example, G-20 states or US alliances).
All computations of the data are completed by using Stata version 10.
FINDINGS
Before running the models, I first conduct a test of collinearity among the
explanatory variables, by using the collin (Collinearity diagnostics) program
designed by the UCLA Academic Technology Services (http://www.ats.ucla.
edu/stat/stata/ado/default.htm). The results show that China’s relative power,
measured by either GDP or military spending, is highly collinear with its
trade dependence on the United States and its preoccupation with local
challenges. Theoretically, this is hardly surprising because a flourishing SinoAmerican trade relationship has been a major cause of China’s economic
takeoff, and much of Beijing’s military spending is directed at countering
local security threats. Once the relative power variable is dropped, however,
all other explanatory variables are below the threshold of collinearity.
To avoid biasing the results of statistical analysis, I run the preliminary models without including the relative power variable, which I use in
later models (reported in the following). In fact, this by no means obviates
the causal importance of relative power in influencing Chinese leadership
diplomacy. Instead, later models highlight this causal effect more clearly.7
In Table 1, Model 1 and Model 2 present the findings of the preliminary
models.
As expected, two of the three US engagement mechanisms, the SinoAmerican IGO interactions and US presidential visits to China, display a
7
All models control for time dependence with the application of splines. Using Carter and Signorino’s
(2010) cubic polynomials produces similar results.
498
X. Li
TABLE 1 Logit Analysis of Chinese Leadership Travel to the Developing World, 1990–2012
Explanatory
Variables
CU relative power
CU Trade
dependence
CU joint IGOs
US visits
Population
Bilateral trade
Oil-richness
CW trade
dependence
CW visits
CD joint IGOs
Local challenges
Rising states
US ally
US sanction
Asia
Pseudo R2
N
Model 1:
All Developing
World
—−8.80 (7.38)
−.15
−.50
.31
.42
−.01
−1.05
(.045)∗∗∗∗
(.23)∗∗
(.08)∗∗∗∗
(.07)∗∗∗∗
(.01)
(1.11)
−.03 (.04)
−.01 (.02)
−.42 (.11)∗∗∗∗
−.06 (.36)
−.21 (.25)
−.25 (.25)
.18 (.21)
.19
1904
Model 2:
All Autocracies
Model 3:
All Developing
World
Model 4:
All Autocracies
—1.30 (13.65)
17.32 (5.50)∗∗∗
—-
34.88 (9.98)∗∗∗∗
—-
−.22
−.46
.31
.40
−.01
1.08
−.29 (.10)∗∗∗
−1.06 (.45)∗∗
.37 (.16)∗∗
.23 (.14)∗
.002 (.017)
1.77 (1.61)
−.175 (.089)∗∗
−.96 (.43)∗∗
.38 (.16)∗∗
.26 (.14)∗
−.0003 (.017)
−1.87 (1.89)
.05
−.01
−.58
−.26
−.01
−.34
.57
.18
(.07)
(.03)
(.21)∗∗∗
(.77)
(.94)
(.36)
(.38)
643
(.05)∗∗∗∗
(.24)∗
(.08)∗∗∗∗
(.07)∗∗∗∗
(.01)
(.93)
−.05 (.04)
−.01 (.02)
—−.07 (.36)
−.21 (.25)
−.26 (.25)
.21 (.21)
.18
1904
.02 (.07)
−.01 (.03)
—−.28 (.77)
−.02 (.94)
−.34 (.36)
.61 (.38)
.18
643
Entries are logit coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses.
∗∗∗∗
p < .001, ∗∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗ p < .05, ∗ p < .1, two-tailed tests.
Splines dropped for space limitations.
statistically robust effect in restraining PRC leadership travel to the developing world as well as fellow autocracies.8 Intriguingly, China’s trade
dependence on America fails to manifest any statistically significant impact
on Beijing’s diplomatic activism in this regard. Possibly, given the high level
of Sino-American economic interdependence, China has become “too big to
cut off” for Washington, which decreases the utility of trade dependence as
an instrument for influencing Chinese foreign policy.
Other findings are equally interesting. Consistent with China’s image as
a mercantile, market-hungry power, the PRC president/premier are significantly more likely to visit a developing nation, or an authoritarian state, that
has a large population and/or a booming trade relationship with the PRC.
However, whether a state possesses large oil reserves has no appreciable
influence on the likelihood of Chinese leadership travel to that country—a
discovery also made by Kastner and Saunders (2012).
Meanwhile, China’s widening economic and diplomatic contact with the
West does not significantly impact Beijing’s diplomatic activism toward the
developing world. Likewise, the increased IGO interactions between China
8
In robustness tests, I find that PRC leadership visits to the United States, used as an alternative measure
of Sino-American high-level contacts, also reduces significantly the likelihood of Chinese leadership travel
to the developing world.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
499
and other developing nations demonstrate no statistically robust influence
on the PRC leadership’s travel decisions. Arguably, these findings convey
a double message: (1) China’s growing connections with the West do not
necessarily diminish the strategic importance of the developing world to
Chinese foreign policy; and (2) to Beijing, US engagement is a weightier
factor to reckon with than China’s interactions with any other Western or
non-Western states.
Furthermore, China’s preoccupation with territorial disputes does make
its leaders significantly less likely to visit the developing world or fellow
autocracies. Indirectly, this finding also points to a strategic necessity for
Beijing to cultivate American support for the settlement of security conflicts
in East Asia (Sutter 2012:134–135). Geographical proximity, however, proves
unimportant: As China gradually becomes a global power, Beijing obviously
no longer restricts the focus of Chinese diplomacy to Asia alone.
Finally, like Kastner and Saunders (2012), I also find that the PRC
president/premier have no visible interest in visiting a country that is either
an emerging power, a target of US sanctions, or a formal ally of Washington.
In robustness tests, whether a developing state has a lower affinity of interest or fewer defense links with America has no statistically significant impact
on Chinese leadership travel, either. This finding corresponds with some US
experts’ observation that since the 2000s, Beijing has become more cautious in approaching controversial regimes that are at variance with the
United States (Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Small 2008; for a similar view, see Sutter
2012:597). Under unipolarity, as argued earlier, prudence requires China to
avoid an overt challenge to the American colossus, despite Beijing’s latent
revisionist aspirations.
Yet, on the other hand, China’s growing relative capabilities might
well have stiffened Beijing’s resolve to hedge against American hegemony.
In Table 1, Model 3 and Model 4 present the results with the incorporation
of the relative power variable and with the exclusion of two aforementioned
variables that are highly collinear with it.
As hypothesized, China’s burgeoning relative power exhibits a strong
and highly significant effect in stimulating PRC leadership travel to the developing world as well as fellow autocracies.9 In other words, a materially
stronger China becomes more proactive in competing against US primacy
and expanding its own stature and influence internationally. Nonetheless, it
is worth emphasizing that in Model 3 and Model 4, the two key mechanisms
of US engagement continue to play a salient role in constraining Beijing’s
diplomatic activism in this regard. Meanwhile, there are continuing indications that Chinese diplomacy is not yet driven by a virulent anti-Americanism:
9
The results remain the same if we use China’s annual military spending as an alternative indicator of its
rising military power. Unsurprisingly, this variable is also highly correlated with the annual Sino-American
GDP ratio (the Pearson’s r is .97).
500
X. Li
As in previous models, the PRC president/premier are far more likely to visit
a developing country because of its economic significance to China, rather
than on account of its political relationship with the United States.
At this point, however, a perceptive reader might ask: Since the Chinese
leadership visits to developing nations have, on average, increased over time
anyway, could this trend be driven mainly by the passage of time (similar
to the thesis that “the longer you know somebody, the more likely you will
visit his/her house”), rather than by other explanatory variables? Typically,
in quantitative international relations (IR) scholarship, the problem of temporal dependence can be resolved either by the introduction of splines or
cubic polynomials (as already applied in previous models) or by employing a
time variable, such as the widely used indicator of the continuance of peace
years between one state and another (see Senese and Vásquez 2008:60, 71).
Adopting this latter approach, I create an alternative “year” variable, by coding the beginning year in each target country’s interactions with China as
1 within the 1990–2012 period.10 As this variable proves insignificant and
does not affect the causal significance of others in all models, the validity of
previous findings remains unimpaired.
In an additional robustness check, I also assess the possibility that
US military presence in East Asia may have increased China’s distrust of
American intentions, thereby leading Beijing to hedge against US predominance more vigorously. Using Kane’s (2006) data on global US troop
deployments, I create a control variable, US-Asia Troops, which is the annual
number of US troops stationed in East Asia. This variable, however, appears
insignificant in all models, perhaps because, until the 2010s, US military
presence in the region had been overall declining and was not perceived by
Beijing as a grave security concern.11
To illustrate the substantive effects of key explanatory variables, Table 2
reports the impact on the predicted probability of PRC leadership travel
by each variable that remains statistically significant in Model 3 and Model
4 respectively when all other variables are held at their mean values. Due
to space limitations, I only examine the results as each variable changes
from its minimum value to its maximum value, but other analyses (based on
representative values or one-standard-deviation increase in the values) are
available upon request.
10
Nevertheless, if a state experienced a rupture in its diplomatic relations with China during this period, I
code the year of the reestablishment of such relations as 1 again.
11
Similarly, controlling for China’s annual involvement in a militarized interstate dispute (MID) against
the United States does not change the results, possibly because: (1) most Sino-American MIDs in
1990–2010 were lower-intensity conflicts (that is, not involving the actual use of force); and (2) after experiencing such a conflict, Beijing usually sought to improve its relations with Washington subsequently (for
example, see Shirk 2007 and Tang 2009).
501
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
TABLE 2 Predicted Probability of Chinese Leadership Travel, 1990–2012
Model 3 (All Developing World)
Explanatory
Variables
Model 4 (All Autocracies)
Min
Max
Prob. Change
(% Change)
Min
Max
Prob. Change
(% Change)
CU relative
power
.021
.141
.120 (+5, 700)
.010
.385
.375 (+3, 750)
CU joint IGOs
.329
.028
−.301 (−91)
.546
.026
−.520 (−95)
US visits
.056
.036
−.020 (−36)
.076
.028
−.048 (−64)
Population
.013
.198
.185 (+1, 400)
.009
.157
.148 (+1, 530)
Bilateral trade
.000
.429
.429 (+42, 900)
.014
.178
.164 (+1, 200)
Within the 1990–2012 period, when China’s relative power peaks vis-àvis America, the probability of PRC leadership travel to the developing world
and to fellow autocracies rockets up by 57 times and 37.5 times respectively.
This does not mean, however, that US efforts to engage China are useless. At the zenith of Sino-American IGO interactions (as measured by their
joint IGO membership), the likelihood of a Chinese leadership visit to the
developing world and/or other authoritarian states shrinks by 91% and 95%
respectively. US presidential visits to China have a remarkable constraining
effect in this direction too. In the wake of such a visit, the probability of PRC
leadership travel to the developing world and to fellow autocracies dwindles
by 36% and 64% respectively.
Meanwhile, the likelihood of PRC leadership travel is also heavily
swayed by a country’s economic significance (or market potential) to China.
When a developing and/or authoritarian state happens to have the largest
population among its peers, the probability of a Chinese leadership visit to
that state increases by 14 times and 15 times respectively. Similarly, when a
developing or authoritarian country’s trade volume with China reaches the
highest level, the probability of a PRC leadership visit surges by 429 times
and 12 times respectively.
In sum, this study indicates that the relationship between an ascending
China and the American hegemon is manageable to some extent but may
become increasingly competitive over time. Theoretically, this is because a
rising state may have wider aims and interests stemming from its enhanced
relative capabilities and because those aims and interests are not always
compatible with the existing hegemonic order. Consequently, a strategy of
hegemonic engagement may help expand cooperation and limit competition
502
X. Li
with an emerging power, but it does not necessarily set the permanent
boundaries of the latter’s revisionist aspirations.12
This is not to say, however, that China and the United States are bound
to become outright adversaries. The costs are simply too high for both countries and indeed for the world. This probably explains why both Beijing
and Washington have persistently emphasized the necessity for promoting
dialogues and cooperation, to build more bridges between the two nations
and erode the ground for unlimited competition and conflict (Kerry 2014).
Indirectly, this study provides both a testimony to the progress that has been
made in this direction and a reminder that more arduous work still needs to
be done in the future.
CONCLUSION
Can US engagement moderate China’s strategic competition with America?
This study indicates the answer is a qualified yes. Under unipolarity, a rising
state may face both incentives to accommodate the hegemonic dominance
and to expand its own strategic leeway against the latter. Consequently,
engagement may help the hegemon to promote cooperation over competition in dealing with an ascending power, but it does not necessarily
overwhelm the structural incentives for the competition. Against this theoretical backdrop, this study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative research
to demonstrate that China’s reaction to American primacy has long been
marked by a profound ambivalence. Specifically, the findings suggest that
while US engagement has some restraining impact on China’s competitive
propensity, Beijing will continue to hedge against American hegemony, as
its capabilities grow, by solidifying its diplomatic and strategic association
with the developing world.
The endurance of competition, however, does not imply that conflict is
inevitable. In fact, facing the reality of rising power, realist theory does not
uniformly predict catastrophe or recommend containment: To classical realists, the future is always unwritten, and so wise diplomacy matters (Kirshner
2012:65–66).13 Despite China’s impressive development to date, for example,
it is far from certain that the PRC will achieve parity with the United States
in economic, military, and technological strength for the foreseeable future
12
Note, for example, Beijing’s growing assertiveness in handling maritime disputes with Japan and some
Southeast Asian countries and its unilateral declaration of an air defense identification zone in the East
China Sea in late 2013.
13
Intriguingly, in July 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry made a similar point during the US-China
Strategic and Economic Dialogue, by emphasizing that Sino-American rivalry is not inevitable but depends
on both sides’ policy choices. Accordingly, he voiced US concerns with particular aspects of Chinese
foreign policy in a more forthright manner (Kerry 2014).
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
503
(Beckley 2011). Many PRC elites seem to realize this too and hence prefer
to keep China committed to peaceful development, by working with rather
than against America (Bader 2012:122–123; Sutter 2012:149–150). As noted
recently by a renowned Singaporean expert, those “doves” still hold considerable sway in opposition to an aggressive, nationalist approach in Chinese
foreign policy (Mahbubani 2014).
Under the circumstances, sustained US engagement helps to strengthen
the moderate Chinese groups and individuals by signaling that American
intentions toward China are not inimical and that there is much room for
promoting mutual understanding and benefit. Within this context, a belligerent Chinese posture toward America will appear less appealing or defensible
in domestic debates. Engagement, in other words, reduces the likelihood of
conflict by preventing the formation of a strong consensus among the ruling
elites of an emerging power that the hegemon constitutes an unappeasable
threat, a consensus that is a foremost necessary condition for balancing or
confrontational behavior (Schweller 2004).
Meanwhile, Washington should also conduct a candid and straightforward dialogue with Beijing, to tackle the apparent inconsistencies in China’s
grand strategy on its own terms. What, for example, does the PRC want by
espousing a new, “fair and just” international order, despite its deepening
enmeshment in the current global system? What aspects of the existing order
would Beijing wish to change, and in what ways (that is, through gradual
reform or drastic overhaul)? And, last but not the least, what changes may
look permissible to Washington, and what would overstep the red line of
American tolerance? Such a dialogue would help both sides to assess each
other’s strategic intentions with rigorous objectivity and to act upon the solidity of fact, rather than upon wishful thinking or misjudgments, in formulating
future policies.
For future research, this study suggests that China’s interactions with
the developing world (and how those interactions relate to the ups and
downs in US-China relations) warrant a deeper exploration. As argued earlier, a prudent rising state may choose not to overturn the existing world
order by brute force but by covert competition. If that is the case, then it
may not be possible, as some scholars contend, to maintain the current,
largely Western-dominated system with a larger role for China (Ikenberry
2011:344–345; Nathan and Scobell 2012:356). For, conceivably, Beijing might
work quietly with other developing nations to reduce the magnitude of US
or Western supremacy, to prepare step by step for an ultimate systemic transformation. A recent study, for example, presents systematic evidence that as
African and Latin American countries trade more with China, they become
more likely to side with Beijing in voting on the UN General Assembly’s
country-specific human rights resolutions, which are often a major point of
contention between the West and the rest (Flores-Macias and Kreps 2013).
It will be interesting, then, to examine how China interacts with like-minded
504
X. Li
developing states in pivotal global institutions over time, to advance policy
objectives that are at variance with Western preferences. The first step is to
be on the lookout.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank John Vasquez, Paul Diehl, Mark Nieman, Gennady
Rudkevich, Michael Colaresi, and three anonymous reviewers for many
insightful comments and suggestions for improving this study. I also
thank Xiaohong Zheng, Huaren Jin, and my mother for their generous
research support. The appendix and replication files are available on the
International Interactions Dataverse page at http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/
dv/internationalinteractions.
REFERENCES
Bader, Jeffrey. (2012) Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s Account of America’s
Asia Strategy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Barbieri, Katherine. (2002) The Liberal Illusion: Does Trade Promote Peace? Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Barbieri, Katherine, and Omar Keshk. (2012) Correlates of War Project Trade Data
Set Codebook, Version 3.0. Available at http://correlatesofwar.org.
Beck, Nathaniel, Jonathan Katz, and Richard Tucker. (1998) Taking Time Seriously in
Binary Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis. American Journal of Political Science
42(4): 1260–1288.
Beckley, Michael. (2011) China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will Endure.
International Security 36(3):41–78.
Braumoeller, Bear. (2012) The Great Powers and the International System: Systemic
Theory in Empirical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brooks, Stephen, and William Wohlforth. (2008) World Out of Balance: International
Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Carter, David, and Curtis Signorino. (2010) Back to the Future: Modeling Time
Dependence in Binary Data. Political Analysis 18(3):271–292.
Christensen, Thomas. (2006) Windows and War: Trend Analysis and Beijing’s Use
of Force. In New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy, edited by
Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert Ross. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Clinton, Hillary. (2012) Remarks at the US Institute of Peace China Conference.
Available at: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/03/185402.htm.
Deng, Xiaoping. (1993) Deng Xiaoping wenxuan [Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping],
Vol. 3. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe.
Deng, Yong. (2008) China’s Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International
Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
505
Fingar, Thomas. (2012) China’s Vision of World Order. In China’s Military Challenge,
edited by Ashley Tellis and Travis Tanner. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian
Research.
Flores-Macías, Gustavo, and Sarah Kreps. (2013). The Foreign Policy Consequences
of Trade: China’s Commercial Relations with Africa and Latin America,
1992–2006. Journal of Politics 75(2):357–371.
Foot, Rosemary. (2006) Chinese Strategies in a US-Hegemonic Global Order:
Accommodating and Hedging. International Affairs 82(1):77–94.
Foot, Rosemary, and Andrew Walter. (2011) China, the United States, and the Global
Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fravel, Taylor. (2008) Secure Borders, Strong Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in
China’s Territorial Disputes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Friedberg, Aaron. (2011) A Contest for Supremacy: China, the United States, and the
Struggle for Mastery in Asia. New York: W. W. Norton.
Gartzke, Erik. (2006) The Affinity of Nations Index, 1946–2008. Available at: http://
dss.ucsd.edu/∼egartzke/htmlpages/data.html.
Gibler, Douglas. (2009) International Military Alliances, 1648–2008. Washington,
DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
Gilpin, Robert. (1981) War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Goldstein, Avery. (2005) Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and
International Security. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Heston, Alan, Robert Summers, and Bettina Aten. (2012) Penn World Table Version
7.1. Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices,
University of Pennsylvania.
Holmes, Marcus. (2013) The Force of Face-to-Face Diplomacy: Mirror Neurons and
the Problem of Intentions. International Organization 67(4):829–861.
Hufbauer, Gary, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Elliot. (2007) Economic Sanctions
Reconsidered. Third Edition. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for
International Economics.
Hufbauer, Gary, Jeffrey Schott, Kimberly Elliot, and Julia Muir. (2012) Post2000 Sanctions Episodes. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International
Economics.
Huang, Jing, and Xiaoting Li. (2010) Inseparable Separation: The Making of China’s
Taiwan Policy. Singapore: World Scientific Press.
Ikenberry, G. John, ed. (2002) America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of
Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Ikenberry, G. John. (2011) Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and
Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Jiang, Zemin. (2006) Jiang Zemin wenxuan [Selected Works of Jiang Zemin], 3 vols.
Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe.
Johnston, Alastair Iain. (2003) Is China a Status Quo Power? International Security
27(4): 5–56.
Johnston, Alastair Iain. (2008) Social States: China in International Institutions,
1980–2000. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
506
X. Li
Kane, Tim. (2006) Global US Troop Deployment, 1950–2005. Available at: http://
www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/05/global-us-troop-deployment-19502005.
Kapstein, Ethan, and Michael Mastanduno, eds. (1999) Unipolar Politics. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Kastner, Scott, and Phillip Saunders. (2012) Is China a Status Quo or Revisionist
State? Leadership Travel as an Empirical Indicator of Foreign Policy Priorities.
International Studies Quarterly 56(1):163–177.
Kirshner, Jonathan. (2012) The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Classical Realism and
the Rise of China. European Journal of International Relations 18(1):53–75.
Kent, Ann. (2007) Beyond Compliance: China, International Organizations, and
Global Security. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Keohane, Robert. (1984) After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World
Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kerry, John. (2014) Remarks at the Opening Session of the Sixth US-China Strategic
and Economic Dialogue. Available at: http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/
2014/07/228910.htm.
Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Stephanie, and Andrew Small. (2008) China’s New Dictatorship
Diplomacy: Is Beijing Parting with Pariahs? Foreign Affairs 87(1):38–56.
Kupchan, Charles. (2014) The Normative Foundations of Hegemony and The
Coming Challenge to Pax Americana. Security Studies 23(2):219–257.
Larson, Deborah Welch, and Alexei Shevchenko. (2010) Status Seekers: Chinese and
Russian Responses to US Primacy. International Security 34(4):63–95.
Lemke, Douglas. (2004) Great Powers in the Post-Cold War World: A Power
Transition Perspective. In Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st
Century, edited by T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Leng Rong, et al. (2004) Deng Xiaoping nianpu, 1975–1997 [A Chronology of Deng
Xiaoping, 1975–997]. Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe.
Lieberthal, Kenneth, and Wang Jisi. (2012) Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust.
Washington, DC: John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution.
Mahbubani, Kishore. (2014, July 18). Helping China’s Doves. New York
Times. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/helping-chinasdoves.html.
Mastanduno, Michael. (1997) Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and
US Grand Strategy after the Cold War. International Security 21(4):49–88.
Mearsheimer, John. (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W.
Norton.
Mearsheimer, John. (2010) The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in
Asia. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 3(4):381–396.
Medeiros, Evan. (2007) Reluctant Restraint: The Evolution of China’s
Nonproliferation Policies and Practices, 1980–2004. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Medeiros, Evan. (2009) China’s International Behavior: Activism, Opportunism, and
Diversification. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Monteiro, Nuno P. (2014) Theory of Unipolar Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dealing with the Ambivalent Dragon
507
Morgenthau, Hans. (1948 [1978]) Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and
Peace. Fifth Edition. New York: Knopf.
Mowle, Thomas S., and David H. Sacko. (2007) The Unipolar World: An Unbalanced
Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nathan, Andrew, and Andrew Scobell. (2012) China’s Search for Security. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Oppenheimer, Andres. (2014, July 19) China Is Flexing Its Muscle in Latin
America. Miami Herald. Available at: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/
19/4243223/andres- oppenheimer-china-is-flexing.html.
Pape, Robert. (2005) Soft Balancing against the United States. International Security
30(1): 7–45.
Paul, T. V. (2005) Soft Balancing in the Age of US Primacy. International Security
30(1):46–71.
Pevehouse, Jon, Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. (2004) The COW2 International Organizations Dataset Version 2.0. Conflict Management and
Peace Science 21(2):101–119.
Qian, Qichen. (2003) Waijiao Shiji [Ten Diplomatic Episodes]. Beijing: Shijie Zhishi
Chubanshe.
Roy, Denny. (2003) China’s Reaction to American Predominance. Survival
45(3):57–78.
Russett, Bruce, and John Oneal. (2001) Triangulating Peace: Democracy,
Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: W. W. Norton.
Schweller, Randall. (1999) Managing the Rise of Great Powers: History and Theory.
In Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power, edited by Alastair
Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross. New York: Routledge.
Schweller, Randall. (2004) Unanswered Threats: A Neoclassical Realist Theory of
Underbalancing. International Security 29(2):159–201.
Schweller, Randall, and Xiaoyu Pu. (2011) After Unipolarity: China’s Visions of
International Oder in an Era of US Decline. International Security 36(1):41–72.
Senese, Paul, and John Vasquez. (2008) Steps to War: An Empirical Study. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Shambaugh, David. (2005) China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order.
International Security 29(3):64–99.
Shambaugh, David. (2013) China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Shirk, Susan. (2007) China: Fragile Superpower. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Strezhnev, Anton, and Erik Voeten. (2013) United Nations General Assembly Voting
Data. Available at: http://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/Voeten.
Sutter, Robert. (2012) Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy since the Cold
War. Third Edition. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Tammen, Ronald L., et al. (2000) Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century.
New York: Chatham House.
Tang, Jiaxuan. (2009) Jin yu xu feng [Heavy Storm and Gentle Breeze]. Hong Kong:
Commercial Press.
Tessman, Brock. (2012) System Structure and System Strategy: Adding Hedging to
the Menu. Security Studies 21(2):192–231.
508
X. Li
Walt, Stephen. (2005) Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy.
New York: W.W. Norton.
Waltz, Kenneth. (1997) Evaluating Theories. American Political Science Review
91(4):913–917.
Wohlforth, William. (1999) The Stability of a Unipolar World. International Security
24(1):5–41.
Zhong, Zhicheng. (2006) Weile shijie geng meihao: Jiang Zemin chufang jishi [For a
Better World: Jiang Zemin’s Foreign Visits]. Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe.
Zoellick, Robert. (2005) Whither China: From Membership to Responsibility? Remarks
to National Committee on US-China Relations. Available at: http://2001-2009.
state.gov/s/d/former/zoellick/rem/53682.htm.
Copyright of International Interactions is the property of Routledge and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.