When I set out to examine the strategies adopted by relatively rising states towards declining great powers in the late 2000s, debates (e.g., Pape Reference Pape2009; Rachman Reference Rachman2011) surrounding American decline and the rise of new great powers—especially China—were framed by two oppositional arguments. One approach claimed that rising states such as the PRC would become more aggressive and prone to challenge US security as relative power changed hands. Conversely, the other held that “engagement” through a combination of economic integration, incorporation into international institutions, and reassurance would convince rising states to broadly cooperate with and support key US economic and security interests as the distribution of power shifted (for overviews, see Campbell and Ratner Reference Campbell and Ratner2018; Friedberg Reference Friedberg2005).
Neither was satisfying. For one thing, there was at least some possibility that China might employ mixed strategies vis-à-vis the United States and blend predatory and supportive elements to advance its interests. Equally important, there were major historical instances where rising state strategy did not seem to follow the patterns described above. Germany, for example, increased its support for Austria-Hungary before 1914 despite rising German power and limited institutional or economic integration between the states, whereas a surging US preyed upon the declining USSR despite Soviet efforts at economic and institutional integration.
Combined, the absence of a framework for (1) discussing the range of strategies rising states can adopt towards declining states, and (2) systematically explaining this variation, motivated what became Rising Titans, Falling Giants (RTFG). Given that the work was inspired by contemporary debates surrounding China's rise, it is thus an honor to have Ketian Zhang, Robert Ross, and David Kang review the applicability of the research to East Asian and US–Chinese affairs today. Their comments are generous and thoughtful, and they identify important strengths and weaknesses in applying the argument to US–Chinese relations. In this response, I want to focus on three issues raised by the reviewers: whether rising state strategies can be cleanly delineated; whether conflict between a rising China and declining United States is more or less likely today than in times past; and whether we can know with confidence China's intentions. Each raises core questions surrounding the interplay of international relations theory and regional expertise.
The first issue concerns whether we can neatly categorize rising state behavior. In RTFG, I identified four ideal type strategies—Strengthening, Bolstering, Weakening, and Relegation—that rising states might adopt towards declining powers. As Zhang notes, however, “in the case of contemporary Chinese foreign policy, one is able to see all four strategies present at the same time, depending on particular areas”; this overlap, moreover, begs the question of whether strategy discussions in the contemporary world need to theorize more robustly the roles of diplomacy and economic statecraft in rising state–declining state interactions. Both are important points: if strategies cannot be categorized and/or need further refinement, then all books under review can do little to help us engage the rise and decline debate.
Overall, however, it is possible to accommodate both these issues within the project's framework. So far as categorizing strategies is concerned, there is always going to be bleed across conceptual categories. The key, though, is to arrive at an overarching judgment of where Chinese behavior falls relative to the ideal types. And here—as Kang's review also observes—it is possible to consider Chinese military behavior, diplomatic outreach, and economic statecraft to assess whether on balance China is attempting to prey upon or support the United States and to what degree. Given that China has notably built up its military and asserted itself within its near abroad without otherwise trying to push the United States out of East Asia, has undercut the US alliance system, and has continued economic exchange, it certainly seems that the PRC is pursuing a weakening strategy designed to gradually adumbrate US strengths (Shifrinson Reference Shifrinson2020). This might change in the future, however, and analysts should be on guard for growing Chinese efforts either to undercut US strength or—conversely—to keep the US an active player in East Asia.
The same holds true for addressing economic and diplomatic policy. Zhang is right that I primarily focus on security issues. Still, we can extend the project's logic to discuss, for instance, economic statecraft. Here—in principle—the more a rising state sets out to harm a declining state's economic livelihood and is willing to pay a lot politically, economically, and diplomatically for the privilege, the more intensely predatory such efforts; on the other hand, the more a rising state cooperates with a declining state in economic affairs and tries to accommodate its economic concerns, the more supportive such efforts appear. Applied to China today—and very much prima facie—I suspect China's effort today to sustain economic exchange with the United States while embracing many elements of the post-war Asian economic order would mark the PRC as adopting a loosely supportive economic approach. In short, Zhang's point is well-taken, and it highlights the potential (which future research might explore) for extending the argument to additional domains.
A second issue concerns whether the cases examined in RTFG shed insight into contemporary concerns in US–Chinese relations. As Ross observes, much of my volume is focused on relative rise and decline, leading me to examine cases in which absolutely stronger states increased their lead over relatively declining states. Since China's rise reflects change in both absolute and relative capabilities, this raises questions over whether the project's insights can apply to current dynamics. If nothing else, situations in which a state is rising and overtaking a declining state may be more conflict prone than those in which an already dominant state simply grows its advantage. If so, then US–Chinese relations may be in for rocky times. This is an important concern, raising issues of what cases make suitable study for insight into East Asian politics. On balance, however, the problem today has less to do with the type of power shift underway, than that power is changing hands.
At root, power shifts of all sorts give rising states strong incentives to bide time and avoid provoking a decliner until military power has decisively shifted. This applies regardless of whether a rising state is absolutely stronger or weaker at the start of a power shift—its incentive to bide time remains (Copeland Reference Copeland2000; Edelstein Reference Edelstein2017). A rising China is therefore subject to the same concerns with a declining US lashing out in conflict, as a relatively rising US was when faced with a waning Soviet Union: despite the different absolute positions, the danger of conflict with the relatively declining state is real. The opposite trend, meanwhile, holds for a declining state: it can and often does resort to competitive security policies designed to keep a rising state in check—risking conflict along the way—so long as it has a plausible military option. The ongoing US military buildup in East Asia underscores this tendency is alive and well (Colby Reference Colby2019).
Together, these trends suggest that the issue in East Asia today is less that China may be overtaking the US in absolute and relative terms—returning (as Kang suggests) to its prior hegemony—and more that a power shift is underway. With power shifting, the likelihood of the United States taking steps which may lead to war with the PRC is growing, and will continue even if China surpasses the US in absolute strength. Moreover, and as Geoffrey Blainey pointed out long ago, changes in power breed miscalculation as states mis-estimate what their relative power should get them at the negotiating table (Blainey Reference Blainey1988). We see this, for instance, in China's efforts to adjust territorial boundaries in its near abroad and the United States’ refusal to countenance such changes. Regardless, the issue is not that particular kinds of power shifts are underway in Asia, but rather that relative power—the focus of RTFG—is shifting.
A final question concerns whether, contrary to my theory, we can know with relative certainty what a rising China wants—that is, what its intentions are. Kang believes so, writing that “China has clear and consistent priorities” involving its near abroad and ethnic home territory. This point is well taken, and at first glance might seem to undermine the salience of projects (including my own) that use uncertainty over intentions as a scope condition. True knowledge of the intentions of another country—the argument might go—would allow for less uncertainty and thus less competitive world even as power shifts.
It is true that scholars applying theories to particular situations should not overstate their case. As Kang observes, for example, analysts have significant insight into China's strategic priorities, born of extended interactions, diplomatic dialogue, and China's own pronouncements. Still, this is not the same thing as saying one has confidence over what China's intentions in the future—the key issue for states trying to craft a strategy for today—encompass.
On one level, power shifts can prompt rising and declining states to alter their strategic ambitions, with rising states often prone to expanding their objectives (Rosato Reference Rosato2014, 87). Writing in the mid-1800s, for instance, one might have described the United States much like Kang describes China: focused on consolidating core territory and securing its near abroad. Several decades of rising power later, however, American intentions were much broader—seeking, at least since Wilson, to shape European and Asian politics in ways that suited American interests. Similar trends obtained with a rising Sweden, Germany, Soviet Union, and others.
Furthermore, China's recent history indicates that even short-term intentions are less clear-cut than Kang proposes. The contrast between China's near-isolation and support for revolutionary causes in the 1960s, its cooperation with the United States in the 1970s–1980s, and its emphasis on localized rise—with variation in how assertively China has done so—today all highlight that intentions can change within short periods (Ross Reference Ross1994; Johnston Reference Johnston2013). Combined, there are both theoretical and contextual reasons to believe China's intentions may be less knowable and more subject to change—especially as power shifts—than Kang allows. China has particular features, but there are strong grounds to suspect its future intentions are as unknowable as any other great power.
Ultimately, there is an inherent tension between international relations scholarship and efforts to apply such work to particular cases and/or regions. The reviews get at the fundamental issue: IR scholarship is interested in overarching trends leveraging insights from an array of cases, whereas regional and country-specific work can identify the limits to broad theories while developing more contextualized arguments. In this vein, Kang, Ross, and Zhang have done a masterful job underscoring both what insights developed in Rising Titans, Falling Giants apply to contemporary East Asia and US–Chinese relations, and the constraints therein. Rather than dismiss the application of theories often developed from a European context to modern East Asia, the question is which elements and under what conditions do these projects extend to new environments.
Collectively, their approach also highlights a potential way forward in blending IR theory with regional and comparative expertise: using the broad theories developed in my book (and those of the others in this roundtable) as a baseline, they add, modify, extend, or remove elements of the arguments to help the model fit the episode at hand. Future work might expand on this approach. This could involve, for instance, exploring conditions—internationally or regionally—under which power shifts cause intentions to change; whether and how economic and diplomatic statecraft requires recalibrating our understandings of strategy; theorizing whether power shifts in hierarchical regional systems differ from those in balance of power systems; and considering the strategic consequences of purely relative versus absolute-plus-relative shifts in power. Having begun my book hoping to use theory and history to advance the contemporary rise and decline debate, I could not ask for anything more than for others to refine, expand, and/or challenge the argument using regional and contextual elements.
