SHANE MCLEOD: China’s role in Australia’s economy continues to grow – it’s now our biggest trading partner and vies with Japan as our biggest export destination.
But there are some who believe that China’s growing economic power will bring with it rising military power and conflict with the West.
That’s the theory of Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago.
He says China will want to become the region’s dominant power and it won’t want to have the United States continuing to play a role in military defence in the region in countries like Japan and South Korea.
Professor Mearsheimer is in Australia this week as a guest of the University of Sydney, and in coming days he’ll be giving a lecture about China’s rise.
I caught up with him earlier today and asked him why he thinks that rise won’t be peaceful.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that as China gets economically more powerful than it is today, it will translate that economic might into military might and it will try to dominate the Asia Pacific region just the way the United States dominates the western hemisphere.
Great powers like to be all powerful in their own neighbourhood. They don’t like neighbours that can threaten them and they don’t like distant great powers coming into their backyard just the way the United States has this Monroe-doctrine which effectively tells the European and Asian great powers to stay out of the western hemisphere.
I believe that as China gets more powerful it will do everything it can to push the United States away from its borders and ultimately out of the Asia Pacific region.
SHANE MCLEOD: Is there not a benefit for China though in the status quo as it currently stands? That the US is a major balancing power, it is a defence ally of countries like Japan, South Korea that could be potential threats to Chinese power in the region. Isn’t there a benefit for China in keeping the US involved?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I don’t think that the Chinese is to get more powerful and even now view the United States as quite the benevolent force that you describe them to be. (sic) We have just had a controversy where the United States and the South Koreans decided that they were going to run naval exercises in the Yellow Sea to protest North Korean sinking of a South Korean ship.
This made the Chinese very upset because they view the American navy as threatening just as the United States would view a Chinese navy or a German navy or a Soviet navy on its doorstep as threatening.
So from a Chinese point of view, the best of all possible worlds would to have the Americans far away and for China, not the United States to provide the stabilising factor in the region.
SHANE MCLEOD: But if you take say the United States out of Japan then you have a country that has a constitution imposed by the US after World War II limiting its defence build up, its defence capability. Wouldn’t a country like Japan for example, in a region without the United States there ramp up its own capabilities?
It wouldn’t take much for Japan to become a nuclear power for example.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I think that is true but if you look at the balance of power over time between China and Japan, the gap which is now quite large is going to increase significantly, in large part for demographic reasons.
Japan has the most rapidly aging population in the world. It is going to get smaller and weaker over time.
China is going to get more powerful over time. In an ideal situation from China’s point of view is one where the power gap between it and Japan is large and China has the ability to dominate Japan because that is the best way to ensure your security in a dangerous world.
SHANE MCLEOD: Does this happen by force or could China become the regional power through soft power, through coercion by showing itself to be the leader in the region? Would it be such a problem for countries like Japan, Korea, Vietnam, to look to China as the natural power in the region?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I think one can make an argument that China, if it continues to grow at the spectacular pace that it has been growing at over the past 30 years for the next 30 years then it will become so big and so powerful that it won’t have to even countenance using force to dominate the region.
It will just be so powerful that countries like South Korea and Japan will have no choice but to in effect dance to China’s tune. But there is a serious possibility along the way of conflict.
If you read the Australian White Paper from last year, it is quite clear from that White Paper that the Australian Government is nervous about the possibility and I want to underline the word possibility of conflict between China and other powers in the region as China continues to rise.
SHANE MCLEOD: How do you see Australia’s role evolving in the region alongside a powerful China and what about the relationship with Australia’s traditional allies, the United States?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that as China continues to rise that a balancing coalition will form in this region. It will be aimed at containing China much the way we had balancing coalitions in Europe and Asia during the Cold War.
SHANE MCLEOD: They could never say that though could they?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No, no it is very hard to say that but I think behind closed doors that is how people are talking and I think that you see all sorts of evidence that the balancing coalition is beginning to form.
If you look at the close relations that now exist between India and the United States, if you look at relations between Vietnam and the United States, Singapore’s approach to dealing with the United States these days.
It is just all sorts of evidence that countries in the region are worried about China as is the United States and this will cause them to eventually come together and form a balancing coalition and I would be shocked if Australia is not part of that balancing coalition as it was part of the balancing coalition against Japan in the 1940s.
SHANE MCLEOD: You made reference to it but the economic ties, will they have a calming effect do you think? If countries in this region like Australia are so strongly tied to China economically, will that offset the potential tensions in the strategic relationship?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, first of all it is possible that those economic ties could cause trouble. If you had a serious recession or a depression, it could be the case that those ties didn’t work to cause peace – they in fact work to cause conflict between the relevant powers. So economic ties don’t always produce peaceful outcomes.
But let’s assume that they do. The historical record shows very clearly that before World War I, you had economic ties in Europe that should have produced peace yet you had World War I so I don’t think it is impossible that in a world where you have a great deal of economic interdependence and where all the players are doing quite well economically, to still have a conflict between the opposing powers and that is a large part because when push comes to shove, politics dominates economics.
SHANE MCLEOD: That is Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and there will be a longer version of that interview available on our website later today.
ABC Radio National/The World Today/02.08.10
materialism, mysticism and art 
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: “Well, I think that as China gets economically more powerful than it is today, it will translate that economic might into military might and it will try to dominate the Asia Pacific region just the way the United States dominates the western hemisphere…. Well, I think that as China continues to rise that a balancing coalition will form in this region. It will be aimed at containing China much the way we had balancing coalitions in Europe and Asia during the Cold War.”
Excellent post.
MEARSHEIMER is not wrong but is not totally right. He is obviously ignorant about Chinese culture. He has no idea of the way of ‘Chinese thinking’.
In order to truly understand the way of Chinese thinking, one must truly understand the essence of Confucianism. A new English translation of {《論 語》 Confucius — the Analects} is available at http://www.chineselanguageforums.com/chinese-idioms/confucius-the-analects-a-new-translation-t2062.html .
MEARSHEIMER is definitely correct that a balancing coalition will be formed in this and the next decade, but it will definitely collapse after this time period. When one understand the Confucius—the Analects, he will understand the reason why.
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Hello Tienzen Gong, thank you for your very interesting comment. I posted the text of the interview because it is on a matter of the greatest importance and it gives hope for reason to read a prominent American speaking some truth. On the one hand I think that China is rising from a period of domination to lead the world with an impact that no nation has had (I see not only conflict but ultimately enormous potential in the rise of a middle class in China’s one party state) and on the other, I see the most dangerous belligerence by the U.S. capitalist class as it faces its decline from global domination – and this at the stage of the general decline of capitalism.
I would appreciate if you would expand on your last point.
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Philstanfield: “I would appreciate if you would expand on your last point.”
Yes, I owe you this one.
United States has been a superpower less than 70 years and is totally ignorant about how to be a true superpower.
China was a superpower for over 2,000 years and learned the secret of how to be a long lasting superpower.
1. In Yijing (the most important Confucian canon), it sees a cyclic universe. When the powerful Yang reaches its zenith, it will be swallowed by the weak Yin, and vice versa. Thus, the smart one will never push oneself to the zenith point. So, all wise Chinese leaders in the history did not fight the ‘first’ spot. The motto is “not be the first, not be the last”. No, however powerful China becomes, she will never become another America. The American style is not only wrong but is stupid, exhausting herself in no time, less than 100 years.
2. In Confucianism, 仁 is not only the only morality but is the best way of government, governing her own subjects or governing other nations. 仁 is far removed as a hegemony. In the entire Chinese history (proper), China did not invade any other country. China became larger by being invaded. If Japan succeed her invasion of China the last time and if that occupation lasted 300 years, there would be no Japan by then. Now, the West is yelling about the ‘Chinese threat’, and people around China did not laughing about that nonsense for variety of reasons. And, with those reasons, a balancing coalition against China can and will be formed. But, when China become a true superpower while is not a hegemony, that coalition will collapse.
There are many other reasons, but the two above are enough for now. China will definitely become a superpower in 10 to 20 years. But ‘No’, China will not become a hegemony as she knows that it is ‘stupid’. There are a lot of better ways to dominate over other people.
You might be interested in a discussion thread on “China Studies, http://www.chineselanguageforums.com/china-studies-f22/china-studies-t38.html ).
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Hello Tienzen Gong, thank you very much for your stimulating, philosophical reply. I will check out the discussion thread.
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