Sino-American Competition as Security Suppliers in the Asia-Pacific
Competition between China and the United States has been a central focus of global power politics for some time now (e.g., Christensen 1999, 2015; Ross 1999, 2006; Mearsheimer 2001, 2010; Chan 2007, 2012; Friedberg 2011; White 2012; Liff and Ikenberry 201
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Introduction Competition between China and the United States has been a central focus of global power politics for some time now (e.g., Christensen 1999, 2015; Ross 1999, 2006; Mearsheimer 2001, 2010; Chan 2007, 2012; Friedberg 2011; White 2012; Liff and Ikenberry 2014; Glaser 2015). This competition is most intense in the Asia-Pacific, because it is China’s home region. Security affairs in this region matter most to Beijing, and this is where China has the best chance of challenging U.S. primacy in security affairs. This article examines the competition between China and the United States in security affairs in the Asia-Pacific region, with special focus on their role as suppliers of security. The United States in the post-Cold War period has enjoyed a monopolistic position as a security supplier, but there is a perception that the rise of China is changing the structure of the international system. This perception creates competitive dynamics between the United States and China, even when we analytically disregard the military threats they pose against each other. The theoretical framework of supply competition leads us to expect certain behaviors from China and the United States, and this article finds that their rhetoric and policy fit the theoretical expectations. Namely, China, as a newly emerging supplier, will invest in supply capacity and offer cheaper or differentiated forms of security. Meanwhile, the United States will be more generous in offering military protection in order to retain the monopolistic structure of the international security market. T. Kim (*) International Affairs, Vesalius College, Brussels, Belgium E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2018 S. Fröhlich and H. Loewen (eds.), The Changing East Asian Security Landscape, Edition ZfAS, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-18894-8_4
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Literature on Sino-American competition in security affairs has predominantly focused on the threats these states pose to one another or to third parties—and the resulting demand for military protection. This is unfortunate because security relations cannot be understood without also paying attention to who is able and willing to supply military protection to meet this demand. Even when the United States’ and (less frequently) China’s role as suppliers of security are implicitly under examination, the issue has not been distinguished from the analysis of threats. For instance, scholars have typically debated security alignment in the Asia-Pacific in terms of “balancing” (e.g., Chan 2012; Bloomfield 2016; Hughes 2016; Liff 2016) or “hedging” (e.g., Medeiros 2005; Matsuda 2012; Tessman 2012; Wolfe 2013; Lim and Cooper 2015) against some threats.1 Rather than analyzing everything in terms of threats, this article explicitly differentiates the demand for and supply of security and focuses on the latter. There are at least three important reasons for us to pay more attention to the supply side of security dynamics. First, Sino-American competition as security suppliers i
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