As the dominant superpower since the end of World War II, the United States has played a core role in crafting the geopolitical status quo in Asia. US state-building operations were influential in the creation of liberal democratic regimes in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Furthermore, the semblance of a rules-based international order is a hallmark of Washington’s work in the region and it has inspired other nations to become stakeholders in upholding the same values. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with its newfound strength, understandably wishes to revise the current balance of power and alter the geopolitical equilibrium in Asia to better serve its interests.
China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour on the world stage might have scored some early victories, but it also alarmed its neighbours and the international community. A growing list of Asian countries seek to contain Beijing’s ascendence to power within the region. As a result, the CCP will find it gradually more challenging to continue its path to challenge the United States for global hegemony. To paraphrase the great international relations realist, John Mearsheimer, the United States is blessed with friendly, weak neighbours to the north and south, and fish to the east and west. The United States grew into a global superpower in part due to its geographic fortune, but China has no such luxury.
China’s attempts to revise the power dynamic in Asia threaten American strategic interests and freedom-loving nations. With that said, the CCP is learning the same foreign policy lesson as the United States. Countries don’t appreciate global powers belligerently pushing other nations around or revisionist powers attempting to alter the geopolitical order. China’s authoritarian practises and territorial impositions earned few friends and many skeptics.
Why Asia Is a tough neighborhood
Beijing’s situation is similar to Germany’s. It shares a continent with multiple peer competitors. As we are seeing in Asia, European history involved a constant balancing act of powerful states rising and competing against one another. Historian Melvyn Leffler pointed to this key fact, arguing that China’s rise to superpower status would be an uphill battle.
