Friday, November 1st, 2013 Can China's Political System Sustain its Peaceful Rise?

Description

After more than a decade of sophisticated diplomacy designed to reassure the United States and Asian neighbors that it wasn’t a threat, Chinese foreign policy became more confrontational in 2009. The obvious impetus for this change was China’s rapid recovery from the global financial crisis at the same time as the United States appeared to many to be in decline. As a result, Chinese citizens and elites started to demand that their leaders take tougher international stands especially in making territorial claims and pushing back against Tokyo and Washington. But what does this shift in approach tell us about the underlying characteristics of China’s political system? Why didn’t China’s consensus based decision-making and its high degree of economic interdependence with other Asian countries and the United States keep China on a prudent foreign policy path? And will China be able to exercise restraint in its foreign and security policy in the future as it grows in economic and military power?

Susan Shirk is the Chair of the 21st Century China Program and Ho Miu Lam Professor of China and Pacific Relations at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at UC San Diego. She also is director emeritus of the University of California, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). From 1997-2000, Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. Shirk’s publications include her books, China: Fragile Superpower; The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China; How China Opened Its Door: The Political Success of the PRC’s Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms; Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China; and her edited book, Changing Media, Changing China.