"The positive externalities of US–China institutional balancing in the Indo-Pacific" - by CWP alum Kai He

Challenging the pessimistic and alarmist view of competition between the United States and China, we propose a soft balancing argument—institutional balancing for peace (shortened to ‘institutional peace’)—to highlight the positive outcomes of their strategic rivalry. We argue that globalization, economic interdependence and nuclear deterrence have motivated the US and China to engage in institutional balancing to vie for security, power and influence in the international system. We examine how the US and China have used multilateral and minilateral security institutions, such as various trilateral dialogue mechanisms, the Quad, the Shangri-La Dialogue, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, to compete in the Indo-Pacific region in the period since the 2008 global financial crisis. We suggest that institutional balancing between the US and China has led to three positive externalities for the region: sustained institutional dynamism, new incentives for regional cooperation and the provision of public goods, unintentionally fostering regional peace and prosperity in the long run. If the United States and China can manage their strategic competition through international institutions, the emerging transition of the international order may be more peaceful than historical transitions, even amid potential regional military crises.

Kai He, Huiyun Feng - International Affairs, Volume 101, Issue 1, January 2025, Pages 35–52, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiae272  -  Published:06 January 2025

Kai He is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Australia. He was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow (2017-2020). He is the author of "Institutional Balancing in the Asia Pacific: Economic Interdependence and China's Rise" (Routledge, 2009) and "China’s Crisis Behavior: Political Survival and Foreign Policy" (Cambridge, 2016). He is a co-author of "Prospect Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis in the Asia Pacific: Rational Leaders and Risky Behavior" (with Huiyun Feng, Routledge, 2013), and "How China Sees the World: Insights from Chinese International Relations Scholars" (with Huiyun Feng and Xiaojun Li, Palgrave, 2019). He is an editor/co-editor of "Contested Multilateralism 2.0 and Asian Security Dynamics" (Routledge 2020), "China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond 'Thucydides’s Trap'" (co-edited with Huiyun Feng, University of Michigan Press, 2020), "Chinese Scholars and Foreign Policy: Debating International Relations" (with Huiyun Feng and Xuetong Yan, Routledge, 2019), and "US-China Competition and the South China Sea Disputes" (with Huiyun Feng, Routledge, 2018). His forthcoming book includes "Contesting Revisionism: the United States, China, and Transformation of International Order" (with Steve Chan, Huiyun Feng, Weixing Hu, Oxford, 2021).
 

Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/users/tumisu-148124/