An alternative perspective on why China's impressive growth has gone unchallenged by its neighbors. (Amazon.com)

Throughout the past three decades East Asia has seen more peace and stability than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. During this period China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over nine percent economic growth per year since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, and Chinese exports have begun to flood the world.

China is modernizing its military, has joined numerous regional and international institutions, and plays an increasingly visible role in international politics. In response to this growth, other states in East Asia have moved to strengthen their military, economic, and diplomatic relations with China. But why have these countries accommodated rather than balanced China's rise?

David Kang believes certain preferences and beliefs are responsible for maintaining stability in East Asia. Kang's research shows how East Asian states have grown closer to China, with little evidence that the region is rupturing. Rising powers present opportunities as well as threats, and the economic benefits and military threat China poses for its regional neighbors are both potentially huge; however, East Asian states see substantially more advantage than danger in China's rise, making the region more stable, not less.

Many scholars downplay the role of ideas and suggest that a rising China will be a destabilizing force in the region, but Kang's provocative argument reveals the flaws in contemporary views of China and the international relations of East Asia and offers a new understanding of the importance of sound U.S. policy in the region.

About the Author:

David C. Kang is a professor in the department of government and an adjunct professor at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. He is the author of Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines and, with Victor Cha, Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies. He is a regular media commentator, and has published opinion pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Kang is also a frequent consultant to both multinational corporations and U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, National Intelligence Council, and State Department.

Download China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Excerpt)

CHAPTER 1: THE PUZZLE AND CHINA’S AMAZING RISE
PDF format, 993KB, 15 Pages.

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Author: David C. Kang
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (October 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231141882
• ISBN-13: 978-0231141888

China Rising: A Conversation with David Kang

NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2008 - What does East Asia have to gain from the rise of China? How much will China's search for energy determine its foreign policy? How vulnerable is the US economy to China? In what ways is China ahead of India? Why have countries in the region accommodated rather than tried to balance China's rise?

In this interview presented jointly by Asia Society and Columbia University Press, David Kang, author of China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia, talks to Asia Society's Nermeen Shaikh about these and other issues.

THE PUZZLE

In 2006, Chan Heng Chee, Singapore’s ambassador to the United States, gave a speech in Houston, Texas, about relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). She began her largely positive assessment by discussing the fifteenth-century Ming dynasty’s peaceful relations with Southeast Asia, noting, “Dynastic China’s relations with Southeast Asia were to a large extent based on ‘soft power.’ . . . It was China’s economic power and cultural superiority that drew these countries into its orbit and was the magnet for their cultivation of relations.” She concluded her speech by saying, “there is one message I would like to leave with you today: that there is much optimism in Southeast Asia.” 

Although Singapore is often viewed correctly as one of the closest allies the United States has in East Asia, Ambassador Chan’s remarks reveal the complexity and depth of East Asian states’ relations with both China and the United States. ...

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