April 19, 2016
How China Sees World Order
China's rapid ascent to great-power status has, more than any other international development, raised concerns about the future of the liberal international order. Forged in the ashes of the Second World War, that order has enabled a seven-decade period of great-power peace, the expansion of democratic rule and a massive increase in global prosperity. Now, it seems, world order is under threat—not least from China’s rising power. While Beijing has thus far avoided active military aggression and refrained from exclusionary economic arrangements, American policymakers worry quite openly about China’s challenge to the underlying rules of the road. They hope that Beijing will embrace the existing pillars of global order and even work to support them; they fear that China will prove revisionist, seeking to undermine the rules-based order and fashion an illiberal alternative that excludes the United States.
More from CNAS
-
The Biden administration just stalled China’s advance in the Indo-Pacific
Commentary
Australia, by intensifying the military competition with China, could tee up a chain of as yet unforeseen events....
By Robert D. Kaplan
-
China tariff policies flounder without a strategy
Commentary
The White House ought to be asking a series of questions. What problem are we responding to? What are we trying to achieve? How will 301s and tariffs further that?...
By Van Jackson
-
Neoliberals, Anti-imperialists, and the China Question
Commentary
If there are arguments to be made in favor of cooperation with China, or to justify not sweating China’s accumulation of power, they’re probably best made on grounds other tha...
By Van Jackson
-
Mind the Gap: How China's Civilian Shipping Could Enable a Taiwan Invasion
Commentary
The Chinese military now seems to be regularly practicing the execution of amphibious assaults with civilian shipping integrated into the operations...
By Tom Shugart
