Living with China’s Resurgence in East Asia

Abstract

Over the past 40 years, East Asian states have been the vanguard for learning to live with a resurgent China. There has been significant variation in their responses and strategies, and regional policy-makers have often not behaved according to what many have expected or theorised. Adopting insights from political ethnography, Professor Evelyn Goh argues for an approach that privileges East Asian points of view and local/regional socio-political contexts, to understand regional responses to a powerful China. Goh offers three correctives for understanding how regional actors think about China holistically, within national contexts as well as wider systemic considerations: the prevalence of non-zero-sum framing of geopolitical problems; the constant intersections between economic and security imperatives; and domestic politics as intervening – and sometimes confounding – variables. Professor Evelyn Goh is the Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies and Deputy Director (Research) of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU. Her research focuses on Asian security and International Relations theory and practice. Her books include The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy and Transition in Post-Cold War East Asia (Oxford, 2013); and Re-thinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities (Oxford, 2020, with Barry Buzan). Her current projects study the interactions between Chinese investment and influence, and domestic politics in Southeast Asia.