{"title":"The Ukraine War and Northeast Asia","authors":"M. Green","doi":"10.1353/asp.2023.0031","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"I f we have learned anything about the international relations of Northeast Asia since the end of the Cold War, it is that exogenous shocks to the system can be highly disruptive to assumptions about the emerging regional order. Many scholars and governments expected an intensification of U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry in the early years of the George W. Bush administration, for example, but the events of September 11 shifted U.S. strategic priorities in a new direction. Rather than designating China as a “strategic competitor” as the Bush campaign had promised, the 2002 U.S. national security strategy declared that, while the United States would remain attentive to the possibilities for great-power rivalry, the common threat of terrorism gave an unprecedented opportunity “to build a world where the great powers compete in peace instead of prepare for war.”1 The 2008–9 global financial crisis had an equally profound impact on China’s assumptions about the emerging regional order, convincing leaders in Beijing that the Western democracies were incompetent and that the United States was entering a period of secular decline. This reignited greater geopolitical rivalry rather than cooperation. At first, the Covid-19 pandemic seemed to confirm Beijing’s thesis that the East is rising and the West declining, but later phases of the pandemic undermined confidence in China’s own secular rise while reinforcing U.S. strategies for technology decoupling from China and closer U.S. alignment with allies and partners. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the fourth major exogenous shock to Northeast Asian order since the end of the Cold War. In terms of national security, it is likely to be the most profound. One is always tempted to draw such conclusions when in the midst of a crisis and lacking perspective,2 but in this instance there are several reasons to expect that the impacts of","PeriodicalId":53442,"journal":{"name":"Asia Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Asia Policy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/asp.2023.0031","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
I f we have learned anything about the international relations of Northeast Asia since the end of the Cold War, it is that exogenous shocks to the system can be highly disruptive to assumptions about the emerging regional order. Many scholars and governments expected an intensification of U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry in the early years of the George W. Bush administration, for example, but the events of September 11 shifted U.S. strategic priorities in a new direction. Rather than designating China as a “strategic competitor” as the Bush campaign had promised, the 2002 U.S. national security strategy declared that, while the United States would remain attentive to the possibilities for great-power rivalry, the common threat of terrorism gave an unprecedented opportunity “to build a world where the great powers compete in peace instead of prepare for war.”1 The 2008–9 global financial crisis had an equally profound impact on China’s assumptions about the emerging regional order, convincing leaders in Beijing that the Western democracies were incompetent and that the United States was entering a period of secular decline. This reignited greater geopolitical rivalry rather than cooperation. At first, the Covid-19 pandemic seemed to confirm Beijing’s thesis that the East is rising and the West declining, but later phases of the pandemic undermined confidence in China’s own secular rise while reinforcing U.S. strategies for technology decoupling from China and closer U.S. alignment with allies and partners. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the fourth major exogenous shock to Northeast Asian order since the end of the Cold War. In terms of national security, it is likely to be the most profound. One is always tempted to draw such conclusions when in the midst of a crisis and lacking perspective,2 but in this instance there are several reasons to expect that the impacts of
如果说我们从冷战结束以来的东北亚国际关系中学到了什么的话,那就是对该体系的外部冲击可能会对新兴地区秩序的假设产生高度破坏。例如,许多学者和政府预计,在小布什(George W. Bush)政府执政初期,美中地缘政治竞争会加剧,但911事件将美国的战略重点转向了一个新的方向。2002年美国国家安全战略没有像布什竞选时承诺的那样将中国列为“战略竞争者”,而是宣称,尽管美国将继续关注大国竞争的可能性,但恐怖主义的共同威胁提供了一个前所未有的机会,“建立一个大国在和平中竞争而不是准备战争的世界”。2008 - 2009年的全球金融危机同样深刻地影响了中国对新兴地区秩序的设想,使北京的领导人相信西方民主国家是无能的,美国正在进入一个长期衰落的时期。这重新点燃了更大的地缘政治竞争,而不是合作。起初,新冠肺炎大流行似乎证实了北京的论点,即东方正在崛起,西方正在衰落,但疫情的后期阶段削弱了对中国自身长期崛起的信心,同时加强了美国与中国的技术脱钩战略,并加强了美国与盟友和伙伴的紧密联系。俄罗斯入侵乌克兰是冷战结束以来对东北亚秩序的第四次重大外生冲击。就国家安全而言,这可能是最深刻的。当处于危机之中,缺乏远见时,人们总是忍不住得出这样的结论,但在这种情况下,有几个理由可以预期
期刊介绍:
Asia Policy is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal presenting policy-relevant academic research on the Asia-Pacific that draws clear and concise conclusions useful to today’s policymakers.