by Burree Sultan 17 January 2024
Frugality in the perspective is not designed but a propositional truth; this is the beauty of the social sciences and one of the limitations. There was a timeframe when the USA gave a one-sided research design that is known as positivism; there was the positivist approach to studying any social event while this was made as functional truth in the social sciences that the study of international relations and politics can only be done through scientific, objective nature of the research and methodology. This was bounded to one side while in Europe, there were different perspectives of the study which were only based upon the post-positivism or interpretative study, which claimed that social sciences or social events can’t be studied scientifically like that of the natural sciences while if there is a way to reach the truth in social science that is interpretivism.
In this study, there will be a discussion on both parameters before jumping onto the final opinion and conclusion that the rise of China is peaceful or not. There are both arguments in favor and against it. One is the peaceful rise theory which commits that China will maintain the existing world order and move inside it peacefully instead of challenging it. According to the theory, there would be Chinese economic mobility as a preference measure and participation at full scale. China will not seek any confrontation or conflicts while pursuing its economic and geographical objectives and ingredients.
Chinese President Hu Jinto went to the USA in April to make a boom for the economic growth of his country and wanted to establish peaceful relations with nearby countries. Experts have the opinion that China wants to build combined regional diplomacy and economic growth with an ultimate peaceful rise. There are supportive arguments that say that China will thrive economically in a peaceful environment and also serve as a catalyst for global peace. In 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao said China’s rise would never cost other countries at any of the stages. Similarly, Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the China Institute at the University of Michigan and a director of Asian Affairs says that the policy of China is to maximize Chinese economic development and never indulge in any kind of fire resistance across the globe.
Since the opening of the Chinese economy in 1978, China has averaged a 9.4 % annual GDP growth rate. One of the highest growths in the world. With $20.6 billion in total foreign commerce, it represented less than 1% of the global economy. It now makes up 4% of the global economy and has the third-largest national total in the world in terms of foreign commerce, valued at $851 billion. Along with almost a trillion dollars in nonpublic domestic investment, China has drawn hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment. Hardly few mobile telecommunications services existed in China twelve years ago. It currently has more mobile phone subscribers than any other country, with over 300 million.
China’s ascent has emerged as a key political phenomenon in twenty-first-century global politics. While most academics argue over what will happen when China rises and how the US should respond to China’s ascension, we concentrate on examining China’s strategic decisions while it grows, that is, how can China advance without conflict? Our argument, which draws from the bargaining theory of international disputes, is that a peaceful rise is unlikely for China unless it resolves its issues with commitment and information. China has pursued two main diplomatic initiatives since 1990 to guarantee its peaceful ascent. Tying its economic and security pledges through several institutions and indicating its objectives across the Taiwan Strait. China must keep communicating with the outside world in a trustworthy manner about its aspirations to pursue peace throughout the next 20 years. China needs to exercise extreme prudence while engaging in “core interest diplomacy,” and to be credible and persuasive, the list of key interests needs to be small and restricted. Furthermore, China ought to start establishing security communities with its surrounding nations to reinforce its pledges for a peaceful ascent.
The second opinion is that there is always more possibility of conflict and control mechanisms in terms of the rising power with the existing power. Thucydides Trap is a concept associated with it. Like that of the historical example of the famous Thucydides Trap which is known as the conflict and control mechanism between Athens and Spartans in this context. The phrase gained popularity because of political scientist Graham Allison’s contention that both China and the United States may be susceptible to a similar trap, in which rivalry and fear between the two emerging powers—China and the United States—could spark hostilities. The prospect of a war between the United States and China within the next ten years is probably not going to be on the table when Barack Obama meets with Xi Jinping this week during the Chinese president’s first state visit to the United States.
This seems as unlikely in policy circles as it would be foolish. However, the Great War serves as a sobering reminder of human foolishness even now, a century later. Is it a statement about what is possible in the universe, or just about what our limited minds can fathom when we claim that war is “inconceivable”? When World War I broke out in 1914, few people could have predicted such widespread carnage. Four years later, the war had finished, leaving Europe in ruins: the Kaiser had vanished, the Austro-Hungarian empire had collapsed, the Bolsheviks had ousted the Russian tsar, France had suffered a generation of bloodshed, and England had lost its youth and wealth. Europe’s position as the world’s political hub for a millennium came to an abrupt end.
With China emerging as a major player and the US losing ground as a superpower, the geopolitical landscape is changing, and attention is now more focused on the Asia-Pacific area. As China tries to tip the power balance in its favor and the US is wary of China’s ambitions, the region has become home to many flashpoints today. However, the United States, under the Obama administration, had already shifted its foreign policy focus from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region with the “Pivot to Asia” strategy to reduce this threat. Trump brought with him a novel approach to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, thereby incorporating the Indian Ocean into the grand game. The “Thucydides Trap” is currently the most pertinent discourse for understanding this power struggle between the two rivals. which holds that conflict is unavoidable in a binary situation with both a rising and a declining power. Though the Asia-Pacific region arose from the liberal system and is moving towards intricate interdependence—even surpassing the West as the center of economic development—its awareness has been restricted by this simplistic premise. Since the lesser powers are crucial to the region’s multipolarity and rebalancing, this essay contends that there are several ways to analyze the Asia-Pacific area.
Both opinions are compatible and perfect in their meanings, space, and time but the ultimate opinion would be seen under the current and historical circumstances, as far as the bases of the knowledge are concerned there is a law-like generalization of the event only possible when is readable for every space, time and event, the concept of the Thucydides Trap which is a conceptual proven fact for the place of Europe in some perspective while there are counterfeit events in comparison of China. Chinese depicts that China never goes aggressive but at the same time China fought with American General Douglas, China remained assertive at the 38 parallel and counter in Korea in 1953. Late Henry Kissinger in his book, On China, says that there is no need for the conflict with China. He recently visited China, he emphasized that the Chinese role in international politics can help the USA in its interests, while at the same time when the USA was getting powers from Britain, there was no war between Britain and the USA same can be applied to China and the USA in this context.