Grand strategy in US and China foreign policy: seeking world hegemony or promoting global harmony?
Abstract
The dawn of the 21st century has witnessed seismic shifts in the dynamics of international relations and the global strategies of leading powers. The US and China, as major players in the world arena, confront both shared threats and unique national characteristics for the first time in history. Discussion of a great power’s foreign policy typically involves an exploration of its grand strategy. However, interpretations of this concept can vary significantly, influenced by each nation’s political philosophy, historical trajectory, and geopolitical priorities. This article aims to elucidate the stable theoretical underpinnings of the US and Chinese global policies, to compare their ultimate aspirations within their grand strategies and the way they seek to achieve these goals, to examine their mutual perceptions in global politics, often marked by misunderstandings, to assess whether the American model of world hegemony and the Chinese vision of global harmony are compatible within contemporary international relations.
References
- Murray W. Thoughts on grand strategy. In: Murray W, Sinnereich RH, Lacey J, editors. Shaping the grand strategy. Policy, diplomacy, and war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2011. p. 3–33. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511974182.
- Borgwardt E, McKnight C, Preston A, editors. Rethinking American grand strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2021. 512 p.
- Confucius. 100 sayings of Confucius. Ding Wandao, translator. Beijing: China Translation and Publishing Corporation; 1998.
- Laozi. Dao de tsin [Tao teching]. Moscow: Litres; 2016. 144 p. Russian.
- Sun Tzu. Traktat o voennom iskusstve [The art of war]. Saint Petersburg: Azbuka; 2016. 480 p. Russian.
- Clausewitz C. O voine [About war]. Moscow: AST; 2017. 320 p. Russian.
- Machiavelli N. Gosudar’ [The prince]. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf; 2016. 223 p. Russian.
- Kissinger H. O Kitae [On China]. Moscow: AST; 2011. 635 p. Russian.
- Chen S. Community of common destiny for mankind [Internet]. China Media Project. 2021 August 25 [cited 2022 March 21]. Available from: https://chinamediaproject.org/the_ccp_dictionary/community-of-common-destiny-for-mankind/.
- Mearsheimer J. The tragedy of great powers politics. New York: W. W. Norton&Company; 2001. 592 p.
- Brands H. What good is grand strategy? Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 2014. 288 p.
- Layne C. The peace of illusions. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 2006. 304 p.
- Xi Jinping. O gosudarstvennom upravlenii. Tom 1 [On statecraft. Volume 1]. Bejing: Izdatel’stvo literatury na inostrannykh yazykakh; 2014. 624 p. Russian.
- Xi Jinping. O sozdanii soobshchestva edinoi sud’by chelovechestva [On building community of common destiny for mankind]. Beijing: Zhunyan Byani Chubanshe; 2021. 569 p. Russian.
- Del’nov A. Kitaiskaya imperiya: ot syna neba do Mao Tszeduna [Chinese Empire: from heaven’s son to Mao Zhedong]. Moscow: Algoritm; 2013. 560 p. Russian.
- Malyavin V. Kitaiskaya tsivilizatsiya [Chinese civilisation]. Moscow: Astrel’; 2000. 632 p. Russian.
- Fowdy T. Understanding China’s anti-hegemonic foreign policy [Internet]. CGTN. 2018 December 21 [cited 2022 March 28]. Available from: https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414e356b7a4d31457a6333566d54/index.html.
- Schlesinger A Jr. The cycles of American history. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 1986. 815 p.
- Gimbel J. The American occupation of Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press; 1968. 335 p.
- Martel W. Grand strategy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2015. 530 p.
- Griffiths R, Luciani P, editors. Does the 21st century belong to China? Toronto: House of Anansi Press; 2011. 92 p.
- Krauthammer C. The unipolar moment. Foreign Affairs. 1990;70(1):23–33.
- Fukuyama F. End of history and the last man. Toronto: Free Press; 1992. 418 p.
- Brzezinski Z. Grand chessboard. New York: Basic Books; 1997. 240 p.
- Kissinger H. Does America need a foreign policy? New York: Simon and Shuster; 2001. 352 p.
- Montgomery J. Forced to be free: the artificial revolution in Germany and Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1957. 209 p.
- Kennan G. American diplomacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1951. 179 p.
- Morgenthau H. Politics among nations. New York: Alfred Knopf; 1948. 532 p.
- Huntington S. The clash of civilizations and remaking the world order. New York: Simon and Shuster; 1996. 368 p.
- Nye J. Soft power: the means to success in world politics. New York: Public Affairs Books; 2005. 191 p.
- Khan S. Haunted by сhaos: China’s grand strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. Harvard: Harvard University Press; 2018. 336 p.
- Deng Xiaoping. Osnovnye voprosy sovremennogo Kitaya [Basic issues of modern China]. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury; 1988. 258 p. Russian.
- Kaufman J. A concise history of U. S. foreign policy. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield; 2017. 255 p.
- Denoon DBH, editor. China’s grand strategy: a roadmap to global power. New York: New York University Press; 2021. 281 p.
- Doshi R. The long game. China’s grand strategy to displace the American order. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2021. 432 p.
- Ferguson N. Civilization: the West and the rest. New York: Penguin Books; 2011. 464 p.
Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of the Belarusian State University. International Relations
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:
- The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
- The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
- The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)