By Mercy A. Kuo and Angelica O. Tang
Insights from Professor Rosemary Foot.
The Rebalance authors Mercy Kuo and Angie Tang regularly engage subject-matter experts, policy practitioners and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into the U.S. rebalance to Asia. This conversation with Professor Rosemary Foot – Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony’s College and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Department of Politics and International Relations and Research Associate at Oxford’s China Centre with recent publications including The Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia andChina, the United States and Global Order – is the fifteenth in “The Rebalance Insight Series.”
Professor Foot, over the past 40 years you have analyzed the evolution of U.S.-China relations. What key factors will determine the future direction of this strategic relationship?
Some 40 or so years ago, an anti-Soviet strategic alignment underpinned the Sino-American relationship. However, from the 1980s onwards the relationship became multidimensional in form. The two states have well-developed economic ties, the inter-societal bonds are quite strong, and they regard each other as major strategic rivals and occasionally even as collaborators in certain foreign policy areas. We have to accept that there are both competitive and cooperative elements in the relationship, now and into the future. But if the economic and social bonds remain mutually beneficial and the strategic rivalry is managed then we will continue to witness the evolution of a relationship that continues to be complex and difficult, but not wholly adversarial.
Domestic politics on both sides are also crucially important to the future direction of relations. The U.S. rebalance to Asia has given the Asia dimension of U.S. policy greater coherence and prominence. The next administration may choose to maintain that policy (probably the case if Hillary Clinton becomes the next U.S. President) or may seek to alter some of its fundamentals and overall to toughen the stance towards China, as many of the Republican candidates seem to suggest is possible. On the China side, President Xi Jinping leads an elite decision-making group that combines both an internationalist outlook with strong nationalist sentiment. Were the Chinese leadership to tip further in the nationalist direction and become more internally focused – perhaps as a result of serious domestic unrest connected with a major economic slowdown – then levels of China-U.S. hostility are likely to increase. If the Chinese government remains outward looking and focused on development via an integrationist model, then there will be greater stability in Sino-American ties.
Read the full story at The Diplomat