Constraints on conflict in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

This article discusses some of the arguments which suggest that conflict is probable as a result of China’s resurgence and the relative decline in US power. It begins with an examination of the analogy between the First World War and the current situation in East Asia and then goes on to explore the argument that transitions in power between the US and China heighten the prospects for war between the ‘declining hegemon’ and the ‘rising power’. However, the major aim of the article is to argue that constraints on conflict are insufficiently appreciated in the current discussion of the changing security order in the Asia-Pacific. In addition to conventional and nuclear deterrence, these constraints include: evidence of historical learning at the decision-making level; state agency at the regional level designed to shape and subdue major-power rivalries; new forms of economic interdependence; and the domestic political-economic priorities of the two main protagonists. While these factors certainly do not guarantee a peaceful Asia-Pacific over the next decade or so, I argue that they do impose forms of mutual and unilateral restraint.