An Odd Thing Happened on the Wayto Balancing: East Asian States’ Reactions

to China’s Rise

Steve Chan

University of Colorado, Boulder

Are East Asian states reacting to China’s rise according to balance-of-power expectations? This review discusses the pertinent debate andpresents overtime data germane to this question. It raises several issuesof theoretical argumentation and historical purview pertaining to thisdebate, and concludes that the conduct of China’s neighbors thus far isanomalous from the traditional balance-of-power perspective.

Introduction1

Particularly momentous events often stimulate intellectual introspection. Whenexisting scholarship fails to accurately predict a ‘‘big’’ event or even to satisfac-torily explain it in retrospect, one can legitimately question its validity and use-fulness. Because the USSR’s peaceful dissolution and its largely unrequitedconcessions to the West to end the Cold War cut to the core of realist scholar-ship, these events have engendered criticisms from its detractors.2 Others, withvarying degrees of sympathy for realism, have formulated explanations toaccount for this and other seeming anomalies when the expected did not hap-pen.3 It is unsurprising that much of the debate between realists and their crit-ics as well as among realists of different types4 has focused on the failure of

1I thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful comments.2For example, Richard Ned Lebow (1994:268) argued: ‘‘The most fundamental tenet of realism is that states

act to preserve their territorial integrity. Gorbachev’s decision to abandon Eastern Europe’s communist regimeswittingly called the integrity of the Soviet Union into question. It triggered demands for independence from theBaltics to Central Asia that led to the demise of the Soviet bloc. Soviet foreign policy under Gorbachev is outsidethe realist paradigm.’’

3Whether these revisions are progressive or degenerative for realism as a research program is the subject ofextensive debate; see Christensen and Snyder (1997), Elman and Elman (1997), Schweller (1997), Vasquez (1997),Walt (1997), and Waltz (1997). On Moscow’s endgame, see Brooks and Wohlforth (2000 ⁄ 01, 2002), English(2002), Schweller and Wohlforth (2000), Wohlforth (1994 ⁄ 95, 1999, 2003), and Lebow and Mueller’s correspon-dence with Wohlforth in International Security (Fall 2005). Charles Glaser (1994 ⁄ 95) argued that the Cold War’s enddid not challenge ‘‘contingent realism’’ as much as the arms race between the United States and the USSR thatpreceded it: nuclear weapons should have enhanced deterrence credibility and defensive capabilities, thus alleviat-ing the security dilemma and reducing the superpowers’ incentive to compete. According to this logic, the ColdWar should have ended much earlier.

4See, for example, Brooks (1997), Gilpin (1996), Legro and Moravcsik (1999), and the latter authors’ corre-spondence with Feaver, Hellman, Schweller, Taliaferro, and Wohlforth in International Security (Summer 2000).

doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2010.00944.x� 2010 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2010) 12, 387–412

the neighbors of Napoleon’s France and Hitler’s Germany to join a balancingcoalition,5 of today’s major states to balance against US predominance,6 and ofJapan and Germany to pursue their own nuclear armament.7 China’s re-emergence as a significant regional power presents yet another critical test forrealism. This essay focuses on the question of whether China’s neighbors arebalancing against it. Although not all realists embrace balance of power, mosttheories of balance-of-power politics are subsumed by realism (Levy 2002;Nexon 2009).

Realism’s Pluralistic Expectations

Kenneth Waltz (1979:117) emphasized: ‘‘If there is any distinctively political the-ory of international politics, balance-of-power theory is it.’’ Yet despite its central-ity in realist scholarship (Vasquez and Elman 2003), balance of power can havedifferent and even contradictory meanings (Claude 1962). There are also differ-ent expectations about its likely occurrence. Neorealism or structural realism pre-dicts that given time, a rising power’s neighbors will balance against it, withbalance of power being a long-term and regular outcome of their behavior.8

Unlike classical realism (for example, Morgenthau 1948, 1951), recurrent pat-terns of balances need not be produced by officials’ purposeful action and cansimply be a result of the relentless systemic pressure to seek security in an anar-chic world.9 In contrast, offensive realism sees that ‘‘the actual choice in a realistworld is between balancing and buck-passing, and threatened states prefer buck-passing to balancing whenever possible’’ (Mearsheimer 2001:140). It does notnecessarily expect balancing behavior to recur, especially in a multipolar contextwhere buck-passing by the great powers becomes more attractive.

A failure for balancing behavior to occur would also not be surprising for somerealists who argue that states balance against the one posing the greatest threat totheir security, and not necessarily the most powerful one (Walt 1997). To theextent that threat perception incorporates variables such as geographic proximityand a country’s ability to project offensive power, a nearby power is more threat-ening and should be the target of balancing (Walt 1988). Other realists haveargued that officials may be hampered by misperception or domestic politicsto effectively balance against an incipient threat, and that some revisionist

5Schroeder (1994) showed that European states failed to rally against Napoleonic France (see also his corre-spondence with Elman and Elman in International Security in Summer 1995). Larson (1991), Miller and Toritsyn(2005), and Schweller (2004, 2006) addressed the failure of Germany’s and more recently, Russia’s neighbors tobalance against them, focusing mostly on incentives stemming from domestic partisan politics and threats to incum-bent elites (see also David 1991). Conversely, Christensen and Snyder (1990) emphasized the dynamics of buck-passing among the great powers before World War II.

6This phenomenon has prompted a debate on ‘‘soft balancing.’’ In contrast to ‘‘hard balancing’’ which entailsramping up one’s armament and joining an opposing coalition, ‘‘soft balancing’’ involves less confrontationalmechanisms such as ‘‘territorial denial, entangling diplomacy, economic strengthening, and signaling of resolve toparticipate in a balancing coalition’’ (Pape 2005:36). On the relevant debate, see Art (2005 ⁄ 06), Brooks and Wohl-forth (2005 ⁄ 06, 2005), Lieber and Alexander (2005 ⁄ 06, 2005), Pape (2005), and Paul (2005). On ‘‘soft balancing’’applied to China, see Khong (2004).

7Robert Art (2005 ⁄ 06:185) remarked: ‘‘The default position of states, especially when it comes to military mat-ters, is not dependence, but autonomy and independence, if they can achieve it.’’ The decisions by Japan and Ger-many not to pursue nuclear weapons are therefore enigmatic from a realist perspective (Mearsheimer 1990; Waltz1993, 2000). Ukraine’s decision to give up its nuclear weapons presents an even greater departure from the sup-posed default position (Brooks 1997).

8‘‘…The theory being tested explains the process of balancing as well as predicting that balances recurrentlyform. The theory cannot say how long the process will take’’ (Waltz 1997:916).

9Waltz (1997:914) stressed: ‘‘…Morgenthau’s understanding of balances of power differs fundamentally frommine. For Morgenthau, balances are intended and must be sought by the statesmen who produce them. For me,balances are produced whether or not intended.’’ International structure conditions states’ behavior through social-ization, competition and even elimination (Waltz 2000).

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states may even prefer to bandwagon with a rising power (Schweller 1994, 2006;Rose 1998).

Realists therefore disagree about how likely balancing behavior is to occur andthe reasons behind its possible nonoccurrence. This indeterminacy hasprompted John Vasquez’s (1997) observation about realism’s protean character.Similarly, Richard Ned Lebow (1994:250) complained: ‘‘the competing predic-tions of realist theories make realism difficult to falsify. Almost any outcome canbe made consistent with some variant of realist theory.’’ As well, RichardRosecrance (2006:31) charged that defensive realism (or structural realism) ‘‘isconsistent with any range of international behavior except perhaps that of theabolition of the system of states itself. It is therefore largely unfalsifiable and isto that degree unhelpful theoretically and empirically.’’ As for offensive realism,Rosecrance (2006:31) argued: ‘‘it is eminently falsifiable, but it is also demonstra-bly false.’’ Japan today and the United States in the early twentieth centuryexemplify states that have refrained from fully asserting their power.10

Asian Scholars’ Divergent Views

Realism derived primarily from European history (Levy 2004). Does it also applyto East Asia (for example, Friedberg 1993 ⁄ 94, 2005; Ross 2004; Acharya 2003 ⁄ 04;Kang 2003 ⁄ 04, 2003)? We encounter sharply different answers to this questionand to the question of whether East Asian states are balancing against a risingChina.

Robert Ross (2006:358) stated that the behavior of China’s neighbors ‘‘rein-force the traditional realist and neorealist arguments that secondary statesrespond to great power capabilities rather than to threat assessment that incor-porates an assessment of a great power’s intentions…[Domestic] politics andintention-based threat perceptions are unnecessary variables to explain secondarystate alignments. In this respect, balance-of-power realism explains alignmentbehavior of East Asian states as much as it does that of European states.’’ Heconcluded ‘‘there is nothing sui generic or culturally determined in East Asianinternational politics and that realism can explain alignment behavior amongEast Asian states as well as it does among European states’’ (Ross 2006:355); and‘‘…balance-of-power politics is taking place in post-cold war East Asia’’ (Ross2006:358).

In contrast, David Kang (2003) warned that theories based on European expe-riences should not be generalized to Asia. He concluded: ‘‘First, East Asian statesare not balancing China…Second, this accommodation of China is due to a spe-cific constellation of interests and beliefs—a particular mix of identities and theabsence of fear’’ (Kang 2007:4). Disagreeing with Ross, Kang (2007:201) arguedthat other states’ perception of China’s intentions and values rather than just itspower would determine their reaction to its rise. ‘‘Furthermore, the East Asianstates prefer China to be strong rather than weak because a strong China stabi-lizes the region while a weak China tempts other states to try to control theregion’’ (Kang 2007:4). He argued that ‘‘evidence of balancing processes oversix centuries is hard to find…[B]oth the outcome (stable hegemonic domi-nance) and the process evidence (no balancing and remarkable stability) deci-sively contradict balance of power theory’’ (Kang 2007:40).

10There is a flip side to states’ failure to respond to foreign threat. The United States was reluctant to pursue anexpansive agenda during the interwar years even though America’s already preponderant power gave it the opportu-

nity to do so. As Colin Dueck (2005, 2007) argued, until 1945 many influential American leaders had espousednon-entanglement and limited liability for US foreign policy. Fareed Zakaria (1998) showed that America’s assump-tion of great-power status was delayed by various domestic factors, including limitations on the state’s ability tomobilize available resources.

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David Shambaugh was also skeptical about realism’s applicability to Asia. Hesingled out Mearsheimer’s offensive realism, stating ‘‘It is a classic example of aninternational relations theorist, who is not well grounded in regional area stud-ies, deductively applying a theory to a situation rather than inductively generat-ing theory from evidence. As a China specialist, I do not recognize the Chinathat Mearsheimer describes, and I see no evidence of his ‘Chinese hegemony’thesis and thus reject his policy prescription of preemptive containment’’(Shambaugh 2004 ⁄ 05:94). He concluded: ‘‘Asia is currently witnessing the emer-gence of a regional community with a multilateral institutional architecture thatis based on a series of increasingly shared norms about interstate relations andsecurity’’ (Shambaugh 2004 ⁄ 05:96). Moreover, ‘‘…the evolving Asian system isoriented not around security affairs or major power relations, but around theincreasingly dense web of economic, technological, and other ties being forgedamong Asian nations in the era of accelerating globalization’’ (Shambaugh2004 ⁄ 05:97). These observations suggest that China’s neighbors are pursuingcooperation (see Khoo and Smith 2005, for a dissent and Shambaugh’sresponse), disagreeing with the view that balance-of-power politics, motivatedespecially by concerns for military security, is operating in East Asia.

Evelyn Goh (2007 ⁄ 08) introduced the ideas of ‘‘omni-enmeshment’’ and‘‘complex balancing,’’ arguing that Southeast Asian countries have undertaken amultidirectional and subtler form of diplomacy in order to engage and influenceChina. Although these countries have not followed traditional forms of balancingagainst China, Goh saw them still seeking to contain and deter Chinese aggres-sion—albeit by means such as harnessing the US military presence and integrat-ing and socializing China in regional institutions and norms. Omni-directionaldiplomacy, however, necessarily suggests that the institutional and normativerestraints being fostered are not necessarily aimed at a specific country such asChina. Moreover, an emphasis on institutions and norms typically highlights lib-eral approaches to international relations, and does not correspond with the tra-ditional wellspring of realism with its core concern with balancing power and itsinsistence on the material basis of national security (Legro and Moravcsik 1999).

These scholars therefore disagree about whether balance-of-power theoryapplies to and is being confirmed by East Asian relations. They offer examples ofa burgeoning literature on China’s rise (for example, Johnston and Ross 1999;Brown, Cote, Lynn-Jones, and Miller 2000; Goldstein 2005; Shambaugh 2005;Ross and Zhu 2008) which space does not permit a thorough review. Much ofthis literature, however, shares two concerns that are germane to this essay’stopic. First, it is often concerned implicitly and sometimes explicitly (for exam-ple, Tammen, Kugler, Lemke, Stam, Abdollahian, Alsharabati, Efird, and Organ-ski 2000; Chan 2008) with the power-transition theory, which claims that thedanger of war rises when a dissatisfied latecomer catches up with an erstwhiledominant state. This theory claims that international instability is more likelywhen power between the two leading states becomes balanced. This claim specifi-cally challenges balance-of-power theory’s proposition that a more equal distribu-tion of power is conducive to stability. Although US scholars often frame theirdiscourse on East Asian relations in terms of balance-of-power theorizing, theiranalyses are frequently premised instead on the power-transition theory—suggest-ing a concern for the possible destabilizing effects caused by a rising Chinareducing the power advantage enjoyed by the United States. There is anotheroften-overlooked tension between balance-of-power framing and power-transitionpremise. The latter theory emphasizes the primacy of domestic conditions indetermining states’ differential growth rates, causing power shifts to occuramong them. It therefore tends to be pessimistic about the efficacy of interna-tional relations, including balancing policies aimed at a rising power, in influenc-ing power shifts.

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Second, many of the studies on China’s rise address implicitly or explicitly (forexample, Johnston 2003, 2004; Chan 2004) Beijing’s likely motivation. Is China,and will it, be a revisionist or status-quo power? This question is pertinent to thepower-transition theory but is a bit odd when it is taken up by those realists whoinsist on the primacy of material factors and intention-free analysis. Some statesare seen to be satisfied, satiated and status-quo orientated, whereas others are atleast possibly dissatisfied, greedy and revisionist. Few take up the question whyhegemons enjoying preponderant power would refrain from revising the interna-tional system to further their benefit, nor the question why rising latecomerswould remain dissatisfied even after they have made enormous improvement intheir status and capabilities within the system’s rules. To anticipate the later dis-cussion, whether China’s neighbors perceive it to be a dissatisfied revisionistpower should influence their decision to undertake balancing against it and con-versely, whether they undertake such policies tends to reflect their perception ofChina’s ‘‘type’’ as a revisionist or status-quo power.

Significantly, despite their other differences, almost all commentators on EastAsian relations agree that there has not been, there is not and there will not likely bein the near future, a balance, or equilibrium, of power between the United Statesand China. Although China has made relative gains, the distribution of power (espe-cially in military capabilities) continues to be highly asymmetric in US favor. Yetdoes China’s recent growth, indicating a power shift reducing the huge US advan-tage, necessarily mean that it is balancing the United States? Some analysts considerone country’s relative power gain to have the effect of necessarily balancing anothercountry (Art 2005 ⁄ 06; Ross 2006).11 Naturally, balancing policies may not achievebalanced power as an outcome, and a situation of power becoming more balancedmay come about as a result of states’ internal conditions and without deliberate poli-cies to balance (for example, Nexon 2009). This distinction is crucial, distinguishingbalanced power as a recurrent long-term outcome as posited by Waltz and balancingpolicies (whether successful or not) seeking to bring about this outcome. A zero-sum view may be also unhelpful for understanding East Asian relations.12

The latter remark argues that international relations are rarely dyadic. Recogniz-ing the n-adic ramifications of action or inaction suggests that officials act strategi-cally, adjusting their policies in anticipation of others’ responses—and the relevantothers need not be limited to the declared or ostensible targets of their policies.For example, a decision by Tokyo to ramp up its armament will not only be noticedin Beijing but also elsewhere such as Seoul, Taipei, and Washington. Similarly, arelative decline in US military capability will not necessarily be seen as a welcomedevelopment in Beijing to the extent that it will abet accelerated armament byJapan, South Korea, and North Korea. Thus, seen in a multilateral context,another state’s relative loss does not necessarily redound to one’s advantage.

How reasonable is it to argue that even if Beijing’s officials have not intended todeploy China’s recent power gains to check US influence, the fact that there hasbeen a narrowing of the power gap separating the two countries would in itself war-rant the conclusion that balancing is occurring? Such a conception refers to power

11‘‘I argue that traditional balancing behavior is taking place in East Asia. Indeed, any discussion of the rise ofChina implicitly acknowledges that China is balancing the U.S. If China is growing stronger in East Asia, then thereis necessarily a relative decline of U.S. power. This is balancing’’ (Ross 2006:361). ‘‘If China is engaged merely in ageneral increase in its military capabilities, with no specific adversary in mind, and if these changes result inenhanced Chinese military power in East Asia at the expense of the United States, then China is offsetting andthereby balancing U.S. power, even if it did not explicitly design its efforts to do so. Increases in a state’s power rel-ative to other states have consequences for the balance of power among them, irrespective of the state’s intentions’’(Art 2005 ⁄ 06:180).

12For example, Shambaugh (2004 ⁄ 05:91) argued: ‘‘China’s rise need not inexorably result in the eclipse of theUnited States as a regional power.’’ David Lampton (2005) made the same argument. Iain Johnston (2003:49) con-cluded: ‘‘the evidence that China’s leaders are actively trying to balance against U.S. power…is murky.’’

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distribution becoming more balanced due to processes reflecting the states’ differ-ential growth rates, and can accord with Waltz’s view because some countries areinevitably growing faster than others.13 But it conflates these systemic processeswith balancing policies – such as the pursuit of armament and alliances – thatstates are supposed to adopt. It strips away realism’s traditional emphasis onbalancing behavior as being necessarily directed against another state or coalition,with the intention of offsetting its capabilities.14 Because this conceptiondisregards states’ intentions and their actual balancing behavior,15 it would, forexample, interpret the recent growth of Brazilian and Indian economies as evi-dence that these countries have balanced US power. Stephen Brooks and WilliamWohlforth (2005 ⁄ 06:190) objected to Art’s view of balancing as states’ generic pur-suit of a ‘‘better range of outcomes.’’ Is there any state that does not try to do so?They remarked ‘‘if the United States were to build up its capabilities to conquerand subdue the EU and China, it would be [seen as] balancing’’ according to thisconception. Any increase or decrease of states’ relative power, whether thesechanges have the effect of advancing, consolidating or undermining hegemony,and regardless of whether these objectives are actually being sought by the relevantofficials, can be construed as ‘‘balancing.’’

There are three common problems prevalent in recent balance-of-power dis-course on China’s rise. First, it confuses any changes in the objective distributionof power with the purposeful behavior of balancing against another country.Realism has been mostly concerned about how states respond to changing powerdistribution—it therefore makes a relatively clear distinction between cause andeffect. It recognizes that unfavorable power shifts (the independent variable) canalarm officials and thus influence their policies (the dependent variable) that, inturn, are in the long run likely to restore a balance (or equilibrium) of power.The purposeful act of trying to balance other states’ power is the central concernfor most realists, and the removal of this key analytic question would empty real-ism of its most important empirical and policy content.

Second, if the objective distribution of power among states, rather than theirperceptions of threat originating from other states, is the determinate factor forshaping alignment choices, then states should by this logic balance against thestrongest power—which is the United States. Their behavior, in the traditionalrealist view, can take the form of ‘‘internal balancing’’ (ramping up armament)or ‘‘external balancing’’ (joining an opposing coalition), or both. Yet major pow-ers, including China, have been reluctant to balance against the United States.Their failure to engage in ‘‘hard balancing’’ against the United States, anenigma from the traditional realist perspective, was after all the reason for intro-ducing the new concept of ‘‘soft balancing.’’ The primary theoretical and empir-ical puzzle, if one is to focus strictly on the distribution of power, becomes not

13Robert Gilpin (1981:13) averred that power shifts are inevitable because ‘‘the differential growth in the powerof various states in the system causes a fundamental redistribution of power in the system.’’ Brooks and Wohlforth(2005 ⁄ 06:186) remarked, ‘‘…Art’s revision of ‘balancing’…would render balance of power theory an inherentlyunfalsifiable catch-all description of international relations writ large.’’

14In traditional discourse, balancing behavior necessarily aims at offsetting the capabilities of another state andmust therefore be directed against someone. For Ross (2006:387–8), a country (for example, Japan) can actually bal-ance with another country (for example, the United States). Aligning with the dominant power, however, indicatesbandwagoning, not balancing (for example, Walt 1988:277, 281). It is questionable whether the United States hasitself been balancing against China. David Kang (2007:185) argued, ‘‘The United States is not balancing China.’’Reversing the customary application, Kai He and Huiyun Feng (2008) argued that the United States has been ‘‘softbalancing’’ China.

15Stephen Walt’s (1997:933; 1988:281) balance-of-threat theory incorporates perceived intentions, and subsumesbalance-of-power theory. Similarly, Rosecrance (2006) stressed the importance of considering intentions. As GideonRose (1998:168) acknowledged, however, ‘‘…the link between objective material power capabilities and policymak-ers’ subjective assessment of them remains murky. Critics might see the [neoclassical realist] school’s emphasis onperceptions as a giant fudge factor, useful for explaining away instances where foreign policy and material powerrealities diverge.’’

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whether secondary states are balancing against China, but rather why they arenot balancing against the United States.16

Third, even if one acknowledges that states are sensitive to power shifts, it doesnot necessarily follow that their security will be reduced by a power shift to theirdisadvantage. This remark may sound astonishing but, after all, power is a meansto an end, which is security. Relative power gains by one’s counterpart may actu-ally enhance one’s security if this development reduces its sense of anxiety andvulnerability. Charles Glaser (1994 ⁄ 95:75) thus explained, ‘‘…following security-dilemma logic, all else being equal, increases in the adversary’s security oftenincrease one’s own security because a more secure adversary has smaller incen-tives for pursuing an expansionist foreign policy, and therefore will pose a smal-ler threat. This argument does not depend on whether the increase in theadversary’s security exceeds or trails the increase in the defender’s security,because the change in the adversary’s motives reflects its absolute security, not arelative measure of its security compared to the defender’s.’’ Consequently, astronger China—especially one whose military forces have only limited offensivereach—can enhance its security without necessarily compromising US security.17

As Thomas Christensen (2001:28) observed, under some circumstances, ‘‘China’soverall inferiority could actually encourage, rather than discourage, escalation.’’

Contested Explanations of East Asian Behavior

Questions about the occurrence and extent of power shifts are separate fromquestions about states’ responses to these shifts and to the manner in whichpower is being exercised. Such a distinction is crucial to the ongoing debateabout backlash against the United States after it invaded Iraq. Analysts writingabout other states’ disposition to ‘‘soft balance’’ against the United States drawattention to not necessarily the preponderance of US power as the motivationfor their behavior, but rather to Washington’s policies that have had this blow-back effect (for example, Art 2005 ⁄ 06; Pape 2005; Paul 2005). Walt (2005)argued forcefully that other states respond not so much to how much power ispossessed by the United States, but rather to how the United States has used orintends to use its power. In a similar vein, Shambaugh (2004 ⁄ 05:90–1) warned:‘‘To the extent that U.S. regional power and influence do decline relative to Chi-na’s, it is more the result of general disenchantment with the Bush administra-tion’s high-handed attitude and myopic policies than it is the result of China’srising power and influence.’’

How have the East Asian states reacted to China relative power gains? Accord-ing to Ross (2006), those that are most exposed to China’s power (for example,South Korea, Taiwan) have become more accommodating to Beijing. Conversely,the maritime Asian states (for example, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines)have strengthened their alignment with the United States. The reason suggestedfor the latter phenomenon is that the maritime states have been less affected byChina’s military power. Although Ross argued that these contrasting patternslend support to balance-of-power politics, one can draw alternative interpreta-tions that contradict his argument and even conclude that the relevant evidenceconforms to realist expectations—but in a manner contrary to Ross’ argument.Specifically, his observation that states proximate to a rising China have accom-modated it and that those farther away have aligned more closely with theUnited States appears to contradict the standard realist expectation about bal-

16See Brooks and Wohlforth (2008) and the special issue of World Politics edited by Ikenberry, Mastanduno, andWohlforth (2009) on the durability and consequences of US unipolarity.

17Glaser (1994 ⁄ 95) emphasized that the two critical conditions are defensive and offensive capabilities be distin-guishable and defense be advantaged over offense. On offense–defense balance, see Van Evera (1999).

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ancing against the closest power or the most powerful state in the region.18

Moreover, these patterns can be interpreted to support liberal and constructivistexplanations—and even alternative realist explanations that call attention to bal-ancing behavior directed at the United States rather than China.

In standard accounts of balance of power, states are expected to balanceagainst the more powerful state. This is the clearest and strongest claimadvanced by neorealism. In Waltz’s (1993:74) words, ‘‘Balance-of-power theoryleads one to expect that states, if they are free to do so, will flock to the weakerside. The stronger, not the weaker side, threatens them if only by pressing itspreferred policies on other states.’’ According to this reasoning, the UnitedStates should be the target of other states’ balancing policy. One would expect ageneral tendency by most states to balance against the United States (which is byfar the strongest power in the world as well as in East Asia) even though China’srecent growth has made this imbalance in favor of the United States lessasymmetric.19 That this tendency has not happened should count as a criticalcontradiction of realism’s core expectation but was instead interpreted by Rossas evidence confirming realism.20 The only plausible rationale would be thateven though China is weaker than the United States, its neighbors perceive it tobe more threatening than the United States.21 This acknowledgment, however,would mean that what is being studied is Stephen Walt’s (1987, 1988) balance-of-threat theory. It would contradict Ross’ insistence that the objective distribu-tion of capabilities, not the states’ perceptions of others’ intentions,22 determinestheir behavior. If, however, the objective distribution of power determinesstates’ behavior, the Asian maritime states’ behavior can only be described asbandwagoning with the United States and not balancing against China. Walt

18John Mearsheimer (2001) has stressed the ‘‘stopping power of water.’’ His argument would suggest that themaritime Asian states are less threatened by China’s rising military power and hence, should have less incentive toalign with the United States. Although the ‘‘stopping power of water’’ has been used to suggest that the UnitedStates faces difficulties in projecting its influence abroad, this idea has not been applied consistently when pertain-ing to the projection of German, Japanese, Soviet or Chinese power. Evidently, American leaders were not reassuredabout German or Japanese power being stopped by the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean when they decided to fight thetwo world wars.

19Ross (2006:368) stressed: ‘‘…the security dilemma induces states to respond to other states’ capabilities, ratherthan to their intentions.’’ Yet this intention-free argument would also imply that regardless Washington’s actionsand others states’ perceptions of its motivations, America’s power predominance will inevitably alarm them andcause them to balance against the United States (Lieber and Alexander 2005 ⁄ 06:193).

20This interpretation is odd because leading realists, especially Kenneth Waltz (1993, 1997, 2000) and Christo-pher Layne (1993, 2006a,b), have argued forcefully that other great powers will balance against US primacy. Theyhave predicted that US unipolarity will be short-lived. Thus, Waltz (1993:77) stated: ‘‘…the response of other coun-tries to one among them seeking or gaining preponderant power is to try to balance against it.’’ Similarly, Layne(1993:51) predicted: ‘‘…unipolarity will cause other states to balance against the United States.’’ It is therefore puz-zling why realism’s confirmation is sought by focusing on East Asian states’ balancing behavior against a weaker,albeit rising, China in a world still dominated by overwhelming US power.

21An important inconsistency of Mearsheimer’s offensive realism is that it treats the United States as a status-quo power even though it claims: ‘‘…great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest of all the great powers,although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemon—that is, the only great power in thesystem’’ (Mearsheimer 2001:45). Criticizing Mearsheimer for offering a ‘‘diet version’’ of offensive realism when itcomes to the United States, Layne (2003) argued that America should be the ‘‘poster child’’ for this theory. He sta-ted bluntly: ‘‘…there are strong reasons to doubt the claim that other states view U.S. primacy as nonthreatening’’(Layne 2006b:9); moreover, ‘‘consistent with the logic of offensive realism…, the United States is also an expansion-ist state that seeks to increase its power advantages and to extend its geopolitical and ideological reach’’ (Layne2006b:13). Thus, ‘‘[p]aradoxically, attempting to sustain U.S. primacy may well hasten its end by stimulating moreintensive efforts to balance against the U.S.’’ (Layne 2006b:41). Wohlforth (1999), however, argued that wise USpolicy should enable Washington to prolong its dominance.

22Randall Schweller (1998:22) argued, ‘‘The most important determinant of alignment decisions is the compati-bility of political goals, not imbalances of power or threat.’’ In his view, states are not just motivated by security con-cerns or necessarily committed to the status quo. They can also be greedy for gains—a motivation that has beenoverlooked in balance-of-power theorizing. However, to say that states act according to their interests or preferencesdoes not present a uniquely realist argument. After all, non-realists reach the same conclusion (Legro andMoravcsik 1999:36–7).

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(1988:278) distinguished these two concepts: ‘‘Balancing is alignment against thethreatening power to deter it from attacking or to defeat it if it does. Bandwag-oning refers to alignment with the dominant power, either to appease it or toprofit from its victory.’’ It is difficult to count bandwagoning with the UnitedStates as supporting realism because ‘‘balancing is more common than bandwag-oning’’ (Walt 1987:33).

Although China has made power gains in the recent decades, the United Stateshas secured a historically unprecedented supremacy after the Cold War. These twotrends were concurrent so that attention to just material changes would not neces-sarily lead one to conclude that other states should be more concerned aboutincreasing Chinese power than increasing American power. If anything, one is ledto the opposite expectation that it is more likely for balancing to be directedagainst the unipolar power. The most likely time when the objective distribution ofpower should overwhelm considerations of threat is during periods of unipolarity.‘‘Unipolarity substantially erases the distinction between balancing against threatversus balancing against power, because the threat inheres in the very fact thathard-power capabilities are overconcentrated in the hegemon’s favor’’ (Layne2006b:21). Layne went on to quote Colin Elman: ‘‘It is possible that, when statesare approaching capabilities of hegemonic proportions, those resources alone areso threatening that they ‘drown out’ distance, offense-defense, and intentions aspotential negative threat modifiers.’’ Accordingly, to the extent that considerationsof power loom larger than perceptions of intention in a unipolar world, theUnited States rather than China should occupy the ‘‘pride of place.’’

Nor can the so-called accommodating behavior of states such as South Koreaand Taiwan toward China be re-interpreted as buck-passing in order to salvagethe realist argument. The latter term, as used by Mearsheimer (2001), referredto the policies of great powers and not those of the secondary states.23 Moreover,states that are located closer to the source of a threat should be more motivatedto balance against it, whereas those that are farther away are better situated tolet the front-line states ‘‘catch’’ the buck. This logic predicts the reverse of theempirical patterns observed by Ross, who concluded that the maritime Asianstates are actually aligning themselves more closely with the United States inresponse to China’s rising military power even though they are farther away fromit than South Korea and Taiwan.

Furthermore, if states should be more concerned about a powerful neighborregardless of its perceived intentions, then balance-of-power theory would predictthat they should align themselves with another powerful state that is farther awaybecause ‘‘[o]ther things being equal, states that are nearby are more dangerousthan those that are far away’’ (Walt 1988:281). Similarly, Avery Goldstein(2008:69–70) remarked, ‘‘…holding intentions constant, the capabilities of anearby rising power are potentially more threatening than those possessed by acomparably endowed state farther away.’’ This logic, based on physical proximity,would make sense if East Asian countries generally favor alignment with theUnited States in order to balance against China. But it would also undercut theclaim that South Korea’s, Taiwan’s and even Vietnam’s increasing accommoda-tion of China should be counted as confirmation for realism. Compared to themaritime states, they should instead be more motivated to balance againstChina.24 They should be the ones to align more closely with the United States.

23The smaller and weaker states often face a choice between joining a coalition against their dominant neighborand aligning themselves with the latter. Buck-passing is only available to the great powers because the secondarystates will not have the wherewithal to defeat even a weakened great power on their own. In addition to the balanceof power, the extent to which defense enjoys an advantage over offense influences buck-passing behavior (Christen-sen 1997; and Christensen and Snyder 1997).

24Ross (2006:379) stated, ‘‘actors that are becoming more vulnerable to Chinese military power are accommo-dating the rise of China.’’

395Steve Chan

As a counterfactual example, had South Korea and Taiwan aligned moreclosely with the United States when facing a rising China, would such behavioralso be counted as support for balance-of-power politics? If so, one cannot havethings both ways—making a proposition unfalsifiable. Furthermore, the sameobjective behavior—namely, the pertinent states’ alignment—is characterizedas ‘‘accommodating’’ China when it moves them closer to Beijing, but‘‘balancing with’’ the United States when it moves them closer to Washington.The analytic categories of ‘‘accommodating’’ the United States and ‘‘balancingwith’’ China appear to be empty. Alignment behavior is accorded different labelsdepending on the proper name of the pertinent state, and the purported supportfor balance-of-power politics reflects the semantics employed.25

In his study of Southwest Asia, Walt (1988) observed that Turkey, Iran, Paki-stan, and India consistently resisted their more powerful neighbor, the USSR,and allied themselves with the more distant United States. More recently,Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland have resisted a resurgent Russia. These statesand similar others relative to China (for example, South Korea, Vietnam,Myanmar, Taiwan) should have the greatest incentive to undertake balancingpolicy. Conversely, one would expect the maritime states to seek alignment withChina in order to check the United States, because they are less threatened byChina’s power and more vulnerable to US power. Why then should the align-ment patterns observed by Ross be interpreted to support balance-of-powerexpectations?

One way that the behavior of China’s immediate neighbors may be mademore compatible with realism is to argue that until China’s recent rise, second-ary Asian states lack a pivotal power around which to organize an opposing coali-tion to counter US preponderance. The latter factor is among those reasonsgiven by Walt (1988) to explain why secondary states in the Western Hemispherehave not balanced against the United States.26 This realist reasoning, however,would suggest that China’s recent rise has actually enabled balance-of-powerdynamics to begin to operate in East Asia. It would reverse Ross’ implicit premisesuch that the target of balancing becomes the United States, not China. Thosethat are located closer to China are better able to undertake this balancingwhereas others farther away and still under the sway of US preponderance con-tinue to accommodate American power. If, as standard realist arguments main-tain, one cannot count on other states’ benign intentions (which can change inthe future), then they should counter the one with the most power.

Another way one may try to reconcile the empirical patterns Ross reported isto argue that China’s neighbors are becoming more accommodating becausethey want to hitch to its coattail and benefit from its growth.27 Although band-wagoning for profit has been suggested as a motivation for revisionist states(Schweller 1994), this incentive would contradict the standard expectation ofboth structural realism and offensive realism, claiming that states would not

25Similarly, ‘‘soft balancing’’ was introduced to salvage realism because ‘‘hard balancing’’ against the UnitedStates has not materialized. Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth (2005 ⁄ 06:188) observed, ‘‘the current debate[about soft balancing] is not really about the evidence pertaining to the states’ behavior but rather about changingthe definition of ‘balancing’ to fit this evidence.’’ They went on to warn that the temptation of concept stretchingrisks ‘‘stripping balance of power theory of every attribute that commands attention from scholars and policymak-ers’’ (Brooks and Wohlforth 2005 ⁄ 06:190).

26The other reasons given by Walt (1988:314) are that ‘‘the states in question may be too weak to alter the bal-ance through their own actions’’ and ‘‘the threatening power is believed to be appeasable.’’ Others have pointedout that it is prohibitively costly and dangerous to oppose a preponderant power (for example, Layne 2006b). Pape(2005:12) remarked that the absence of an ‘‘anchor’’ has hampered the formation of an anti-US coalition. Becauseof the danger being ‘‘picked off’’ by the hegemon, a hard-balancing coalition against it will form either abruptly ornot at all (Pape 2005:17).

27Clearly, accommodation—in the sense of acquiescence, reluctant concession or involuntary acceptance of a sit-uation—is not the same thing as bandwagoning, which means joining or appeasing a powerful state for profit.

396 Odd Thing Happened on the Way to Balancing

compromise their security by aligning themselves with a potential aggressor whocan turn on them in the future.28 Thus, Walt (1988:277) wrote ‘‘…states formalliances primarily to balance against other states, and…‘bandwagoning’ behav-ior—that is, alignment with the dominant state or coalition—was relatively rare’’(emphasis in original). Whether in the case of increasing accommodation byBeijing’s immediate neighbors to a rising China, or in the case of the continuedalignment of maritime Asian states with an increasingly dominant United States,an attribution of bandwagoning motivation would contradict the standard realistexpectation.

Whether balancing or bandwagoning is the predominant behavioral patternhas significant policy implication because, if balancing is the more likelyresponse to a rising power, then the United States should not be concernedabout East Asian states re-aligning with or accommodating China. It can insteadcount on their natural tendency to join a coalition to check Chinese influence(Walt 1988:278). Conversely, if bandwagoning is the preferred choice of moststates, then the United States should be concerned about shoring up its commit-ment to prevent its traditional allies from aligning themselves with a risingChina.

One does not have to resort to bandwagoning in order to explain SouthKorea’s, Vietnam’s and Taiwan’s increased cooperation with China. If one assertspower shifts rather than threat perceptions being responsible for their behavior,one removes from consideration the alternative hypothesis that a change inthese states’ assessment of Chinese intentions rather than Chinese capabilitieshas motivated their policy adjustment. Yet this policy adjustment is quite compat-ible with constructivist and liberal expectations. Constructivists and liberals caneasily account for this phenomenon. As a result of their cultural affinity, eco-nomic interdependence, physical proximity and increased people-to-peopleexchanges, the countries just mentioned are precisely the ones most self-motivated and attuned to discern changes in Chinese intentions and also themost likely candidates for rapprochement and even integration with China. It isnot clear why their cooperative behavior should be counted as evidence in favorof realism rather than for constructivism and liberalism. After all, those stateswhere the Chinese cultural influence has been the strongest, economicexchanges the greatest, and historical connections the deepest are also the onesbeing most accommodating to China in Ross’ view. Their behavior need not bea response to China’s rising power or, for that matter, declining US power.Increasing cooperation can stem from increasing trust, reciprocal adjustment,and decreasing perception of Chinese threat.29

Naturally, East Asian states’ behavior can stem from reasons that are only indi-rectly or derivatively related to either the United States or China. Thus, forinstance, the maritime Asian states’ cooperation with the United States couldhave more to do with their domestic partisan or political economy reasons, theirparticipation in the fight against domestic or international terrorism and, tointroduce a realist argument, their attempts to leverage the United States foragendas aimed at neighbors other than China. Therefore, littoral Asia’s align-ment with the United States is not ipso facto evidence suggesting their efforts tobalance against China, nor does continental Asian states’ increased cooperationwith China necessarily imply their alienation from the United States.

28Bandwagoning behavior would contradict structural balance-of-power theory, according to which ‘‘the uncer-tainties inherent in anarchy encourage balancing behavior. Bandwagoning is risky because it requires trust; oneassists a dominant power in the hope that it will remain benevolent. It is more prudent to balance, in case thestrongest state turns out to be aggressive’’ (Walt 1988:279).

29Turkey and Iran improved their relations with the USSR ‘‘due primarily to changing perceptions of Sovietintentions, and not to changes in Soviet capabilities’’ (Walt 1988:311).

397Steve Chan

Indeed, as to be shown below, all these states have reached friendlier relationswith Beijing in recent years. The maritime states’ closer alignment with theUnited States, even if true, does not necessarily mean an attempt to balanceagainst China because their relations with Beijing have also greatly improvedover time. As stated in The Report of the ASEAN–China Eminent Persons Group,‘‘Between the inception of ASEAN in August…1967 and the formal establish-ment of ties between ASEAN and China in 1991, relations between the two sideswent through a process of evolution from confrontation and suspicion todialogue, cooperation and strategic partnership based on equality, good neigh-borliness and mutual trust’’ (Qin and Wei 2008:130–1). The concurrent trendsof China’s rise and increasing ASEAN–China rapprochement do not correspondwith and indeed contradict the proposition that as China gains relative strength,the ASEAN states have balanced against it. The proposition is further under-mined by the fact that countries located outside of East Asia, ones that arebeyond the reach of China’s land-based military power, have also become friend-lier to China. It is not quite accurate to describe such behavior as accommoda-tion if by this term one means a reluctant coming to terms with China’s risingpower. Just as it is important to distinguish between accommodation and band-wagoning (Walt 1988:315), it is necessary to differentiate accommodation fromdetente and cooperation. The latter behavior is voluntary rather than coerced,motivated more by opportunities for mutual gains than fears of insecurity asstressed by realism.

East Asian States’ Behavior

What should one see if states are balancing against China? Defense burdenshould be generally rising in Northeast and Southeast Asia. At the same time,states should be cutting rather than raising their commerce with China lest thistrade become a source of political and security vulnerability (Hirschman 1945).Given the security externalities of trade and the risk of political holdup, diversifi-cation of trade partners should be a sensible precaution from the realist perspec-tive, especially those labeled as ‘‘neorealists’’ by Stephen Brooks (1997).30

Finally, for states that may be ‘‘too small to balance’’ (against a ‘‘big’’ China),one would expect to see attempts to secure assistance from other great powers,especially the United States. Closer security cooperation with the United Statesneed not be openly directed against China but can be justified under the guise,for example, of fighting domestic or international terrorism (Kang 2007:149).To the extent that prudent states can be expected to hedge, their behaviorshould not be seen to confirm ‘‘balancing,’’ ‘‘accommodation,’’ or cooperation.That is, these are not categorical decisions but rather suggest points on a contin-uum along which states can adjust their policy according to changing circum-stances. If East Asian states have been reacting to China’s rise according torealist expectations, one would expect their overtime behavior to move increas-ingly toward the balancing end of this continuum. It is important to emphasizethat while isolated observations such as annual readings of defense spendingor trade statistics can be faulty, the overtime trend offers a more reliableindicator—especially if it points consistently in the same direction and for manycountries. Naturally, one gains convergent validation when multiple indicatorssuggest the same conclusion.

30He distinguished ‘‘neorealism’’ from ‘‘postclassical realism.’’ The latter perspective allows that states some-times make inter-temporal tradeoff, being willing to compromise short-term military security for long-term eco-nomic capacity. They do not necessarily accept these desiderata as mutually exclusive. Conversely, the formerperspective always makes the worst-case assumption about the security threat faced by states, and contends thatshort-term concerns for military security will always trump considerations for economic reward, whether in the shortor long term.

398 Odd Thing Happened on the Way to Balancing

Before turning to the pertinent data, a few words are in order to respond to theobjections that balance-of-power theory only concerns the interactions of greatpowers and commercial relations among states do not speak to their balancingpolicies. Some theories of balance of power or power balances (for example, Or-ganski and Kugler 1980; Mearsheimer 2001) have indeed focused on interactionsamong the great powers. In other formulations, however, balance of power isoffered as a general theory that pertains to all states. Waltz (1979:121) remarked‘‘balance-of-power politics prevail whenever two, and only two, requirements aremet: that the order be anarchic and that it be populated by units wishing to sur-vive.’’ Whether or not secondary states have pursued balancing policies has beentaken up by many studies such as those on Iran’s, Turkey’s and Pakistan’s policiestoward the USSR (Walt 1988); relations among Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil(Schweller 2006), Ukraine’s and Uzbekistan’s relations with Russia (Miller andToritsyn 2005), and the Central and East European states’ ties with Nazi Germany(Larson 1991). One can name other studies addressing secondary states’ policiestoward a stronger neighbor, including those by Goh, Kang, Ross and Shambaughmentioned earlier on the reactions of China’s neighbors to its recent rise.

Parenthetically, the definition of great power can be a bit elastic. Before WorldWar I and even World War II, the United States was not considered as a con-tender in the central system of international relations, and was therefore left outof the power-transition theory even though it had already become the world’sleading economic power. If one were to insist on military capabilities as thedeterminant of great-power status, then should Japan and Germany, which donot possess nuclear weapons despite their economic capacity, be considered tohave reached this status today? Waltz (1993:66) averred, ‘‘For a country tochoose not become a great power is a structural anomaly.’’ With its defenseexpenditures reaching nearly the aggregate level of spending by the rest ofworld, the United States is clearly the predominant military power and can takeon ‘‘all comers’’—combined. If so, no other country qualifies as a great power,and it is difficult to claim that balancing is occurring if one insists exclusively onthe military dimension. As already mentioned, the absence of any overt attemptby China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany to ratchet up their arms spendingor to join a countervailing coalition has stimulated a vigorous debate aboutwhether the traditional definition of balancing should be expanded to includediplomatic obstruction, economic non-cooperation and even the withholding oflegitimacy as a form of ‘‘soft balancing’’ against the United States.

The security and political externalities of commercial relations have been asalient topic in realist discussions (for example, Brooks 1997; Copeland 1996;Gowa 1994; Liberman 1996; Lobell 2007; Mansfield 1994; Papayoanou 1999).This discussion has attended to the implications of relative gain derived fromcommerce, the vulnerability of commercial relations being subjected to politicalholdup, and the effects that commerce can have in re-aligning domestic interestsand affecting the credibility of one’s deterrence threats. Balancing has tradition-ally been defined as taking actions to offset a security deficit, specifically in theform of increasing one’s armament and aligning oneself with allies for commondefense. I offer data on these two traditional forms of balancing. I include Chi-na’s trade with its neighbors only as a supplement to these two direct measuresof balancing for the simple reason that commercial relations impinge on as wellas serve as a harbinger of the latter states’ prospects of taking up armament andalignment against Beijing. Unlike armament and alignment data which can haveany number of intended targets and which can in principle be re-deployedagainst a different target in the future, trade flows do not leave to imaginationthe identity of the states that are involved in these transactions.

As will be shown below, it is difficult to reconcile patterns shown by these datawith traditional expectations of balancing behavior. This remark, however, does

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not claim that China’s neighbors are necessarily bandwagoning with or evenaccommodating Beijing. These concepts are not helpful in this context, and theyare seldom invoked in discourse on contemporary inter-American and inter-European affairs even though scholars are aware that the United States and(a re-unified) Germany dominate their respective regions. According to the bal-ance-of-power logic, states react to others’ material capabilities and make worst-case assumptions about others’ intentions. Data from East Asia suggest that theseaxioms are prima facie suspect there as they are likely elsewhere.

Table 1 reports the defense burden of Asia Pacific countries. For all thesecountries, military expenditure as a percent of their economy has been steady orfalling over the period of 1990–2005. The figures for Taiwan, Mongolia, Vietnam,Thailand, Myanmar, and South Korea are especially remarkable because asChina’s closest neighbors, they are the most likely candidates for increasedspending. Yet there is scant evidence that they have raised their defense burden.The general pattern points in fact in the opposite direction.

Besides ramping up one’s military spending, hard balancing can involve join-ing an alliance to oppose a stronger or more threatening country. States can alsocoordinate their security arrangements with a prospective ally in other ways.Table 2 reports on the deployment of US military personnel in various Asia Paci-fic countries. If these countries are concerned about China’s rise, one should seeevidence pointing to their closer security collaboration with the United States.One indication of this closer collaboration would be the number of US militarypersonnel stationed in their country. As can be seen from Table 2, however,there has been a general trend for this number to decline over time, and notjust from the peak of 1970 when the Vietnam War was still going on. Signifi-cantly, this overtime trend does not just apply to Taiwan, South Korea, and Thai-land where the reduction or withdrawal of US troops has been widelyrecognized. A similar trend applies also to Japan, the Philippines, and Australiathat, according to Ross’ argument, should have exhibited closer alignment with

TABLE 1. Defense Burden (Military Expenditures as Percent of Gross Domestic Product)

1990 1995 2000 2005

Australia 2.00 1.91 1.74 1.78Brunei 6.75 5.75 6.52 4.50*Cambodia 3.12 5.78** 3.23 1.78China 2.71 1.73 1.83 1.98Indonesia 1.81 1.57 1.00 0.94Japan 0.94 0.96 0.98 0.97Korea, South 3.56 2.78 2.50 2.58Laos 2.03 0.50*Malaysia 2.56 2.75 1.70 1.90Myamar 3.40 3.56** 2.31 2.10*Mongolia 5.66 1.74 2.56 1.74***New Zealand 1.82 1.41 1.23 1.01Papua New Guinea 2.13 1.02 0.87 0.53Philippines 1.35 1.44 1.08 0.82Singapore 4.89 4.36 4.67 4.68Taiwan 4.90**** 3.85**** 3.70**** 2.20*Thailand 2.63 2.26 1.45 1.14Vietnam 7.91 2.65** 2.50*

Source: http://www.nationmastercom/statistics.

*http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook; for Brunei the figure is for 2006.

**These figures are for 1994.

***This figure is for 2004.

****Council for Economic Planning and Development (2002).

400 Odd Thing Happened on the Way to Balancing

the United States. With the possible exception of Singapore, proximity to Chinaand maritime status do not appear to have differentiated the number of US mili-tary personnel being hosted by these countries. This indicator suggests that AsiaPacific states have not balanced ‘‘with’’ the United States in order to containsecurity threats from a stronger China.

Because commerce can have security externalities, states that expect to beengulfed in a future conflict should be wary of trading with each other. Realistshave argued that concerns for these externalities and relative gains would inclineprospective adversaries to eschew trade (Grieco 1988, 1990; Gowa 1994). If AsiaPacific countries have these concerns about a rising China, their trade with thelatter should stagnate and even decline over time. Table 3, however, contradictsthis expectation. Trade with China as a percentage of these countries’ total for-eign trade has in fact increased enormously. Whether examined in terms of theirimports from China or exports to China, there has generally been a significantjump in the concentration of their trade with China. These figures have tripled,quadrupled, even quintupled in two decades. One would have expected security-minded states to diversify their trade away from China, and to avoid becomingtoo reliant on China either as a market for their exports or as a source for theirimports. Instead, there has been a truly remarkable increase in their recent tradeconcentration on China. For instance, almost 40% of Taiwan’s total exports in2006 went to China. The corresponding figures are roughly one quarter, onethird, and three quarters for Japan, South Korea, and Mongolia respectively.Although the comparable figures are lower for imports, a few countries (forexample, Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar) depended on China for about onethird of their imports in 2006. Beyond the level of Asia Pacific countries’ tradeconcentration on China, the general trend of their commercial relations isimportant. If, as some realists argue, security concerns should always trump eco-nomic interests, the overtime trend of increasing trade concentration on Chinawhile it is gaining relative power points in the opposite direction.

This trend would be more compatible with a liberal perspective suggesting thatthere is an emergent regional structure contributing to peace and stability. Thisstructure tends to be increasingly based on economic interdependence and shared

TABLE 2. US Military Personnel Stationed

1970 1990 1995 2000 2005

Australia 559 713 314 175 196Brunei — — — — 9Cambodia — — 2 4 5Indonesia 34 32 46 51 23Japan 82,264 46,593 39,134 40,159 35,571Korea, South 52,197 41,344 36,016 36,565 30,983Laos 22 — 3 2 3Malaysia 13 14 35 18 16Mongolia — — — — —Myanmar 13 10 9 7 —New Zealand 157 53 51 6 7Papua New Guinea — — — — —Philippines 23,440 13,863 126 79 55Singapore 10 50 166 411 169Taiwan 8,813 — — — —Thailand 39,212 213 99 526 114Vietnam 390,278* — 4 16 13

Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/troopMarch2005.xls; Kane (2004).

*South Vietnam.

401Steve Chan

norms rather than being motivated by security concerns and balance-of-powerpolitics. Public opinion in Asia Pacific countries provides one possible indicatorto assess this liberal argument, one that would also be compatible with a con-structivist interpretation. How do the people of Asia Pacific countries perceiveChina, the United States, and other major powers? Presumably, in order for theSoutheast Asian countries to balance against China—and to balance ‘‘with’’ theUnited States, one should be able to find some correspondence between theirgovernments’ policies and their citizens’ attitudes. Table 4 presents the percent-age of positive views expressed by the mass public of those countries withdata available from the Asia Barometer surveys (Inoguchi, Tanaka, Sonada, andDadabaev 2006). It turns out that in some Asian maritime states, favorable viewsof China exceeded favorable views of the United States by a substantial margin(these views need not be mutually exclusive). Thus, a substantially larger percent-age of the Indonesian and Malaysian respondents thought China had a ‘‘good’’or ‘‘rather good’’ influence on their country than the United States (49% vs.15% for Indonesians, and 68% vs. 21% for Malaysians). In Singapore and

TABLE 3. Trade Concentration

1991 1996 2001 2006

Imports from China as percent of total importsAustralia 3.5 5.2 10.0 15.3Brunei 2.9 2.6 5.7 6.9Cambodia 3.8 4.3 14.1 35.7Indonesia 3.2 3.7 6.8 13.1Japan 6.0 11.6 17.0 20.7Korea, South 4.2 5.7 10.3 17.9Laos 8.0 3.4 9.7 12.3Malaysia 2.2 2.4 7.8 14.8Mongolia 17.5 14.6 21.3 30.2Myanmar 29.5 21.4 23.2 35.8New Zealand 1.9 3.7 7.5 12.8Papua New Guinea 0.7 1.6 2.7 6.2Philippines 1.9 2.0 7.0 11.1Singapore 3.4 3.4 8.6 13.1Taiwan 0.8 2.6 4.8 13.0Thailand 3.0 2.6 7.3 11.8Vietnam 0.7 2.9 13.2 20.6

Exports to China as percent of total exportsAustralia 3.7 5.7 12.0 17.7Brunei 0.1 0.0 4.5 3.3Cambodia 0.8 2.3 3.0 16.2Indonesia 4.8 4.6 9.2 9.9Japan 3.2 7.1 16.4 23.6Korea, South 1.5 9.1 21.9 31.1Laos 2.7 2.3 2.0 4.5Malaysia 2.3 2.9 11.7 19.7Mongolia 29.8 29.8 47.2 75.3Myanmar 20.1 11.6 6.1 6.9New Zealand 1.8 2.8 7.9 7.5Papua New Guinea 0.7 3.2 4.9 6.3Philippines 1.5 1.8 11.0 45.5Singapore 1.8 2.9 13.2 16.7Taiwan 0.0 0.6 4.4 38.6Thailand 1.5 3.3 12.3 19.3Vietnam 0.5 4.1 8.8 7.7

Source: http://www.correlatesofwar.org/COW2%20Data/Trade/Trade.html; Barbieri et al. (2008).

402 Odd Thing Happened on the Way to Balancing

Thailand, public opinion pointed in the same direction albeit by a much smallermargin (56% vs. 51% in Singapore, and 63% vs. 57% in Thailand). Among themaritime states, those expressing a favorable view of the United States outnum-bered those with a favorable view of China only in Japan (30% vs. 23%) and thePhilippines (85% vs. 65%). Even for these two maritime states, a rather largeportion of the Philippine public held positive views about China (65%) and thedifference between those holding positive views of China and the United Stateswas not very large in Japan (7%). This public opinion obviously affects politi-cians’ incentives and ability to undertake policies aimed at balancing againstChina, or balancing ‘‘with’’ the United States.

A critical idea stands behind the descriptive statistics just reported. Balancingpolicy entails political effort and, indeed, significant costs and foregone opportu-nities. Challenging the idea that balancing is the natural response of states topossible foreign threats, Randall Schweller (2004:172) argued: ‘‘…underreactingto threats, unlike an effective balancing strategy, does not require overwhelming,united, and coherent support from elites and masses; it is a default strategy.’’Thus, for balancing behavior to occur, states must often overcome a naturalreluctance to pay the price for ramping up defense spending, compromisingnational autonomy and discretion in security policy, eschewing profitable com-mercial relations, and responding to skeptical and even isolationist public opin-ion. Therefore, the statistics just reported point not only to a general absence ofbalancing behavior by Asia Pacific states directed at China, but also the politicaland economic barriers and thus disincentives that their elites are likely to faceshould they decide to mount a policy of balancing against China. Significantly,the opportunity costs to be borne by escalating defense spending or reducingtrade with China have significance not just for a state’s bilateral relations withBeijing. These opportunity costs also have a multilateral bearing with respect tothis state’s relations with others. Thus, for example, should Malaysia decide toraise its defense spending and curtail its trade with China but Singapore andIndonesia decline to do so, it will suffer the pertinent opportunity costs withrespect to the latter two countries. Moreover, the latter two countries cannot besure whether the former country’s increased defense spending may not be some-day used against them. This security dilemma can cascade to produce additionalopportunity costs due to reciprocal armament and foregone commerce.

TABLE 4. Positive Views on Major States, 2004–2005*

Respondent’s country

Target country

China Japan India USA Russia

Cambodia 28 73 16 62 13China — 21 11 32 21Indonesia 49 67 39 15 12Japan 23 — 9 30 5Korea, South 44 34 21 42 18Laos 75 80 38 32 45Malaysia 68 68 40 21 24Philippines 65 74 37 85 35Singapore 56 58 36 51 15Thailand 63 59 20 57 19Vietnam 30 46 18 21 52Average 50 58 26 41 23

Source: Inoguchi et al. (2006:482–4).

*Percent of those respondents in Asia Barometer Survey indicating that the country in question has a ‘‘good

influence’’ or ‘‘rather good influence’’ on the respondent’s country.

403Steve Chan

Discussion

Events unfolding in East Asia today had occurred before when a rising UnitedStates competed with Britain for influence in the Western Hemisphere.31 Untilthe late 1800s, the United States saw Britain as its main rival in this region, andthis perception was reciprocated by Britain (Friedberg 1988; Post 1993; Rock2000). Did Washington’s continental neighbors, Canada (a British dominionthen) and Mexico, align with it? Conversely, did the Caribbean and SouthAmerican states close ranks with London? Although all these states, includingBritain, eventually came to terms with US dominance, physical contiguity ormaritime status did not appear to be the decisive factors shaping their alignmentdecisions. Moreover, America’s rise was not to Britain’s eventual detrimentbecause the United States was pivotal for its victory in the two world wars.

The USSR’s demise is instructive, albeit offering the flip side of China’s rise.How did Russia’s neighbors react to its decline? How did the United States andits NATO allies respond to a weaker Russia? Defensive realism would suggest lessbalancing aimed at Moscow. Prominent realists such as Kenneth Waltz and JohnMearsheimer even predicted the obsolescence of NATO and, in the latter’s case,the withdrawal of US troops from Western Europe and Northeast Asia.32 Wehave, however, instead seen an extension of NATO into Russia’s traditionalsphere of influence, closer military collaboration between the United States andcountries such as Poland and the Czech Republic, and the introduction of USmilitary personnel and bases into Central Asia.

Did China’s rise and Russia’s decline produce similar responses from theirrespective neighbors? If countries in their respective ‘‘near abroad’’ have gener-ally pursued closer alignment with the United States, we should be cautiousabout making causal attribution. The supposed cause is irrelevant in that simi-lar behavior occurred regardless of whether it was present, absent or evenreversed. As well, did America’s earlier rise and China’s more recent riseproduce similar responses from their respective neighbors? If the answer is neg-ative, then one should be wary of the danger of idiosyncrasy—because thesame ostensible cause has yielded different results. Attempts to reconcile thesehistorical outcomes would have to introduce additional variables, which wouldbe tantamount to acknowledging that after all, the rise or decline of great pow-ers is not in itself the only or even primary determinant of their neighbors’policies.

With prominent exceptions such as Kenneth Waltz and Christopher Layne,many American realists commenting on East Asian security matters couch theiranalysis in terms of defensive realism but implicitly endorse a US policy of extra-regional hegemony if not also offensive realism. There is a tendency to castChina in the role of a possible power maximizer, and to assume that the UnitedStates is naturally a security maximizer.33 Even John Mearsheimer (2001), offen-sive realism’s strongest proponent, does not follow the logic of his own theorythat a powerful state would not cease to expand until it becomes the undisputedglobal hegemon.34 He described the US role in Northeast Asia as an offshorebalancer rather than as a global hegemon seeking to maintain and even increase

31For realists, one of the major unexplained historical enigmas is the absence of forceful European interventionto prevent US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. Britain’s failure to intervene in the American Civil War onthe Confederacy’s behalf is also puzzling (Elman 2004; Little 2007; Thompson 2007).

32It is puzzling why, given his version of offensive realism, Mearsheimer would predict that the United Stateswould pull back rather than ‘‘pile on’’ a weaker Russia.

33See Kydd (1997, 2000) for pertinent discussions on this distinction.34Mearsheimer (2001:34, 35) stated, ‘‘Even when a great power achieves a distinct military advantage over its riv-

als, it continues looking for chances to gain more power. The pursuit of power only stops when hegemony isachieved;’’ and ‘‘States do not become status quo powers until they completely dominate the system.’’

404 Odd Thing Happened on the Way to Balancing

its primacy.35 The forward deployment of US troops and Washington’s networkof overseas bases constitute a concerted effort intended precisely to overcomethe ‘‘stopping power of water.’’ Whether this ring of military bases around Chinaand Russia is for defensive or offensive purpose is subject to contested interpreta-tion, and it is hardly surprising that people in Beijing, Moscow and Washingtonperceive or profess different intentions. It is, however, more difficult to under-stand arguments insisting simultaneously that states balance against objectivepower and that their alignment with preponderant US power confirms thisproposition.

States can be expected to play both offense and defense in their foreignpolicy. As Timothy Crawford (2003:203) noted, ‘‘most states have a mixed bag ofpreferences: They play defense and offense at the same time, seeking to preservethe status quo in some situations and to upend it in others.’’ It is certainly notself-evident that the United States is a status-quo power either in East Asia orglobally or that in comparison, China is a revisionist state (Johnston 2003, 2004;Chan 2008). Indeed, it is odd for people who emphasize exclusively the objectivedistribution of national power and who dismiss the relevance of national inten-tions in analyzing international relations to attribute a status-quo orientation tosome states and a revisionist motivation to others. As mentioned earlier, balanceof power and balance of threat tend to merge under unipolarity, directing atten-tion to America’s preponderant power rather than China’s rising power. StephenWalt (2005:23) remarked: ‘‘the United States is in a position that is historicallyunprecedented, and . . . it has used its power to mold a world that would be com-patible with US interests and values. The United States has not acted as a ‘statusquo’ power: rather, it has used its position of primacy to increase its influence,to enhance its position vis-a-vis potential rivals, and to deal with specific securitythreats.’’ If so, it is not clear why East Asian countries, or countries elsewhere,should be more concerned with China’s recent power gains than with America’spersistent and huge power lead.36

As Brooks and Wohlforth (2005 ⁄ 06:191) remarked in another context, theissue taken up by this essay is more about whether to revise balance-of-powertheory than about the actual evidence on the pertinent states’ behavior orrecent power shifts. It is plain that China has made relative power gains, thatEast Asian states are reacting to China’s rise, and that its rise can complicateUS policies. Few would contest these claims. But what are valid indicators ofbalance-of-power politics? And does the purported evidence for it actually con-tradict realist expectations? The view that continental East Asian states areaccommodating China whereas littoral ones are balancing against it stands stan-dard balancing expectation on its head. If the situation were reversed, one canalso claim that this expectation has been vindicated. Vasquez (1997) haswarned about sucker’s bets of ‘‘heads I win, tails you lose.’’ One turns balance-of-power politics into a truism when one contends that just because China isgaining relative power it must be balancing against the United States. It focuseson China’s recent power gains, while overlooking US ascendance to unprece-dented global primacy.

That China’s immediate neighbors have thus far not balanced against it wouldappear to fit the historical patterns observed by Gilpin (1981), Larson (1991),Rosecrance and Stein (1993), Schroeder (1994), and Schweller (2004, 2006).Weaker neighbors of Spain (Charles I and Philip II), France (Louis XIV and

35Layne (2003) offered a cogent critique of Mearsheimer’s analysis on this point.36According to Elman and Elman (1995:186), certain realists like Gilpin (1981) expect secondary states to be

reluctant to challenge a hegemon and hence their failure to balance against the latter would not invalidate someneorealist theory. This acknowledgment, however, does not say that the secondary states’ failure to balance againstthe hegemon should be counted as support for balance-of-power theory.

405Steve Chan

Napoleon) and Germany (Wilhelm II and Hitler) balanced slowly and ineffec-tively, if at all. Some have even bandwagoned with an aspiring hegemon. Suchbehavior is also unexceptional in view of America’s own historical rise. This phe-nomenon implies that one cannot confidently count on the formation of a coun-tervailing coalition to block a rising power and, furthermore, there is thepossibility of falling dominoes. As already mentioned, if balancing is the predom-inant reaction of states to a rising power, then the United States can count onothers’ natural inclination to mobilize themselves against an emergent threat.Conversely, if bandwagoning or accommodation is the more likely tendency, theUnited States may be more motivated to intervene in order to shore up its allies’alignment and to prevent dominoes from falling. That Washington has pursuedforward defense in Europe and Asia and created formal alliances with states inthese regions would imply significant skepticism that balance-of-power politicswould operate on its own accord so that countervailing coalitions consisting ofEuropeans and Asians would naturally form to block a resurgent Russia or risingChina. Why else would Washington not want to adopt a more detached role asan offshore balancer? Washington’s forward military deployment and its allianceswould also be compatible with an intention to thwart balance-of-power politicsdirected against itself (Layne 2006a) or, as stated in official US defense guide-lines, to perpetuate US preponderance and prevent the emergence of any peercompetitor.37

This perspective further suggests that ostensible balancing policies can havemultiple targets in mind. Surely German and Japanese leaders are not so denseto overlook that US military deployment in Europe and Asia may be in partintended to deflect their armament. This same thought must have crossed theminds of leaders in London, Paris, Seoul, not to mention Moscow and Beijing.Similarly, Washington’s—and Beijing’s and Tokyo’s—collaborative efforts to dis-courage Pyongyang’s nuclear program are in part aimed at defusing an arma-ment race that may otherwise ensue from North Korea’s actions. Being theworld’s second largest economy and having had a contentious history with itsneighbors, Japan’s current and potential military capabilities are a matter ofconcern for China, Russia, Korea, and even the United States. The UnitedStates–Japan alliance has been seen by Chinese leaders as a ‘‘bottle cap’’ check-ing Japanese armament while simultaneously presenting a source of worrybecause it can potentially involve Japan in a Sino-American conflict over the Tai-wan Strait. Although the United States–South Korea alliance has as its declaredobjective the deterrence of North Korea, it has served as a conduit for Seoul tolobby Washington against pursuing policies intended to cause a ‘‘hard landing’’(that is, a crash) of North Korea’s regime, an interest shared by Seoul andBeijing. Alignments therefore often have a double-edged, even multiple-edged,quality—and they can serve as quasi substitutes for armament that ostensibleallies might otherwise seek.

Ironically, North Korea’s nuclear armament would seem to provide the stron-gest support for balancing expectation, as Pyongyang faces a lopsided imbalanceagainst it—by the mid-1990s, South Korea’s economy was already 40 times largerthan the North’s and its military spending seven times as much (Suh 2004:137).Yet rarely is Pyongyang’s behavior characterized as such. However, its failure todevelop closer alignment with Beijing and Moscow given its severe decline, andthe persistence of the United States–South Korea alliance in view of this trendboth challenge balance-of-power reasoning (Suh 2004).

37On ‘‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,’’ see Bacevich (2002) and Jervis (2005).The Bush doctrine enunciated in this document stated, ‘‘our forces will be strong enough to dissuade adversariesfrom a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the United States.’’ Its declared goal is to perpetuateUS dominance indefinitely and, if necessary, by resort to preventive war.

406 Odd Thing Happened on the Way to Balancing

Although space does not permit a full discussion, it is nevertheless germane toremark that ‘‘the underlying dynamics of the balance of power are driven alsoby a complex set of potential threats and counterthreats of alliance’’ (Niou,Ordeshook, and Rose 1989:316). Officials are strategic and anticipatory, so that‘‘…threats and counters need not be explicitly embodied in formally signedagreements…’’ (Niou et al. 1989:316). Under some circumstances, C may chooseto cede enough capabilities to B so that B approaches A’s capabilities (or itscapabilities approach 50% of a system’s total). C’s action intensifies the competi-tive dynamic between A and B, and is intended to cause them and others toacquire a greater stake in its own survival. Large transfers of territory (for exam-ple, the Louisiana Purchase) and sudden new alignment (for example, theNazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of1941) do not appear in the offing in today’s East Asia. However, to the extentthat commerce can facilitate or accelerate ongoing power shifts, developmentssuch as the increasing de facto economic integration across the Taiwan Strait areintriguing in this light.

It is therefore not self-evident that there is one natural or obvious candidatefor balancing—nor indeed who is being balanced by whom. The data presentedearlier do seem to suggest collective self-restraint in the sense that East Asianstates have not by and large sought armament programs at a level remotely closeto the full extent permitted by their economic capacity. They have also eschewedone-sided alignment, preferring instead to engage in ‘‘omni-enmeshment.’’Their prudence reflects Alexander Wendt’s (1992:410) caution that ‘‘Realism isa self-fulfilling prophecy.’’

Ancient China can be contrasted with European experiences in order to learnthe extent to which theorizing based on the latter has generalizability (for exam-ple, Johnston 1998; Hui 2005). China’s neighbors had not balanced against iteven though it was a long-time hegemonic power. There were periods in Chinesehistory, such as at the time of the Warring States, the Three Kingdoms and eventhe warlords in early Republic (for example, Chi 1968; Chan 1999; Lewis 1999;Hui 2004), when balance-of-power politics had occurred. Contrary to balance-of-power predictions, however, hegemony was not averted, that is, a winneremerged each time to unify China. A crucial point, alluded above, is thatbalance-of-power politics also did not prevent the Dutch, the British, and theAmericans from attaining global primacy. That this crucial point is generallyoverlooked in most discussions reflects an Anglo-American bias in the discourseon balance of power.38 Although it has been said that balancing policies shouldnot be assumed to always succeed in producing an outcome of balance, the his-torical ascendance of these hegemonic powers cannot but reduce confidence inbalance-of-power predictions. Jack Levy (2002:147) has stated these predictionsin a form that he thought most balance-of-power theorists would accept: ‘‘theemergence of any single state with the potential to dominate the internationalsystem will generate a blocking coalition of other great powers, and…conse-quently hegemonies over the system will not form.’’ We have thus far not seenany coalition opposing US global preponderance and judging from this essay’sevidence, such a coalition against China has also not been forming in East Asia.All in all, evidence supporting balance-of-power politics is not strong even in thecontext of European history, not to mention non-European and premodern his-tory (Buzan and Little 2000; Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth 2007).

This essay argues that Asia Pacific countries’ conduct toward China is anoma-lous from the traditional balance-of-power perspective. As David Shambaugh(2005) stated forthrightly, one does not have to be a realist in order to recognize

38As Levy (2002) noted, British discourse on balance of power typically focused on the European continentrather than globally where London held sway.

407Steve Chan

that China, just as the United States before it, seeks regional preeminence. Norshould one be astonished to learn that neighbors of a large and strong countryhave security concerns, or that they try to alleviate these concerns by a variety ofnot mutually exclusive behavior including conciliating, hedging, hiding, binding,diverting, free riding, and transcending (Goh 2007 ⁄ 08; Bobrow 2008; Ciorciari2009) in addition to bandwagoning, buck-passing and balancing. Indeed, asWaltz (2000:38–9) reminded us: ‘‘that states try different strategies of survival ishardly surprising.’’ It would, however, be asking ‘‘balancing’’ to do too much ofthe analytic heavy lifting if one were to include in this concept policies that seekcooperation, accommodation and resistance. In so doing, one risks obfuscatingthis concept and convoluting its descriptive accuracy and analytic logic. Onewould be stretching it so much that one excludes practically nothing from thepractice of statecraft. Moreover, there is much merit to Waltz’s (2000:36) warn-ing that ‘‘When Americans speak of preserving the balance of power in East Asiathrough their military presence, the Chinese understandably take this to meanthat they intend to maintain the strategic hegemony they now enjoy in theabsence of such a balance’’ (emphasis in original). Policies that have the effect orintent of sustaining or even furthering an imbalance are sometimes presented asconfirming or advancing balance-of-power politics. This observation offers a cau-tionary reminder that one should not embrace too readily the notion that inter-national relations scholarship necessarily represents ‘‘an objective scienceindependent of its national origin and historical context…’’ (Oren 2003:7).This caveat explains certain ambivalence, even contradiction, when someself-acknowledged realists write about balancing policies and balance-of-powersituations. While professing (even if only implicitly) that a balance-of-powersituation is conducive to interstate stability (perhaps even peace) and that thissituation may be inevitable in the long run, they can be at the same time con-cerned that a rising China – that is, a less asymmetric distribution of powerbetween China and the U.S. – can undermine American hegemony and augur amore dangerous world according to the power-transition theory’s logic.

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