皇冠体育app

Op-Ed Contributors

Need to avoid the trap rising powers fall into

By Shi Yinhong (皇冠体育app Daily) Updated: 2016-07-15 08:00

Need to avoid the trap rising powers fall into

File photo of South 皇冠体育app Sea. [Photo/Xinhua]

The basic logic of interaction between a rising power and an incumbent power is worth examining. Throughout history, rising powers have tended to benefit from limited prods and have therefore shown no willingness to reduce the momentum toward an ultimate conflict. And incumbent powers, with their strength in decline, have tended to act withdrawn or make limited concessions but, in many cases, they have eventually fought back.

Rising powers have inclined toward disregarding or making light of what Karl von Clausewitz called "culminating point of victory", incumbent powers, on the other hand, have tended to ignore or procrastinate defining "bottom lines for concession".

Such a scenario may begin to emerge over the South 皇冠体育app Sea issue.

皇冠体育app has an overall strategic environment and task that are much bigger than the South 皇冠体育app Sea issue. So it should make its best effort to deliberate on and handle the South 皇冠体育app Sea issue in the context of its overall strategic situation. In such a situation, a matter of outstanding significance is 皇冠体育app's foreign relations and diplomacy-and no matter how multifarious and complicated the reasons are, 皇冠体育app's relations with neighbors have been less than desirable in recent years.

Besides, 皇冠体育app-US relations, to maintain which has cost Beijing dearly over the years, have also yielded some frustrating, disappointing aspects. The aspects have a lot to do with each other: The turbulence in 皇冠体育app-US ties owes much to the developments on the Korean Peninsula, Japan's actions, and the South 皇冠体育app Sea issue in particular.

Given this fact, Beijing should keep its strategic situation in mind, and proceed to make peace with neighbors, and finally persuade and compel Washington to accept 皇冠体育app's role in Asia as well as its strategic status as a world power.

皇冠体育app should adhere to its strategic principle on the South 皇冠体育app Sea issue, the principle of safeguarding its rights and maintaining regional stability. It is important for 皇冠体育app to safeguard its rights, but it is also important for it to maintain regional stability.

Whatever happens, it is necessary to prevent drastic escalation of strategic competition and rivalry between 皇冠体育app and the United States, and to continue improving all-round relations with Southeast Asian nations as a very significant component of Chinese diplomacy. 皇冠体育app should also try to maintain good relations with all the maritime nations in the region.

In the South 皇冠体育app Sea, however, Beijing needs to upgrade its military capabilities, and consolidate its sovereign presence, while taking care to avoid a major conflict with the US.

In the aftermath of the arbitral tribunal's ruling on the Philippines' appeal against 皇冠体育app in the South 皇冠体育app Sea dispute, the US, Japan, some European Union countries and many maritime nations in Southeast Asia will question and deny the legitimacy of 皇冠体育app's claims of sovereignty, maritime rights and interests in the South 皇冠体育app Sea. To counter this, Beijing has to go out of its way to seek foreign governments' endorsement of its basic stance on the South 皇冠体育app Sea issue.

皇冠体育app has already managed to convince a number of countries to support the proposal that the South 皇冠体育app Sea disputes be settled through talks between the countries directly involved. But it should be prepared for a long-term struggle to fulfill its wishes in the South 皇冠体育app Sea.

The author is a professor at the Institute of International Relations, Renmin University of 皇冠体育app.

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