Sino - US Normative Competition And Reconstruction Of East Asian Order

Since the mid-1990s, especially in the21st century, China’s rapid rise has beenchanging the structures of power and interests in East Asia, constituting a new factorin the shaping of the new regional order in East Asia. The United States, which isrelatively on decline, attaches more importance to the role of norms and institutions,with a view to restraining the emerging powers such as China and maintaining itshegemonic position in East Asia. China has always pursued the path of peacefuldevelopment, and therefore underscores achieving the peaceful rise through normsand institutions. The two countries have engaged in competition in norms making andnorms diffusion. In the meantime, as the two countries most important in the Asia-Pacific region, China and the United States shoulder the responsibility of maintainingpeace and stability and promoting economic development in East Asia, thecompetition between China and the United States in East Asia is also restrained andcontrolled, unlikely to lead to the disorder of the region. On the contrary, thenormative competition between China and the United States is also a process ofmutual accommodation and compromise, indicating that both sides are taking anaccommodative attitude toward each other.Given the historical and geopolitical background of East Asia, the international orderin East Asia is a mixed presence, that is, the power order and the normative ordercoexist in Eat Asia and play their due roles. The interactions and mutual influencesbetween them will shape together the future of the regional order in East Asia.From a rationalist perspective, the author identifies three models of regional orderthrough an examination of the norms and power in East Asia. The first model ofregional order is “bi-polarized” regional order, which is equivalent to the current EastAsian regional order; the second model of regional order, which will probably beattained in the medium to long term, is “dualistic compatibility, normative equilibrium”, for which most of the nations in the region aspire. The third order is“unitary normative governance”. Under this model, there exists a high degree ofmutual trust between countries in the region, norms hold a dominant position in theregional order, and the regional order is more of a normative governance order. This isthe vision of the international order in East Asia, a new order model that theconstructivists would also like to see.In the conclusion, the author underscores that the rivalry on the initiation anddiffusion of norms are the focus of the current transformation of regional order. In theprocess toward the transformation of East Asian regional order, we should look uponnorms and power from a dialectical perspective, and ensure the benign competitionbetween China and the United States in East Asia.