America’s Authority In Aisa-Pacific Area After World War Ⅱ

Different from traditional international relations theory that there is no difference exists between states under the anarchy system, this paper believes that there is a relationship of authority in international relations, and the United States have this kind of relationship in various regions of the world (including Asia-Pacific area) after World War II. In this paper, the core question is:After World War II, did the United States have this kind of authority in the Asia-Pacific region, and what kind of authority is?In order to discuss this question, this paper focuses on the review about the literature of international authority, international order in Asia Pacific, and the presence of the U.S. authority in the Pacific Asia. On this basis, the basic definition of key concept "authority" is a relationship of obedience and to be obeyed, it is based on the agreement by both parties. In international relations, leading state requests other states obedience to its command, and other states agree that it has obligation to obey leading state’s will. If there is no direct and long time’s boycott to these two sides relationship of dominance and obedience (ie to recognize its legitimacy), the relationship of authority is set up, and this is the formation of relational authority.In international relations, the basis of the authority is the collective acceptance from the vassal state, and the establishment of the authority is the result of the interests exchange under the structural pressure between leading state and vassal state. Once authority relations formed, this relationship has an inner mechanism of self-sustaining. In specific causal explanation, the structural pressure and the degree of intern alization of interests are the main factors affecting the establishment of authority between states. Structural pressure affecting the propensity (likelihood) of the establishment of authority, and the degree of internalization of interests influence the degree of authority. Under the influence of these two factors, the authority relationship between states demonstrates different forms, such as coercion, dependent, cooperative, coordinated, competitive types. The basic hypothesises of this paper are:Hypothesis1, in a multi-polar structure, the structural pressure becomes greater when the difference in strength between potential leading state and other states turns out to be greater; the more points of interest are made by potential leading state, the higher the likelihood of other states to investment, and the greater the possibility of establishing authority relationship. Hypothesis2, in bipolar structure, the structural pressure from two polar states becomes larger, and the competition between these two states becomes more intensive as both sides need to establish their own authority camp. In this situation, the promise of leading state turns out to be more attractive, and the probability becomes higher if one side offers more attractive ones. Hypothesis3, in unipolar structure, the gap of power between leading state and potential vassal state turns out to be greater, probability of establishment of authority will be greater. When more points of interest offered by leading state, the strength of authority relations will be greater; when fewer points of interest offered by leading state, the strength of authority will be weaker.After the World War II, the United States have different levels of authority in the Asia-Pacific region. This authority may be measured by political statement, military and economic relations from these three dimensions. From political dimension, the main indicators to be measures here are:(1) the public position to each other relationship between from two sides;(2) the rank and number of states leader’s visit;(3) the consistency of vote between Asia-Pacific countries and the U.S.. On the economic dimension, the main indicators are:(1) the ratio of total trade of an Asia-Pacific state and its trade value between Asia-Pacific economies and the U.S.;(2) the ratio of U.S. investment to the Asia-Pacific economies’foreign investment;(3) special trade partnership. In the military dimension, the indicators are:(1) the participation of Asia-Pacific states in the U.S.-led war;(2) allow the U.S. has its military bases or troops on their territory;(3) intelligence sharing partnerships and opportunity for joint military exercises.According to descriptive statistics, the paper finds that U.S. authority in the Asia-Pacific mainly focused on the relationship with its traditional allies during the Cold War’s bipolar structure, the public position to the relationship between two sides had a strong feeling of ideology and "spheres of influence". Leaders of Japan and South Korea generally chose Washington D.C. as their first visits, and they followed the U.S. position in the UN’s vote tightly. There exists formal military treaties between the U.S. and Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand, and these treaties allow U.S. has troops within the country above or even has a military base. Furthermore, these states participate in the US-led war actively in order to have U.S. military aid; and their economics highly dependent on the trade with U.S.. After the Cold War, in the unipolar structure of1990s, authority relationship between the United States and Asia-Pacific allies slightly weakened, the interests of both judgments diverged. In the twenty-first century, with the rise of China, while strengthening the authority of the relationship between its traditional ally, the U.S. developed relationship with Asia-Pacific emerging states and other states actively; and increased visits of leaders; strengthened military ties with Southeast Asia, South Asia states; signed free trade agreement with Singapore, South Korea and Australia; and advanced trans-pacific partnership actively. The Authority relationship between the U.S. and the states in the region demonstrated a tendency of multi progress under the strategy of "Asia-Pacific rebalancing".After the measurement of the extent and scope of authority of the U.S. in Asia-Pacific region, the paper also uses process tracing method to develop a vertical time-based analysis of the relationship between the U.S. and South Korea, Japan respectively. We find that even the U.S. played as the dominant nation, and enjoyed absolute advantage in power, it didn’t always have initiative in the process of authority development. In this situation, the degree of interest internalization played an important role in the process. When the vassal state controlled the points of interests, it could utilize the sensitivity of leading state to these interests in their bargaining, and gained initiative in the authority relationship.Nowadays, the competitions among modern great powers are not just bound to the comparison of their powers, but with the competition of international authority as well. Although there is no mutual repulsion of interests in Asia between the U.S. and China, they have to face inevitable competition in the area where they both interested in. If China wants to gain "obedience" from other states in the region, it has to offer irreplaceable interests and demands for these states, and establish a kind of relationship of authority, and then let these states act as China’s intention and preference. Therefore, the next step of the research is how to create other states’necessities of interests for China in order to gain "obedience" from them.