Strategic Coercion And Strategic Restraint:Understanding U.S.Hedging Logic Of South China Sea Diplomacy To China During The Obama Administration

During the Obama Administration,the South China Sea issues were heating up,and they became significantly important on the U.S.foreign policy agenda.U.S.foreign policy on the South China Sea had an obvious indication to China,and U.S.increasingly took side to practice hegemonic maintenance on 'the order security issue of the South China Sea' while staying neutral to 'take no position' on the sovereignty security issue of the South China Sea',these behaviors match U.S.two familiar strategic behavior models:strategic coercion and strategic restraint.By reviewing related U.S.foreign strategic research articles,we can find that strategic coercion of the U.S.foreign policy is formed by deterrence,compellence and coercive attempts,aiming at imposing intents,pressuring and punishing opponents,reassuring allies,and keeping the power;strategic restraint of the U.S.foreign policy is formed by force with caution,control with constraint,and collaborative cooperation,aiming at defending core interests,keeping strategic stability and creating security orders.The combination of strategic coercion and strategic restraint constitute U.S.hedging strategy to China on the South China Sea issues.U.S.strategic coercion and strategic restraint to China on the South China Sea diplomacy have their respective driving factors.The 'threat' perception of China's rise at sea in East Asia and U.S.attention to its prestige and credibility for maintaining the global leader together drive U.S.strategic coercion to China on the South China Sea issues,it is derived from the obsession with Wallerstein style hegemonic thought,and is rooted in cultus to the logic of offensive realism;the fact that South China Sea per se is not U.S.core national interests and the truth that U.S.has no obligations and commitments to 'pay the bill' for South China Sea sovereignty disputes between claimants concerned and China together drive U.S.strategic restraint to China on the South China Sea issues,it is derived from the operation of Burke style prudent thought,and is rooted in consideration about the logic of defensive realism.These driving factors reflect U.S.cognition to China and claimants concerned,also these driving factors are strategic interactive outcomes of those international actors,thus can be labeled as 'correlative strategic interactive cognitions'.Concretely speaking,the 'correlative strategic interactive cognitions'include U.S.strategic interactive cognition to China,that is whether China will'change the status quo' or not;and U.S.strategic interactive cognition to claimants concerned,that is whether it will be abandoned by those states or it will be entrapped by them.After discussing U.S.strategic coercion and strategic restraint to China on the South China Sea diplomacy in the perspectives of conceptualization and typology,we can find strategic coercion can be typologized as low strategic coercion and high strategic coercion,low strategic coercion includes deterrence without coercive attempts,while high strategic coercion includes compellence without coercive attempts,deterrence with coercive attempts,and compellence with coercive attempts;strategic restraint can be typologized as low strategic restraint and high strategic restraint,low strategic restraint includes force with caution,while high strategic restraint includes control with constraint and collaborative cooperation.Thus,there is a possibility to build coherent causal mechanism hypotheses between 'correlative strategic interactive cognitions' and U.S.hedging strategy to China on the South China Sea diplomacy.After introducing four cases of U.S.South China Sea diplomacy during the Obama administration to have positive analyses,we can find that,in the case of 'Scarborough Shoal standoff incident',U.S.adopted a kind of hedging strategy consist of low strategic coercion and high strategic restraint to China when it cognized China didn't have obvious moves to 'change the status quo' and it would be entrapped by Philippines;in the case of 'HYSY 981 oil rig clash',U.S.adopted a kind of hedging strategy consist of high strategic coercion and high strategic restraint to China when it cognized China did have obvious moves to'change the status quo' and it would be entrapped by Vietnam;in the case of 'South China Sea Arbitration',U.S.adopted a kind of hedging strategy consist of low strategic coercion and low strategic restraint to China when it cognized China didn't have obvious moves to 'change the status quo' and it would be abandoned by Philippines;in the case of'China's South China Sea islands building(2013-2016)',U.S.adopted a kind of hedging strategy consist of high strategic coercion and low strategic restraint to China when it cognized China did have obvious moves to'change the status quo' and it would be abandoned by claimants concerned.After reviewing the logic and its practice of U.S.hedging strategy to China on the South China Sea diplomacy during the Obama administration,we can find that it was helpful to implement U.S.strategy of 'Asia-Pacific Rebalancing',however,it lowered U.S.-China trust levels and induced U.S-China 'security dilemma' on the South China Sea further.When forecasting U.S.South China Sea diplomacy during the Trump administration,it may inherit most of the Obama's,but it may have some changes.These changes may reflect on implementing economic sanctions,strengthening 'Indo-Pacific' allies,and adopting 'issue linkage' tactics,they will bring changes to U.S.South China Sea diplomacy to China.The trend of U.S.diplomacy to China on the South China Sea issues still depends largely on U.S.cognition to China of whether it will 'change the status quo' or not and U.S.cognition to its relations with claimants concerned in the future.