Structural Analysis Of China-US Relations In East Asia(2010-2020)

A power transition from the United States to China in East Asia has emerged due to the rapid rise of China.Therefore,the strategic positioning towards China by the United States has undergone a major transformation from a “stakeholder” to a“strategic competitor”.Moreover,after two extensive discussions on America's China strategies,the American epistemic communities concluded that the “engagement”strategy towards China was a failure and the U.S.government gradually employed the “containment” strategy against China.Since then,both the “Asia-Pacific rebalancing” and the “economic nationalism” strategies have followed this strategic direction.As a result,due to the strategic pressure from the United States,Chinese government could no longer sustain the foreign strategy of “keeping a low profile”which it had pursued since the 1990 s,and started to adopt the strategy of “striving for achievement”.The intensified strategic competition between China and the United States has triggered worldwide negative speculations about the trend of China-US relations.For example,with continuous power transition,will China and the United States be drawn into dangerous situations such as frictions,conflicts or even a new cold war? What is the structural state of China-US relations in East Asia where the trend of power transition is the most evident? Will this structural state stalemate,or will there be any possibility to solve such a standoff? Starting from these questions,the dissertation aims to explore the structure of China-US relations in East Asia.Though most of the existent literature investigating China-US relations from the structural theoretical perspective has paid proper attention to the structural aspects,it has ignored the role of agency.The static structural determinism still occupies adominant position in the research on the China-US relations in East Asia.Moreover,the unique and traditional analytic hierarchy process(AHP)in the field of international relations studies furthers the separation of structure and agency.For a long time,the foundation of research on structure and agency in the field of international relations studies has been implicit in the research norms of AHP.Once the notions of man,state,and system have been defined,they constitute a unique research method in the field of international relations studies.This method is different from those in other disciplines in ontological and epistemological terms.Therefore,it is widely applied to investigate various issues in the international community.However,few scholars attempt to resolve the opposition and make up for the gap between objectivity,subjectivity and structural units by questioning the AHP research methodology in the field of international relations.Studies of China-US relations are also affected by such research deficiencies.Consequently,despite there have been plenty of works probing into the China-US relations by applying structural theory and AHP,few of them are able to remove the opposition between structure and agency in China-US relations research.In view of the “Practice Turn” in the field of international relations studies,this dissertation draws Pierre Bourdieu's field theory as the theoretical basis.It starts from the closed circular relationship of field,habitus and practice,and proposes an analytical framework explaining the structure of China-US relations in East Asia,that is,an analytical framework of three dimensions: field location relation,state habitus,and state practice.The regional field and state practice are mutually constructed through the intermediary concept of state habitus.The relationship between China and the United States in East Asia belongs to this theoretical category in essence.Therefore,this dissertation builds an external analysis framework by integrating the field theory with the general classification of structural characteristics in the field ofinternational relations.Besides,it also builds an internal analytical framework with the correlation of field,habitus,and practice.The external framework shows that the structure of China-US relations in East Asia can be divided into power relation structure,geographical relation structure,domain relations structure,and practice relations structure.The internal analysis framework shows that the interactions of China-US relations in East Asia always take place in the abovementioned field.The field is a hierarchical structure composed of special logic rules,capital and the resulting positional relations.In the field,the state makes strategic choices based on capital and habitus,and their interactions constitute an inherently hierarchical positional relation.For example,in the East Asian region,the China-US power structure corresponds to the positional relation between the “rising power” and the“established power”;the geopolitical structure corresponds to the bipolar position of maritime and continental powers;the domain structure corresponds to the dual positional relation of security and economy.The positional relation in the field is deeply influenced by the habitus in its formation process,and the habitus has a particularly important influence on the strategic choices of state agent.These state agents include the United States which implements the “advantage-resisting” strategy against China under the influence of power transition habitus in the power structure and adopts “selective engagement” strategy under the influence of sea power habitus in the geography structure.They also contain China which applies inshore defense influenced by sovereign habitus,the United States which employs strategic reassurance because of defensive realism and alliance origin habitus in the domain structure and China which pursues “striving for achievement” due to “expanding political influence by promoting economic exchanges” habitus originated in the tributary trade era.Although various relation structures established under the influence of the dual roles of field location relation and habitus are not conducive tothe healthy development of China-US relations,it is necessary for both sides to play the practical role of state agents and start reflective thinking and monitoring,in order to avoid the inherent logic brought about by the structure,such as the Thucydides' trap,in the power structure and construct an “accommodating” China-US relation structure.Through the above theoretical discussion and practical analysis,this dissertation argues that in the era when there is not any war between great powers,technology and rules are more effective competition tools than violence and war.China has neither enough military strength nor the will to conflict with the United States or engage in a new round of cold war.The United States should also adopt China strategies that are suitable for its actual situation,so as to revive its own economy and benefit the world trade.If China and the United States move on in this orientation,in the foreseeable future,East Asia will usher in an era in which China and the United States integrate their domain strength with rules.Besides,this region will also witness an era in which geographical disputes can be avoided and conflict habitus can be resolved,and the “established power” will accommodate the “rising power”.