The Rise And Fall Of Hegemony And Strategic Choices: The Action Logic Of Hegemonic Powers In Response To Rising Powers

Under what conditions would hegemon tend to use force or maintain peace toward rising powers? Besides war and peace,what other strategies can hegemon choose? There are numerous opinions on these questions,but with many contradictions.With the emergence of profound shifts unseen in a century,these academic problems gradually emerge in real politics.The existing research can not reasonably answer the above questions.Realism gives a positive answer to the question of whether hegemonic powers will use force against rising powers.From the perspective of realism,the relationship between hegemon and rising powers is described as "Thucydides trap";the power transition caused by unbalanced growth of power is the inevitable root of war;preventive war is the best choice for hegemon to eliminate challenges.However,this theoretical inference is supported by little historical evidence.Except that Spain’s strategy against Britain is in line with the prediction of preventive war,Britain’s strategy against France,Russia,Germany and the United States does not include the consideration of preventive war,and the United States has never actually carried out large-scale war against the Soviet Union,Western Europe,Japan and other countries.The existing hegemonic theories that encounter the contradiction between prediction and reality also include hegemonic peace theory.The power advantage of a hegemonic power cannot guarantee that it will act in a peaceful and cooperative way.Britain made great efforts in colonial expansion by virtue of its power advantage,while the United States tried to assimilate Russia and China by virtue of its power advantage in the early post Cold War period.Therefore,although the existing studies can provide some explanations,they are still unable to answer our questions.According to the relative change of national capability,this paper puts forward three structural conditions and three intermediate variables that influence the strategy choice of hegemon against rising power,and divides the specific strategies into four types.Hegemonic advantage,hegemonic challenge and hegemonic decline are three structural conditions.The structural conditions shape the strategic environment,objectives and the scope of strategic options of the hegemon.Under the condition of hegemonic advantage,the hegemonic country has an ideal strategic environment,and its goal is to maintain its existing power position for a long time and have considerable strategic freedom.Under the condition of hegemonic challenge,hegemonic countries are under structural pressure,and their goal is to eliminate the challenge.War may become the choice of hegemonic countries.Under the condition of hegemonic decline,the hegemonic power’s ability of action is greatly limited,and its goal is to strive for time to recover its strength,so it often adopts appeasement policy.The three intermediate variables are the strategic cognition of hegemon,the established relationship and the third actor.Intermediate variables also have different effects on the strategic choice of hegemonic powers.There are four strategic tools of hegemonic powers: War,weakening,assimilation and appeasement.Under the comprehensive effect of structural conditions and intermediate variables,the hegemon finally determines its strategy against the challenger.This study also conducts case studies according to the types of strategies: Spain’s preventive war against Britain(1585-1598);America’s weakening strategy against the Soviet Union(1982-1991);America’s assimilation strategy toward China(1996-2016);Britain’s appeasement policy toward Germany(1933-1939).This study finds that war is rarely used in practice.Facing the challenge of rising powers,hegemon often use weakening strategy.The declining hegemony tends to ease the relationship with the rising countries.After 2015,the economic development of the United States has recovered.In the view of the trump administration in the context of the resurgence of hegemony,the previous concessions and compromises of the United States to China have become intolerable.The U.S.government regained its power advantage and judged China’s revisionist intention,which prompted trump to weaken his China strategy.In the era of globalization,the US strategy of weakening China has both favorable factors and great constraints.China’s close ties with the United States and the world’s development give the United States the opportunity to weaken China’s development.The more China’s development depends on the world,the easier it is for the United States to implement its weakening strategy.But the United States,which is also dependent on China and the world,will also lose great part of its benefits from weakening China.In the era of globalization,the weakening of China by the United States is a choice of "Kill a thousand self-defeat eight hundred".