An Analysis On The Influence Of East Asia’s Geopolitical Environment On China’s Rise

The rise of China is the hot topic of the current academia. China is located inEast Asia, the geopolitical environment of East Asia has a direct and profound impacton the rise of China. the papers and books on China’s rise from the perspective ofgeopolitics are still rare. This paper focuses on the influence of East Asiangeopolitical environment on China’s rise.East Asia is located in the rimland that is described in the geopolitics. Here is theregion where big powers’ interests collide with each other. The coexistence of “onesuperpower”,“three strong powers” and “ASEAN” is the typical characteristic of theinternational political situation in the region. In this pattern, there is the recessiveconfrontation between Land Power Alliance and Sea Power Alliance, the Sea Powersforming an alliance is to prevent the rise of Land Power in Eurasia. Throughout theconfrontation between Sea Powers and Land Powers in history, Sea Powers generallyprevailed over Land Powers, this is the adverse factor affecting the rise of China.There are adverse factors and favorable factors on China’ rise in East Asia. Thesuperpower-the United States, deploys all its resources to prevent the rise of China,this is the inevitable attitude that the hegemony treats the challenging country, theUnited States has reinforced US-Japan alliance and US-ROK alliance at the same timerecently, Secretary Clinton has declared the United States’ return to Southeast Asiaand has taken measures to improve the relationships between the United States andSoutheast Asian countries. The Obama administration has done the largest arms salesto Taiwan since China and the United States established diplomatic relations. Itsintension to balancing China is obvious.Because of its special geographical location, the Korean Peninsula has alwaysbeen valued by the major powers. The Cola War has still been kept in Korean Peninsula, it is known as the “living fossil” of the Cold War. Besides the confrontationbetween North and South Korea, the North Korean nuclear issue also exists in theregion, the security structure of Korean Peninsula is very fragile, the unexpectedevents may cause tensions, even turbulence. In2010,“Ann ship event” and“Bombardment of Yeonpyeong”,2011.12“Kim Jong-il’s death”,2012.3“DPRKlaunch rockets”, all these emergencies have caused high tension in Korean Peninsula.Although the facts prove that all parties had emergency response mechanism and kepta certain degree of restraint within the current framework, the situation of thePeninsula kept stable while diversification. If the emergency break through the bottomline, this security structure that lacks flexibility may cause turbulence in KoreanPeninsula. If this happens, it will have a tremendous negative impact on China’s rise.China’s rise makes two strong powers(China and Japan) coexisted in East Asian,it is the first time in East Asian history. This situation is unacceptable to Japan whosesensitivity in geopolitics is very strong. The sea power role and the expansiontradition in geopolitics make Japan to prevent the rise of China. In recent years, theSino-Japanese economic relations has developed closely and rapidly, Chinese marketbecomes more and more important to Japanese economic, Japan wants to use themarket space which is brought by China’s rise to pull its economic growth. So theinfluences of Japan on China’s rise are two-way: on the one hand, Japan strives toprevent China to step toward the ocean, on the other hand, Japan want to marketwhich is brought by China’s rise.As a loose regional integration community, the attitudes of ASEAN on China’srise are also two-way,“to make full use of” and “strengthen the balancing”.“To makefull use of” refers to catch the Express which is brought by China’s rise, andrevitalize the Southeast Asian economies. When mentioning “strengthen thebalancing”, different members have different attitudes. Singapore and Philippineswhich are pro-US want to use the American power to balance China. IndonesiaMalaysia and other countries pursue equidistant diplomacy, which want to find anequilibrium point among the dig powers. Myanmar Thailand pursue a friendly policytoward China and hold a cautious welcome attitude toward the rise of China.2010.1.1, China-ASEAN Free Trade Area officially completed. The CAFTA greatly promotesthe China-ASEAN trade. So the ASEAN is a favorable factor to China’s rise. Butthere is sensitive island ownership dispute between China and some ASEAN countriesin the South China Sea, China must handle this problem and create a good atmospherefrom the ASEAN.In general, the geopolitical environment in East Asia is a little adverse to the riseof China. But with the development of economic globalization, the close economicinterdependence in East Asia is the rare opportunity for the rise of China. So Chinamust make good use of the power vacuum between the geopolitical environment andthe economic interdependence, and layout its rise effectively.