How did the individual human being become the focus of the contemporary
discourse on security? What was the role of the United Nations in
securing the individual? What are the payoffs and costs of ...this
extension of the concept? Neil MacFarlane and Yuen Foong Khong tackle these
questions by analyzing historical and contemporary debates about what is to be
secured. From Westphalia through the 19th century, the state's claim to be the
object of security was sustainable because it offered its subjects some measure of
protection. The state's ability to provide security for its citizens came under
heavy strain in the 20th century as a result of technological, strategic, and
ideological innovations. By the end of World War II, efforts to reclaim the security
rights of individuals gathered pace, as seen in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and a host of United Nations covenants and conventions. MacFarlane and Khong
highlight the UN's work in promoting human security ideas since the 1940s, giving
special emphasis to its role in extending the notion of security to include
development, economic, environmental, and other issues in the 1990s.
Abstract
Power is shifting from the West to the East. Asia is experiencing the initial throes of this shift, where the key protagonists are the United States, the established power or hegemon, and ...China, the rising challenger and peer competitor. This article argues that the ongoing geopolitical competition between the United States and China is best viewed as a competition over the hierarchy of prestige, with China seeking to replace the US as the most prestigious state in the international system within the next thirty years. Although the competition is a global one, with China having made significant economic–political inroads into Africa, Latin America and even Europe, Asia is where China must establish its prestige or ‘reputation for power’ in the first instance. China seeks the top seat in the hierarchy of prestige, and the US will do everything in its power to maintain its pole position, because the state with the greatest reputation for power gets to govern the region: it will attract more followers, regional powers will defer to and accommodate it, and it will play a decisive role in shaping the rules and institutions of international relations. In a word, the state at the top of the prestige hierarchy gets to translate its power into the political outcomes it desires with minimal resistance and maximum flexibility.
How should the United States respond to China's rise? What are China's long-term strategic goals? What are the implications of U.S.-China strategic interactions for world order? Three recent ...works—Aaron Friedberg's A Contest for Supremacy, Hugh White's The China Choice, and Yan Xuetong's Ancient Chinese Political Thought, Modern Chinese Power—grapple with these questions in authoritative and revealing ways. This review essay examines the answers provided by these authors, with the aim of clarifying the different underlying assumptions that led them to their conclusions. Four themes are found to be especially pertinent. These are the assumptions the authors hold about the existing distribution of power, China's strategic objectives, the role of economic interdependence in Asia, and the relationship between democracy and political legitimacy. The way the authors parse these themes—which ones they bracket or admit into their analysis, and how they weigh and combine them—helps to reveal the underlying bases of their and, by implication, our policy preferences. The essay concludes by suggesting that contrary to the view of some, time has something to offer both sides. And if those opportunities are properly understood by the United States and China, the prospects for peaceful competition and coevolution improve.
The American Tributary System Khong, Yuen Foong
The Chinese journal of international politics,
03/2013, Volume:
6, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article employs the idea of the tributary system—most often associated with China’s international relations from antiquity—to interpret how America relates to the rest of the world. I argue that ...the United States has instituted the most successful tributary system the world has ever seen. As the hub or epicenter of the most extensive network of formal and informal alliances ever built, the United States offers its allies and partners—or tributaries—military protection as well as economic access to its markets. In return for all its exertions, the tribute America seeks is straightforward: first, that it be recognized as the power or hegemon, and second, that others emulate its political forms and ideas. With both tributes in hand, the United States finds equanimity; it and the world are safe, at least from the United States’ point of view.
How not to learn from history Khong, Yuen Foong
International affairs,
09/2022, Volume:
98, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract
This article attempts to answer two questions. First, what are the relevant ‘how not tos’ when it comes to learning from history? I argue that from existing accounts of how policy-makers ...(mis)learn the lessons of history, we can derive four ‘how not tos’: 1) do not settle or fixate on the first, or most ‘available’ or ‘representative’ analogy; 2) do not dismiss differences between your favoured analogy and the case in question; 3) do not neglect alternative analogies; and 4) do not shirk from ‘testing’ the observable implications of your preferred analogy. Second, do policy-makers show awareness of these ‘how not tos’ as they use historical analogies? An examination of how they are using the Cold War analogy to interpret the nature and trajectory of contemporary US–China relations suggest that they seem to have avoided the worst pitfalls of analogical reasoning in foreign affairs. The most prominent users of these historical analogies show awareness of the first three of the above proscriptions; all, however, shy away from the fourth proscription—testing the prognostications of their favoured analogy. Although this is far from perfect, the signs point to the Cold War analogy being used in ways that avoid the general pattern of superficial and poor use documented in existing analyses of analogical reasoning in foreign affairs.
Since the 1980s, the notion of security has been progressively broadened to incorporate such areas as economic privation, environmental degradation, and gender discrimination. Khong sketches out the ...three major pitfalls of well-intentioned attempts to "securitize" the individual human being--generating false priorities, generating false hopes, and proceeding on false causal assumptions.
At this early stage of the Trump administration, one can only make partially informed guesses, and this is the spirit in which this essay is written. The author would wager that Trump is more ...educable on security issues than he is on economic issues. If that is the case, they should expect to see more continuity than change in the administration's approach to security in East and Southeast Asia on the one hand, but, on the other hand, change -- in worrisome directions -- rather than continuity is likely to characterize the administration's economic policies towards the region. He concludes by noting that contentious economic relations between the US and East/Southeast Asia are also likely to spill over into the security realm, making the region tenser and more prone to military crises than during the Obama years. By educable he means the willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints, digest the information and change one's mind.
'Regional order' was Michael Leifer's yardstick of choice to assess the international relations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Leifer's recurrent theme was how elusive, and at ...times how illusory, regional order was for Southeast Asia. The elusiveness of regional order is attributed to ASEAN's lack of a set of genuinely shared assumptions about their interrelationships with each other and external states. This article challenges Leifer's portrait of a Southeast Asia devoid of regional order. I argue that Leifer's notion of order is theoretically underdeveloped and methodologically imprecise, allowing the analyst to see disorder in every minor perturbation in the region. I propose replacing 'regional order' with 'peace and stability', the preferred terms of the discourse by ASEAN's policy elites. By the latter criteria, ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific, contrary to the skeptics, have made impressive progress in the last forty years.
Michael Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum: Extending ASEAN's Model of Regional Security Oxford: Oxford University Press; London: International Institute for Strategic Studies (Adelphi Paper No. 302), ...1996: 65pp. £13.99. ISBN 0-19-829263-5; ISSN 0567-932X.
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