Principal speaker
Evelyn Goh
Rising China’s Influence in Developing Asia
Presented by: Professor Evelyn Goh, Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies at the School of International, Political & Strategic Studies of the Australian National University.
Rising China has been reshaping international order for the last two decades. Yet, we cannot assume that growing resources and capabilities automatically allow China to cause other states to change their behaviour. We cannot accurately assess rising China’s impacts without first demonstrating how its growing power resources are actually translated into policy influence over other states, decisions and outcomes. Moreover, while the most common notion of influence is the ability to cause other actors to behave in a manner in which they would not otherwise behave, China tends to try to gain the support of smaller and weaker countries without forcing them to change their preferences. Like any other international actor, China draws upon military might, economic benefits and interdependence, institutional authority, and ideational appeal, to purposefully coerce, induce, or persuade others to behave in ways that help achieve Chinese goals. But whether and the extent to which it succeeds is determined as much by the political context and decision-making processes of the target states, as it is by how skilfully Chinese actors deploy these tools. This seminar presents the key findings from a recent collaborative project that provides crucial empirical analyses of China’s actual influence over Asian states and political actors. Concentrating on selected developing Asian countries where the power asymmetry is greatest and China ought to have the most significant influence, it investigates (a) the relationship between China’s power resources and the forms of its influence; (b) China’s influence at the national level on these states; and (c) China’s influence on key political actors from these countries within core issue areas. Highlighting calculations and motivations of these Asian state actors, this project emphasizes the importance of seriously studying the targets of China’s influence, not just Chinese power and purpose, if we are to understand the implications of China’s rise. China’s influence even over these weaker states does not result from an easy application of power resources; rather it tends to be mediated through the competing interests of recipient state actors, the imperatives of other existing security and economic relationships, and more complex strategic thinking than can be captured in the often simplistic theories that prevail in the literature.
Evelyn GOH (MA, DPhil) is the Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies at the School of International, Political & Strategic Studies of the Australian National University. Her research interests are East Asian security and international relations theory. She has published widely on U.S.-China relations and diplomatic history, regional security cooperation and institutions in East Asia, Southeast Asian strategies towards great powers, and environmental security. Her latest book, The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy and Transition in post-Cold War East Asia, provides a new interpretation of the hierarchical regional order and analyses the central roles of the United States, China and Japan in determining regional security. Other publications include the widely-cited ‘Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing Regional Security Strategies’, International Security 32:3 (Winter 2007/8): 113-57; and Constructing the US Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974: From Red Menace to Tacit Ally (Cambridge University Press, 2004). She has held previous faculty positions at Royal Holloway University of London, the University of Oxford, and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
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RSVP on or before Monday 19 May 2014 , by email b.hammond@griffith.edu.au , or by phone 54705