Elite Consensus and Rising Power Foreign Policy: China's active management of security disputes with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines

Abstract

How can a rising power avoid violent confrontations with the dominant power and continue rising? Not all power transitions are accompanied by war between the dominant and rising powers. This dissertation studies a rising power's coercive diplomacy patterns during power transition. When the commitment problem between a rising and dominant power becomes acute during power transition, costly signaling by the rising power can prevent great power war. I examine how a rising power manages the process of power transition so that its increasing material capabilities does not provoke preemptive action by its adversaries by focusing on the rising power's foreign policy behavior towards non-great powers in the region. I compile a list of provocative and reassuring gestures that China has made towards its neighbors Japan, South Korea and the Philippines from 1979 to 2018, and track China's elite discourse towards each of the three neighboring states in major think-tank and academic journals. I find that when a majority of the rising power elites pay attention to security topics associated with negative sentiment, the rising power tends to be proactive in managing sensitive security disputes either in the form of provocations or reassurances. Similarly, when elites are more interested in other issues such as expanding trade and deepening economic cooperation, or when they are divided in their priorities when discussing security-related agenda of a given neighboring state, I find that the rising power becomes passive, and avoids involvement in disputes.