12b beyond unipolarity
TRANSCRIPT
Lecture 12b:Beyond the unipolar world
Into the 21st century
• The world since the 1990s has thrown up new challenges, but not necessarily the ones that Fukuyama and Huntington predicted
• Both visions of the future have been dismissed as simplistic and irrelevant to the reality of the 21st century
• Instead, recent years have shown the limits of unipolarity and the beginnings of a shift towards nonpolarity or even a new bipolarity
Unipolarity undermined
• The United States remains the world’s only military superpower – a position that will not be challenged for many decades
• The USA continues to maintain a huge international military commitment
The limits of American power
• Despite its overwhelming military power, the USA has seen its prestige damaged as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Military power has not proved sufficient to achieve a satisfactory political settlement
China: the new superpower?
• After 20 years of sustained economic growth, China has the ability to translate its considerable economic power into real military power
• How will it use this power?
China’s first aircraft carrier
• In September 2012, China commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning
• The ship gives China the ability to project its power beyond the country’s borders
The Liaoning
Projecting power
• China’s new ability to project its power into the surrounding seas has caused anxiety in the region
• China claims a large area of the South and East China seas as its sovereign territory
• Chinese claims conflict with those of its neighbours
A disputed region
The Senkaku-Diaoyutai dispute
• China, Taiwan and Japan claim the uninhabited Pinnacle Islands (Senkaku or Diaoyu) in the East China Sea
• It is likely that the area contains oil deposits
• The dispute has led to angry protests in the PRC and Japan
The Paracel Islands
• The PRC, Taiwan and Vietnam claim sovereignty over the Paracel Island group
• The PRC took the islands from South Vietnam after a naval skirmish in 1974
The Spratly Islands
• The most complicated dispute involves the Spratly Islands
• The PRC, Taiwan, Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia all claim parts of the group
• The area is likely to hold significant deposits of oil and gas, contains rich fishing grounds and is crossed by major shipping lanes
China and the wider international system
• It is uncertain how a more powerful China will fit into the wider international system
• Will China use its power to become a rival to the United States?
• Will Chinese power see the emergence of a new Cold War?
• Liberals believe that a more assertive China can be accommodated within the current international system
• Realists expect that growing Chinese power will lead to confrontation with the United States