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This book explains why China chooses to coerce Asia-Pacific regional states, despite the risk of such actions creating a backlash and complicating its strategic calculus.
China's coercion of neighboring states, often a variation of heavy informal economic sanctions combined with diplomatic pressure and gray-zone coercive measures, has been increasingly observable in the past decade. It has become an important tool in China's foreign policy toolbox and is frequently used by Beijing to shape the security-political environment of the Asia-Pacific. The book begins with an appreciation of China's complicated geopolitical exposition and an understanding that such coercion creates backlash, since the target state will likely be alienated and pushed into closer security cooperation with the United States, China's main geopolitical rival. Through two in-depth case studies of Chinese coercion, targeting the Philippines and South Korea, respectively, the book demonstrates that, first, the reason China coerces is that the secondary state engages in actions that fundamentally threaten China's security interests, and, second, it will coerce these states only if other policy options geared to change the secondary state's course of action have not worked. Employing balance-of-power theory, and particularly wedge strategies, the book solves a pertinent research question and improves our knowledge of contemporary security politics in the Asia-Pacific.
This book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of Asia-Pacific security, Chinese foreign policy, and international relations.
List of contents
1 Introduction PART I | THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2 China's Rise, Strategic Competition, and Existing Scholarship on Chinese Coercion 3 Theories of Balancing and Wedge Strategies PART II | CASE STUDY 1: THE PHILIPPINES 4 The Philippine Challenge to China's Military-Strategic Position in the South China Sea 5 Coercion and Inducements: Chinese Balancing Responses to the Philippine Challenge PART III | CASE STUDY 2: SOUTH KOREA 6 THAAD Deployment: The South Korean Challenge to China's Nuclear Deterrence 7 Coercion and Arms Procurements: Chinese Balancing Responses to the South Korean Challenge 8 Conclusion
About the author
Maximilian Ernst is Associate Researcher at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) at the Brussels School of Governance, Belgium.
Summary
This book explains why China chooses to coerce Asia-Pacific regional states, despite the risk of such actions creating a backlash and complicating its strategic calculus.
Report
"Why and how does China coerce other states, with a high risk of backlash? Ernst answers this important question with empirically rich case studies of China's recent coercive policies toward South Korea and the Philippines. Policymakers and scholars alike will find valuable insights in this book."
Tongfi Kim, Professor in Asian Geopolitics and Korea Chair Senior Researcher, Brussels School of Governence, Belgium
"In this timely and policy-relevant study, Maximilian Ernst furnishes in-depth accounts of China's coercion against South Korea and the Philippines in recent years. Drawing extensively from Chinese-language sources, he convincingly illustrates the logic behind Beijing's coercive strategies. His appraisal of Chinese efforts to undermine U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific is a particularly valuable contribution to the Asian security studies field. For those seeking to discern what China's rise means to the United States and the frontline states in the Western Pacific, read this book."
Toshi Yoshihara, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, USA
