| Popis: |
Awakening to China’s Rise delivers the first post-Cold War history of how Europe’s major powers (Britain, France and Germany) have responded to the security challenges posed by China’s rising assertiveness both in the Asia-Pacific and in Europe. A longstanding assumption in the IR literature has been that European foreign policies towards the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been driven by a ‘naïve’ and self-interested focus on the economic opportunities presented by such a vast market, overlooking security considerations. This book challenges this common belief through a detailed examination of the policies of France, Germany and the United Kingdom from 1989 to the present. Its central argument is that, whereas this assessment aptly characterized the first two post-Cold War decades, Beijing’s growing assertiveness after 2009 caused the three major European powers to awaken to the security implications of China’s rise. Throughout the 2010s, heightened threat perceptions of China, coupled with increasingly competitive bilateral economic relations with the PRC, have gradually and cumulatively caused the hardening of their policy goals which, in turn, translated into the formulation of new, more stringent policy instruments to confront such a challenge. To substantiate this argument, this book puts forward a unique cross-regional comparison. It examines and compares the evolution of their foreign and security policies in two key regions. (1) Chinese assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific: it analyses their response to China’s increasingly muscular regional posture in the Asia-Pacific through the development of diplomatic and security cooperation initiatives with partners in the region. (2) Chinese assertiveness in Europe: it delineates how the Big Three have confronted China’s inroads into Europe, looking at the measures that they have taken to tackle the security challenges posed by Chinese investments in, and supply of, technologies in strategic sectors such as critical national infrastructures, dual-use technologies, and in the digital domain, including 5G networks. To do so, this book relies on a large body of previously undisclosed primary sources, including: 223 interviews conducted with senior officials in Europe (Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris), in the United States (Washington, DC), and in Asia (Beijing, Shanghai, New Delhi, Seoul); declassified archival documents from France, the UK and Germany; leaked US diplomatic cables; and new data on European naval deployments. |
