Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
A final feature of the American-led liberal international order is its unusually dense, en-
compassing, and agreed-upon rules and institutions. International order can be rigidly hier-
archical and governed through coercive domination exercised by the leading state, or it can
be relatively open and organized around reciprocal, consensual, and rule-based relations. The
postwar Western order has been more open and rule-based than any previous order. State
sovereignty and the rule of law are not just norms enshrined in the U.N. Charter. They are
part of the deep operating logic of the order. To be sure, as we have seen, these norms are
evolving, and America has historically been ambivalent about binding itself to international
law and institutions, and at no time more than today. But the overall system is remarkably
dense with multilateral rules and institutions—global and regional, economic, political, and
security-related. These institutional creations are one of the great breakthroughs of the post-
war era, establishing the basis for greater levels of cooperation and shared authority and gov-
ernance of the global system.
Together, these features of evolving liberal international order give it an unusual capacity
to accommodate rising powers. Its sprawling landscape of rules, institutions, and networks
provide newer entrants into the system with opportunities for status, authority, and a share
in the governance of the order. Access points and mechanisms for political communication
and reciprocal influence abound. China has incentives and opportunities to join, while, at the
same time, the possibilities of it actually overturning or subverting this order are small or
nonexistent. Furthermore, as I argued above, in the past, old international orders were ulti-
mately overturned through hegemonic war. In the age of nuclear weapons and great-power
deterrence, this mechanism of historical change—thankfully—is taken away. The United
States was able to build an international order because the old order was destroyed in war.
But if that circumstance is not presented to China, its ability to build a new international or-
der from the ground up is essentially impossible. And so, together, these characteristics of
the American-led liberal international order have implications for how a rising China makes
choices, increasing the incentives to join rather than seek to overturn it.
It is not surprising, therefore, that China has already made moves to embrace the
American-led system of international rules and institutions. China's initial use of these rules
and institutions has been largely pursued for defensive purposes—protecting its sovereignty
and economic interests while seeking to reassure other states of its peaceful intentions by
involvement in regional and global groupings. 10 But as the scholar Marc Lanteigne argues:
“What separates China from other states, and indeed previous global powers, is that not only
is it 'growing up' within a milieu of international institutions far more developed than ever
before, but more importantly, it is doing so while making active use of these institutions to
promote the country's development of global power status.” 11 The result is that China is
already increasingly working within rather than outside this liberal international order. It is
 
 
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