China’s Responses towards The US Pivot to Asia: “The Dialectics of Hedging and Counter-Hedging”

Abstract

The US pivot to Asia, which encompassed the strategy of shifting the US focus on deploying the strategic-military, diplomatic, and economic assets to the Asia-Pacific region, had generated enormous debates among scholars and Chinese state officials. Such development then raises questions about their responses to such a US strategy in Asia. In regards to this question, this article evaluates that the US pivot to Asia had devised two primary responses in mainland China, ranging from hardline and moderate stances in Chinese scholars and officials. The hardliners stood for perceiving the US pivot to Asia as a strategy to contain China's rise, which has multiple potencies to trigger an open confrontation. In contrast, the moderates viewed the US pivot to Asia through the elements of cooperation and competition. Despite these contentions, this article argues that the US pivot to Asia had further triggered China's increasing military, diplomatic, and economic capabilities. It also sees the Sino-American relations through dual track reciprocal relations comprising the competitive-negative and cooperative-symbolic elements which had been restraining each other from going into open conflict yet were still tensioning. Therefore, to further analyze China's responses, this article will simultaneously use the concept of hedging and the “use of force” by Art and Jervis.