U.S.-China Competition for Diplomacy Hegemony : Rebalancing Diplomacy Versus Balancing Diplomacy

Abstract

The United States began to adopt a ‘rebalancing foreign policy’ toward China since 2011. It is to check the Chinese growing power not only strengthening its military capabilities in Asia but also by consolidating existing alliance as well as by promoting relations with other Asian states. On the other hand, China declare the ‘New Type of Relations among Major Countries’ as a major Chinese foreign policy toward the U.S. The foreign policy is to make Chinese status equal with the U.S. and to guarantee its own ‘core national interest’ in relations the U.S. Fore the purpose, China began to create such international institutions as SCO, AIIB, NDB as well as ‘One Belt One Road’ strategy.BR Why the U.S. and China severly compete in diplomatic relations? what factors determine the both states to adopt such foreign policies toward each other? Which theoretical approach more appropriately explain diplomatic competition between the U.S. and China?BR The results of the research show that the conflictual interactions between the U.S. and China made the Obama administration to identify China as a ‘competitor’ or ‘challenger.’ So the Obama government adopted a ‘rebalancing policy’ toward China based on the identity. In the same vein, China began to pursue a ‘balancing diplomacy’ or ‘the New Type of Relations between Major Countries’ by accepting the ‘superpower’ identity of its own.BR As constructivism that this paper adopted as a theoretical approach argues, changes of identities for the U.S. and China determined their own national interest and eventually facilitated diplomatic competition between them. Thus, both the U.S. ‘a rebalancing diplomacy’ and China’s a ‘balancing diplomacy’ were generated by changes of identities resulted by interactions between the U.S. and China. Furthermore, the diplomatic competition between them has been severer due to the confrontation of role identity of ‘superpower.’