Introduction

The concept of smart power, first articulated by Joseph Nye in the early 2000s, has become a foundational framework for understanding how states navigate an increasingly complex global system. While traditional models of power focus either on coercive (military) or persuasive (soft power) mechanisms, smart power integrates both, combining military, economic, cultural, and diplomatic tools in a flexible, strategic approach to achieve state objectives. As the global order shifts toward multipolarity, the role of smart power becomes more critical. In a world shaped by hybrid threats, cyber warfare, and rapid technological advances, the ability to wield smart power is not just essential for global leadership but also for national resilience. 

This article explores the theoretical foundations of smart power, with a particular focus on the United States as the most successful example of its application. It critically assesses the U.S. approach and compares it with the strategies of other key global players, offering a comprehensive analysis of the strengths and limitations of each approach.

Theoretical Framework: Ingredients of Smart Power in International Relations

Smart power blends the foundational ideas of realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Realists argue that coercive power—particularly military and economic strength—remains crucial for influence. Liberal institutionalists assert that states must build international cooperation through norms, laws, and institutional frameworks. Constructivists highlight the role of identity, legitimacy, and perceptions in shaping global interactions. Smart power synthesizes these theories, combining hard elements of coercion with soft tools of diplomacy, cultural influence, and multilateral cooperation, aiming to secure legitimacy for state actions.¹

The key ingredients of smart power include material power, diplomatic finesse, cultural diplomacy, narrative control, hybrid agility, and technological prowess. Together, these elements form a state’s ability to wield influence effectively and flexibly, engaging with both coercion and persuasion while adapting to the changing dynamics of international relations.

Smart Power in Practice: The United States

The United States has long exemplified the effective use of smart power, a strategic approach that integrates both hard power (military and economic coercion) and soft power (diplomatic, cultural, and normative influence) to pursue national interests. This model, as articulated by Joseph Nye, has been essential for the U.S. in navigating an increasingly multipolar world. The U.S. has leveraged its vast military capabilities, economic dominance, and cultural influence to shape the global order, but the efficacy of its smart power strategy has been contingent upon its ability to blend coercive force with the promotion of democratic values and multilateral cooperation.

Historically, the United States’ smart power strategy has hinged on a combination of hard and soft elements. The Marshall Plan of 1948, which provided economic aid to post-war Europe, is one of the most iconic examples of U.S. smart power in action.² By combining economic assistance with the promotion of democratic governance, the U.S. successfully shaped the post-war order and bolstered its influence over Western Europe.³ Similarly, during the Cold War, the U.S. demonstrated a masterful use of both military deterrence and diplomatic engagement, particularly in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis through a delicate balance of threats and negotiations.⁴ These instances underscore the potential of smart power to integrate hard and soft elements in pursuit of long-term strategic objectives.

In recent decades, the U.S. has continued to adapt its smart power strategy to confront new geopolitical challenges. One of the most notable contemporary examples is the Pivot to Asia, which aimed to counter China’s rising influence in the Asia-Pacific region. This strategy combined increased diplomatic engagement with regional allies, economic partnerships through initiatives like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and military reinforcement through strategic alliances with countries such as Japan and South Korea.⁵ The Pivot to Asia highlighted the U.S.’s ability to use both soft power, through trade agreements and diplomatic outreach, and hard power, through military presence and security partnerships, to assert its influence in a changing global landscape.

Moreover, the United States’ cultural diplomacy has been a central pillar of its soft power. Institutions such as Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and prestigious universities have long been vehicles for projecting American values of freedom, innovation, and democracy worldwide. These institutions not only shape global perceptions of the U.S. but also provide a platform for fostering global networks of influence. A particularly significant example of U.S. soft power is the PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) initiative, which was launched in 2003. PEPFAR is one of the largest global health initiatives aimed at combating HIV/AIDS and has provided lifesaving treatment to millions of people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This initiative, blending humanitarian aid with diplomatic engagement, exemplifies the U.S. use of smart power to promote health, human rights, and global security, reinforcing its image as a leader in global health.

However, the U.S. has not been immune to criticisms of inconsistency and hypocrisy in its application of smart power, particularly when military interventions and economic sanctions have contradicted the values it promotes. The War on Terror, for instance, raised questions about the ethical limits of U.S. power, as its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were seen by many as undermining its moral authority.⁶ Such contradictions reveal that the success of smart power is contingent upon maintaining a balance between coercion and legitimacy.

The rise of new technologies, such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI), has further transformed the U.S.’s approach to smart power. In the digital age, the U.S. has embraced the strategic use of information warfare, technological innovation, and digital diplomacy to assert its global influence. As a leader in both the development and regulation of emerging technologies, the U.S. has sought to shape the global rules of the digital economy, from data privacy laws to cybersecurity norms.⁷ This demonstrates the increasing importance of technological diplomacy as an extension of soft power, enabling the U.S. to project influence in the digital realm without resorting to traditional military force.

However, the deployment of smart power remains fraught with challenges. One significant concern is the legitimacy gap, where the use of coercion, such as economic sanctions or military interventions, undermines the credibility of U.S. values. For example, U.S. actions in the Middle East, framed as efforts to promote democracy, have often led to instability and human rights abuses, creating a disconnect between its professed values and its actions on the ground.⁸ Additionally, the rise of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which offers economic investments without the political conditionalities typically associated with Western aid, presents a challenge to the U.S.’s ability to use economic power as a tool of smart power.⁹ As China’s influence expands, the U.S. may need to recalibrate its smart power strategy to maintain its competitive edge in the face of alternative models of statecraft. 

The United States’ use of smart power remains one of the most sophisticated and adaptable strategies in international relations. By blending hard and soft power, the U.S. has managed to assert its global leadership while also responding to emerging threats and challenges. Yet, as the global order continues to evolve and new powers like China gain influence, the U.S. will need to refine its approach to smart power, ensuring that it remains a credible and ethical leader in a multipolar world. The future of smart power will depend on the U.S.’s ability to navigate the complexities of global diplomacy while maintaining the legitimacy and moral authority that have been central to its influence in the 21st century.

Comparative Analysis: Smart Power Beyond the U.S.

While the U.S. represents a case of comprehensive smart power deployment, other global players employ this strategy in different ways, shaped by their unique geopolitical positions and priorities.

China: China’s smart power strategy relies heavily on geoeconomic tactics. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which seeks to build infrastructure and create economic linkages across Asia, Africa, and Europe, is a prime example of China’s use of economic influence to extend its power.¹⁰ The establishment of Confucius Institutes worldwide, aimed at promoting Chinese language and culture, further demonstrates the importance of soft power. However, China’s use of coercion in regional disputes—particularly in the South China Sea—and its “wolf warrior diplomacy” have often undermined its soft power, demonstrating the risks of overemphasizing hard power in a global context.^{11 12}

European Union: The EU exemplifies a form of soft power through its regulatory influence, particularly in areas such as data protection and environmental policies. The EU has been successful in shaping global standards, promoting human rights, and pushing for environmental sustainability.¹³ However, its lack of a unified military force and dependence on NATO for security reduce its strategic autonomy, limiting the EU’s ability to deploy smart power in a more balanced way.¹⁴ The EU’s role in managing the migration crisis and its regulatory leadership in technology—such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—have demonstrated the EU’s capacity to influence the global agenda.¹⁵

Japan: As a middle power, Japan has embraced technological diplomacy and soft power to increase its global influence. Innovations in robotics, green technology, and its leadership in multilateral diplomacy, particularly within the United Nations and World Trade Organization (WTO), elevate its global standing.¹⁶ However, Japan’s pacifist constitution and reliance on U.S. security agreements restrict its ability to project power independently, thus limiting its overall smart power strategy.¹⁷

South Korea: South Korea’s smart power strategy combines cultural diplomacy, particularly through the global popularity of K-pop, with robust digital diplomacy. Yet, South Korea’s reliance on the U.S. for security and its ongoing geopolitical tensions with North Korea restrict its flexibility, making its approach to smart power more reactive than proactive.¹⁸

Conclusion: The Future of Smart Power in a Multipolar World

As multipolarity increases and emerging powers such as China, Russia, and regional players gain influence, the importance of smart power will only grow. While the U.S. must evolve its strategy to maintain its leadership position, smaller states can use smart power to level the playing field and assert their influence in global affairs. The ability to combine hard and soft power—rooted in legitimacy and innovation—will determine success in contemporary statecraft.

1.  Nye, Joseph S. The Future of Power. PublicAffairs, 2011. ↩︎
2.  Nye, Joseph S. “Smart Power: The U.S. Experience.” Harvard University Press, 2015. ↩︎
3.  Nye, Joseph S. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. PublicAffairs, 2004. ↩︎
4.  Kennedy, Robert F. “The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Memoir.” The New York Times, 1962. ↩︎
5. U.S. Department of State. “Pivot to Asia: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Asia-Pacific Region.” 2011. ↩︎
6. Chomsky, Noam. “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance.” Metropolitan Books, 2003 ↩︎
7. Friedman, Thomas. “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations.” Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2017. ↩︎
8. Mearsheimer, John J., and Walt, Stephen M. “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007. ↩︎
9. Belt & Road Initiative. “A New Silk Road: The Economic Power of China.” 2013. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. Li, Xiaoyang. “Confucius Institutes: A Tool of China’s Soft Power.” Journal of Chinese Political Science, 2017. ↩︎
12. Callahan, David. “The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy.” Oxford University Press, 2020. ↩︎
13. Smith, Karen. “The European Union and the World: The External Relations of the European Union.” Oxford University Press, 2011. ↩︎
14. Keukeleire, Stephan, and Delreux, Tom. “The EU’s Foreign Policy: A Political Economy Approach.” Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. ↩︎
15. European Commission. “General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Impact and Regulations.” 2018. ↩︎
16. Shinoda, Tetsuro. “Japan’s Foreign Policy and Its Global Influence.” Japan Review of Political Science, 2016. ↩︎
17. Funabashi, Yoichi. “The Pacific Alliance and Japan’s Foreign Policy.” Asian Survey, 2015. ↩︎
18. Sung, Yoonhyuk. “South Korea’s Digital Diplomacy and the Role of K-Pop.” Journal of Korean Studies, 2020. ↩︎

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: U.S. Power, Image sourced from European Council on Foreign Relations | CC License, no changes made

Zhiguo He is a Chinese economist and James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was a professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business. Aside from teaching, He also serves as a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the executive editor of the Review of Asset Pricing Studies.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Jeddy: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I was wondering if we could start with a brief introduction?

Zhiguo He: I am an economist from China, and I came to the United States in 2001. At that time, China was definitely a developing country, although the economy started opening up a little bit, everybody would agree that China was still lagging behind the US or other countries quite a bit. And when I arrived in 2001, 9/11 happened, and to a lot of people, that’s a game changer. Another event happened at the end of 2001, was the WTO. So China got accessed, entered the WTO in December of that year, and that was definitely a game changer for China’s economy, just that the entire labor force found a way to fuel the economy. It’s also that I wanted to mention a lot is that just Chinese are fundamentally, at least for two generations, they want to work. They work very hard. They are extremely diligent. And they just feel like, if they are working to earn money, it’s part of their consumption. That’s very, very weird. Weird kind of attitudes towards usual people, and hard to understand, to be honest, from outside, but that’s how hard working. And also, you know, just save for the future family to feel the growth of China, I guess, in the past 20 years, in the first part of the 20 years, which is 2001 to 2020 basically.

Sarah Jeddy: Yeah that makes sense. So then what do you think is, like, the cause of, or the relevant history, of the financial relationships between the United States and China?

Zhiguo He: The United States saw bigger investment opportunities in China in the beginning of 2000 when the WTO started opening up China. VCPs got into China in the early 2000. This is where the kind of textbook kind of financial connection started to be established. Before it was like DFI, most direct foreign investment, right? Those examples, including, let’s say, GM invests in Shanghai automobiles. Basically, foreign companies have both the technology as well as intellectual property. They know how to do stuff. China knows nothing. Only have labor, and then they start to collaborate. Beijing, from the very beginning, very clear that, you know, it’s okay, we give you the market, but you need to teach us. How do you do these things? This is now the debate—whether China is stealing technology or not. I just feel like this crazy debate, even this is from the very beginning, very clear. If you can come here, we will learn from you, you know, and oftentimes, we will say that this so-called technology transfer is a premise for you to open up, and it’s all agreed at that time. China is learning super fast. That’s a problem.

One interesting example—when GM started to open up in Shanghai to produce cars, they chose the cars to be made. It was basically in the 70s, already out, and nobody doing this anymore in the U.S. That was a response to this. They knew it. That’s the important part of this, direct foreign investment. Then, finance—true finance investment. Think about jd.com, think about these early internet-based companies. You see very big foreign venture capital names everywhere. Another layer is mutual funds—foreign investors like professional funds start to invest in China, in stocks. That’s the secondary market. The VC is the primary market. FDI is kind of zero level. The third party is also big, through so-called stock connect—where, say, Fidelity or Vanguard can use access in Hong Kong to directly invest in A-shares. Starting from 2016 that was a big exposure. When COVID happened and China’s growth slowed down, a lot of foreign money stayed at first, thinking maybe they’ll have to come back. Eventually, they decided to get out because after two or three years, they kept losing money. I think the lowest point is 2024—most of them are completely out. Now Beijing is doing something to convince them to go back, and that is gonna take a long time. I think they should come back, but it’s beyond my pay grade to really change anything.

Sarah Jeddy: So then, what role do you think that the tariffs imposed by President Trump play in these relations?

Zhiguo He: It will hit the Chinese export industry. I would guess that the GDP will be affected by at least 1%. I’m more on the optimist side. It’s only 1% if Trump indeed launched a blanket tariff. What happened in the past was there’s a lot of exemptions that you can apply for. So a lot of impact can be shielded in the median one. What we already saw last time was that there’s a lot of shifts in the supply chain from China to other countries, and the impact won’t be that large. So in short, tariffs hurt China’s GDP growth. Will that completely change the way people think about China? No, because China is not doing well, just from the very beginning.

Sarah Jeddy: That makes sense. So then I guess, kind of in the same vein we’ve seen efforts from like, both China and the US to decouple financially. So how do you think that would affect global financial stability, if at all?

Zhiguo He: I think decoupling is really happening at the heart of technology. There’s another area where decoupling is heavy—science. I worry about it. I don’t think there’s any solution to that. A lot of researchers would like to travel to both sides, but both governments are influenced by certain interest groups. In China, there are groups that try to convince Beijing that we need to prepare for the worst—potential U.S. military actions. I can imagine the other side does too. So all the sensitive exchanges, including financial, will be cautioned to an extreme extent. On that side, I am pessimistic. I think in the time of Trump, as well as Xi, it’s harder to get any progress. One thing I do see is that Singapore benefits. Most of these kinds of meetings happen in Singapore now.

Sarah Jeddy: So do you think that Singapore is going to play an increasingly large role?

Zhiguo He: They already play a role. They enjoy their position very, very well.

Sarah Jeddy: Do you think they would try to leverage that for more? Do you think they will succeed?

Zhiguo He: They already succeeded. It’s an extremely small country. For a while, there were a lot of Hong Kong businessmen going to Singapore because they were worried that Hong Kong is not politically stable. I always went to Hong Kong, and there’s always a group of very lefty people versus extremely right. People who want a Hong Kong with no attachment to Beijing. Others believe Hong Kong can survive only because of Beijing and are very grateful. I wouldn’t say that I agree with everything, but Beijing just wants political stability. It’s not trying to discourage economic diversity. For instance, cryptocurrencies—in the mainland it’s all banned, but in Hong Kong, it flourished. Hong Kong even tried to compete against Singapore as another center for cryptocurrencies. And Beijing is very happy about this outcome.

Sarah Jeddy: Okay, so kind of pivoting, I guess. What role do you think China will play in shaping global financial markets in the coming years?

Zhiguo He: Little.

Sarah Jeddy: Little? Do you think it’s going to shift towards Singapore then?

Zhiguo He: In the old times, China got people’s attention not because of its financial market—it was booming. People went there to make money. But the power you felt was from the real business: jd.com, Alibaba, Tencent, Ant Financial. Now Deep Seek. Financially? It’s little. What people might sense is that because of its economic growth, because its trade was growing so fast, its currency became popular. The RMB, Chinese yuan, became a hard currency in Pakistan, East Asia. Beijing is excited about seeing that. They want to make the currency more influential. Replacing the dollar? Almost impossible. But becoming important locally—Southeast Asia—yes. That’s standard.

Hong Kong helped foreign investors get access to the onshore market where they can do hedging and other instruments. In that sense, it affects global financial markets. But China has closed capital accounts, which means money cannot move freely. So the impact China has on the world is through the real economy—not through financial markets.

Sarah Jeddy: So then, what do you think the real impacts will be in the coming years?

Zhiguo He: Manufacturing. China has impacted the world through this extremely complete, sophisticated value chain. Everything—China can produce. They’re moving away from extremely low-end work. Some things are moving to Vietnam or India. But when it comes to iPhone-level production—high-end parts—other countries cannot do it. Think about where chips reside—not the chips themselves, but the circuit boards. You need sophisticated manufacturing to do those things.

Sarah Jeddy: So those were all my questions. If you have any more comments.

Zhiguo He: I actually wanted to say something about what Neil was talking about this morning—entrepreneurs and private business in Beijing. Also related to industrial policy. I’m very neutral, slightly positive, towards industrial policy—China trying to promote hardcore technology over, say, food delivery apps. Beijing thinks that kind of thing is less useful than chips, for example. I think that’s fine. They’re slowly figuring out the best way is not to pick winners themselves. What’s good about the recent EV car industry is they subsidized consumers. First, they built out charging stations—only the government can do that. Second, they subsidized purchases. Not always 100% useful, but the best any government can do. The U.S. does it too. The issue is when governments subsidize the firms directly. The better way is to subsidize the consumers—let the market pick the winners. Customers still want the best product. Whoever wins the market gets the money. That explains the fast growth of EV cars in China in the past three years.

Sarah Jeddy: Yeah, that makes sense. Perfect, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really enjoyed this!

Zhiguo He: Thank you!

Image courtesy of Zhiguo He

Introduction

The region of Arunachal, a sparsely populated Himalayan borderland, had long eluded the firm control of any pre-modern state. Only in 1912-13 did British India negotiate treaties with the ethnic groups (the Abors, Daflas, Mishmis, etc.) to create the Balipara, Sadiya, Abor, Mishmi and Tirap Frontier Tracts, together the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), thereby laying the basis of modern Arunachal. Even then the region “had largely remained unadministered during British rule,” governed indirectly through frontier deals rather than direct administration. Likewise, the Chinese Qing dynasty exercised at most symbolic control over the region, and despite expansive Qing-era maps, which showed Arunachal (Lhoyü) as a part of the Qing Dynasty, “no areas of present Arunachal Pradesh, which were mostly forested then, were ever administratively controlled by the Qing.” Throughout most of history, British and Indian cartographers omitted Arunachal from maps of India, while still depicting Myanmar, right up until the 1920s.

This raises the question: if neither empire truly ruled the land, why do both modern China and India now claim it so strongly?¹ Constructivist IR theory offers a clue. Identity-driven narratives can transform historical ambiguity into absolute certainty. States seek ontological security, a stable sense of self over time, which compels them to craft coherent stories about their territory and history. Arunachal’s murky past provides a blank canvas for such storytelling. Rather than factual administration, each government’s claim is anchored in a national narrative that makes the disputed territory “forever” part of the self. 

The McMahon Line and Competing Histories 

The first contested claim emerged with the 1913-14 Simla Conference, where Britain, Tibet and China discussed the frontier. British and Tibetan plenipotentiaries agreed on a Himalayan crestline, later called the McMahon Line, which London described as the “geographic, ethnic, and administrative boundary” between India (Assam) and Tibet. In practice the British saw it as a natural frontier; after the conference, India’s Survey of India routinely drew that line on maps. China, however, withdrew its signature almost immediately and later denounced the Simla agreement as illegitimate. In a 1959 letter to Nehru, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai explicitly called the Simla Convention part of “imperialist aggression” and the McMahon Line a product of British “aggression… never recognised… and therefore decidedly illegal.”

After Indian independence in 1947, the McMahon Line became New Delhi’s accepted border. Maps showed the disputed hill tracts as de facto administered by British India, with the agreement cited as the legal basis for the boundary. In contrast, Beijing’s official history rejects any inherited British treaty. Chinese leaders argue Tibet had no independent authority to cede territory, and that any colonial-era border was an imposition. As the Encyclopedia Britannica records, in the late 1950s China claimed nearly the entire upland of Assam (NEFA), insisting the British had drawn McMahon by force. Notably, the postage stamps issued by Azad Hind, the Indian National Army fighting for India’s independence, also did not depict Arunachal as part of India.

Independence, Integration, and Identity 

What is interesting is that neither country’s nationalist movement originally centered on Arunachal. At independence the region was merely a remote northern part of Assam; Indian leaders had little connection to it during the freedom struggle. After 1947, however, the emerging Indian state moved to consolidate NEFA within its borders. In 1950, India took responsibility for frontier administration, and by 1972, NEFA was formally declared a Union Territory (renamed Arunachal Pradesh). In 1987, it became a full state. India emphasizes this continuity and integration: the Survey of India has consistently marked the frontier as part of Assam in its maps, published annually since the late 19th century.

Indian politicians and media portray Arunachal as willingly part of India’s nation-building project—its citizens were granted Indian citizenship, local leaders sit in state assemblies, and the slogan “अरुणाचल हमारा Arunachal Hamara” (“Arunachal is ours”) is widely invoked by India. Even in the most recent spat, India’s Ministry of External Affairs insisted flatly that “Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.” This in turn also led to India undermining the indigenous culture of the region, enforcing Hindi as the sole language and temporarily banning all religions—except for those that conformed with Hinduism. India also did this, by sending in Hindu priests to make the indigenous customs more Hindu, as could be seen with the religious movement of Donyi Polo that was started in the state. Although this did endanger the indigenous culture of the people, this helped India solidify its grasp on the people. As more and more Indian shows were streamed on television, the indigenous community came to see themselves more and more closer with India. 

China’s post-1949 narrative, however, took the opposite tack. After Mao’s rise, Beijing nullified pre-1949 treaties and reaffirmed earlier Qing claims. Chinese officials renamed the province on paper as Zangnan (藏南, “southern Tibet”) and began issuing maps treating Arunachal as part of Tibet Autonomous Region. In 1959 Zhou Enlai dispatched Indian maps showing Arunachal as Chinese territory. Today’s PRC rhetoric frames Arunachal as “South Tibet” that must eventually be returned to China. Official statements make this clear: at a May 2025 press briefing, China’s foreign ministry stated bluntly “Zangnan is part of China’s territory” and that standardizing Chinese names there “is fully within China’s sovereign rights.” Beijing also emphasizes Tibet’s long historical ties to China (presented as uninterrupted) and downplays local ethnic identities. In this case, it is indeed true that most of the ethnic groups of Arunachal do share their origins in the Sichuan river basin, and China in many ways uses this part of history to solidify their claim. However, most of Arunachal was unexplored until the Britishers arrived, and the Qing Dynasty had never ever held any true control over administration in this region. Chinese discourse, however, continues to treat Arunachal not as a frontier, but as an ancient province of the Chinese nation: only “occupied” by colonial-era India. 

Contemporary Narrative Strategies 

These contrasting historical framings are actively reproduced through today’s politics. China has made “cartographic normalization” a pillar of its strategy. Since 2017, Beijing has repeatedly published lists of Chinese names for Arunachal localities, framing this as routine to “standardize” geographic names in Zangnan. For example, in May 2025, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs issued official Chinese names for 27 places in Arunachal ranging from mountain peaks to villages, explicitly identifying them as in “Zangnan of China.” Chinese media describe this as a technical exercise under China’s sovereignty. Experts note it is part of a broader “renaming” campaign: media outlets report each batch (6 names in 2017, 15 in 2021, 11 in 2023, 30 in 2024, etc.) as a way to “boost claims and normalize its occupation” of the region. State commentary ties this to China’s narrative about Tibet where China is pushing terms like “Xizang” instead of “Tibet” and changing place names so “consistent usage” of Chinese nomenclature erases the notion of a separate Tibetan identity. 

India’s discourse counters forcefully but differently. Official spokesmen denounce Chinese renaming as a provocation.² The MEA called China’s latest naming attempt “vain and preposterous,” declaring that no change of labels can alter the fact that Arunachal “will always remain… an integral and inalienable part of India.” Indian media have invoked terms like “cartographic aggression” to describe China’s actions. Domestic speeches and news stories emphasize Arunachal’s Indian statehood, economic development, and cultural integration. For instance, in 2022 Prime Minister Modi invoked Arunachal’s 50th anniversary of Statehood Day to highlight its progress under Indian rule and reassert its Indian identity. Front-page news articles repeat that India “rejected” China’s naming moves and reaffirm that Arunachal is “in every sense” Indian territory. In short, Indian strategic narratives present the region as a democratic success story and an unshakeable part of the national framework: in direct contrast to China’s historical/civilizational arguments. 

China’s official narrative emphasizes that Arunachal (called Zangnan in Chinese accounts) is inherently Tibetan and “part of China’s territory.”³ However this argument falls through since the majority ethnic group in Arunachal is Tani, which is inherently non Tibetan. The Tani community is also called Lhoba, which China recognises as distinct from the Tibetan identity. These claims are thus solely made to be reinforced with imagery of the remote Himalayan landscape and symbolically tie the region to Tibet’s topography, instead of it being factually accurate. Indian narratives, by contrast, stress national unity and legal continuity. New Delhi insists that no unilateral act, not even assigning new names to mountains and rivers, can change Arunachal’s status. However, what is lost in these claims and counterclaims is the indigenous names of the region, which are often replaced with “Indian or Chinese” names.⁴ Both sides thus frame the same terrain in absolutist terms: one as sacred Chinese-Tibetan heritage, the other as sacred Indian soil. 

Through this analysis, we can see the constructivist mechanisms at work. Each country has woven Arunachal into its identity-claim narrative, transforming historical uncertainty into ontological necessity. China’s “Southern Tibet” story and India’s “eternal integral state” slogan serve to reassure national audiences that their country has neither ceded pride nor contract status. As Lu Yang notes of the India-China case, mutual defense of narrative identity has become “routinized”—each side reinforcing a victim/perpetrator storyline that makes disengagement psychologically difficult.⁵ In short, both governments need Arunachal to symbolize their national cohesion. 

Conclusion

These identity-driven narratives create stiff constraints on diplomacy. When the land is cast as part of “the self” of the nation, ceding even a sliver is seen as a betrayal. As Mitzen (2006) argues in the ontological security literature, actors (including states) guard a stable self-identity; uncertainty or concession can be profoundly unsettling.⁶ For India, agreeing to Chinese claims would undermine its self-image of a democratic republic protecting its frontier tribes. For China, recognizing India’s hold would undermine the core narrative of a unified Chinese motherland. In practical terms, hardening of language, whether calling McMahon a colonial affront or Arunachal “forever Indian” makes compromise politically costly.⁷ 

Moving beyond this impasse requires engaging the narratives, not ignoring them. Scholars suggest a narrative-based approach to peacebuilding: to ease ontological anxiety, each side must see the other’s history as plausible. One proposal is a “multi-layered historical reconciliation,” a process by which India and China collectively acknowledge past traumas and map their memories onto one another. For example, both governments could support joint scholarly forums or cultural exchanges in Arunachal/Tibet that highlight the perspectives of indigenous ethnicities, demonstrating that the borderland has overlapping heritages. Confidence might also grow if bilateral dialogue explicitly addresses public narratives, refusing cartographic aggression as a tactic while separately discussing resource or security concerns in less charged language. If nationalists on both sides come to see the conflict as a constructed storyline rather than a zero-sum inheritance, new policy space may open. 

Ultimately, sovereignty claims live in stories as much as statutes. China and India have transformed a once-ambiguous zone into “Chinese” and “Indian” realms through strategic framing and rhetoric. These entrenched narratives now bind each state’s hands: the identity payoff of victory is too great to yield, and the identity cost of compromise too high. Only by consciously reframing the meaning of Arunachal, from a contested prize to a shared threshold of cooperation, could policy makers break free of the current stalemate. As Lu Yang suggests, identifying and addressing the narrative dimensions of the dispute may be the key to an eventual thaw in this Himalayas standoff. 

1.  Sarmah, M. (2021). Is China’s territorial claim on Arunachal Pradesh justifiable? World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, 25(4), 78–89. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48654881. ↩︎
2.  Kumar, A. (2023, May 5). दो-दो मोर्चों पर चीन क दविुविधा: भारत–चीन बॉर्डरर्ड के हालात पर एक नज़रि या. Observer Research Foundation (ORF) हि दं. https://www.orfonline.org/hindi/research/chinas-two. ↩︎
3.  廖小韵, 郝晓光, 胡小刚, & 刘根友. (2012). 从一幅早期地图看藏南问题研究的重要性 测绘科学 (Science of Surveying and Mapping), 37(Suppl), 1–4. http://www.hxgmap.com/lunwen/h47.pdf. ↩︎
4. 段彬. (2020). 印度对中国藏南地区的同化政策探析(1951—1959) [Analysis of India’s Assimilation Policy toward China’s Zangnan Region (1951–1959)]. Journal of Boundary and Ocean Studies, 5(2). http://www.cibos.whu.edu.cn/res/soft/2020/f167f11263760e65.pdf. ↩︎
5. Lu, Y. (2016). Ontological Security and India-China Relations: From Border War to “News War” (ISAS Working Paper No. 227). Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.
   Hansen, E. G. (1967). The impact of the border war on Indian perceptions of China. Pacific Affairs, 40(3/4), 235–249. ↩︎
6.  Mitzen, J. (2006). Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. European Journal of International Relations, 12(3), 341–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066106067346. ↩︎
7. Singh, J. J. (2019). The McMahon Line: A century of discord. New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA). ↩︎

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Bomdila, Arunachal Pradesh, Image sourced from Flickr | CC License, no changes made

This transcript is from an interview conducted on March 9, 2025, in partnership with the Brown China Summit (BCS). Founded in 2014, the Brown China Summit is Brown University’s student-led hub for all things China. Their mission is to promote and facilitate constructive dialogues about China’s global role on all fronts. This year’s annual conference, BCS 2025: Silk Roads and Cyber Paths, featured panels on China’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy, China’s financial markets, US-China Relations and their impact on Southeast Asia, Religion in China, and the Chinese real estate crisis. Keynote speakers included Xiao Geng, seasoned financial regulator and Chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of International Finance, as well as Susan Thornton, former US Diplomat to China and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Besides their annual conference, BCS hosts regular Chinese movie screenings, talks with Chinese entrepreneurs/industry leaders, and other discussion events throughout the year. See their website for more information: https://www.brownchinasummit.org/

This interview was conducted with Liqian Ren, Director of Modern Alpha at WisdomTree Investments. She came to the United States almost 30 years ago after receiving her bachelor’s degree in computer science from Peking University in Beijing, China. Liqian Ren later received her master’s degree in economics from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and then her MBA and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Niemiec: Can you share your thoughts about the current state of China’s economy and finances? 

Ren: I think because China’s equity has had a lot of volatility in the last couple of years, it is investable–but it has a lot of risks. Clients are reminded that for [investing in] China, you need to know not only how much risk you can take, but also how much risk you are willing to take. China can endure for two or three years, but before the recent run, there was lots of very negative sentiment on China equity. It makes people wonder: did they make the right investment? There are a lot of opportunities in China to make money, but it’s also very risky. 

The US and China are in competition, and the US does have a lot of tools that it could use. Some of those tools are not yet used. If the relationship deteriorates further, I assume that the US will use a lot of those tools, like limiting investment, for example. The US currently limits private equity investment in certain Chinese industries. It could be broader. It is possible that the US may also limit public market investment. China is still very vibrant in terms of entrepreneurship, so that is a positive.

Rivas: How do you think the current geopolitical tensions between the US and China are influencing investment strategies and opportunities? 

Ren: The US-China relationship directly impacts China’s equity. If you look at tax sanctions and the trade war, these are generally negative for China and Chinese companies. Companies will not be able to make as much money as before. Tax sanctions are going to be the number one factor. On the other hand, China’s equity is also very driven by local factors. For example, of the two biggest rallies in the last six months, one was in September, which was driven by Chinese policy, and the second one was DeepSeek, which was driven by China’s AI development. It is true that the US-China relationship is a factor; but I will say, if I have to put it in a quantitative form, that China’s equity is 60 percent driven by domestic and local factors and 40 percent driven by the US-China relationship. 

Rivas: Can you elaborate on DeepSeek? 

Ren: DeepSeek itself and its technology are still not as good as ChatGPT. What really changed is people’s perception of Chinese AI development. The US in the last couple of years has been using mostly two tools to limit Chinese AI research. One is tax sanctions and not allowing China to acquire any chips. The second tool is limiting Chinese access to US research capability. Chinese students and researchers do have a hard time coming to the US to study. 

DeepSeek is a little bit of a counter to these limits. The US was successful but not as successful as they thought they could be because DeepSeek, first, was able to develop China’s generative AI, using software investment in improvements, instead of chips, which is hardware, which the US is putting sanctions on. Secondly, a lot of DeepSeek’s researchers came from top Chinese universities like Zhejiang University. That is also kind of a signal that the US limiting the Chinese from coming and studying in the US is not working. A lot of people here thought, hey, if we don’t allow them to have chips, we don’t allow them to study, then China is not going to be able to develop AI in the near term. But it turns out, within about two years, you have a player that comes and delivers a good enough technology, again, not as good as the US, but good enough. But good enough is good enough for China. 

Niemiec: Do you think DeepSeek could get as good or even better than what we have now? 

Ren: Right now, I think the US is still the tech leader. China, in AI, will be a little bit behind until it’s the same as the US. However, in a few selective strap areas, like batteries, China’s technology probably is now very close to the US. With DeepSeek, I think what China demonstrated is that it was close enough. If China didn’t develop AI in the next five years, then it would indicate it’s really behind. DeepSeek was able to be developed within two or three years. That suggests to people that if the US has sanctions, if there’s a lead, the lead time is probably closer to three years instead of ten years, as many people originally thought it was. 

Rivas: How will the tariffs recently imposed by Donald Trump on China impact the Chinese economy? 

Ren: It’s definitely negative, because China does rely on exports. On the other hand, if you remember, during the first trade war, China was able to continue to export to counter some of those negative impacts. So yes, it is negative; on the other hand, because China is a producer, and it does have a skill economy and a lot of things like clothing, where even though some of it has been moved outside, China still retains much of it. I personally love fashion, but if you go into stores and you check some of the clothes that are usually made in China, these clothes are slightly on the higher price end. The reason is that China’s supply chain is still very resilient and if stores want a piece of really complex construction to be done, they prefer it be done in China, considering the quality. So yes, it has a negative impact. But China also has some resiliency in these trade tariffs. 

Niemiec: In terms of resilience, there have been a couple news sources reporting retaliatory tariffs that could be imposed on the US. What is your opinion on those? Do you think that was a good move? 

Ren: A lot of these retaliations are mostly for the media. The Chinese government also has local public pressure, right? If it doesn’t do anything, it will be perceived as weak. They do have pressure to come up with something. But if you actually look at what China came out with, the retaliatory measures, it’s very low-skill, very targeted. The impact is nothing like a counter. So I will say those are mostly for China to do something to show that it is willing to fight back a little. But it’s not yet completely a trade war. China still hopes to navigate this to come up with some understanding with the US while also trying to open up a market for Chinese goods outside the US. Chinese exports to the US are still a huge part of its economy, but China is also trying to sell to other countries. I think there it goes back to the US being the ultimate buyer. The US has a lot of leverage, but I think the main purpose of China’s retaliations is about doing something, about communicating to the local public that we are going to do something, but the actual retaliation is very limited. 

Rivas: What sectors of the economic market in China do you believe have the most promise for long-term growth and why? 

Ren: So a lot of times investment is different from extra growth. I will say in China, high-end manufacturing will continue to grow, because it is now not just for economic growth, it’s also a government countermeasure against the US. But that does not necessarily mean that if you just buy stocks in high end manufacturing, you need to be able to sell to expand the market outside. I would say the areas that will see more growth are more manufacturing-related, more technology-related. This is mainly because they are also going to get more government-oriented money. The other area of growth is probably Chinese domestic brands. For many Chinese locals, luxury brands used to be very dominated by Western businesses like Louis Vuitton. Because China’s economy is not in a good condition, not as positive as before, a lot of Chinese consumers want high quality products but also cheaper prices. Chinese brands are trying to develop a lot within the higher luxury space. Chinese luxury brands don’t have the name recognition of other top brand names, but they domestically are able to offer good value and high quality clothing. A lot of these domestic brands and branded goods are likely to grow in popularity. Before, you didn’t hear about Chinese brands because manufacturers usually sell for American brands, but now, because the US wants to decouple, these Chinese manufacturers need to find something and they found having a brand actually helps the profitability. I think we will see a rise of these Chinese brand activities. 

Rivas: Billionaires and people of wealth are having an increasing impact on politics. Do you think such individuals will affect relations between the US and other countries, including China? 

Ren: That’s very interesting. We are in uncharted history here. I tried to go back and read history, but honestly, I wasn’t able to find anything. During the Cold War, there were American entrepreneurs who also had business interests in the Soviet Union, but the Soviet economy was never as tapped globally as China’s is now. It really is an uncharted history. That’s the way I’m seeing it. China right now doesn’t need the foreign direct investment, but I don’t think they will go against these entrepreneurs. Actually, China is very welcoming of companies like Tesla. Sometimes they do a little bit of limiting, for example preventing Tesla cars from going into government compounds. Even that comes and goes, and now they say they don’t do that anymore. Tesla’s self-driving software is now being tested in China. The US is not allowing Chinese workers to come to prevent a “sphere of spying”. yet China is still allowing Tesla to be a self-driving system. I think on these issues, China probably will use them as a way to show that China doesn’t want to decouple as much. I think the pressure will be coming more from the US side. If the US public feels that Elon Musk’s business is impacting his judgment, the public opinion in the US will probably shift first. I think generally China is courting these entrepreneurs instead of doing negative things to them. They prefer American firms to come and invest. 

Niemiec: For clarification, would you say that foreign investment in China is mostly private investors or international investors that invest in Chinese equities? 

Ren: If it’s a strategy listed in the US, then it’s still mostly US investors, even though people have been—before the recent run—much more negative on those. One of the panelists mentioned China as uninvestable. I personally think it’s investable. It’s just that it has a lot of risks. If it’s a strategy outside, it’s still the US public and the US institutions. I think pension funds are now going to leave China due to the political pressure. The state pension fund, especially in the more conservative states, is probably going to be the first mover. But if the relationship deteriorates, any investor or pension funds can be subject to scrutiny. I think we have not gone to that end yet. In direct investment, it’s definitely American firms. I think American firms, if you see banks and pharmaceutical firms, have reduced their investment significantly. Foreign direct investment in China has really gone down significantly, but companies like Tesla are still investing in China.

Image courtesy of WisdomTree

In 1972, Richard Nixon shook Mao Zedong’s hand in Beijing, marking what many Americans perceived as the beginning of U.S.-China relations. This handshake symbolized a dream—a vision of Chinese children in denim overalls singing pop songs, a bone-dry Beijing showered in democracy, and a China transformed into an ally of the United States. Yet, to most Americans today, China is an authoritarian disappointment. This narrative, however, oversimplifies the rich and cyclical history between the two nations. The true story is more akin to a wheel- a slow revolution of fascination begetting hope, hope begetting disappointment, disappointment begetting bitterness, and bitterness revolving once more to fascination. To understand the relationship between America and China today, one must observe this wheel in its entirety.

The fascination between America and China did not begin with Nixon’s visit but rather with desperation—the purest kind of fascination. In 1784, Robert Morris sailed the Empress of China, laden with spirits and silver, from the fledgling United States to Guangzhou. This voyage was not merely an act of trade but a defiance against British imperialism. The ship was glutted with 30 tons of ginseng, highly valued by the Chinese, and returned to New York Harbor with a profit equivalent to nearly $1 million in today’s money, along with silk, tea, and exotic spices, all symbols of China’s mystique.

The voyage of the Empress of China carried “the hopes of a newly independent nation” with backers who were “all the signatories of the Independence agreement,” making it once a private enterprise but a national priority.” When the ship returned in May 1785 with 800 chests of tea, 20,000 pairs of nankeen trousers, and porcelain, Congress responded with “a peculiar satisfaction in the successful issue of this first effort of the citizens of America to establish a direct trade with China.”

This fascination was not limited to commerce; it extended into cultural admiration. To Philip Freneau, a poet of the American Revolution, the very act of trade with China represented lashing out against British dominance. Nowhere is this unique relationship more apparent than in the story of American women in China. In the 19th century, American women were afforded education yet were relegated to homemakers. They would paradoxically find freedom in China, a country where women’s rights were far less developed. But that was precisely the case for Adele Field. In May 1865, she was a widow in a wedding gown, sobbing on the shores of a strange land. She had traveled 149 days from New York to be married in Hong Kong, only to find her husband, a Baptist missionary, dead of typhoid fever. For most, this heartbreak would have been the defining moment of their life. But for Adele Field, it was merely a footnote. 

Born in 1839 in upstate New York, she had already established herself as a principal of a girls’ school by 25 and was later hired by the Northern Baptist church as one of the first single women missionaries. Such women missionaries occupied a fascinating cultural position, coming to China in a period of cultural turmoil to help Chinese women become Christian, find a nice Chinese Christian husband, and settle into a life of Christian domesticity. Yet to Field, this was only the beginning of her education for her students, who would be remembered in history as “Bible women.” She taught her students hygiene, childcare, basic medical skills, and geography, unprecedented knowledge to a country still beginning to realize the harms of footbinding. And as Adele Field defied the norms set upon her by American womanhood, her defiance became contagious. Adele’s students, who eventually became the first graduating class of Jinling Women’s University, an American-funded institution in Nanjing, all took vows never to marry.

Adele’s story is but one of American missionary women who helped build up women’s rights in China. Such missionaries pushed for the unbinding of women’s feet in China, “freeing Chinese women literally to move up in the world,” while also campaigning against female infanticide by placing baskets on the side of Chinese lakes where babies would be thrown with the message “put your babies here.” Their impact lives on. Today, it is the same metaphorical baskets that exist, not as cruel, but only now in the form of countless American parents coming to adopt an influx of Chinese children. Yet perhaps the greatest reflection today of the legacy of women’s rights was Hillary Clinton’s 1995 speech at the UN International Women’s Conference in Beijing. She had been labeled a failure in America with her high-profile efforts to reform the nation’s health care system.

It is no coincidence that, following the footsteps of Adele Field and so many female missionaries before her, Clinton found her voice by inspiring Chinese womanhood. Clinton’s declaration that “women’s rights are human rights” marked a political turning point after difficult years as First Lady and inspired Chinese women to pursue freedom and equality. More than two decades later, that 21-minute speech lived on, standing out as a moment when Clinton began to forge an identity as a public figure on the world stage apart from her husband.

Yet, it isn’t accurate to think of this fascination as one-sided. Yung Wing, the first Chinese graduate from Yale University in 1854, envisioned a program where young Chinese boys would study Western science and engineering to modernize China. The Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) brought 120 boys to Hartford between 1872 and 1881. These students, some as young as eight or nine years old, lived with American families, attended local schools, and played baseball on weekends.

However, from the start, this exchange was fraught with tension. The Americanization of the boys alarmed Chinese officials in fear that they were neglecting their heritage. When some students began attending church with their American host families, Chinese officials pressured the emperor to shut the program down. Ultimately, the program was terminated in 1881, leaving behind both hope for modernization and disappointment over its abrupt end.  The lost opportunity became immortalized in the poem of influential official Huang Zunxian, who wrote, “A decade’s effort in training youths / Will lay the foundation for a century’s wealth and strength.” Despite its premature end, many students later returned to China and significantly contributed to China’s civil services, engineering, and the sciences. Yet their legacy lives on; how many overseas Chinese students remained scattered across America, the blossoming flowers of the seeds scattered more than a century ago.

Yet it is equally ignorant to view the history of the countries illuminated in the warm light of nostalgia. The tension today is nothing new. In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act slapped a 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States. For the first time, federal law prohibited the entry of an ethnic working group because it endangered the good order of certain regions. Following the expiration of the Exclusion Act in 1892, Congress extended it for 10 more years in the form of the Geary Act, requiring each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of residence. Without a certificate, they faced deportation.

More than a century later, Florida passed SB 264 in 2023, banning Chinese immigrants from buying a home in large swaths of the state. The law singles out people from China for especially draconian restrictions and harsher criminal penalties, including up to five years in prison for the person trying to buy a home. Ironically, the same country was built by “Chinese capital, funneled through Boston investment banks,” a vital funding source for the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s. John Forbes, an ancestor of former Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry, made millions in Guangzhou and returned to America with not only his silver “but also the silver of many of his Chinese colleagues,” which funded railroad construction from the East Coast to Chicago.

Furthermore, more than “half of the transcontinental railroad” was built by Chinese immigrants under brutal conditions. Between 1863 and 1869, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese migrants laid the tracks of the western half of the railroad. Those workers pounded on solid rock from sunrise to sunset, hung off steep mountain cliffs in woven reed baskets, and withstood the harshest winters on record in the Sierra Nevada. Around 90% of the railroad workforce was Chinese at the height of construction. In an infamous bet made between Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific and Thomas Durant of the Union Pacific, Crocker proclaimed that his mostly Chinese crew could build 10 miles of track in one day in Utah. Between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm, the workers completed the ten miles and an extra 56 feet, laying nearly one mile of track per hour- a construction feat matched only today in the age of machines.

Americans know theirs is a country built upon law, but less is known about the Chinese’s helping to build America in this regard. Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States and regularly visited family in China. On returning from one trip, immigration officers barred his entry because of his ethnicity. Wong asserted his right to enter as a U.S. citizen and dared to challenge the Immigration Bureau. The result was the Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), birthing the precedent that any person born in the United States is a citizen by birth. Despite enduring significant humiliation and mistreatment during the Chinese Exclusion Movement of 1882, Chinese immigrants utilized American law as a courageous means to combat racial discrimination. In the first decade of the Chinese Exclusion Act alone, Chinese Americans fought more than 7000 court cases, most of which they won.

Bitterness can only last so long. Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 thawed diplomatic channels that had been frozen throughout the Cold War.  The visit was a visual spectacle for the U.S. President, his entourage, and the rest of the world, who watched with bated breath as the leader of the free world traveled to the largest Communist nation. A whirlwind tour through three of China’s major cities brought Nixon to several famed historical sites and cultural performances and face-to-face with many senior Chinese leaders. A few weeks later, the Shanghai Communiqué established the “One China” policy and set the stage for normalized relations. However, it also revealed fundamental misunderstandings between the two sides. While the U.S. believed engagement would mold China into a democratic ally, Mao Zedong still clung to his mistrust, viewing America as “both a huge opportunity and a huge threat.”

Those words might be the greatest summary of the relationship today. In 2015, China’s education minister demanded “a ban on textbooks promoting Western values in all of China’s schools.” The government has ordered artists and architects to “serve socialism” and renamed housing developments that had been given Western names like “Yosemite” or “Manhattan Golden Dream Village.” The number of Chinese students coming to study in the U.S. has also declined, reflecting a significant shift in both policy and public perception as many Chinese students reconsider their educational options.

The relationship between America and China is akin to Buddhist reincarnation or the spinning tires of a Ford Mustang- a cycle of enchantment followed by hope, disappointment, bitterness, and renewed fascination. As both nations rise on parallel trajectories toward global power, their intertwined histories offer lessons for navigating future challenges. The contradictory ways Americans approach China, as both threat and opportunity, with fear and benevolence, are “hardwired in America’s DNA.” Similarly, China remains conflicted about America, seeking its technology and education while fearing its cultural and political influence.

This relationship has become “the most consequential relationship between any two countries in the world.” To move forward constructively requires acknowledging shared contributions while addressing ideological differences. Whether through scientific collaboration or cultural exchange programs like those pioneered by Yung Wing or Adele Field centuries ago, the wheel must continue turning toward mutual understanding rather than conflict. In observing this wheel’s revolution across 250 years, from Robert Morris’ voyage on the Empress of China to today’s geopolitical tensions, we find that history offers not only cautionary tales but also reasons for optimism. China and America are entangled, and understanding our shared past is essential for navigating this complex relationship in the years to come.

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: American Paddle Steamer ‘Willamette’ at Canton (Guangzhou), Image sourced from Picryl | CC License, no changes made

On November 6th, 2021, students of Chinese universities rampaged through the streets in their pajamas on a snowy night as deafening screams of celebration echoed across dorm buildings. You would be forgiven to guess that there was a nationwide cancellation of final exams; or perhaps, in an even more unlikely scenario, the Chinese soccer team made it to the World Cup. However, the truth is that EDward Gaming (EDG), a Chinese esports team, had just won the most important tournament of the year: the League of Legends World Championship. For the Chinese community, League of Legends esports is more than just a competitive scene for a children’s computer game; it is a reflection of the nationalist tendencies of Chinese citizens.

League of Legends (LoL) is a video game made by developing company Riot Games that attracts over 130 million active users every month, 70 million of which are from China. LoL also has the largest esports scene in the world, with tournaments that peak at over six million concurrent viewers, not including Chinese viewership. In China, these numbers are even crazier. LoL esports has over 15 million subscribers on Bilibili and over 17 million subscribers on Huya, China’s two largest video streaming platforms. 

Clearly, League of Legends and the attached esports scene are incredibly popular in China. However, to explain what they have to do with Chinese nationalism, we must dive deeper into the history of LoL esports. League of Legends esports began in 2011 when the European team Fnatic won the first world championship. A Taiwanese team, Taipei Assassins, won the second world championship in 2012. Afterwards, every single world championship up to 2018 was won by a Korean team. Despite having a much smaller player base than China, Korea is by far the most dominant region in LoL, with Korean teams having won nine world championships and Chinese teams having won only three. Even among the three world championship Chinese teams, Invictus Gaming (iG), FunPlus Phoenix (FPX), and EDG, there have always been at least two imports, a technical term referring to players who compete in a region different from their country of origin. Without exception, these imports have been Korean. 

Ever since Korean teams started dominating the world championships while Chinese teams came at a distant second, a sharp anti-Korean sentiment arose in the Chinese esports community. This phenomenon is quite curious because the League of Legends World Championship is not a competition between different regions but individual teams. However, the Chinese community’s sentiment is not against a specific team but Korea in general. A common term within the Chinese esports community is “抗韩” (kang han), literally meaning anti-Korean. It is common for Chinese fans to specifically track how different Chinese teams do against Korean teams, with several teams that do especially well against Korean teams being dubbed “抗韩先锋,” (kang han xian feng) literally meaning anti-Korean frontline. Even Riot Games has noticed this rivalry and organized Rift Rivals, which pits regions against each other. Therefore, it is apparent that Chinese fans have derived a national rivalry from something with no direct national implications. 

This anti-Korean sentiment is even present when distinguishing between Chinese teams. Within the Chinese fandom, there is a general consensus that a “全华班,” or an all-Chinese team, is preferred over a team with Korean imports. Some particularly toxic netizens (a term describing habitual users of the internet) have even used crude and racist terms to describe teams with Korean imports in earlier years when importing players was not as common. However, even disregarding these particularly toxic fans, it is still clear that the broader Chinese community prefers fully Chinese teams. When EDG won the 2015 Mid Season Invitational (MSI), the second most prestigious international tournament of the year, and beat a Korean team in the finals to do so, the Chinese LoL community cheered with approval. However, it paled in comparison to the roar of pride that the Royal Never Give Up (RNG) team received when they won the 2018 MSI. Even state-owned media outlets such as the China Daily posted about RNG’s win. What’s the difference between the two teams? Two of the five players from EDG’s MSI-winning roster were Korean, and RNG’s 2018 roster was exclusively Chinese. To be more precise, the Chinese community perceived RNG’s 2018 roster as exclusively Chinese; Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan, a member of 2018 RNG, is actually Taiwanese. However, since almost all Chinese citizens consider Taiwan to be part of China, RNG’s 2018 roster was still considered an all-Chinese team. 

This sentiment persists today despite most Chinese League of Legends teams having Korean imports. A few months ago, on November 2nd, 2024, Bilibili Gaming (BLG) advanced to the 2024 League of Legends World Championship finals. Chinese media quickly pointed out that they were the first all-Chinese team to make it to the finals of a world championship since Royal Club (RYL) in 2013. This way of framing BLG’s advancement implies that an all-Chinese team is still important to Chinese audiences. Indeed, over 43 million Chinese fans, approximately 86% of the worldwide viewership, watched the 2024 world finals. In the 2020 LoL World Championship, another Chinese team, Suning Gaming (SN), advanced to the finals and lost. However, they were not an all-Chinese team, and only 38 million Chinese fans (assuming that Chinese fans consist of 86% of the viewer base) watched the 2020 world finals. 

It is clear that for the Chinese community, despite competitive League of Legends revolving around specific teams rather than regions, League of Legends esports still carries deep nationalist implications for China. However, it is worth noting that the intrigue of an all-Chinese team has been slowly disappearing. Chinese LoL influencers have been discussing the future of a fully Chinese team, suggesting fans no longer blindly support all-Chinese teams without tangible achievements. As a direct reaction to this sentiment, many prominent teams that have advertised the all-Chinese brand signed Korean players to bolster their roster. Team Oh My God (OMG), a Chinese team that has never had any imports since its inception in 2012, decided to sign Jeong “Moham” Jae-hun, a Korean import. More notably, Top Esports (TES), a perennial contender for the World Championship that has not had an import since 2022, signed Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok, a Korean import.  

The continued fascination of the all-Chinese team highlights the role of nationalism within LoL. Despite League of Legends esports being centered around individual teams, the Chinese community still focuses on the national rivalry against Korea, demonstrating just how deep nationalistic sentiments run within Chinese society. However, this sentiment is evolving, namely in the form of the Chinese LoL community shifting away from blindly supporting all-Chinese teams, leading to perennial fully-Chinese teams signing Korean players and forgoing romantic ideals for practical results. Ultimately, this signals a return to a fundamental truth of competitive sports: winning is all that matters. Or, to use a common Chinese phrase: 竞技体育，成绩说话 (in competitive sports, the results do the talking).

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Edward Gaming winners of 2015 League of Legends Mid-Year Invitational | Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons | CC License, no changes made

China spent decades building elite universities, but why are Chinese students still packing their bags for the West? In January, the Communist Party’s Central Committee announced plans to become an “education power” by 2035. In the recent past, this goal would have been far-fetched; however, Chinese universities have demonstrated their global competitiveness despite their relatively small endowments.  Recently, China’s most prestigious universities—Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Zhejiang University—have rapidly climbed global university rankings and produced impressive alumni and research. For instance, Liang Wenfeng, founder of the disruptive AI company Deepseek, is one of Zhejiang University’s proud alumni. With the growing prestige of Chinese universities, one might expect that Chinese students would be eager to take advantage of opportunities at local universities. In reality, over a million students in China still opt to study abroad, mostly in the West. This paradox extends beyond education; it is part of a broader story about the issues in modern China. 

For many Chinese students, their dreams of studying abroad start long before college. From the day they enter the education system, students face immense pressure to excel academically. The typical student’s day is grueling: school runs from 7:30 AM to 3:00 PM, but the studying extends well into the night with test-prep tutoring. 

To understand why parents exert such pressure on their children, it is important to understand the standardized testing system in China. At just the age of 15, students face an exam that dictates the trajectory of their futures: the Zhongkao (中考). Passing means progressing to regular high school. However, students who fail face two options: vocational school or completely dropping out of the education system. In China, attending a vocational school often means ending up with jobs that provide few opportunities for upward mobility and are commonly looked down upon by parents. 

Those lucky enough to attend high school still have another challenge to face: the Gaokao (高考), China’s standardized college entrance exam. Each university in China has its own cutoffs for Gaokao scores to attend; the more prestigious the university, the higher the cutoffs. With 12 million students being told to aim for a small set of top-ranked universities every year, the competition is fierce. A difference of one or two points might prevent a student from enrolling at their desired university, and in turn, diminish their future job prospects.

China’s hypercompetitive education system is a big reason why many students dream of studying abroad. For students who do not pass the Zhongkao, attending a foreign university is their only chance at getting a white-collar job. For others, studying abroad is a chance at liberation from the rigid system they endure in China. In countries like the United States, the most prestigious schools do not require perfect test scores as a criterion for admission. This idea lures many families to send their children abroad for a prestigious education without China’s pressures. In fact, affluent families deliberately circumvent the public education system in China by instead sending their children to international preparatory schools that specialize in getting students into universities abroad. 

The gruesome education system is not the only factor driving students away; the current state of China’s economy is an equally strong, or perhaps even stronger, driving force. In recent years, the government has increasingly cracked down on China’s high-productivity businesses, from technology to finance to real estate. The most high-profile of these crackdowns was the big tech crackdown against Jack Ma’s Ant Group, which involved the cancellation of an IPO expected to produce trillions in market value. Following this move, many other tech and fintech companies were hit by similar waves of regulation; as a result, many Chinese companies that once rivaled their US counterparts are much smaller. Unsurprisingly, many companies were forced to shrink the size of their workforce. 

The impact of crackdowns is tangible to China’s youth: the youth employment rate hit an all-time high of 21.3% in 2023. With fewer jobs left in the market and a yearly influx of fresh college graduates, a backlog of job seekers continues to grow, leading to a long-term unemployment crisis. Many fresh graduates who struggle to find jobs believe they must apply to graduate school programs to set themselves apart in the job competition. The only problem is how time-consuming it is to apply to Chinese graduate schools. Students must take a postgraduate entrance exam, the Kaoyan; the test is even more rigorous than the Gaokao, and it is common to spend a year preparing for it. Many believe a foreign education is not only easier to gain admission into, but also allows them to stand out when they look for jobs in the future.  

For another portion of Chinese individuals, studying abroad is not only about education; it is also a chance at emigrating from China. The CCP’s draconian response to COVID left economic and social scars on the Chinese people. In an attempt to deny Western soft power, the Chinese government refused to introduce more effective Western mRNA vaccines and instead clung to older technology. As a result, the only way the government could effectively uphold its “Zero-COVID” policy was to enforce draconian lockdowns. Many endured unnecessary hardships during this period: food was scarce, care for chronic illnesses was lacking, and those infected were subject to unsanitary COVID camps. 

Not long after the pandemic ended, the previously mentioned crackdowns started rolling out. Combined, these regulatory actions signal a clear message from the Chinese Communist Party: loyalty to the party is above anyone’s personal needs and ambitions. Wealth and certain freedoms are not secure but subject to government seizure at any time; dissent leads not to change but further suppression. For these reasons, many Chinese people are disillusioned with the government and believe their lives could be better abroad. Many who decide to study overseas hope to secure work visas post-graduation and permanent residency in the long term. 

While many Chinese people consider studying abroad a solution to some of their problems, it is not all roses and sunshine. Due to China’s standoff with the Western world, Chinese students face restrictions that their peers do not. For example, Chinese STEM researchers in the United States have faced increasing deportations since 2021, despite having valid visas. In Australia, where migration numbers have increased for the past decade, the government has decided to impose caps on the number of international students at their universities. With the increase of populism worldwide, Chinese international students may not be as welcome as they previously were in many countries. 

The experiences of Chinese international students offer a stark lesson about the unintended consequences of overregulation. The CCP’s goal in making such a rigid education system was to bring out the best in Chinese students—to produce the brightest minds that would push China to the bleeding edge of the global stage. While China accomplished impressive things recently, like growing its university prestige and founding Deepseek, this trend may not continue further if its youth is disillusioned with the nation. The country’s rigid education system, slowing economy, and unpredictable political climate have pushed students to yearn not just about studying abroad, but also immigration into other countries. The extent of the problem becomes clear in the light of increasing Western restrictions; despite the increasing odds of going bust, many Chinese students continue to take the gamble of studying abroad. 

As China starts to execute its plans to transform itself into an “education nation,” it should think carefully not just about the quality of education at its universities, but also about the regulations, opportunities, and freedoms that shape students’ long-term aspirations. The CCP must address the deeper anxieties that drive young talent away. For example, easing regulations on private sector companies, particularly in technology and finance, could stimulate the economy and create more job opportunities for graduates. Additionally, ambitious innovators should not have to worry about their startup being seized or cracked down by the government. From the CCP’s perspective, it is important to maintain control; however, excessive control risks turning its education boom into a bust, one where its brightest minds escape to contribute to China’s competitors.

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: “Visa issuances have been a major concern for Chinese students, particularly those studying in STEM fields,” Image source from Unsplash | CC License, no changes made

This essay won 2nd Place in the 2024 YRIS High School Essay Contest for its response to the following prompt: “Evaluate an example of a foreign policy, historical or contemporary, that can be considered a success.”

Officially, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region is the city of Lhasa in Southwestern
China. Legislatively, executively, and judicially, though, the seat of the Tibetan government
lies in the quaint hill town of Dharamshala in India. This “government-in-exile,” as it has been
called, is part of India’s larger policy on China. Although criticised for its Laodicean approach
in falling short of recognising an independent Tibetan state, India’s Tibet Policy has been hailed
as a success for functioning as a bulwark against Chinese hegemony in the region.

Background
On October 7, 1950, the newly founded People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet in an attempt
to expand and consolidate the frontiers of the young nation. By 1954, resistance in Tibet against
the increasingly absolutist Chinese regime had grown and in 1959, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual
and political leader of Tibet, fled to India, never to return. In the backdrop of this political
unrest, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, implemented India’s Tibet Policy that
intended to provide refuge to Tibetans. Domestically, the policy was popular among the public
who believed in the sovereignty of India and its leader post independence in 1948. Globally,
too, the policy gained little to no backlash owing to Nehru’s prominent role as one of the
pioneers of the Non-Aligned Movement. Today, while India does not officially recognise Tibet
as an independent state, India’s Tibet Policy extends shelter to Tibetans as “foreigners” under
domestic law, allows the Tibetan government-in-exile to operate out of Dharamshala under the
Dalai Lama and limits their involvement in Indian politics.

Standing Up to the Dragon
Clashes along the Galwan in 2020 and skirmishes along Arunachal Pradesh in 2022 have
marked a particularly turbulent period in Sino-Indian relations in recent years. The annexation
of Tibet in 1951 expanded China’s land border along India, Nepal and Bhutan and paved the
path for a strategic Sino-Pakistani axis. Given this precarious relationship, Tibet is a crucial
buffer zone between India and China. Maintaining close ties with Tibet provides India with an
ally in the face of Chinese aggression at the very least. In the best case, strengthening ties with
Tibet helps deter conflict owing to Chinese fears of a Tibetan uprising that might hamper any
such war effort. Beyond the political, though, the potential environmental ramifications of
China’s unchecked advances in Tibet warrant India’s Tibet Policy. China’s extensive mining
in the resource-rich Tibetan plateau threaten India’s waters, primarily the Siang, a major
tributary of the Brahmaputra River system. The strategic mining by China is also an attempt to
heavily populate the region with Chinese migrants to counter Indian influence in Arunachal
Pradesh. India’s Tibet Policy has so far kept that at bay.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakum
The Indian mantra of vasudhaiva kutumbakum (one world, one family, one future) was
popularised during the G20 Summit in India last year. It is, perhaps, most relevant, though, to India’s intake of Tibetan refugees in the 1950s, a shot in the arm to India’s image on the global
stage as a newly independent nation at the time. In stark contrast to the reluctance of other
countries in the subcontinent, India welcomed Tibetan refugees with open arms. Ever since
India sheltered the Dalai Lama in 1950, it has taken up the issue of providing basic Indian
necessities to all Tibetan refugees residing in India. In 2014, India implemented the Tibetan
Rehabilitation Policy, under the larger Tibet Policy, which was intended to increase the benefits
available to Tibetan refugees in India. It provided these refugees with the access to Indian
amenities such as, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Public
Distribution System, Indira Awas Yojana, National Rural Livelihood Mission, Rajiv Awas
Yojna, National Rural Health Mission and the extension of loan facilities by the Nationalised
Banks. India allowed Tibetan refugees residing in India to be in charge of their own foreign
affairs, defence and communication. All of this aided the preservation of Tibetan culture which
was under threat due to the Chinese invasion. The implementation of The Tibetan
Rehabilitation Policy successfully provided relief and rehabilitation for Tibetan refugees and
strengthened India’s Tibet Policy. In 2002, the Dalai Lama presented the International
Campaign for Tibet’s Light of Truth Award to Indian citizens for warmly welcoming Tibetans
for more than four decades.

The Way Forward
Critics argue that India’s Tibet Policy, which aimed at helping Tibetans, has failed to do so by
not recognising it as an independent nation as well as not according refugee status to Tibetan
exiles. On the contrary, India’s Tibet Policy must be lauded for taking a stand against China
while concurrently striking the right balance so as to avoid conflict. More can be done,
however, to further strengthen India-Tibetan ties. The first step would be for India to officially
recognise Tibetan exiles as “refugees” and to consider reversing at least partially its
unconditional recognition of Tibet as Chinese territory. The rest is a path best chalked not by
New Delhi and Beijing but by New Delhi and Dharamshala. Only then will the Snow Lion be
able to stand up to the Dragon.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Tibet – Mount Everest, taken on October 27, 2011, Photo by Göran Höglund (Kartläsarn) | Image sourced from Flickr | CC License, no changes made

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13. Fang, Tien-sze. “The Tibet Issue in Sino-Indian Relations.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 Oct. 2013, academic.oup.com/book/3687/chapter-abstract/145052956?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
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15. Chellaney. “Why Tibet Matters Ever More in India-China Ties.” Stagecraft and Statecraft, 1 Apr. 2019, chellaney.net/2019/04/01/why-tibet-matters-ever-more-in-india-china-ties/.

Odd Arne Westad is a Norwegian scholar of modern international and global history, with a specialization in the history of Eastern Asia since the 18th century. He is the Elihu Professor of History at Yale. Westad has published sixteen books, most of which deal with twentieth century Asian and global history. Westad joined the faculty at Yale after teaching at the London School of Economics, where he was School Professor of International History, and at Harvard University, where he was the S.T. Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations.  He is a fellow of the British Academy and of several other national academies. He is also the co-author of The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform, which will be published on October 29th, 2024.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Abdulkadir: Your scholarship spans a lot of topics, different periods of time, and a number of different countries and contexts, including imperialism and Cold War tensions. Could you give an outline of what drew you to many of these different research topics and how you found that your scholarship interests have changed over the course of your career?

Professor Westad: It’s really hard to do that because there is no logic that developed from the very beginning with regard to this. I wouldn’t say that it’s totally accidental, but it certainly developed in ways that I would never have foreseen.

After I graduated from college, I spent some time working for different kinds of volunteer organizations. I did lots of work with refugees, and for part of that time, I was in Africa and South Asia. I think I got an interest during that period to try to understand why things from the ground — in the areas I was working with — looked the way they looked and were the way they were. When I was there and trying to deal with some of these issues that were highly complicated and quite difficult for the people who were involved, with large-scale refugee movements and disasters, maybe coming out of political [unknown word – organizations?]. 

So I got an interest in that, in terms of trying to explain why the world looks the way it does. I think that’s what moved me to become a historian, because I was interested in the past, so how our world today was created by decisions that were taken in some cases quite long ago, and people’s choices that were taken a considerate time in the past. So that I think was the general, kind of movement for me into becoming a historian and working on history.

Then I was always interested in languages, but that was sort of a different strain, with regards to this. I studied in China for a while when I was in college and studied a little bit of Chinese. Then, many years later, I came back to using some of those languages I’d acquired for some of my purposes as a historian. But there was no plan in all of this. There was no sort of, you know, you have to do this in order to achieve that. Some of it was just happenstance.

I got really lucky when it came to my interest in the Cold War because I had some of the necessary language skills to get into archives and collectives when they started to open up as the Cold War came to an end, in the late 80s and early 1990s. When we could access material that we’d never thought we’d be able to see before. In order to do that, you had to have, first and foremost, certain language skills in order to use these materials. I was lucky enough to have them. So, that in a way propelled me into writing more, or being able to write more in-depth about some of the issues I’d been preoccupied with since the very beginning, like the effect of the Cold War divisions on the Global South, why so many people on a global scale ended up first colonized and then even after decolonization, being under the predominance of other countries? So, you know, those were the kind of connections that were there.

Abdulkadir: That’s really interesting. I think it’s interesting, in general, how language has really shaped your historical interests. Did you find, especially when studying documents in different languages, that there were inherent changes, in terms of the effect of language on documenting history?

Professor Westad: That’s a really good question. Yeah, I think being able to read in the original, talks about how different concepts have been developed, getting more of an understanding of the links between them and links between different peoples and how they understood themselves and each other. Yes, I think that plays a role. 

I was just advising a student for their senior essay earlier today, and she’s working on the history of China, a small era of China, during the early Reform Era. We were talking about how important the concepts that they used in Chinese were, how people understood them, and sometimes how the meaning of these concepts would change. You can’t be alert to that significance without knowing the language. You can’t do that with translation, however good and imaginative a historian or political scientist you are.

Sivakumar: So, correct me if I’m wrong, you studied in China in the mid-1970s?

Professor Westad: Yes, late 70s. I came there as a student in 1979.

Sivakumar: Would you say your firsthand experience witnessing such a pivotal period in Chinese history impacts your research and teaching today?

Professor Westad: Yes, I think it does. I mean, in many different ways. First and foremost, I’ve been lucky enough to see how China has developed, from a dirt-poor and terrorized country as it was after the Cultural Revolution up to what it is today. So, that trajectory has been very important for me. I’m just publishing a book now this year with a colleague and friend of mine which is a history of that transformation in its early phases, it’s a history of China from the late sixties to mid-eighties. Interestingly enough, right in the middle of that, is the period when I first came to China, which of course is no accident, I wanted to find out more about that time period and what really happened.

But drawing that up to today, I think it’s really important that we think about when we think about China now, and many things that are wrong with China at the present time, and I’ve written quite a bit about some of these. But for the Chinese people, to be able to go through that transformation, from the generation that lived years ago, up until now, is, of course, seen by them as an enormous achievement, an enormous set of steps forward. 

For almost everyone, not absolutely everyone, there are still people who have not been part of this, but for a very large group of people, particularly those who live in cities or near the eastern seaboard, where most families now live, this has been a huge transformation. Many Americans do not always realize that for the current regime in China, there’s that achievement of having gone from being very poor to moderately wealthy, where you can aspire things for your children and grandchildren. It’s important to bear that in mind. When we think of China today, that transformation should be the first thing that we think about.

Abdulkadir: Following up with that question, regarding your scholarship relating to Chinese history, how has your scholarship’s lenses focused on Chinese imperialism and the greater effects of imperialism on Asia shaped your perceptions of colonialism and imperialism overall? Especially in a comparative sense with the European case, which I think is focused on a lot more especially in the United States.

Professor Westad: Exactly. So, I think, when I teach that here at Yale, that’s one of the things I’m really interested in, is making those comparisons. I teach a class, an undergraduate seminar, on empires and imperialisms since the 1840s, and then that final “s” in imperialisms is very much a signal of how we teach this, because not all imperialisms are the same, or carried out in the same kind of way. 

It’s also really important to focus on non-European empires. Obviously I think the Chinese empire is perhaps one of the most relevant today. But also say, other empires that have existed over time, going way back into history, we can look at lots of empires and imperial formations that are not European in origin, and I think that’s very significant.

So, that’s not the same thing as saying that you… It’s an instrument to figure out what’s at the core of many forms of European imperialism. It helps in understanding what is distinctive about European imperialism, in a comparative sense. 

So, what’s distinctive to me about European imperialism as it came out of Europe [some additional words] and the nineteenth century is that it went from what I sometimes call the ‘smash and grab’ version of empire, meaning you take over someone’s country, you occupy it, and exploit the people and resources as best you can, making that the foundation of imperial foundations. There was still much of that coming into the 20th century as well, with European empires, but in addition to that, there were also these ideas about other forms of control and reform and improvement and race, to a very high extent, concepts of racial hierarchies and which countries and which peoples were able to achieve it. I mean, it was quite a new form of thinking about how empires were constructed. But I think you see that much more clearly if you compare non-European empires to European empires, and if you compare between countries. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do in some of my more recent work, is how some of those transformations took place.

Sivakumar: How do you think that the Cold War has informed what kind of empire the United States aspires to be?

Professor Westad: I think much of what the United States is today as an imperial formation comes out of the Cold War. it has deeper roots than that, it does go back, in my view, to the very start of the United States, it was born an empire, and most Americans would vigorously disagree with that. But it was born an empire because the whole idea was about expansion into territories that were not held by white Americans, or Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin mainly when this country was set up. It was based on the idea, that it was built into the promise of this new country, that it was eventually become a nation that had pre-dominance over others through westward expansion. 

I think it’s very important to bear that in mind, the Cold War to me, is more or less synonymous with the period where the United States comes to global power, right, I tend to date the Cold War as an ideological struggle between socialism and capitalism going back to the very late nineteenth century. 

So it sort of fits in, as you might have already guessed, with what I’d been saying earlier about the transformation of European imperialisms because what the United States then did is that it took over many of those new imperial concepts, including concepts of race and reform and improvement and controlling others, so that they themselves, the colonized peoples, became part of creating societies that were more similar to that of the United States. To me, the Cold War was very much about that. 

Now, the United States was not the only one or only country behaving like that but it was by far the most powerful country behaving in that kind of manner. In that sense, you could say that at least for the first generation or so after the Cold War very little changed in terms of that American approach. The Cold War as a bipolar international system and ideological conflict more or less went away, it’s an open question of how we should see our open rivalry with China today. But, the basics of the US approach to the world did not change very much. So, in that sense, I think understanding the Cold War era is essential for understanding where the United States is today.

Abdulkadir: I think it’s very interesting that you discuss the US’ economic position post WWII informed the Cold War. How would you say, when twenty years later, we reached the decline of what some may call that ‘American hegemony,’ or the rise of multiple strong economies of the world, how would you say that idea of interstate competition especially in an economic sense fundamentally changed the sphere of diplomatic relations?

Professor Westad: So, it’s been very hard I think, for historians and social scientists to get into the transformations that happened as the Cold War came to an end and was being replaced by a set of international systems that we still don’t even know what to call, we call it the post-Cold War era, with the Cold War being gone now for much more than a generation. So, that in itself is a signal that we don’t quite understand how many of these connections are set up.

I’ve started to think that maybe in terms of historical understanding, we make a little bit of too much of the dividing line for the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was significant, significant for a lot of people in different parts of the world, including Americans, especially for Russians and Europeans and people in South Asia and South Africa and elsewhere. It had a massive impact, but if we think of that dividing line in terms of structural changes in the global economy, that didn’t happen then. That happened well before then, and I think for this the 1970s is the critical decade when American capitalism went global.

Much more happened, obviously, than that, but that’s at the core of what we later on started calling globalization. That takes place during the 1970s. It was a massive expansion of financial capital, on a global scale, and much of that was intimately connected to what happened in economic and international terms, in the United States. 

Up until then, the United States in many ways had been a significant international economic power, but it hadn’t been a predominant economic power. After the 1970s, that changes, and in many ways, that’s the culmination to me, of a period of unique American predominance. That probably lasted up to, you know, the late 2000s. 

Some people would say that the global financial crisis of the late 2000s (2008/2009), was the sort of dividing line, and after that, both because of the growth of China and what was happening domestically in the US, we are moving much more towards a multipolar terms, in economic, diplomatic, and political terms.

Broadly speaking, I agree with that, though it’s very hard to do immediate contemporary history because there are so many things that you don’t see. What is clear to me is that the process of moving from what could be seen as a unipolar kind of system, which if my interpretation here is correct, didn’t really last too long, overall to a more multipolar system, is now underway. We’re now at the end of that process here. It seems to me, very clearly, that we are moving in that direction. 

Abdulkadir: Going along with that idea, of considering these concepts in the present and future, to what extent would you say the dispersal of economic strength and development globe is an inherent building block (or connects to) the idea of equal and non-exploitative international/diplomatic relations?

Professor Westad: That depends entirely on how the system will develop in the future. It’s not given that if you have, at the government or state level, more of an impact on other states and countries, most of which themselves also tend to be either former or current empires, you’ll have international economic development, or that will make it more diverse or democratic, in a sort of popular sense. 

I think it’s important to note that states are not people. You can have a tremendous dispersal of economic power, which I think in some ways makes for an international system in which more people have more of a say, which is a good thing, but that’s still not the same thing as some sort of democratization of the system.

Because, the new countries, with China being a very good example of this, that seem to increase their economic power very dramatically also in many ways, certainly do not become more participatory or democratic. They’re sort of moving in the opposite direction. That’s a big question mark, and I think some of those who celebrate the transformation of the global economy in the direction of making it more multipolar, perhaps also more integrated, perhaps not in a globalization context but in a sort of sense of different kinds of supply chains being more involved, in many ways, on a global scale. They miss the point that this is not necessarily an enormous advantage for people who live in these countries.

So, this idea that other countries, especially countries in the global South, are less exploitative towards the working class and young people who come into an open setting as first generation, that is something I don’t believe in very much. I’ve seen enough of how tremendously exploitative the Chinese economic transformation was in the 1980s and 1990s.

Sivakumar: Do you think that the upcoming 2024 US presidential election will impact American hegemony or the shift towards a more multipolar world?

Professor Westad: It’s reasonable, I think, to believe that it will impact that transformation. I think the overall framework, with regards to the nation, with the kinds of debates you have in this country leading up to the election, including the positions of the leading candidates themselves, will certainly in the minds of people of the world, foster this idea that the United States, relatively speaking, is in decline. I think you can already see that. 

This country has had a tremendous ability to re-invigorate and transform itself, though it’s very hard to see how that can happen being led by octogenarian presidents who do not really seem to have many new ideas about how the transformation of the United States should take place.

There are interesting elements in it, I’ve often thought about this, and that the Trump phenomenon has many interesting and scary substances. One that is not often dwelled upon is the movement towards much more limitations in terms of the use of American power, that Trump at least rhetorically stands for. I think that’s an interesting sort of line of development. Much of the critique of the American role in the world, in a broader sense, and the American overextension in terms of its involvement in the world, has traditionally come from the left, particularly in the latter part of the Cold War. It was perhaps a little bit different during the 1940s and the early 1950s. Now it’s coming back in full force from the right, and that’s an interesting sort of juxtaposition. 

It seems to me that many people who are skeptical of the idea that the United States should operate as a sort of world police on a broad scale, in statist terms, are not willing enough to engage with some of the issues that come out of the Trumpist rhetoric with regards to this. Maybe because they don’t believe that the candidates actually represent those kinds of values, which would be fair enough, but it’s a little bit too easy to say that. Because, I do think that people who voted for Trump, many of them do have quite seriously in mind, where they are worried about lack of attention to what is going on at home, and an overextension of US power into the world overall. I regret that former president Trump has become the mouthpiece for these kinds of issues, but that;s not the same thing as saying I don’t think these are issues that should be discussed. They are important issues. 

Abdulkadir: That’s very interesting. Moving back to the idea of the Cold War, the ideology of Cold War politics is often associated with this idea of ‘moral absolutism,’ or the notion that one side believed they had a correct ideology, with the other side’s ideology being evil or completely incorrect. Would you say, in your research across various periods, that there are other periods of global history or more narrow events that reflect a similar relationship between the ideas of morality and politics?

Professor Westad: I think it’s not uncommon that you have links between, in ideological terms, morality and politics. I think it was particularly strongly expressed during the Cold War. The way I explain that, is that it is mainly because both of the two major powers during the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union, both sort of built this into the version of modernity that they wanted to present to the world, that they were modern, hyper-modern some people would say, and standing for transformation in global societies. But on a kind of, righteous, morally correct ground, you know. So, what they both tried to promise to the world, in slightly different ways, is that you could be modern and just at the same time. You could have a morally satisfactory framework for not just society but for human existence in general, and at the same time become rich and strong. Which is a very alluring promise.

Now, you have had this before. British imperialism, I think back in the 19th century had some of those same ideas connected to it. But, they were carried out, at least to begin with, in a very different kind of way, in the sense that the idea was not to have that kind of option open for everyone, because there was a very sternly held idea that these kinds of transformations in groups and peoples that were subject to British power would take time, several generations, if at all.

The US and Soviet models promised almost instantaneous transformations of societies if these societies were willing to adhere to the critical and moral standards that these two countries set forth. In almost all cases, this turned out to be a false promise, but you can see how people were attracted to it. I think that gave much of the Cold War competition its power, but also, with regard to nuclear weapons, there were a number of incredible dangers present during the Cold War. Because, when presented in this kind of way, the issues of societal transformation, the stakes become very, very high. Not just for people living in the United States and Soviet Union, but for anyone who adhered to the ideas of one or the other of these political superpowers, in one direction, or the other.

You could come to the conclusion that if someone tried to hijack or change your modernization project, threatening them with absolute destruction, annihilation, and the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction would be justified because the stakes were so high. It was not just about yourself, but about the future of the world. And that, to me, is one of the scary aspects of the Cold War, is what people felt they were justified to do or plan for because of the correctness and the righteousness of their ideas.

Sivakumar: Is the current rivalry between China and the United States less ideological?

Professor Westad: Yes, I think it is less ideological in the sense that there is no fundamental disagreement about how the economy and human societies that come out of that economy should be organized. There are variations, I mean, clear variations in terms of the significance and role of the government, in terms of directing the markets, directing the capitalist development that takes place. There is the fundamental disagreement about whether economic development should be driven by markets or not. I think the Chinese government, whatever else it thinks about in terms of its own power, does not believe like the Soviets believed, that you had to destroy the global markets, you had to destroy capitalism, in order for the country to be successful. So in that sense, it is less immediately ideological. 

There are ideological elements in it. And of course, in political terms, if you make a sort of transition, ideology is always in the eyes of the beholder. I can see how it’s possible now in this country, or elsewhere, to present China as being tremendously ideologically different. It’s led by a Communist Party, echoes of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and a Communist Party that quite consistently over the last decade at least, has seen the United States as enemy number one, so you can see how those kinds of connections can be improved. But I think this is a very different kind of setup from what you see during the Cold War. 

I think the main reason for me saying that it’s not so much ideology, I think that matters, but more multipolarity. I think that the Cold War, certainly at its peak, was relentlessly bipolar, both ideologically and in terms of state competition. We’re not moving in a more bipolar direction. Now with regard to the United States and China, I think over the last few years, maybe especially over the last year, people have come to realize that more. I mean, I think, up to relatively recently, a lot of people, particularly those who don’t spend much time thinking about history, were sort of thinking that the United States and China would be the two poles of development within a new global system. Now, I think that has become a much more difficult position to hold because what is actually happening, certainly, in terms of the global economy at the moment, is not as many people believe that China and the United States both at once… you have the United States advancing more than China. On the contrary, it seems to me that both of them are certainly, with regard to some of the key economic issues, falling behind other countries that are developing faster. We look at India, and Southeast Asia, which are much more centers of development now than, in my view, both China and the United States. And I don’t think that trend is going to change for the next generation. So we have to get used to that. 

There is a danger. There is a built-in idea in the human mind that we compare to what sort of immediately went before us, right, and very often see a kind of continuation from what went before. And of course, there are elements of that. So we started talking about how there are elements of the Cold War that created the world we live in today. I think that’s absolutely true. But today’s world will not be a repeat of the Cold War. I mean, that’s a historical fallacy to believe that that’s how things work. This is why history as an object of study is actually quite helpful because it alerts us to the fact that there were developments going on on a global scale well before we were born, so outside their own experience, and that some of those might have more in common with what we see today than what the experienced past have. 

So I think, for instance, that today’s world, in terms of how it’s developing, not least diplomatically, sort of internationally, has more in common with the late 19th century than what it has with the Cold War. I think that’s tremendously important because then we have to learn how to handle a very different kind of setup than what was the case during the Cold War. And you have to learn that fast because the outcome of the experience from the late 19th century was not a particularly happy one. So we need to take some of the lessons coming out of that time period and try to apply them today.

Abdulkadir: I think it’s very interesting that you mentioned the way that the late 19th century perhaps informs or is less focused on and how it informs the present. I guess I would be interested in hearing more about what has led you to draw that conclusion. Also, with regards to the case of Chinese history, how do you think that its history of domination by other foreign powers or foreign occupation informed the formation of the People’s Republic, and also informs Chinese history today? And do you think that idea holds with regard to Chinese history in terms of the influence of the late 19th century?

Professor Westad: Both of these are good questions. On the first one, with regard to similarities between the late 19th century and now, there are many that come to mind. One is multipolarity. That was, in reality, the last time when we had a multipolar international system where there were not two hegemonic powers that developed independently of each other, but with the sub-summation of everything else and everyone else within the framework. The other similarities, so exactly the one that your second question points to, within that international system, there was one power that grew, up to a point at least, much more quickly than what others did. 

Back in the 19th century, that was Germany, and imperial Germany, and up to quite recently in our time it’s been China. So one of the big problems, I think, for everyone, whatever angle you have to this, in the late 19th century was figuring out, you know, how do you integrate? In Germany in economic terms? Into a world of already established powers? Most of which were European. Right? So how do you actually do that? And is it possible to find a way in which you can integrate a rapidly rising power into an already existing system so that that power, elites get the impression that they at least have a fighting chance of being respected as an equal power? 

That was a huge problem in the late 19th century. A substantial reason, in my view, why the First World War happened, and what happened the way it happened, right, is that the German elites, which were increasingly a significant part of the population, because Germany went through some form of pluralism and democratization. Towards the end of its existence as an imperial state, these groups felt that they were never integrated into the global economy on an equal basis. I think a lot of people on the Chinese side today, even people outside the Communist Party, feel that that is also true for China. China has had, and we started talking about this, enormous breakthroughs but hasn’t really gotten to the point of power or respect or influence, internationally, that goes with that new power position. 

Now, I sort of hoped that in the 100, 150 years since we saw that development taking place, mainly in Europe, and mainly among European imperial powers, we would have learned something about how we can avoid those kinds of situations. But it seems to me now that we have learned very little. The state of conflict between the United States and China doesn’t seem to me to draw in any meaningful sense on the experiences of the late 19th century. Understand how incredibly important it is to keep China integrated to make it more integrated in many ways into the global economy. In order to forestall the kind of sense that the country will forever be left on the outside and forever will be seen as a threat and as a challenger.

That goes back to how we understand Chinese history. I think there are two things that are very important but we have to distinguish between them. The first one is that you know, China itself was an empire to begin with. Some people would say that China is an empire today. I probably agree with that, broadly speaking. It is an empire with a very large majority population that I would normally call Chinese, but now often call themselves Han. But it’s still an empire in the sense that its borders look very much like the borders of the Qing Empire. It includes a lot of people who are not Chinese in terms of origin. Maybe not large groups numerically but still significant groups of people. Now, what’s interesting is that the current regime in China keeps referring to this period of national humiliation when the last Chinese Empire, the Qing Empire, lost out to other more powerful empires elsewhere. It’s understandable that that will seem, you know, a period of decline and humiliation. On the other hand, you know, for a lot of ordinary Chinese, getting away from their own empire was seen, you know, the Qing Empire, was seen as a bit of liberation. At the time, they didn’t want more state power, they probably wanted less of it. And for non-Chinese Peoples within the Qing empire, there’s probably even more. So I think what has to qualify this idea for China’s humiliation by saying that, you know, this was one empire in conflict with other empires. They lost out, and then it led to a lot of dislocation and difficulties for China as a state. It was reconstructed under communist leadership in ways that I think most Chinese at least at the time welcomed, because, by that time, they were sick and tired of chaos and, of foreign predominance and influence. 

But we have to be careful buying that whole package, this idea that China today, somehow, you know, has broken free of its imperial past, and that humiliation was a specific humiliation of Chinese by foreigners. I think that’s the problem with that kind of account. For many people inside China, that wasn’t exactly the way it looked like. But, you know, you can understand, in sort of propaganda terms, how significant this is, right, and how you can set out that we were weak, now we are strong. We were downtrodden by others and now we are equal status with them. Again, it reminds me a little bit of the German Imperial merit in the late 19th century, I mean, that has some of the same elements to it. Not so much the interwar period, I mean, the Nazi period. That’s, I think, profoundly different. But if you think about this in a 19th-century context, there are some very striking similarities.

Sivakumar: Do you think that China’s experience as a rising power bears any lessons for other developing states, especially those in South and Southeast Asia?

Professor Westad: I think it does. I mean, I think one of the key issues to pick up, which is China’s biggest problem today, is to figure out how you can make your country more pluralistic while you are going through economic change. I mean, this Chinese idea, Chinese communist idea, of waiting, if you interpret this charitably, waiting with political reform, political change, until the economic transformation has actually taken place, doesn’t seem to me to be a very good idea. Because what you do is that you just put a lid on a lot of tensions within the country, not East Coast-based tensions, in my view, that do not have any meaningful outlet. And that’s not a good thing, you know, for any society. So I think, you know, this is one of the biggest questions, I think, in our time in terms of economic growth, not to learn the wrong lessons from the Chinese experience.

And it seems to me that maybe the jury is out, though, when I think about India, not even so sure about that. Or this issue of understanding that it is a strength for a country to celebrate this pluralism at the same time as it goes through economic transformation, and not move more in the direction of autocracy. Because you think that will deliver economic reform? I don’t think that was even true in China. I don’t think that there is a connection between China being a political dictatorship and its economic success. I think it depends on the people who are in power and how they want to carry out the kinds of reforms that are there. But this idea that political participation and democracy are somehow not possible under no circumstances or political or economic change or government reform. I think that’s misguided. There’s no historical evidence for that.

Abdulkadir: Discussing more the link between the Chinese development case and developing countries today, do you have any observations about the emerging dynamics between China and a lot of sub-Saharan African nations, especially I think a lot of their economic relations that are developing relating to debt and resource exchange?

Professor Westad: Yes. So I think one has to look again at different aspects of this. So at the outset, I think it is, it’s good for Africa that there is no longer just one game in town in terms of economic development, which is Western-based capitalist development. So the fact is, especially with regard to credit and technology, to some extent, that China is now more active with regard to Africa, in many ways should be welcomed. Of course, not from a US strategic perspective. But if you look at it from an African perspective, I think that’s, that’s in many ways a clear advantage. 

But all of this depends on how it is being carried out. And that depends much more in my view on the African countries than what it depends on China because China’s modus operandi here is, is very much based on its own economic interest. I mean, not in a sort of cohesive Chinese strategies sense always, but certainly with regard to the very big Chinese companies that are involved with regard to this. These companies, whether they are Chinese state-owned or not, doesn’t matter very much, have their own, you know, financial interests, economic interests, that are invested in the relationship with Africa, especially in terms of resource extraction of various sorts. So all the African countries have to do is to regulate the access that these companies like any company, whether it’s Chinese or American or European have to their market and the circumstances under which this happens, to avoid what Africa has suffered so often from in the past, forms of neo-imperialist exploitation. 

That’s not a bad term for it, I mean, basically means that foreigners who have held political power in Africa before now continue to have economic power, because they have a monopoly position in terms of resource trade or resource extraction, and one has to avoid moving in the direction that happens with Chinese companies or Chinese interests. Most African countries, in my view, have both the capability and the resources and intellectual wherewithal to handle that. They also understand, I think, sometimes much more acutely than the Chinese do, that sovereignty, trumps economic interest. So the idea that if an African country takes even substantial loans from China, that would mean that as a country the whole future will be beholden to China. That’s not necessarily true. But of course, it depends on the degree.

If you do make the serious mistake of making your country’s economy entirely dependent on Chinese markets or on Chinese loans, then of course, you put yourself in a difficult position. My impression is that most African countries, not all, most African countries, and their leaderships have learned from earlier experience with Western dependency, that they will not put themselves in that position again. If they do, then the existence of competing interests in terms of getting access to African raw materials and provinces probably would be a good idea. We also say about Africa, that what I think is often misunderstood about Africa is just how high in many countries in Africa’s own rate of development is.

I firmly believe that over the next generation, probably two generations, the continent in which we will see the highest growth rates will be Africa. There is one obvious reason for that. This year, all of the world’s natural population increase happens in Africa, there is not a single country outside of the African continent that has a natural increase in its population. Population still goes up sometimes, but the population growth rate goes down in all countries, except in Africa. It’s hard when you think about this as a historian not to see this as an enormous advantage. I mean, if you are in countries that have, what I would call a natural population growth rate, you have a population where young people are increasingly better educated, better fed, and more knowledgeable than what was the case in the past. And in competitive terms, particularly when everyone else seemed to be either on a catastrophic demographic decline, like in China, or a sliding demographic decline as in a few other countries. Many African countries, if they manage this well, have enormous development advantages that you don’t find elsewhere.

Sivakumar: What kind of foreign policy do you think is necessary for the United States to counter both Chinese and Russian influence in Africa?

Professor Westad: Keeping up regular trade, regular investments with African countries, making sure that African countries in terms of their production get access to the very attractive American and American-related markets overall, on equal terms, which has not always been the case in the past. That is the secret with regard to this. This idea that the United States is there for military and security purposes, and China is there for economic purposes, is a kind of equation that the United States is going to lose out on because economic development to most countries in Africa is far more important than the security aspects.

Security is important as well, particularly if you’re in a coup situation, but not very many African countries are. The overall security situation with a few exceptions, as we know with the African continent, is actually reasonably good. So what the United States needs to do is to put much more emphasis on the economic aspect of this, which also, interestingly, given what they said about demographic developments, will also be to the US’s advantage, in many ways.

Abdulkadir: Yeah, it’s interesting talking now about the sub-Saharan African case, because you’ve talked a lot about how the unification or rise of new states like Germany and China has sort of shifted the political sphere. Do you think that we are going to see similar dynamic changes today? Or we’re already seeing them in terms of the challenge of integrating a lot of the new developing nations? Or giving them the integration that they’ve long been denied in terms of the global political sphere?

Professor Westad: That’s again, a very, very good question. I think we are in the middle of trying to handle that process now. In my view, it’s not always being handled well. This again goes to the learning aspect that we talked about with regard to China, you know, the lessons coming out of the 19th and early 20th century. It seems to me that when it comes to the rest of the post-colonial world, some of those same mistakes are being repeated. Again, we already talked about the economic aspects of this, which are not all that dissimilar from Africa. With regard to the rest of the Global South, Africa of course is in a particular position, because it needs economic development more than almost anywhere else, in part because of the population increases. But it’s true sort of all over. Much of this has to do with the rest of the world getting, you know, a fair say in terms of how the global economy is handled. That’s the problem. 

Some people would say, well, that’s a problem inherent to a capitalist economic system. To some degree, I would agree with that. But at the same time, we do have international institutions and organizations that over now at least three generations have ameliorated and fashioned how the global economy works. The problem is that over the past half-generation or so, some of these international multinational organizations have become less and less powerful and less than less influential. So the kind of gradual integration of equal terms, or newly developing economies is something that in many ways is harder now than it was a generation ago.

That’s a big question for me. That’s a big worry because I think a lot of the political and diplomatic clashes and conflicts that we have seen come out of these perceptions of injustice in economic and social terms. We’ve seen that again and again. We saw it during the colonial era, we saw it in the immediate post-colonial era, and I think we’re seeing it again today in this sense, not just in terms of actual immediate economic changes but in terms of the overall system, that it’s unfair, and that it works on behalf of the West, and it doesn’t really work that well for the rest of the world. Not being able to bridge those kinds of perceptions is really very dangerous in the modern world, not only because of conflict but also because it leads to the perception of a kind of disequilibrium, in terms of the global economy, and that’s not good for people who want to, if you think about it in capitalist terms, people who want to invest on equal terms. If you think that the whole global economic system is sort of rigged, in a way with regard to this, that’s not what you’re going to do.

Image courtesy of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

“Singapore is for the United States, a true partner.”

So said United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a June 16, 2023 joint press meeting with Singapore Foreign Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan at the U.S. State Department. The Singapore-U.S. relationship could be described as a “strategic partnership.” Alliances are formal agreements, while partnerships are less formal, don’t involve treaties, and may be short-term between countries. However, a formal relationship upgrade from partnership to alliance between the two countries has not materialized since the aforementioned event. And it is unlikely to happen in the immediate future either, possibly because Singapore fears an alliance with the U.S. could violate its neutral political image and therefore heighten tensions with China. 

Singapore – U.S. Ties: An Overview

Military exchanges and U.S. Navy visits to Singapore exemplify the two nations’ ongoing strategic partnership. The roots of this relationship date back to the 1960s, when Singapore backed American involvement in the Vietnam War in exchange for the United States agreeing to safeguard its security and economic interests in the wake of Britain’s impending withdrawal of troops from the island state¹. The abrupt departure of British forces presented a number of serious problems to Singapore, a nation which sought to oppose communist influence and increase revenue to build an independent economy.

Today, bilateral defense ties between Singapore and the U.S. remain strong. This is evident in initiatives like the permanent export of over $26.3 billion worth of military components to Singapore by the U.S. from 2019 to 2021 under the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) scheme, from which Singapore has reaped several economic benefits and has enhanced bilateral cooperation.  A 2021 U.S. Department of Defense fact sheet mentioned the country has become Singapore’s largest foreign investor, with approximately $270 billion in direct investments.

However, the history of Singapore-U.S. relations took an unexpected turn in 2003, when Singapore reportedly declined an offer from the U.S. to be designated a Major Non-NATO ally even though two of its Southeast Asian neighbors – the Philippines and Thailand – both accepted.² Despite strong temptations for Singapore to upgrade its diplomatic relationship with the world’s largest economy, this refusal occurred amidst tumultuous global circumstances that would gravely affect the island state. The Iraq War severely disrupted Singapore’s economy. The country’s economy contracted in the second quarter at an annual rate of 11.8 percent, and national unemployment increased to 4.5 percent in mid-2003. Later that year, the SARS pandemic infected 238 people and claimed 33 lives in Singapore, exposing weaknesses in the nation’s health care and epidemiological surveillance system.³ 

More than twenty years on, the world is once more in a volatile situation from an armed conflict and health emergency – namely Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Coronavirus pandemic. The rise of an assertive China has strained its relations with the U.S. and raised Indo-Pacific regional tensions. Despite a tumultuous geopolitical climate and Singapore Foreign Minister Dr Balakrishnan’s 2023 meeting with Secretary Blinken to reaffirm strong Singapore–U.S. ties, Singapore has yet to formally declare an upgrade of its relationship with the U.S. to an alliance.

Hedging Policy

Instead, Singapore has chosen to hedge its foreign policy – not siding with any powerful state nor trying to pick a winner given the unpredictability concerning power structures.⁴ When Singapore joined the U.S. and other Western bloc countries in sanctioning Russia over its invasion of Ukraine in a rare instance of departure from its hedging policy, Russia designated Singapore as an “unfriendly country.” Subsequently, all Russian corporate deals with Singaporean companies must now be granted permission by the Russian government before proceeding.

Singapore clarified its sanctions were a matter of upholding United Nations charter principles concerning the rights of states’ existence. However, actions like these may further shape the international community’s perceptions that Singapore is within the U.S. sphere of influence. It would be prudent for Singapore’s political leadership to continue its hedging policy if it sought to maintain credibility as a non-aligned state and avoid any potential backlash from states that claim Singapore violates its own principles.

The Chinese Connection

Another essential factor for Singapore not upgrading its relationship with the U.S. is the island state’s sensitivities with China. The latest census of population by Singapore’s Department of Statistics in 2020 revealed 3 million ethnic Chinese residents in the country (or 74.3 percent of Singapore’s total population of 5.69 million) that year. A Pew Research Center survey the following year found that 64 percent of Singapore’s population held a favorable view of China. Singapore has been China’s largest foreign investor since 1997, and China has been Singapore’s biggest trade partner since 2013.⁵ China has also adopted an increasingly aggressive foreign policy and has had strained relations with the U.S. in recent years, including military drills encircling Taiwan after President Tsai Ing-wen visited the U.S. in 2023.

Therefore, it could be unwise for Singapore to formally upgrade its relationship with the U.S. to an alliance. China would have misgivings that Singapore is in the U.S. sphere of influence and might reduce or suspend trade relations with Singapore. This could cause the island state significant economic losses. Singaporeans who view China positively could perceive the Singapore government as violating non-alignment principles and being pro-U.S. This would decrease approval ratings for Singapore’s political leadership. Singapore and the U.S. likely will keep their relationship as a partnership for the foreseeable future. 

Conclusion

It would be reasonable to assume Singapore and the U.S. would maintain strong ties and work together for Indo-Pacific regional security amidst the challenging geopolitical climate. The strategic partnership between both countries has served Singapore and the U.S. well. Singapore has earned itself a major security guarantor and prospered economically from its close relationship with the U.S., while the latter benefits from working with Singapore towards maintaining a favorable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region against an increasingly assertive China. Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely that Singapore upgrades its relationship with the U.S. to that of an alliance, especially amidst such a tumultuous geopolitical landscape and the looming threat of conflict outbreak between China and Taiwan. As a result of Singapore’s efforts to maintain global credibility as a politically neutral non-aligned state and protect its sensitive relations with China, the bilateral Singapore-U.S. relationship likely will stay a strategic partnership for the foreseeable future.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Secretary Blinken meets with and participates in a joint press conference with Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan at the US Department of State in Washington on June 16, 2023 [State Department photo by Chuck Kennedy] | Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

1.  Heng Chee Chan, Singapore: The Politics of Survival 1965 – 1967 (Oxford University Press, 1971), 43. ↩︎
2.  See Seng Tan, “America the Indispensable Power: Singapore’s Perspective of America as a Security Partner,” Asian Politics & Policy 8, no.1 (2016): 120. ↩︎
3.  William Case, “SINGAPORE IN 2003: Another Tough Year,” Asian Survey 44, no. 1 (January/February 2004): 119. ↩︎
4.  Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “The Essence of Hedging: Malaysia and Singapore’s Response to a Rising China,” Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 30, no. 2 (2008): 165. ↩︎
5.  Liang Fook Lye, “Singapore-China Relations: Building Substantive Ties amidst Challenges,” Southeast Asian Affairs (2018): 326. ↩︎