Introduction
The growth of Chinese wealth and military power, combined with a more diplomatically and militarily active regime in Beijing, represents an epochal change in international politics. The potential for a more powerful and assertive China to transform the post-Second World War international system has sparked much discussion among leading stakeholders in the current international order, notably the US, Canada and Europe. How will China’s rise affect their transatlantic relationship?
While some observers fear that a rising, authoritarian China will significantly undermine the goals and unity of the transatlantic relationship, others argue that Chinese, North American and European interests do not significantly conflict: that all of these actors have an interest in stable trade and financial relations, and that the ‘liberal international order’ can peacefully accommodate China.1 Trying to understand the extent to which China’s rise undermines transatlantic goals or unity is plagued with uncertainty. However, two decades of revisionist behaviour on the part of the authorities in Beijing have shown that China’s values and priorities diverge from those of North America and Europe, and that the country’s rise challenges transatlantic interests in several areas: trade, cyberspace, international development, security and human rights.2 Rising China presents a serious challenge to transatlantic relations because of asymmetric interests among the different actors, and because of Beijing’s skilled use of ‘wedge’ strategies that exploit this asymmetry.
1 Jia, Q. and Rosecrance, R. (2010), ‘Delicately Poised: Are China and the US Heading for Conflict?’, Global Asia, 4(4) (accessed 2 May 2019).
2 Mazarr, M., Heath, T. and Cevallos, A. (2018), China and the International Order, Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation; Graaff, N. and Apeldoorn, B. (2018), ‘US–China relations and the liberal world order: contending elites, colliding visions?’, International Affairs, 94(1): pp. 113–31; and Lind, J. and Wohlforth, W. (2019), ‘The Future of the Liberal Order is Conservative: A Strategy to Save the System’, Foreign Affairs, 98(2) (accessed 2 May 2019).