This chapter responds to the theme of “geographies of rivalry” and international relations by exploring the implications of recent debates over uneven and combined development (U&CD) for the US and China within global capitalism. On one hand, the two powers remain deeply economically interlinked. On the other, recent discussions of, for instance, a “new Cold War” have brought to light tensions between the two world powers. Thus, this chapter asks two major questions. First, what can a U&CD perspective help us understand about global politics and world power? Second, how can this help us make sense of the complex intertangles between the US and China?

In recent years, a wide variety of studies have begun to explore the implications of the critical idea of U&CD for explaining the dynamics of global power. Justin Rosenberg, in particular, has been developing it as a framework for making sense of international relations from a perspective engaging with Marxism (Rosenberg 1996, 2009, 2013, 2019). At the same time, this perspective has been criticized for, perhaps, trying to do more than it can. In this regard, the first section of this chapter examines this debate, suggesting that while the concept of U&CD can play a key role in framing questions of global power, its uses are limited, as it is a helpful concept, not a comprehensive approach or theory.

Second, this chapter uses this concept to explore questions of the US, China, and their geographics of conflict. Beginning with an overview of the political economy of the US, the chapter suggests that U&CD is useful for developing a narrative of the rise of American world dominance and its possible contemporary decline, and the uneven dynamics of this question. This framework makes it possible to link together the ways capitalist class power and neoliberalism intersect with the dynamics of U&CD globally as class relations are shaped both by forces within states, and by movements on uneven and multilayered international scales. That being said, the argument presented here also notes the limits of a U&CD approach, as it is a useful tool within a broader framework but limited as an overall approach to making sense of global power relations.

Introduction

Over the past decade, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has continued to rise as a great power on global politics and to challenge the interests of the US. While security competition is not new to US–China relations, its nature is changing and evolving in a new direction with past differences becoming more acute, and new areas are emerging, such as the Arctic region, that are intensifying this security dilemma (Allison 2017; Medeiros 2019; Mearsheimer 2021). The rapidly changing climate of the Arctic has given rise to China’s emergence as major influence within the region. Scholars have discussed the geopolitical ramifications of Arctic ice melt and accelerated prospects of an ice-free Arctic (Depledge 2021; Briggs 2013; Depledge 2021). As a rising global superpower, China has amassed incredible diplomatic, informational, military, and economic capabilities to influence and reshape the Arctic region (Briggs 2013; Connolly 2017). China was granted status as an observer to the Arctic Council in 2013, providing it a seat at the table with a new-found voice and ability to engage within the region. This engagement, primarily through economic and diplomatic means, has for many raised serious concerns regarding its long-term intentions considering its heavy-handed practices in other regions of the world (Miller 2019; Vitug 2018; Garlick 2019). China’s efforts within the region are considered a threat to long-term regional stability, impacting the human, environmental, and national security objectives for several members of the Arctic Council, including the US, Canada, and Sweden (Cassotta et al 2015; Lackenbauer et al 2018; Doshi et al 2021). With regional resource, access, and longer-term interests at stake, Chinese investment and diplomatic overtures within the Arctic serve as a point of regional friction prompting numerous countries to take notice and address the competitive challenges posed by this evolving rivalry (Connolly 2017; Depledge 2021). While there have been many studies on the influence of China in the Arctic region, there has been little research on how abrupt climate change in combination with Chinese actions in the region could create unpredictable black swan events that undermine US and regional security (Zysk and Titley 2015; Valentine et al 2021).

Although US President Bill Clinton had nonchalantly floated the imagery of South Asia as “the most dangerous place in the world” in the wake of the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, his views were outrightly rejected by India (Babington and Constable 2000). Besides, China emerged as a stabilizing force in the region as it instigated its shuttle diplomacy between India and Pakistan not only after the nuclear tests in 1998 but also after the Mumbai attack in 2008. Even as the disputed Kashmir remains a nuclear flashpoint (notwithstanding the US offer to “help” resolve this lingering issue), several topical incidences—for example, the Doklam standoff, Pulwama attack, Ladakh clash, Taliban takeover, arms race, trade war, pandemic blame-game, and Russia–Ukraine crisis—have triggered fresh patterns of quadrilateral interactions between four key (non-)state actors in South Asia, namely, India, Pakistan, China, and the US. While the competitive and cooperative trends underpinning these quadrilateral interactions are difficult to fathom in terms of traditional Western realism (which considers the sphere of “the international” as fraught with dualistic self-other enmity), this chapter evokes a non-dualistic Global International Relations (IR) theory inspired by the Indian philosophy of Advaita to appraise India’s strategic response to the ongoing US–China rivalry in South Asia: unlike the dualistic Western IR theories based on a fundamental self–other distinction, the non-dualistic Advaita Global IR theory ties the self and the other together with a globe marked with single hidden connectedness. Since India is increasingly recognized as a rising power in world politics, a systematic study of its strategic response to the ongoing US–China rivalry in South Asia is decisive for making sense of the overall global transformations. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section illustrates the historical trajectory of geopolitical rivalries in South Asia. The second section identifies the topical issues that have cropped up as departure points in this conventional historical trajectory. Finally, the third section employs the Advaita Global IR theory (which refutes the Western style of IR hooked on the fixed logic of self–other enmity, friendship, or neutrality) to facilitate an improved investigation of these topical issues, thereby providing an alternative intellectual framework to interpret the contemporary postures of US–China contestations in world politics.

The chapter analyses existing regional cybersecurity treaties to highlight the differences in these treaties that reflect the divide between the state-oriented and market-oriented models of internet governance, and to find possible areas of convergence that may pave the way towards global co-operation. It also discusses the role and limitations of the private sector, including IT industries, technical experts, and civil societies, in cybersecurity governance. Realistic scenarios of future global cybersecurity governance would envision expanding and strengthening regional co-operation and co-operation between like-minded states. However, reaching a consensus on particular cybersecurity issues will not automatically result in effective cybersecurity governance. Fundamental differences in the levels of cyber-preparedness and the ability of states to combat cybercrimes will create a living space for cybercriminals and other malign actors to engage in illegal activities. Continuous efforts to support states with less cybercapacity, including through strengthening education, technical skills, and material resources should accompany any attempts to create cybersecurity governance norms.

Introduction

One of the greatest puzzles in the academic study and contemporary practice of international politics is whether the rise of China, as a re-emerging global power, would be peaceful amidst the perception of declining US dominance (Christensen 2006; Mearsheimer 2006; Starrs 2013; Monteiro 2014: 122–126; Regilme and Parisot 2017a; 2020; Regilme and Hartmann 2018). Considered as the “most important rising power” (Hameiri and Jones 2015: 3), China, with its expanding sphere of influence in world politics, will “undoubtedly be one of the great dramas of the twenty-first century” (Ikenberry 2008: 23). Despite the countervailing discourses from some Chinese political elites who advocate a more pacifist tone, some Western scholars, pundits, and policy makers warned that China’s political ascendancy is inevitably dangerous (Mearsheimer 2006; Regilme 2019; Regilme and Parisot 2020). This sense of insecurity is felt more increasingly in the Southeast Asian region, where many of the smaller countries have traditionally depended upon the US leadership and security guarantees. The South China Sea (or the SCS hereafter)—a marginal sea area that is partially surrounded by Northeast (China and Taiwan) and Southeast (Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam) Asian countries—has become one of the most visible maritime geographic spaces of conflict in the region. In Southeast Asia, four out of ten countries therein are active claimants of a part of the SCS region: Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.

As one of the world’s highly militarized site of inter-state territorial conflicts, the SCS is economically significant for the global economy primarily because a large chunk of annual world trade output passes through this maritime area. The US interest in the dispute is discursively sold as about “ensuring freedom of navigation,” considering that “half the world’s commercial shipping passes through the SCS—$5 trillion a year—and US warships regularly transit the region on their way to and from the Persian Gulf, Southwest Asia and the Indian Ocean” (Spitzer 2012: 8). The UN Conference on Trade and Development emphasizes the economic significance of the SCS, because nearly 60 percent of maritime trade comes through the Asia-Pacific, and at least one-third of the global trade needs to pass through the SCS ( Jennings 2021: 6).

Introduction

This chapter analyzes how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) allowed China to fill the void left by the US in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), its traditional sphere of influence, by increasing the region’s dependence on the Chinese economy and expanding its diplomatic exchanges. The participation of LAC governments in the BRI has brought about fewer economic benefits to the region than promised and has exposed them to pressure from the US on some vital security and technology issues. However, China has had noticeable gains from the BRI, as this chapter will explain. To understand the geographies of the rivalry in the Americas, one must study the implications of the Chinese initiative in which the promises of infrastructures allowed LAC governments to surmount geographical, cultural, and political distances.

The BRI is an international cooperation platform announced by the Chinese government in 2013 initially oriented to promote connectivity to its neighboring countries by celebrating official forums and the conclusion of non-binding bilateral agreements. The initiative seeks to boost Chinese foreign investment, infrastructures, and trade between China and its partners, especially developing countries that are eager for infrastructures. In 2022, according to the official statements, 144 countries joined the BRI (Xinhuanet 2021), despite no clarity concerning its accession and participation mechanisms. The BRI has progressively expanded its geographical scope, activities, and projects, becoming a fuzzy initiative that is challenging to conceptualize. Since its launch, it has evolved from “an effort to revitalise the connectivity of the Silk Road into a key point for Chinese foreign policy” (Myers 2018: 239) and then to “so omnipresent in Chinese foreign discourse and practice that it is now almost impossible to distinguish it from Beijing’s foreign policy” (Rolland 2019: 1).

Although the BRI at its origins did not contemplate the inclusion of LAC, after the celebration in 2018 of the China and Community of LAC States Forum (China-CELAC Forum), LAC countries started to participate (González Jauregui 2020; Oliveira and Myers 2021). The first few participating countries were less exposed to US influence—Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador—and China’s strategic economic partners in the region—Chile, Uruguay, and Peru (Bórquez and Bravo 2020). In 2023, 24 out of 33 members of the CELAC have joined the BRI. Except for Mexico, the biggest economies of LAC, namely Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, have participated in the initiative to different degrees.

At the start of the 21st century, the international system underwent at least three major critical junctures: the 9/11 terror attacks that paved the way for the US-led global war on terror and its consequent human rights abuses (Acharya 2007; Christie 2008; Foot 2008; Herman 2011; Shafiq 2013; Sanders 2017; Regilme 2018a, 2018b, 2021a); the 2007/2008 global financial crisis (Aydın 2011; Helleiner 2011; Drezner 2013; Kiely 2018; Ansell and Bartenberger 2019); and the COVID-19 pandemic (May and Daly 2020; Regilme 2020; Theidon 2020; Greer et al 2021). The most recent critical juncture—the COVID-19 pandemic—killed at least 6.6 million people since 2020 until October 2022. That pandemic, however, is not merely a global health crisis. Rather, it emerged as a powerful vector of other transnational challenges of catastrophic proportions, whereas some of these challenges may not be directly attributable to the pandemic itself, while others may have been reinforced after the start of the pandemic: the widespread inflation crisis in many parts of the globe (Aharon and Qadan 2022); democratic backsliding and widespread human rights abuses (Greer et al 2020; Pleyers 2020; Thomson and Ip 2020; Lundgren et al 2021; Passos and Acácio 2021; Regilme 2021b); climate catastrophes and extreme weather conditions (Bergquist et al 2022; Ford et al 2022); food insecurity (Kumar and Ayedee 2021; Sacks et al 2021; Bergquist et al 2022); energy insecurity (Ghilès 2022); and, the looming probability that Russian militarized aggression in Ukraine could spill over to other Central and Western European countries, which in turn, could trigger intensified military conflict elsewhere (deLisle 2022; Wu 2022).

Consequently, an apparent consensus seems to be emerging, perhaps regardless of one’s political ideologies: the world is in deep, multidimensional crisis (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2020; Regilme 2020; Steger 2021). What this crisis means could differ depending on your positionality in this deeply hierarchical and differentiated world-system (Anthias 2008; Sakai 2012; Koinova 2017; McIntosh 2020; Soedirgo and Glas 2020). For a white, super-rich man living in the affluent quarters of New York, London, or Zurich, the crisis is likely triggered by a growing popular resistance against capitalism and extreme socioeconomic inequalities, while invoking that their private property rights are violated by state policy actions that redirect wealth to the most marginalized (Hammond 2016; Regilme 2019a; Whyte 2019).

The chapter gives a detailed account of inter-state corporations in combatting cybercrime and its limitations. The chapter situates the current negotiations of a new legal instrument to counter cybercrime within the UN’s historical framework of efforts to enhance co-operation against general organised crime and cybercrime. In particular, it analyses the main issues that have held back progress in enhancing co-operation. It then proceeds to examine the current negotiation process and the prospects for effective co-operation once the negotiations come to an end, highlighting the potentially impactful legal implications of the work of the UN ad hoc committee on cybercrime.

Introduction

This chapter examines how Europe is both a site of and participant in contemporary US–China geopolitical competition. As one of the richest and most technologically advanced regions in the world, the US and China compete for economic and political influence across the continent. At the same time, in everything from trade to investment to emerging technologies, US–China competition increasingly shapes Europe’s policy choices and strategic priorities.

For Europe—defined here as the European Union (EU) and European members of NATO—US–China competition differs in many important respects from US–Soviet competition during the Cold War. During that period, Europe was the main site and prize of US–Soviet rivalry. The continent was divided economically, politically, militarily, and ideologically. An Iron Curtain had descended across Europe, “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.” Both the US and the Soviet Union devoted enormous resources to secure and defend their respective parts of the continent (Hanhimӓki 2012).

Europe today is neither the main site nor the main prize of US–China competition. The key flashpoints lie not in Europe but in East and Southeast Asia, including Taiwan and the South China Sea (Shambaugh 2021). Nevertheless, both the US and China view Europe as an important strategic partner, and the continent has become an increasingly active economic battleground between the two countries (Brandt and Taussig 2020). In this new era of great power confrontation, therefore, “Europe has a comparable position to that of Japan before 1989: a reliable American ally, but one outside the main field of confrontation” (Krastev and Leonard 2021b).

This chapter analyzes Europe’s role and place in US–China competition with a focus on Huawei’s presence in Europe’s fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. This case reveals three broader features of Europe’s role in US–China competition. First, European countries’ desire to expand and deepen their economic links with China while continuing to depend on the US for their defense represents the central challenge they face in this new strategic environment. Second, while US and European views on China have converged in recent years, they are not identical, and European countries are unlikely to take as firm a position toward China as countries in Western Europe did against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Biological and chemical weapons are banned by treaty and attract less interest by the military than do nuclear and other modern means like cyber, space action and artificial intelligence. The number of nuclear weapons has gone down but there is no sign of their elimination through acceptance of the Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) or otherwise, nor is there any prospect of early common commitment to ‘non-first use’. Rather, at least the major nuclear-armed states regard their ability to inflict devastating second nuclear strikes as indispensable to deter any first strike and the ‘nuclear posture reviews of the US and Russia retain a good deal of freedom of action. We cannot at present see signs of zero nuclear and must agree with the conclusion that so long as nuclear weapons exist, there remains a risk of use – through misunderstandings or technical errors. We may also conclude that as cyber, space and other new means of struggle have become available, and capable of escalating, rendering conflicts increasingly unpredictable. It becomes implausible that any civilian or military leadership would allow itself to initiate or slide into conflict. It seems likely that they would choose intense competition by means other than force, notably economic and financial.

The chapter analyses how trade agreements balance liberalisation of digital trade with cybersecurity concerns. The chapter identifies the strengths, weaknesses, and ambiguities facing digital trade regulation in these agreements. As a way to address the tension between international trade law and cybersecurity, it examines security exception clauses in different trade agreements. It also analyses the efforts found in recent regional trade agreements to direct state parties to have regard to international standards concerning cybersecurity issues. It concludes that harmonisation of such standards would suggest the possibility of a greater coherence in cybersecurity governance.

Many interventions have been undertaken since WWII for familiar reasons such as regime change. They have almost invariably been judged as breaches of the UN Charter prohibition of the interstate use of force and the claimed justifications of self-defence and protection of nationals have been rejected. Examples are the cases of the US interventions in the Dominican Republic (1965), Grenada and Panama (1989) and the Russian interventions in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014 and 2022-). Even Viet Nam’s intervention in Kampuchea (1978) removing the blood-stained Pol Pot regime was judged critically by the UN General Assembly. In 1999, Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a speech that even though the principle of non-interference should not be jettisoned too readily, he queried whether it should not be qualified through ‘a new framework’ to permit action to remove ‘evil’ dictators like Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. However, the massive bombings of Kosovo in 1999 undertaken without Security Council approval and claimed to have been for humanitarian reasons have remained controversial and have not been seen as a legal precedent.