The author thanks two anonymous reviewers and Professors Joseph Grieco and Robert Keohane for their constructive comments. The author is especially grateful to Professor Edward W. Hsu for his invaluable inspiration and assistance in the technical aspects of this study.Google Scholar

1. The “China threat” is not new to the Western world. For example, in the mid-1960s and 1970s, the tension between communist China and Southeast Asian countries was given as the official rationale for U.S. involvement in Vietnam, whereas today the phrase is widely used to rationalize a balance of power in Asia. See Gurtov, Melvin and Hwang, Byong-Moo, China's Security: The New Roles of the Military (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998).Google Scholar

2. In Chinese, the term ba (hegemony or hegemon) does not necessarily carry a derogatory connotation. In the Spring and Autumn Period (about 770 b.c. to 481 b.c.), for example, hegemons referred to great feudal leaders who contributed to the overall order and stability of the Zhou imperial system. These hegemons, usually backed by their supreme military power, enjoyed high political prestige and even moral superiority among other feudal states. Another example is Xiang Yu, a legendary figure in the time of Qin-Han dynastic change. Xiang is remembered as Xichu Bawang (the Hegemon of Xichu), which title, along with his tragic and legendary life, denotes the character of a hero. But in different contexts, ba may refer to the imposition of the will of the domineering state upon others. For example, in modern times, the People's Republic of China used ba to imply the Soviet expansionism, Vietnamese domination in Indochina, and U.S. coercive enforcement of its values (such as human rights, trade practices, weapons proliferation, etc.) to other (weak) countries. For more discussions, see Shambaugh, David, Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972–1990 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Nathan, Andrew and Ross, Robert, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), esp. chap. 1; Lowe, Michael and Shaughnessy, Edward, The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 b.c. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Mosher, Steven W., Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2000); Deng, Yong, “Hegemon on the Offensive: Chinese Perspectives on U.S. Global Strategy,” Political Science Quarterly 116, no. 3 (Fall 2001); and Blum, Samantha, “Chinese Views of U.S. Hegemony,” Journal of Contemporary China 12, no. 35 (2003): 239–264.Google Scholar

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