A Summary of the Essay

The essay ‘China’s rise: Offensive or defensive realism’ by Ghazala Yasmin Jalil describes China’s foreign policy and argues against John Mearsheimer’s theory, which posits that China’s emerging great power is a revisionist force and a threat to the United States. The essay explains Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism, assesses his theory in accordance with China’s growing power, and argues that unlike Mearsheimer’s claim China’s political power is underpinned by defensive realism rather than offensive.

Examining Mearsheimer’s theory, the essay explains that states have a strong desire to maximize their power and the international system leads every country, with great power, to be the greatest one. The essay mentions that the theory is inspired by Waltz's idea of defensive realism. According to Waltz, it is not the human lust for power which pushes states to maximise their competence but the anarchic features of the international system. The essay outlines the basics of Mearsheimer’s theory and explains its auxiliary theory that great powers are confined to the sea boundaries and, therefore, while threats are possible, a worldwide hegemony is impossible.

The essay outlines positive changes in China’s policy since the 1970s. Jalil believes that China does not support the insurgency, China improves relations with neighbouring countries and the international community. China commits multilateral agreements, collaborates in international trade, develops regional infrastructure, and facilitates North Korea's dilemma. The essay interprets China's policy on Taiwan, its military modernisation and its increasing presence in the South China Sea under defensive realism. The essay objects Mearsheimer’s idea, which on the one hand, denies global hegemony, and on the other hand, claims that US concern about China's policy on Taiwan will lead to clashes between these two powers. The essay concludes that, far from being an aggressive revisionist power, China is just a status quo power and more than a threat to the US, it is an opportunity.

The essay provides a brief explanation of Mearsheimer’s theory and argues against it by providing China’s current and previous political behaviours since the 1970s. The essay develops the idea that China does not show a revisionist tendency and its growing power is not a threat to the US. The whole essay is written against the theory of John Mearsheimer. ‌ Jalil proposes that Mearsheimer’s theory is based on “assumptions”, which begs the question that to what extent the foundations of Mearsheimer’s theory is based on assumptions and to what extent they are based on facts. The essay does not provide any argument to prove that the fundamentals of Mearsheimer’s theory are really assumptions. This has reduced the level of reasoning of the paper. If there are some facts in the basics of Mearsheimer’s theory, then what does it mean with the quality of the paper to be unbiased. Furthermore, other factors need to be considered in US-China confrontation. The issue of Human Rights in China, even as a leverage to intervene, have a role in this context, which has remained largely ignored in this essay.

Reference:

Jalil, G. Y. (2019). China’s rise: Offensive or defensive realism. Strategic Studies, 39(1), 41-58. Retrieved from https://search-proquest com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/2217797444?accountid=36155