Journal of International Security Studies. 2020, (03) Core

Security Anxiety, Signaling and China’s Strategic Reassurance to Southeast Asian CountriesChinese Full Text

CAO Dejun;School of International Relations of Peking University;

Abstract: For a rising China, it is of great importance to win the trust and confidence from its neighboring countries by adopting systematic strategic reassurance and projecting an image of responsible major country with self-restraint. However, in the practice of good-neighbor diplomacy over the past two decades, Southeast Asian countries have been beset by worries and misgivings about China’s true intentions due to power asymmetry and geographical proximity. Since 2008, Southeast Asian countries have become particularly concerned about China’s "core interests" discourse, the increasing number of diplomatic sanctions and multilateral initiatives with so called "unclear intentions". Faced with the growing security concerns of Southeast Asian countries, China has taken a proactive approach to dispelling their doubts and boosting their trust levels by releasing reassuring signals to them. Contrary to the "coercive" strategy, the "reassurance" strategy underlines the importance of winning the trust and confidence of other countries via positive incentives. Based on a critical integration of the existing literature, this paper tends to discuss two important dimensions: ways of sending good will（emotion-substance） and sources of cost（endogenous-exogenous）. Logically speaking, there are four paths to expressing reassuring good-neighboring signals: good neighborliness discourse, interdependence, selfless assistance and institutional restraint. Faced with China’s assurance, Southeast Asian countries will actively explore and identify their possible choices, and then examine and evaluate China’s signals from four strategic perspectives: bargaining, socialization, hedging exploration and institutional containment. Due to the problem of subjectivity in the credibility assessment of signals, Southeast Asian countries have different understandings of China’s reassurance efforts. In view of this, China’s diplomacy needs to stimulate perspective-taking and understand the exploratory attempts of these neighboring countries.

Keywords：

China’s peaceful rise; signal transmission; intention perception; strategic reassurance; trust building;

DOI：
10.14093/j.cnki.cn10-1132/d.2020.03.002
Series：
(G) Politics/ Military Affairs/ Law
Subject：
China Politics and International Politics
Classification Code：
D822.333

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Security Anxiety, Signaling and China’s Strategic Reassurance to Southeast Asian CountriesChinese Full Text

CAO Dejun;School of International Relations of Peking University;

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