Adapting to Power Shifts: China’s Rise and Maritime Middle Powers’ Strategies

According to realist approaches in international relations theory, especially structural realism, states are forced to pursue balancing against rising powers due to anarchy. This entails both balancing the rising powers and economic decoupling from the latter due to concerns that interdependence entails vulnerability. However, this study argues that middle powers in the Asia Pacific region have pursued a combined strategy of balancing and economic cooperation to respond to the China threat. Maritime middle powers are more likely to adopt balancing against China than small continental countries due to their material capabilities and maritime security. However, this has not motivated them to seek economic decoupling from China. Instead, they seek to reap gains from China’s ascent through continued economic cooperation. Gains from cooperation enhance their aggregate power and enable their more effective long-term balancing against China. Therefore, maritime middle powers’ economic cooperation with a rising China has no contradiction with their balancing measures as both serve the same end objective of maximizing national security and survival. This perspective explains why maritime middle powers in the region pursue such a combined approach in response to China’s rise, instead of pursuing pure balancing as predicted by structural realism. Therefore, this study clarifies how maritime middle powers actually respond to China’s rise and provides new insight on state strategies for power shifts.