China’s remarkable aggregation of national power over the past 35 years has been a source of wonderment: to economists, who have been surprised by that country’s consistently high rate of growth; to political scientists, who are at a loss to explain the persistence of authoritarian Communist Party rule despite its more open market order; and to historians, who describe China’s meteoric rise as unprecedented. But to the U.S. national security community, China’s swift climb up the international power ladder has been a source less of wonderment than of increasing concern.

How should America evaluate the risks that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) poses to its current and future interests? It is a crucial question, since sound strategy depends on an accurate assessment of the capabilities and intentions of potential rivals. Significantly underestimating China’s ambitions and its future means to advance them could render the United States strategically vulnerable. Exaggerating those same factors risks an inefficient use of America’s diplomatic, military, and economic resources, while counterproductively stimulating more vigorous PRC investments in hard power than would otherwise be the case.

Much literature has appeared in recent years speculating on future Sino-American cooperation, competition, or conflict. While there is no shortage of theories of international relations to inform conjecture on likely future scenarios, two in particular highlight the sharp contrasts in approach and perspectives that characterize this debate. The first is realism, which assumes an evolving international environment in which fierce competition between leaders and challengers is the norm. The realist dynamic is sometimes called the “Thucydides Trap”, a term inspired by Thucydides’ famous account of the seemingly inevitable conflict between the rising city-state of Athens and the status quo power Sparta as they struggled for dominance of Ancient Greece in the fifth century BCE. Realists who embrace the Thucydides Trap metaphor argue that the risks of hegemonic wars between rising states (such as China) and status quo states (such as the United States) are high. A second and contrasting theory framing this discussion is neoliberalism, which assumes that open-access political systems (which China is not) and market-based economic exchange create opportunities for the realization of positive sum gains between competing powers. Deepening socio-economic interdependence, encouraged and sustained by skillfully designed international institutions, can ensure stability and growing prosperity.

These two perspectives promote very distinct U.S. approaches for dealing with the challenges posed by a rising China. Realists, who believe that states operate in an unsentimental and unforgiving environment, would advise current U.S. leaders to keep ample powder dry, to leverage existing and acquire new allies, and to occasionally accommodate when relevant U.S. interests are much less than those of China. Persuaded that the China locomotive will keep speeding down the tracks in the years ahead, a realist would point to growing U.S.-China friction in the East and South China Seas as the shape of things to come.

Neoliberals would advise the status quo power to maintain the vibrancy and appeal of liberal political-economic norms and institutions in the belief that the contender will find it more advantageous to be a member of a successful club than to start one of its own. More importantly, neoliberals argue that long-term club membership leads to co-option and to an evolutionary change in the contender’s values. Of course, the neoliberal predictions of co-option and an evolutionary change in values are sharply at odds with those of China’s Communist Party, whose leaders envision no evolution concerning its monopoly on political power.

Both Thucydidean realists and neoliberals warn against the adoption of the other’s viewpoint. Realists point out that overly-optimistic predictions of China’s power trajectory could result in a less robust U.S. foreign policy that might encourage PRC aggression, undermine America’s reputation, discourage the commitment of allies, and set conditions for the possibility of a significant strategic setback. Neoliberals counter that too muscular a policy could undercut cooperative efforts at securing optimal agreements between the United States and China that might help improve long-term relations. Moreover, while either side could be correct, both could prove irrelevant if China’s growth slows significantly, seriously weakening its prospects to become a truly formidable challenger.

No matter what the perspectives or underlying assumptions, any useful analysis of this vexing and serious policy dilemma requires a deep understanding of China’s current standing in both regional and global affairs, as well as comprehensive knowledge of the internal and external constraints it faces in trying to realize its long-term ambitions. An effective China policy for the United States is best built on a foundation that is grounded in sober, thorough assessments of the context in which Sino-American relations exist and operate. [...]

The first paragraphs of the article "China's Place in U.S. Foreign Policy" (The American Interest, vol. 10, no. 6) have been reproduced here with permission; access to the full article is available on The American Interest website. 

Karl Eikenberry is a distinguished fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, announced earlier this month.

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law proudly congratulates its graduating class of honors students for their outstanding original research conducted under the CDDRL Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Honors Program. Among those graduating includes Garima Sharma who was awarded the Firestone Medal for her thesis entitled "Factors Shaping Mothers' Aspirations for their Daughters in India: A Case Study of Forbesganj, Bihar." Sharma's project used both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore cultural, social and economic factors that shape female expectations in one of the poorest parts of India.

The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research recognizes Stanford's top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science and engineering among the graduating senior class.

Initially struck by the high rates of early marriage upon her visit to northern India, Sharma conducted field interviews and surveys last summer, finding that exposure to educated and employed female role models produced an increase in mothers’ aspirations for their daughters.

Cara Reichard (left) and Garima Sharma (right) both received awards under CDDRL for their outstanding theses projects.

Sharma's research was conducted under the advisement of Associate Professor of Education and CDDRL Affiliated Faculty Member Christine Min Wotipka. In addition to the Firestone Award, Sharma received the 2015 Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo Prize in the Social Sciences under the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Among other award winners, CDDRL honors student Cara Reichard received the CDDRL Best Thesis Award for her honors thesis "The Logic of International Courts: An Exploration of the East African Court of Justice," which analyzed the impact and legitimacy of rulings under the East African Court of Justice. Stefan Norgaard received a Firestone Medal under the Urban Studies program for his thesis entitled "Rainbow Junction: South Africa’s Born Free Generation and the Future of Democracy," which assessed democratic consolidation in South Africa via hyper-local civic interactions among the country's active youth.

"The CDDRL honors program has allowed us to write theses around issues that really matter," said Norgaard. "What sets the program apart is that it pushes us to pursue projects aimed at changing things and making an active contribution to scholarship around the world."

Norgaard, Sharma and Reichard are part of a cohort of ten graduating CDDRL honors students who have spent the past year working in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attending honors research workshops to develop their theses projects. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in South Africa, India, North Korea, Swaziland, Cuba and Uganda, among others.

Stefan Norgaard with CDDRL Director Larry Diamond (left) and FSI Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama (right).

In the upcoming 2015-2016 academic year, the program will bring in the new leadership of CDDRL Deputy Director Stephen Stedman who will advise a cohort of 15 honors students, one of the program's largest and most diverse classes to date.  

The CDDRL Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops; attend honors college in Washington, D.C.; connect to the CDDRL research community; and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law.

A list of the 2015 graduating class of CDDRL honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found below:

Weeks away from a final international accord on Iran’s nuclear program, Stanford scholars are focusing on the technical, political and practical aspects of the pending deal intended to loosen sanctions while restricting Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon.

“In two to three weeks we will have what some pundits are already calling the most revolutionary positive change in Iranian-American relations and others are saying a disastrous policy of appeasement to the Iranian regime,” said Scott Sagan, a senior fellow at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Sagan moderated a discussion at the FSI's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) on Tuesday that included FSI’s Siegfried Hecker and Thomas Fingar, as well as Abbas Milani, director of Stanford’s Iranian Studies.

Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said Iran has developed its civilian nuclear capabilities to concurrently have a nuclear weapon option. However, at this point, they do not yet have nuclear weapons, nor have they produced the fissile materials, plutonium or highly enriched uranium, that would fuel such weapons.

“They’ve demonstrated they can enrich uranium to the levels allowed for civilian applications, but that gives them the capability to produce highly enriched uranium for bombs should they choose to do so,” Hecker said. “If they complete the Arak reactor, they will have the potential for plutonium production, although they have not developed a facility to extract the plutonium. If you look in terms of timelines for making fissile materials, they were somewhere between weeks to a month or two away for making enough fissile material for one bomb at the start of the negotiations in November 2013. The nuclear deal would move that timeline, called the ‘breakout’ time to one year, giving the international community more time to respond.”

Hecker said the technical issues are “secondary to whether Iran actually wants to go ahead and decide to build the bomb.”

He met with Iranian negotiators – including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – in 2013, and said the officials were anxious to reach a deal.

“Zarif told me that the cost of acquiring strategic capabilities will make Iran less safe rather than more safe,” Hecker said.

Fingar, who chaired the National Intelligence Council while also serving as the U.S. deputy director of national intelligence for analysis between 2005 and 2008, stressed the need for strong verification mechanisms if any deal with Iran is going to work.

“Verification can establish some facts but what it means is fundamentally a contextual and political judgment. What is most important? Catching somebody in a technical violation or preserving the overall purpose for which you are conducting verification. Verification requirements are an integral part of the negotiating process,” Fingar said.

That is especially true for Iran, which has proven that it is not trustworthy, he said.

“It did have a military program, it was seeking the bomb. It continues to lie about it. It lied to the European negotiators, to the UN, to the IAEA,” Fingar said. "This history mandates having a rigorous verification capability."

Monitoring is done in three bins, he said. The first, and most important, is the IAEA on-site inspections. The second is that done by other countries’ intelligence services, including those of the other P5 plus 1 countries and Israel. The third bin is the U.S. intelligence community.

“We will learn far more about what Iran is doing from the IAEA inspections than from any other mechanism,” Fingar said.

Milani focused on the politics of the deal inside Iran. Discussion of this political dimension, he said, cannot be understood unless we take into account two critical issues: Recent concerns with the health of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the heated battle on who might succeed him; and secondly the rise of ISIS and the fact that they are near Iran’s borders and have repeatedly threatened the country’s Shiites.

The debate in Iran is heated, he said, with many in favor of the agreement and a few opposed to it.

“Part of what is being fought over is what happens after the deal,” he said. “Who can claim victory for the deal? Who can take blame for it? These are profoundly political issues and they are being fought over.”

Milani said that he has never seen any policy issue, in the entire 35-year history of the Islamic Republic, being discussed with as much detail, and with as much ferocity as the nuclear deal.

There are occasional, detailed debates happening in Tehran University and other places Milani said. One side –typically pro-regime hard-liner – argues that this is the worst deal in Iran’s history. Reformists and scholars supporting President Rouhani’s government defend the agreement.

But he said these conservative opponents of the agreement are in the minority. He estimates that they have no more than 7 to 10 million supporters in a country with a population of 75 million. The vast majority of the population wants a deal, he said. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which wields more power than any other group, is not all in favor of the deal and has made threats against the government in recent weeks.

Still, the ultimate political obstacle is that the deal must contain language that all actors can sell to their respective constituencies as a victory. And finding a language that passes this political hurdle is every bit as hard as the problems discussed by Hecker and Fingar.

Joshua Alvarez is a freelance writer.