Dealing with the Dragon - An Analysis of Middle Power Strategies and the Rise of China

Abstract

Over the past decades, "the ascendancy of China" has been a popular object of analysis within the academic field of International Relations. A common subject of these studies is the impact of China's rise on the security architecture of the Asia-Pacific and how this affects other international actors. Within this context, the majority of the research neglects the role of the category of so-called 'secondary powers' and its internal diversity. In response, middle power theory has attempted to remedy this situation by focusing on the most powerful of these secondary powers, the so-called 'middle powers'. This dissertation aims to strengthen the theoretical basis for this theory by analysing one of its major underlying assumptions, namely that there is such a thing as generalisable middle power behaviour. Specifically, it tests a central hypothesis that middle powers have shared behavioural preferences with regards to their security strategies. This is divided into two types of strategies: functional, referring to the pursuit of leadership roles in niche issue areas, and normative, including a tendency to support conflict mediation and the international rules-order. For this purpose, this dissertation examines the responses of two middle powers in the Asia-Pacific to the rise of China to determine to...