On March 26th, John Mearsheimer presented his thoughts on the rise of China over the next 30 years. He divided his lecture into three parts: his basic theory of state interaction, a short synopsis of U.S. foreign policy since 1783, and finally, his views on how China will act if it does in fact continue to rise.
Outlining his basic theory, Dr. Mearsheimer explained that the principle goal of a state is to become a regional hegemon. This is because the international system is inherently anarchic: there is no power higher than a state, so states must help themselves. Because of this, states fear one another. Thus the more powerful a state becomes, the less likely it will be to come under attack from another state. By asserting their role as a regional hegemon, states can ensure their own safety.
With his basic theory explained, Dr. Mearsheimer then discussed U.S. foreign policy from 1783 to present. The two main points of this discussion were the U.S.’s voracious appetite for territory through conquest and the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine. Both actions can be seen as deliberate policies to solidify U.S. power in the Western hemisphere, and thereby establish the U.S. as the regional hegemon. With this regional hegemonic status established, the U.S. has been free to roam globally to secure additional interests.
The third section of the lecture focused on the rise of China. Dr. Mearsheimer explained he believes that China will try to dominate Asia in much the same way that the U.S. dominates the Western hemisphere. To do this, China will work to become vastly more powerful than all of the neighboring states. Of course, the U.S. will try to inhibit China’s rise to preserve its own regional hold on power, and will work with allies in the region such as India, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Russia, in order to achieve this goal.
Watch the video of the presentation, below, to learn more:
John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980. He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Professor Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. He has published five books: Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize and has been translated into eight different languages; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), which made the New York Times best seller list and has been translated into twenty-one different languages; and Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics (2011), which has been translated into ten different languages.
He has also written many articles that have appeared in academic journals like International Security, and popular magazines like the London Review of Books. Furthermore he has written a number of op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times dealing with topics like Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, American policy towards India, the failure of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, and the folly of invading Iraq.
Finally, Professor Mearsheimer has won a number of teaching awards. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching when he was a graduate student at Cornell in 1977, and he won the Quantrell Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Chicago in 1985. In addition, he was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 1993-1994 academic year. In that capacity, he gave a series of talks at eight colleges and universities. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.