Episode 35: EP35 Regional vs. Regime Security: Third Parties & the False Choice between the US & China with Isaac Kardon & Sheena Greitens

China and the World Program's Podcast

Why do countries pursue security partnerships with the People's Republic of China? In particular, why do we observe countries seeking security relationships with both the United States and the PRC? Conventional wisdom argues that countries "don't want to choose" because they look to China for economics and the U.S. for security, but an increasing number of countries are choosing to pursue security partnerships with both countries simultaneously. What explains these cases? We argue that the nature of the security goods provided by the US are different from those provided by the PRC: the U.S. tends to offer regional security from external threats, while China tends to offer assistance in bolstering regime security against internal instability. Thus it is not just that countries "don't want to choose" between economics and security; they also do not want to choose between the security benefits provided by the US and the PRC, as benefits provided by the two countries are complementary rather than substitutive. We demonstrate our argument through a quantitative comparison of security assistance and case studies of key countries that pursue defined security arrangements with both the US and China, spanning Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Our analysis of “third parties” enmeshed in great power competition offers comparative leverage on the nature of China’s overseas projection of its military and other forms of national power, illustrates a vital new characteristic of Chinese foreign policy, and call for a reconsideration of policies predicated on symmetrical security competition between the U.S. and China.