Speakers
Description
While many consider Sino-American relations in East Asia central to future great power competition, scholarly efforts to make sense of this competition remain incomplete. Much of the extant literature features several implicit assumptions: that conflict dynamics are driven by Sino-American competition, that competition is best understood by evaluating the economic and military realms, and that Soviet-American competition in Europe offers core lessons for this “new Cold War.” This panel foregrounds and problematizes these assumptions, including the central importance placed upon the US and China. Multiple papers consider the role of other actors, such as South Korea in shaping US-China competition in the nuclear realm (Seitz), the networked nature of competition between the EU, US, and China in digital development (Carver), and the role of Japan in a potential conflict over Taiwan (Ji and Matsuda).
This panel incorporates multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives to evaluate both new and enduring challenges for great power competition, with papers examining various dimensions of military and economic competition (Thorpe; Seitz; Ji & Matsuda) and less traditional forms of security assistance (Carver). Further, the papers highlight the importance of regionalism and periodization, (Thorpe; Seitz), and the contemporary role of networked interdependence (Carver), which reveals how drawing too heavily on European history, especially during the Cold War, might lead us astray in predicting and explaining competition in East Asia. Collectively, therefore, the panel demonstrates that much of this competition transcends East Asia and features in the behaviour of many great powers, including in Europe, rather than being the exclusive domain of Washington and Beijing.
Featuring an array of early career scholars from US, UK, and Japanese institutions, this panel advances scholarship on East Asian security, digital competition, and Europe’s role within it while also facilitating an intellectual dialogue between scholars working on East Asia, Africa, and Europe.
| What discipline or branch of humanities or social sciences do you identify yourself with? | International Relations, Strategic Studies, History |
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| If you are submitting an Open Panel proposal, have you included all four abstracts in attachment? | Yes, I have included all required information (see below). |
| Are you a PhD student or early-career researcher? | Yes |
