Mastro, Oriana Skylar

Abstract
The conviction that economic ties will engender peace in Asia has been a lynchpin of the US strategic response to a rising China for over two decades. When the US–China Relations Act of 2000 passed under President Bill Clinton, proponents of the measure argued that increased Sino-American trade would contribute to China’s peaceful rise because Beijing would reject revisionism while it benefitted from the US-led world order. As one US senator commented at the time, ‘the world will be a safer place – or so we hope, and so history argues’. Later, President George W. Bush described the exchange of ‘many handshakes of friendship and commerce’ between the American and Chinese people as enhancing understanding and therefore peace. Moreover, many of his closest advisers hoped that Chinese economic growth would eventually result in a rising middle class that would demand political freedoms and compel reform of the one-party Communist system. Most recently, President Barack Obama extolled the benefits of China’s growing economic clout, declaring that ‘a peaceful and stable and prosperous China is not only good for Chinese but also good for the world and for the United States’.
Economic liberalism plays a dominant role in US thinking for good reason: in most circumstances, economic ties tend to impose caution on leaders, encourage de-escalation of crises and improve overall bilateral relations. The idea also has strong historical roots in the work of thinkers such as Montesquieu, Immanuel Kant and Adam Smith. Contemporary international-relations scholars argue that, in recent decades in particular, globalisation has greatly increased interdependence – the economic aspect of which has a positive effect on international behaviour. Specifically, many have argued that increased economic integration raises the opportunity costs of conflict and promotes openness and frequent contact between states. This facilitates understanding and reduces incentives for conquest because production power is best captured through trade. Free trade and consequent integration have allowed the economies of Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia to flourish, encouraging more moderate politics and democratic practices that enhance regional stability. China’s integration into the world economy has helped to lift 680 million Chinese out of poverty, while many countries, particularly those geographically closer to China, have made real economic gains.
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