서강대학교

초록/요약

China is widely regarded as a rising great power because of its territory and population, and its rapidly-growing economic development. For the last two decades, the main focus of China‟s grand strategy was to keep a low profile and concentrate on the domestic economic development due to the reality of the U.S dominance in the international system. Since 2003, several new concepts have been added into the China‟s Grand Strategy, such as peaceful development and harmonious world. When facing challenges, Beijing reacts more proactively than before. The 2008 global economic downturn convinced China‟s economic and political influence to the world. Some claims that China‟s grand strategy has changed from keeping low profile to a more assertive one to challenge the U.S primacy. The purpose of this research is to analyze the characteristics of Harmonious World strategy which has adopted by Hu‟s administration. The main argument is that China gradually adopts soft-balancing strategy to guarantee its security and pursue its national interests under the current international system which is led by the U.S. Due to the structural conflicts between the rising China and hegemonic U.S, China has to evaluate the capability gap and economic ties between the two countries carefully and make the favorable strategy choice to gain the relative power under the U.S primacy. In the near future, China is likely to maintain status quo. However, the soft-balancing theory also contends that if China gains competitive capability, it also might challenge the status quo.