The rise of contemporary china and Wilhelmine Germany: Challanges of productive analogy

Abstract

The rise of a land power that is trying to develop its maritime forces has been viewed as an important conflict instigator among great powers. Great Britain shared similar concerns with the rise of Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Power relations among states in East Asia, during last two decades, share many similarities with those of pre-World War I Europe. This historical analogy provides abundant information regarding the behavior of land and maritime states. On the other hand, the analogy is often used without reference to other great powers in the system and how these states influenced the overall balance of power. In other words, we get the notion that the conflict between land and maritime power is inevitable regardless of other actors and their position in the system. In our work we shall focus our attention on the two processes that are balance of power and balance of threat; and try to understand how these mechanisms affected the politics of key actors in Europe before the Great War and how they affect the politics of contemporary states in East Asia. Since we are discussing the balance of power concept the article follows ideas set forth by authors of realism. Comparing different approaches of great powers to balancing in the years before the Great War and what balancing looks like in contemporary East Asia we shall try to point out to some strategic misconceptions regarding this historical analogy.