Dispositional Balancing and Hegemonic Order: US Response to China’s Financial Statecraft

Abstract

Abstract How does the USA react to Chinese initiatives that gather allies from among the states that have been instrumental in sustaining the American-led liberal international order? We contend that Washington deploys dispositional balancing against Beijing, supporting this argument through a close scrutiny of US support for the projects of international developmental organisations (IDOs), such as multilateral development banks (MDBs), that target borrowing members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In theoretical terms, dispositional balancing is a relatively cheap strategy whereby the hegemon (the USA) reacts to the emerging power (China) by signalling to both old and potential allies its immutable ability to match that rival’s benefits and hence retain its status and order. We build our theory through logit and linear models, tackling potential endogeneity through use of an instrumental variable strategy. In line with the theoretical expectations, we identify that the USA favours AIIB members, particularly those that also display high levels of dependency on Chinese aid, in IDOs/MDBs, wherein Beijing competes with traditional Western donors from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee. Our findings contribute to both the debates on hegemonic-order transitions and the growing scholarship on soft balancing, contested multilateralism, and collective financial statecraft.