WESTRAT · Western Strategies in East Asia. The Reconfiguration of US, British and French security policies in the Pacific Century
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-09-01 → 2020-09-08
- EU contribution
- €168,277
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Western Strategies in East Asia. The Reconfiguration of US, British and French security policies in the Pacific Century
This project delivers the first systematic cross-regional and cross-sectoral analysis and comparison of how Europe’s major powers have sought to respond to the perceived national security challenge posed by the rise of China in world politics. In particular, it examines the evolution of the foreign and security policies of Europe’s major powers vis-à-vis China, since the end of the Cold War, in two core areas: (1) China’s Assertive Behaviour in the Asia-Pacific: the diplomatic and security cooperation initiatives developed with partners in the Asia-Pacific in response to China’s contestation of regional order. (2) China’s Inroads into Strategic Technologies in Europe: the screening mechanisms to restrict Beijing’s direct investments in strategic technologies and sensitive sectors in Europe (like cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc.). To do so, it relies on a large body of previously undisclosed primary written and oral sources, including: 120 interviews conducted in Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin; declassified archival document; and leaked diplomatic cables. This project shows how, in the past decade, Europe’s major powers have, although to different degrees, ‘awakened’ to the national security implications of China’s rise. Whereas in the first two decades of the post-Cold War era they largely perceived China as a distant and lucrative market, Beijing’s increasingly assertive behavior in the 2010s, both in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific, has sparked a re-evaluation of how China’s rise impacts their national security interests. In short, the PRC is increasingly perceived not only as an economic opportunity, but also as a national security challenge. Yet, the policies devised by the European Union to confront such challenge are hardly uniform. Because of diverging national interests and asymmetric capabilities, the EU has displayed disjointed, rather than common, foreign and security policies toward China. Europe stands divided in the face of a rising China.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The core question that this project tackles is how the three major Western military powers (the US, Britain and France) have adapted their security policies to the shifting center of strategic gravity of international politics from the Euro-Atlantic area to the Asia-Pacific. In addressing this question, WESTRAT conducts a comparative analysis of their evolving security policies in confronting the main “traditional” and “non-traditional” security challenges in East Asia, i.e. the rise of China, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and piracy. In so doing, this project makes three original contributions. (1) Firstly, WESTRAT offers an empirical contribution as the first work to provide a cross-national comparison of the security policies of the three major Western powers (1990-2016) – in their national, bilateral, and multilateral configurations – in what is deemed to be the world’s new center of strategic gravity. It therefore investigates a crucial yet under-explored dimension of contemporary international politics. (2) Secondly, it provides an innovative conceptual framework that sheds light on the emerging networks of national, bilateral and multilateral security arrangements (what we label “networked security postures”) in international politics. It thereby contributes to the debates on the under-theorized relationships between bilateralism and multilateralism as venues for security cooperation. (3) Finally, given the absence of a common European strategy toward the region, this project seeks to enrich the policy discussions in the European Union (EU) and to provide policy recommendations on how to bolster cooperation between the EU, its member states, and the US – and transatlantic relations more generally – in developing a common strategy towards the (re)emergence of East Asia in world politics. Combining concepts and methods derived from international relations, from sociology, and from history, WESTRAT takes an interdisciplinary perspective.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE · FiesoleCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union