BALANCE OF TWO-LEVEL RISK AND CHINA?S QUEST FOR TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY

Abstract

States do not simply balance or bandwagon when confronted by a significant external threat partly because of the domestic politics of threat assessment’s disturbance. This dissertation tries to shed light on this puzzle by focusing on the domestic politics of China’s strategic behaviours in dealing with territorial issues. I build a framework of balance of two-level risk based on neoclassical realism’s core assumptions, arguing that statesmen tend to divert the flow of systemic risk between domestic and international arenas from a high-risk area to a lesser direction to realize regime self-preservation at home and survival abroad. Such risk manoeuvres shaped Beijing’s strategies under which war and significant concessions were precluded, but assertiveness along with active crisis deescalation coexisted and recurred. My analysis finds, whether Beijing overacted or underacted largely depends on the embedded political interests within the territories, and whether its bottom-line defined by relative power was violated.