[KS] China Lays Claim to 'Arirang'

Michel Gerlach Michel.Gerlach at gmx.de
Sun Jul 10 21:06:48 EDT 2011


> >Not so curious when seen in this light....
> >
> >http://nationalinterest.org/article/hegemony-chinese-characteristics-5439?page=show

> Fine, but can you explain how this relates? That 
> is not necessarily so obvious. The article is 
> about U.S.-Chinese relations, and the entry 
> argument seems already quite off-track [...]

Dear list,

I agree with Mr. Hoffmann, although one could, if one wants to, draw a connection from this incident to the wide field of international relations (not the other way around though). 
This is not to say that Mr. Friedberg isn't a great scholar, but this article's viewpoint seems to be a Cold War relic itself (as is Samuel Huntington's clash of civilisations that seems to swirl around the article).

"Established powers tend to regard themselves as the defenders of an international order that they helped to create and from which they continue to benefit; rising powers feel constrained, even cheated, by the status quo and struggle against it to take what they think is rightfully theirs."
This sentence alone shows how inapplicable the given arguments are, since China benefits big time from the international system and is a status quo power in regard to its rise and stability within this system (and will most likely remain so if not threatened in its rise or through struggles from within).

As the CCP government tries to compensate inner struggles through state-governed (so called "pragmatic") nationalism, we will continue to find promotion of attempts such as this Arirang claim, island disputs etc. together with engaging international policies. This ambivalence might be the best argument against a future Chinese hegemony in East Asia because China does not project any region-wide acceptable soft power that could persuade its neighbouring nations to accept it as a leader in terms of civilization or system etc.

Thank you for taking notice of this 95.7% topic-unrelated comment.

With best regards

Michel Gerlach
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