China’s Rise: Assessing Views from East Asia and the United States

The opportunities and challenges presented to East Asia by China’s rapidly increasing international stature, economic influence and military heft have been thrown into sharp relief over the last few years. Escalating tensions over a series of maritime territorial disputes have contrasted with a marked improvement in cross-strait relations and with efforts by China to pursue free trade agreements with ASEAN countries as well as Japan and South Korea. Until recently, however, scholars who follow this issue have not had access to survey data that might allow them to draw more specific conclusions about the attitudes of other East Asians towards the rise of China.

On March 29, the John L. Thornton China Center and Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings, the Program for East Asia Democratic Studies of the Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University, and the Institute of Arts and Humanities of Shanghai Jiaotong University will host a half-day conference to address this question. At the conference, panelists will present data from the Asian Barometer Survey and compare these findings with prevailing survey data in the United States. Leading experts from both sides of the Pacific will weigh the potential implications of these studies for future relations between China and other East Asian countries and for U.S.-China relations.

After each set of presentations, speakers will take audience questions.