Abstract
Drawing support from international institution theory, this article analyzes China's new thinking about Asian diplomacy after the Cold War. Institutionalism was flexibly utilized by China in its peripheral regions—Central Asia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, which have adopted institutional models—dominant participation, deep participation, active participation, and moderate participation models. China tries to handle the presence of U.S. interests well and has responded reasonably to U.S. pragmatic institutional engagement. To realize the aim of compatibility and coexistence between China and the United States in Asia, the two countries should establish interconnecting institutions in both economic and political fields. With regard to the future interactive trends of China and the United States in Asia, the author, from the dimension of international institutionalism, works out an institutional interplay—nested and overlapping institutions—for China and the United States to achieve accommodation.
Notes
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42. In Young's terms, “nesting” means “linkages in which specific arrangements restricted in terms of functional scope, geographic domain, or some other relevant criterion are folded into broader institutional frameworks that deal with the same general issue area but that are less detailed in terms of their application to specific problems.” “Overlapping” means “individual regimes that were formed for different purposes and largely without reference to one another intersect on a de facto basis, producing substantial impacts on each other in the process.” Oran R. Young, “Institutional Linkages in International Society: Polar Perspectives,” Global Governance 2, no. 1 (January–April 1996): 1–24. In Alter and Meunier's opinion, “nesting” refers to a situation where regional or issue-specific international institutions are themselves part of multilateral frameworks that involve multiple states or issues. Institutions are imbricated one within another, like Russian dolls. An overlapping context is theoretically distinct from a nested context, though in practice they may not differ much. When institutions are nested, however, conflicting policies of the subsumed regime constitute a violation of the more encompassing institution. Karen J. Alter and Sophie Meunier, “Nested and Overlapping Regimes in the Transatlantic Banana Trade Dispute,” Journal of European Public Policy 13, no. 3 (April 2006): 362–82.
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