Life in China’s Asia: What Regional Hegemony Would Look Like

Lind discusses China’s rise of power, and what that means as a regional hegemon begins to grow. She posits the question, “Namely, should [the United States and their allies] step up their individual defense efforts and increase their cooperation with other countries in the region, or can they safely decide to accept Chinese dominance, looking to Beijing as they have looked to Washington for the past half century” (Lind 1)? Not only is China expanding economically, but it is consciously trying to become a military hegemon. Their military spending has grown and the army (The People’s Liberational Army) has begun to push US military away from shores. They also have begun expanding in the South China Sea and recently built six islands that have military capabilities. This hard power is working to threaten other country’s sovereignty in the nation. Even further, China has tried to infiltrate other countries with spies and cyberattacks on networks of other countries, which has signaled a direct shift to technological warfare. In the past, Japan has mirrored many of China’s actions but is now trying to differentiate itself from aggressive cyberattacks and threats to other countries’ sovereignty. In order to expand its sphere of influence, China is starting to utilize soft power, as well, by increasing censorship around the nation and investing in other nation’s economy. With its increase of interdependence and cooperation with other countries, China has more leverage to use on smaller countries. In general, China’s increased power, both hard and soft, coupled with their newfound AI technology, is turning them into a regional hegemon.