'Same Bed, Different Dreams' and 'Riding Tiger' Dilemmas: China's Rise and International Relations/Political Economy

摘要

This paper seeks to present a framework for understanding the impact of China's rise on the established international order with a special focus on the contradictions and dilemmas facing both China and the order around it It suggests heuristic insights from two Chinese cultural and linguistic metaphysics in order to denote the dynamic and interactive relationship between the rise of China and the existing order in terms of both opportunities and challenges. The authors argue that both China and the existing order have been going through periods of "sleeping in the same bed with different dreams", and now they are in the stage of "riding tiger" in which both sides face dilemmas in their complicated and complex relationship. The paper concludes that the rise of China and the existing order will continue to be intertwined in a dialectic of waxing and waning, and flux and reflux. In order for each to find a regional and global role which the other will accept and support both sides will have to go through a considerable period of struggle, tension and adjustment.