Regional Fiasco: The US-Chinese relations to North Korea in the Bush Era

Details

Supervisors

Atanassova, Elena

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences politiques, orientation relations internationales

Abstract

This paper is a thorough study of the US-Chinese relation with regards to the second North Korean nuclear crisis. By merging both Professor Barry Buzan’s Regional Security Complex Theory and Stephen Walt’s balance of threat theory, I argue that the regional security dynamics are defined by the process of securitization (or ‘speech act’) to which states react by implementing balance of threat-like strategies. The dissertation provides an insight to the logic of both theories and establishes why both theories are complementary to the post-Cold war order in Northeast Asia and one cannot apply without the other. Furthermore, the PRC is found to be the key to inter-state interactions where the result translates in the preservation of the status quo, which coincidentally is, chief among its interests.