Do Economic Ties Limit the Prospect of Conflict?

By Scott Harold

Scott W. Harold is the Associate Director of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy, a political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a member of the Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty.

In the past decade, Sino-Japanese ties have progressively deteriorated over opposing claims to islands in the East China Sea to the point where some analysts have begun to worry about the possibility that China might initiate a conflict with Japan. Other experts have suggested that economic links between the two countries would prevent a war. While it is likely correct that economic ties provide strong disincentives for conflict, it is also true that such linkages are not the only, or even the most important factors, in policymakers’ minds.

Chinese policy-makers are likely to ask themselves three questions: Do we need to fight?  If we fight, can we win?  And third, what will the costs be? Disturbingly, none of the answers to these questions are currently trending in a positive direction.

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