China’s Search for Security

Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military capabilities, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. In China's Search for Security, authors Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell argue that the key to understanding China’s foreign policy is to grasp these geostrategic challenges, which persist even as the country comes to dominate its neighbors. At a Jones Day program on Thursday, December 6, 2012, the authors discussed their new book, analyzing China’s security concerns, and illuminating the issues driving Chinese policy.

BIOS

Andrew J. Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and has taught at Columbia University since 1971. His teaching and research interests include Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights. Nathan's previous books include Chinese Democracy; The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress; The Tiananmen Papers; China’s New Rulers; and How East Asians View Democracy. His articles have appeared in World Politics, Daedalus, The China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, Asian Survey, among others. His current research involves collaborative survey-based studies of political culture and political participation in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Asian societies.

Nathan was chair of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch, Asia (1995–2000) and continues to serve on this committee and on the board of Human Rights in China. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Association for Asian Studies, and the American Political Science Association. He does frequent interviews for the print and electronic media, has advised on several film documentaries on China, has consulted for business and government, and has published essays and op-eds in the New Republic, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere.

Andrew Scobell is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Prior to this Scobell was an associate professor of international affairs at the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service and director of the China certificate program at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. From 1999 until 2007, he was associate research professor in the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College and adjunct professor of political science at Dickinson College, both located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Scobell is also the author of China's Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March and more than a dozen monographs and reports, as well as several dozen journal articles and book chapters. He has edited or co-edited twelve volumes on various aspects of security in the Asia-Pacific region. Scobell was born and raised in Hong Kong and regularly makes research trips to the region. He earned a doctorate in political science from Columbia University.

Politics & Foreign Relations

Recorded 12/5/2012