What is the relationship between economic growth, interdependence, and competition on the one hand, and geopolitical security and stability on the other? Do international trade, production, and investment linkages intensify interdependence and foster common interests and values to the extent that they inhibit conflict? Or, is economic competition an inevitable extension of underlying geopolitical contests? These questions are particularly salient in contemporary East Asia, which has been at the receiving end of a “rapid and massive redistribution of world industry and economic power” in the past few decades.¹ The region has experienced a corresponding decline in inter-state war during this period, but China’s rapid ascendance, the onset of international economic crises, and the threat of slowing growth in the Chinese economy threaten to undermine optimistic liberal beliefs in interdependent peace.

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