SSU Forum / Book Launch Event “UpstartーHow China Became a Great Power”

Over the past three decades, China’s rise has been a defining feature of our political world. China has challenged the United States’ economic and military dominance and reshaped the landscape of global politics. How did China build its power and influence and eventually rise to great power status? In her new book titled, “Upstart – How China Became a Great Power,” Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, delves into the political science and business literature to construct an innovative framework explaining China’s decades-long path to great power status.
On June 28, 2024, the Security Studies Unit at the Institute for Future Initiatives hosted Dr. Mastro for a keynote address on her new book. Following her speech, Dr. Mastro was joined in conversation by Dr. Masuo Chisako, a professor at Kyushu University, before taking questions from the audience. The discussion was moderated by Ryo Sahashi, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Tokyo.

Keynote Presentation
Dr. Mastro began her remarks by highlighting the general lack of research on China’s strategic choices that led to its great power status. She questioned a common assumption in the United States that China pursues its ambitions simply by “mirror imaging”: China merely imitates the methods employed by the United States to build power and compete in every possible way in order to bolster its global influence. Drawing on literature on political science and startup businesses, Mastro proposed a novel framework to understand China’s success story. She argued that China was able to rise to great power through a competitive “upstart approach,” which involves a mix of three components: emulation (imitating U.S. activities in established areas), exploitation (adopting U.S. approaches in new areas of competition), and entrepreneurship (applying innovative approaches to new and existing areas of competition).
In explaining why China chose one approach over the other at any given time, Mastro said that the strategic use of the three Es—how and where China chose to compete—depended on China’s assessment of whether the approach could effectively and efficiently build power without triggering a U.S. backlash. For example, according to Mastro, China would emulate when it thought it had comparative advantages in an area in which it could outcompete the United States and the mirroring of activities would not cause its competitor to generate a threat perception toward itself. Instances of emulation included China’s attempts to create an image of itself as a global mediator, its attempts to internationalize the renminbi, and its pursuit of peacekeeping operations.
Dr. Mastro also gave examples of when and how China has chosen exploitation and entrepreneurship to build up its economic, military, and political power. Examples of exploitation included its attempts to sell arms to countries that cannot buy them from the United States, its pursuits of preferential trade arrangements in places in the developing world where the United States is mainly absent, and its A2AD strategy (i.e., its anti-access/area denial strategy) designed exploit U.S. vulnerabilities of power projection in Asia. Entrepreneurship could be found in China’s tendency to rely on strategic partnerships instead of alliances; its Belt and Road Initiative, where it focuses on infrastructure building (an area where the United States is not particularly strong); and a nuclear strategy unlike the United States, where China seeks minimal deterrence with assured retaliation as well as no first use.
Mastro concluded her speech with some final thoughts on how the United States and its allies can address China’s rise. Instead of emulating China’s successful approaches to power, she argued that the United States and its allies should encourage China to emulate in areas where they maintain competitive advantages, track China’s novel measures for gaining power, fill the gaps China exploits to gain power, and most importantly, think outside of the box and develop their versions of an upstart strategy.

Discussion and Q&A
Following Mastro’s remarks, Dr. Masuo joined the conversation. She first posed questions regarding how Mastro views the differences between a strategy and an approach, as her new book utilized both terms in describing the “upstart” theory, with the former used more than the latter. Masuo contended that a strategy suggested an intentionally planned set of activities meant to be implemented over the long term, whereas an approach denoted an ad-hoc period. In response, Mastro argued that even China’s strategy may be subject to change in the next twenty-five years due to possible alterations in China’s power status in a dynamic international environment, where its power gap with the United States and its competitive advantages are evolving. Masuo also wondered how China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” under the Xi Jinping regime could fit into the upstart strategy, as it was unimaginable for her to see the previous Hu Jintao regime adopt the same diplomacy. Mastro indicated that different leadership may have different priorities, arguing that minimizing the U.S. threat perception appears to no longer be a top priority for China.
Masuo then posed questions regarding China’s ultimate goal of continuing to compete with the United States as a great power: Does the Chinese Communist Party seek to pursue a unipolar superpower status? Mastro answered by arguing that although China will consider the cost and benefit of any of its pursuits, what China may want eventually is contingent upon where it finds itself on the power spectrum. The goal is to have as much power and influence as possible.
Lastly, when Masuo asked whether the upstart theory could be applied to other rising powers in the past and present, Mastro answered affirmatively. Looking back in history, Mastro argued that while the United States had adopted many innovative pathways that were different from the colonial powers and eventually led to its rise of power—including the creation of international organizations and its emphasis on soft power—Japan seemed to rely on emulation in its early surge of strength by imitating Great Britain in directing its national resources to the development of a strong navy.
Finally, the floor was opened to questions from the audience. When asked how and whether the upstart strategy can apply to the United States, Mastro argued that the United States’ current strategy is similar to “straddle positioning” in the business literature, whereby a big company attempts to pursue the same business activities that seem profitable for small, upstart companies while doing business as usual. However, she noted that the business literature has shown that this attempt often leads to failures in both areas because a big company often cannot outcompete the upstarts in the new business area, and its core strategy also suffers. By referring to this business strategy, Mastro warned that the United States’ existing competitive advantage might be compromised if it tries to emulate China’s activities in areas where it cannot compete. Mastro also went into detail to address other questions from the audience, including the value of the current U.S. investment in support of electric vehicles and batteries, the internationalization of the renminbi in the Global South market, and China’s soft power. Mastro concluded by pointing to the importance of area studies in understanding how China actually functions, which is what her book attempts to highlight.

*This forum is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan

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