FOREIGN RELATIONS
Year:2021 | Volume:13 | Issue:1 (49)|Papers Count:6

by examining China's foreign policy behavior throughout history, it can be seen that the country's continued military, political, economic and cultural dominance in East Asia, cannot be explained by balance of power theory which considers one state's hegemony over others throughout international system as unsustainable. In this regard, the present essay raises this question that what is the position of the balancing strategy in China's foreign policy in the three time periods of the tributary system, Cold War and the post-Cold War era? In response to this question, the current essay, using T. V Paul's theoretical understanding of balance of power theory, presents this hypothesis that during the supremacy of the tributary system over the East Asian region, China, first by leveraging its large market and vast economic capacities discouraged other political units in East Asia from pursuing balancing strategy against herself, and secondly, by pursuing a wedge strategy against other units neutralized others' possible aims to form an anti-Chinese alliance. During the Cold War, China, suffering from an underdeveloped and backward economy, had no choice but to pursue hard balancing against its foreign threats, first United States and then the Soviet Union. finally, In the post-Cold War era, with the resurgence of China's position in the world economy, the Communist Party, utilizing Chinese economic capabilities, made the advancement of the soft variant of balancing strategy as a priority of the People's Republic's foreign policy.

Central Asia in the post-Soviet period turned into a region with sufficiently weak social and economic linkages. It looked like a geographical area, which was significant for external powers from security or geopolitical perspective. The internal cohesion of the region was rapidly disappearing. Various attempts have not only failed at regional integration by the Central Asian states, but many of those initiated by external powers Like Russia, China and the United States, also yielded limited results. However, a new trend is visible since 2016 when a new leader became president in Uzbekistan. Improved bilateral relations and summits of leaders of the region create hope for a new regionalism in Central Asia that is based on the internal cooperative dynamics within the region. This may not replace the already existing mechanisms or organizations. However, the process itself is conducive for intra-regional cooperation and would be helpful in keeping the region free from the geopolitical competition of external powers. The question is why the regionalization process in Central Asia has not been successful so far? the hypothesis is that inter-regional political, security, economic and cultural Factors and barriers ant also Trans-regional actors Interference, led to the failure of regionalism in Central Asian.

In the new attitudes of regionalism, there is an opportunity for the units of the international system, far from the attitudes of the traditional narrow-minded order, to gain new power and field of action. Meanwhile, for Iran as a dissatisfied system unit on the one hand and China as a dissatisfied unit and potential future hegemon on the other, the attitude of network order allows them to define new regions away from the traditional geopolitical fence. What is considered in this article is the feasibility of convergence and geostrategic cooperation between Iran and China. Therefore, the research seeks to answer the question of what opportunities and challenges create or threaten the context of China's geostrategic node in the Iranian regional network. The method of data collection will be library and internet and the research method will be based on the approach of regional networking strategy. Research findings show; The alignment of the anti-hegemonic goals of Iran and China and the need for a strategic partner in the first place and the existence of common geoeconomic interests-especially in the direction of oil cooperation-have provided an ideal opportunity and platform for creating a regional geostrategic network. But this platform is facing a challenge due to Iran's lack of security and strategic priorities in China.

For comprehensive development of the country, Saudi Political elites drawn and implemented the Saudi Vision 2030 program, which due to its depth and vast reformations, some called it as a revolution. This outlook program was rooted in internal and international political, economic and social necessities and its designers intended to introduce a modern and successful country in the framework of this state document and also become a successful pattern for other the Middle East countries. However, studying the 2030 program after four years of its implementation, demonstrate that this program, to large extent, has not been fruitful so far. In this regard, interior challenges and obstacles have been the core cause of failure of the program. Accordingly, the main question of the research is what have been the domestic challenges and obstacles of Saudi Vision 2030 in political, economic and social – cultural developments? In other words, why to large extent Saudi Arabia has not been successful in materializing the Vision 2030? The findings reveal that in economic section lack of attention to meritocracy and inability in establishing welfare entrepreneurship and failure in promoting economic condition and in political aspect lack of depth relations with civil and social groups in the framework of political participations and in social-cultural section lack of attention to religious and tradition foundations and also conservative structure of Saudi society were key obstacles and challenges of the Vision 2030. The research method is analytical-descriptive and the developmental state theory was used for analyzing the subject-matter.

With the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Ba'athist regime, led by Saddam Hussein, collapsed, and American governors, took responsibility for securing and building up a new government in Iraq. Based on the early US strategy in the new Iraqi government, Many Sunni Arab groups were faced with the issue of exclusion and marginalization. But the next developments in Iraq and the layout of power in this country were in the opposite direction to the goals of the Americans, created a reconsideration of the American strategy following the changes that took place in Iraq. What is said in the paper below, titled "The Question and the Basic Question", is the role of Sunni Arabs in US strategy regarding the developments in Iraq after the collapse of the regime of Saddam? The research findings indicate that the United States is seeking to balance domestic power in favor of Sunni Arabs and undermine Shi'a's position and counteract the influence of Iran in Iraq, with the abandonment of the rejection strategy moved towards a strategy of Interaction and collaboration with Sunni Arab groups to achieve his security strategy.

As one of the powerful social entities, military forces are one of the main characteristics of the global politics. Both with increasing the feelings of insecurity and suspending the security of countries, the anarchic nature of international system has turned the military forces as one of the main foreign policy makers. They are treated as the national instrument of policy making in traditional approach. Such perspective results from the inseparability of strategic thought with political one. However, the intellectual revolution in the international relations during the mid-80s, rising critical and new epistemological approaches, prevailing the new approaches about the failed states, new wars and rising debates about securitization has led to ignoring the role and influences of military forces in the contemporary foreign policy. Accordingly, the main question of this paper is according to the happened developments, how the relationship between military forces and foreign policy changed? Although the separation of military forces and foreign policy is one of the main elements of the modern politics, but this is not strategic cleavage and imply the changing role and identity of military forces in contemporary era. In other words, defensive diplomacy as an anti-crisis system will amplify the influence of military forces in the foreign policy to promote the international status of the states. So, the findings of this paper show that defensive diplomacy will provide a suitable environment to move towards post-conflict societies by propagating the positive security. This hypothesis will be tested by analytical and library-based method.