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งานประชุมวิชาการรัฐประศาสนศาสตร์ระดับชาติ ครั้งที่ ๑๐/๒๕๖๓

THE U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS DURING BARACK OBAMA’S ADMINISTRATION (2009 - 2016)

Ms. Adiyada SRIBOONSAEN
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Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University

Email address: adiyadasriboonsaen@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Rising as the sole super power after the end of the Cold War, the United States
established the new world order in accordance with Liberalism to ensure world peace. The
liberal world order was characterized by open markets, multilateral institutional cooperation,

security binding, democratic solidarity and human rights advocacy. As for China, despite its
reservations towards American leadership, it integrated itself into American-led liberal
economic world order. As a result, China’s economy has been growing dramatically, which
rendered China a rising global power. Moreover, the rising China coincided with the falling
American influence which had been aggravated by fiscal burden from anti-terrorism campaigns
and the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The situation gave rise to discussions

and debates on potential power and security competitions between the U.S. and China, as
well as whether this would end in confrontations. This study argues that the U.S. and China
were cooperating in spite of disagreement and competition. By incorporating Liberal
Institutionalism framework, this study found that during Barack Obama’s administration where
the U.S.-China power gap was significantly narrowing, both great powers managed to enhance
cooperation mainly in 3 domains: cyber security, economy, and environment and energy.

66 Assistant Professor Dr.M.L. Pinitbhand Paribatra, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, paribatra@gmail.com
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