KEBANGKITAN KUASA KETENTERAAN CHINA PASCA PERANG DINGIN: ANCAMAN ATAU AMAN? (China’s Post Cold War military rise: Peace or Threat?)

Abstract

This article discusses on the rise of China’s military power that consists the aim and strategies behind its military rise; the rationale for China’s military budget spending and the reaction from neighboring countries. Also, the article shares some views from the realist and neorealist paradigm regarding the phenomena. During the Cold War era, the US supremacy was then being challenged by the Soviet Union, however with the demise of the Soviet in 1991 has left a power vacuum for power that has throned the US as a global unipolar power in the anarchic international orde. Today, in the post Cold War era, the rise of China’s military clout has engaged the regional challenge for power when the Chinese began its regional military modernization programme. Although China repeatedly announced that its action is merely to protect its regional interests yet its actions still created wariness among the regional neighbours especially the US that assumed the rise as an imminent threat. The article also analyzes China’s military rise in order to understand whether the rise would be in a peaceful manner or presenting a threat.