ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emergence of the rising powers and assesses the implication of the process for the security landscape of world politics. The most important force propelling the rising powers to prominence is their growing economic clout. For many realist scholars, the emergence of rising powers, their contestation with the dominant forces and the creation of new orders is the timeless rhythm of world politics. Normally powers emerge over decades and generations giving the purported timeless rhythm of world politics an almost geological tempo. China has become, after the United States, the world’s most important diplomatic power. China perceives itself to be a supplicant to that order and does not believe that it can achieve its potential while the international environment is structured to its disadvantage. China has departed from the cautious foreign policy approach that had prevailed from the late 1970s.
