Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Behaviour towards China in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Soft Balancing of Inverse Roles

This study discusses the origin of a series of readily observable behaviour of international politics during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of soft balancing theory. It aims to examine why the U.S., together with its allies, conducted soft balancing to contain China, a second-tier power during the pandemic since soft balancing is normally a behaviour that second-tier powers perform towards a hegemonic state. This study suggests that the origin of the behaviour cannot be attributed to a failure of soft balancing theory. Instead, this behaviour can be attributed to the role played by China as perceived by the U.S., which was temporarily reversed in the beginning of the pandemic, that is, the U.S. perceived China as a hegemonic state and perceived itself as a declining state in the dynamic balance of the power system. In addition, the U.S. perceived China’s behaviour as an inoffensive behaviour in the context of limited competition. These two primary perceptions conjointly prompted the U.S. to conduct soft balancing towards China. As the pandemic stabilized, the perception returned to the status quo politics, and U.S. foreign policy behaviour towards China regained to limited hard balance.