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Building Bridges or Choosing Sides: New Book Chapter on the Swiss Position in US-China Relations
Can Switzerland afford to remain "neutral" between the US and China? Or will it have to give in to pressure from both the US and the EU to align more strongly with like-minded states? These are the central questions that Prof. Dr. Ralph Weber explores in a new book chapter. "Strategic Choices for Switzerland in the US-China Competition" is co-authored with PD Dr. Simona A. Grano (University of Zurich). It is part of the book "China-US Competition Impact on Small and Middle Powers' Strategic Choices" edited by Grano and Dr. David Wei Feng Huang (Academia Sinica, Taiwan). The book is available in Open Access.
About the work
In their chapter, the authors set off by discussing Switzerland's foreign policy positioning against the backdrop of three theoretical perspectives: Switzerland as a state like all others; Switzerland as a small state; and, finally Switzerland as a small neutral state. With the help of these three categories, they further locate Switzerland's foreign policy firmly in the "hedging zone," especially concerning the country's China policy. The chapter then discusses four key documents, all of which have been released in recent years, drawing out the country’s foreign policy framework, before reaching some conclusions.
About the authors
Prof. Dr. Ralph Weber is Associate Professor of European Global Studies at the Institute for European Global Studies. He specializes in Political Theory, Chinese Politics, and modern Confucianism. Currently, he is the President of the European Association for Chinese Philosophy and the Chair of the Section on Political Theory in the Swiss Political Science Association.
PD Dr. Simona A. Grano is Senior Lecturer at the University of Zurich (UZH) and Director of the Taiwan Studies Project at UZH. She completed her Ph.D. in Chinese Studies at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Furthermore, she has held research positions and taught China Studies and Taiwan Studies at her alma mater, at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and at National Cheng'chi University in Taiwan.