Vertical Or Horizontal Alliance:A Study On The Balance Of Power In The Warring States Period

Balancing the hegemony to realize international power is the theoretical foundation of the realist school.Looking at the changes in the pattern of modern international relations we can find that the balance of power does exist.Nowadays,the balance of power is facing a big challenge:after the end of the Cold War,the United States has become a huge unipolar state,while other countries did not generally take effective measures to balance it,which has become a focus in international relations research.Why does this happen?What does the balance of power fail?We believe that the case of Qin in Chinese Warring States period can shed some light on this questions.This paper attempts to analyze why the balance of power during the Warring States period eventually failed.Therefore,this paper attempts to analyze why the balance of power in the Warring States period,the operation of the ultimate failure?Specifically,we choose Qin as the object to conduct a case study.According to other countries’ behaviors,we explain why the"Vertical Alliance" can not stop the growth trend of Qin’s power.We found that in the face of the power of Qin superiority,although other countries decided to balance Qin,the specific interests and the difference of their strength resulting in their failure.Some of them took balancing that are"Vertical Alliance",and some chose bandwagon or kept neutrality,which gave Qin a great advantage to take different policy to beat down them one by one.Meanwhile,Qin kept its internal good governance,which made it able to maintain its power advantage and stability.We believe that,regardless of history or reality,the formation and collapse of the balance of power system has its possibility of existence.In the face of the current unipolar pattern,China should take a cautious act based on the judgment of power gap,the cognition of interest relationship,and costs and risks of balancing.