International relationship

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The Bilateral Relationship of the USA and China

The strategic, political, and economic rise of China is an imperative singularity that has transformed commercial and foreign policy considerations in Asia and worldwide (Clingan, 2013). China’s rise has been highly significant that many view it as a challenge to the dominance that USA has established and cultivated so well over the past century. Whether this ideology is true or not remains to be seen. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the situation and establish if in fact, China’s rise is a challenge to USA’s formerly unmatched strength. Furthermore, the paper will establish the implication of China’s challenge to the USA on the safety of the world. Importantly, the concept of hegemony is discussed with regards to its relevance in the contemporary society. The position of this paper is: China poses an undisputed challenge to USA’s formerly unprecedented strength, which is a fact that will likely have substantial implications on world security.

China’s Challenge to USA’s Domination

Following the end of World War II, America rose to power and claimed dominion over the rest of the world. This was largely attributed to the fact that despite losing about 400,000 people, its economic and political infrastructure remained untouched by the war. It was able to maintain its position as the biggest military worldwide; retained the only real tradable currency in other country; and generated over fifty percent of world services and goods (Heydarian & Bello, 2015). The status quo has been sustained ever since until recently when the rise of China poses the only real threat to USA’s dominance.

The understanding and explanation of the evolutions along with prediction of the future directions of joint relations between China and the USA is increasingly becoming an important undertaking for both academic scholars and policy makers. The rise of China in the recent past is a definite fact. However, there are controversies over whether this actually poses any formidable challenge to USA’s domination as a world superpower or not. An examination of various aspects in this context will provide a clearer picture of whether significant a challenge exists or not.

The recent economic rise of China along with its possible implication on the post-war worldwide order has partitioned China watchers into two categories: the school of deniers and the school of alarmists. According to the school of alarmists, the rise of China marks the start of a new Sino-centric global order. Conversely, the school of denial opposed the prospect of China’s rise to challenge and surpass the post-war world order that has been cultivated and dominated by the USA (Clark, 2011).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that Asian economies will take up a minimum of forty percent of world economic output in the foreseeable future. Currently, there are numerous economists who anticipate that on a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) calculation, China will surpass the USA as an economic global power before 2020 (Clark, 2011). In this factor, there is a consensus among global economists that sooner or later China will surpass America on the economic front.

The late Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s leader, stated: “The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player; this is the biggest player in the history of the world” (Morozov, 2016). It is a commonly held perception that while the whole world is aware of the rise of China; only a few nations actually recognize its magnitude. There has never been a country that has risen so high up, so quickly, and on as many facets of power in the history of world.

Today, China’s lower growth rate is still over three times that of the USA. Several watchers outside of China are yet to note the major divergence between the performance of China and that of its competition in the years following the Great Recession and the 2008 financial crisis. Whereas all major economies worldwide declined, China did not miss a single year of economic growth and sustained an 8-percent average growth rate (Reich & Lebow, 2017). After the financial crisis, forty percent of all the growth in the world economy took place in China alone. Today, China has replaced the USA as the largest economy in the world as measured according to the purchasing power parity, which is the quantity of services and goods that a citizen can buy in one’s own nation. Xi Jippin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, refers to the ‘China Dream’ to express the most profound aspirations of the Chinese people who desire wealth and power (Clingan, 2013).

At present, the fact is that according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China is the economic superpower. In 2014, China produced seventeen percent of the world’s GDP, which surpassed America’s production of sixteen percent. Basically, the economic growth of China in the past three decades has been impressive, especially to development economists who initially held that China would remain in the middle income level as attributed to its extremely huge population of about 1.2 billion in 2015 (Heydarian & Bello, 2015). 

It is anticipated that China will retain the top position in economic ranking because of it consistently rising per capita income. Notably however, despite the fact that China’s GDP is greater than USA’s GDP, the country’s per capita GDP remains lower than the USA’s (Reich & Lebow, 2017). Evidently, China has not completely surpassed USA as the world’s superpower. It is this situation that raises the debate about the challenge that China actually poses to the USA. Given all the facts about the progressive rise of China, the only reasonable conclusion is that the United States of America should feel threatened. China has not portrayed any signs of slowing down its growth. More and more economists are concurring on the undeniable challenge that China poses to the USA’s formerly unmatched strength.

Having proven the existence of a challenge, it is imperative to establish the implication that such a situation has on the rest of the world in terms of security. Essentially, does China’s challenge to replace the USA make the world a safer or more dangerous place?

Implication for World Security

The predominant geostrategic challenge of this age is not vehement Islamic extremism or a resurgent Russia; rather, it is the implication that the rise of China will have on the American-dominated world order, which has provided unparalleled immense-power prosperity and peace for over seventy years. Much of the current world peace is dependent on the maintenance of the status quo, with the USA as the world’s superpower. The rise of China and the subsequent challenge that this poses to the status quo may have negative implications on world security. It is highly likely that the USA may view China’s rapid rise as a threat to its power and domination (Gray & Murphy, 2013).

As mentioned earlier, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China refers to the ‘China Dream’ to express the most profound aspirations of the Chinese people who desire wealth and power. The belief that lies at the center of China’s civilization dogma is that China is in fact the center of the universe. The Chinese perceive that for a century they have exploited and humiliated by Japan and Western colonialists. The current perception in Beijing is that China is experiencing a restoration to its rightful place in the society where the nation’s power demands respect for and recognition of its primary interests (Morozov, 2016).

 Regardless of the extensive focus on the rise of China, the USA is reluctant to address the most relevant question that this imminent power shift has posed: should it adopt a strategy of restricted geopolitical accommodation in order to avert conflict with China? Currently, the USA policies are focused on maintaining the geopolitical status quo in the Northeastern parts of Asia. The question of whether the rise of China as a superpower will be violent or peaceful is one that puzzles policymakers and academic scholars worldwide. Concepts such as offensive realism and power transition theory draw negative conclusions concerning China’s prospect for armed conflict due to the beneficial impacts of aggression.

According to history, in twelve out of sixteen previous cases in the past five hundred years whereby a rising power has challenged a ruling power, the outcome was war. In the four cases where the conflicting parties were able to avoid war, there were major, agonizing adjustments in actions and attitudes on both the challenger’s and the challenged parties. Basically, the major concern about the world order for this era is whether the USA and China can avoid Thucydides’ trap. Thucydides, the Greek historian, wrote a book titled “The Peloponnesian War” in which he narrated the disputers of ancient Greece and particularly the city-states of Sparta and Athens. Thucydides states: “Justices depends on the equality of power to compel” (Gray & Murphy, 2013). This means that the power of a state depends on its ability to force others to its will. With this ideology in mind, it is unlikely that the USA, after having enjoyed tremendous power and control for about seventy years, would acquiescently surrender its position to China. Thucydides’ trap denotes the dangers that are linked to a situation when a rising power (China) challenges a ruling power (the USA). The case is reflected in the challenge that Athens posed to Sparta in ancient Greece or Germany to Britain, which resulted in the World War. Thucydides said this about the war: “It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta, that made the war inevitable” (Bader & Brookings Institution, 2012).

In consideration of the present trajectory, war between China and the USA in the foreseeable future is not only a possibility, but almost an imminent occurrence. In the event that a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, typical catastrophes that would otherwise be controlled such as the assassination of Austria-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 can instigate a series of uncontrollable reactions as was evident in the First World War.

Notably however, despite the high likelihood of war due to the challenge that China poses to USA’s formerly unmatched strength, this is merely a tentative outcome. It is noteworthy that of the sixteen mentioned cases in the past 500 years, there were four that did not result in war. It is possible that the contemporary leaders may choose to learn from the productive historical lessons and escape the Thucydides’ trap.

Basically, concerning whether the current power challenge that China poses to the USA is safer or more dangerous for the world, the conclusion is that while the former is definitely untrue, the latter is considerably uncertain although likely. There is a certain structural pressure that has been inflicted by the hurried shift in the power balance between the USA and China. According to Thucydides there are two primary factors involved in such a dynamic. Firstly, there is the increasing sense of importance, entitlement, and demand for more sway and say on the part of the rising power (Chan, 2012). It is notable that China’s sense of entitlement is a certainty. Secondly, another factor is the insecurity, fear, and fortitude to maintain the status quo on the part of the ruling power. USA, having been the dominant power for an extended period of time, is keen on retaining the status quo. A combination of these two factors may likely result in a war between the USA and China, which is undoubtedly dangerous for the rest of the world.

The Relevance of Hegemony in the Contemporary World

The concept of hegemony denotes the domination of a single social class or group in a society. The hegemonic control is usually exerted subtly as opposed to violently via economic power and cultural methods. Notably, hegemonic control is reliant on a combination of coercion and consent. In the contemporary world, the concept of hegemony is primarily used to refer to the role of the USA in the globe.

The concept of hegemony still exists and is largely relevant today. The primary theory that explains hegemony is the hegemonic stability theory which establishes that the stability of the international system is largely dependent on a situation whereby one country is the dominating world power. The contemporary concept of hegemony is traced back to Antonio Gramsci, an Italian social theorist of the 18^th century whereby he explained how a dominant social or economic group would rule a society without retaining a constant state of fear (Bader & Brookings Institution, 2012). As opposed to the use of elaborate coercion of force, hegemonic power rests on the effective manipulation of social and cultural institutions like the media to cultivate the boundaries of political and economic opportunities for other nations. As a result, the dominating group in the world is able to impact on other nations’ preferences to retain the status quo and established world order.

Today, global hegemony denotes the domination of one power on the international platform and the regional preeminence of one country. America is the recognizable hegemon today. Its hegemony began following World War II when it emerged almost unscathed by the effects of the war. Essentially, when the war ended, the USA was the dominating technological, political, and economic power. Additionally, it also had the largest naval order of battle ever witnessed. The USA became the host of major global institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations (Reich & Lebow, 2017). More importantly, although subtly used to retain power, the USA had atomic bombs. All these factors combined to make the USA the most powerful nation in the world, which has been the case for about seventy years.

The hegemonic power of the United States of America has placed it at the center of various world issues for a long time. This means that the USA has a say in virtually every significant event that takes place in the world, whether economic, political, or cultural. For instance, due to its power as a hegemony, the USA is able to involve itself in the political affairs of practically every nation in the world. It also influences international and national policies whether subtly or through coercion.

The recent inferences that the USA may be on the verge of losing its hegemony to China have become prevalent. After enjoying such power and control for the better part of a century, it is almost impractical to imagine that the USA would willingly surrender its hegemonic position to China. The current nature of the America-China relationship, whether competitive or cooperative, is primary shaped by the viewpoints of various leaders concerning economic interests and security threats between the two countries.  The management of their standpoints concerning each other and the establishment of a formidable balance between competition and cooperation are the primary issues for the leaders in both China and the USA for the effective management of bilateral relationships in the future. Presumably, the next 10-20 years may be the best or worst periods for the America-China relations (Chan, 2012).

Conclusively, China is definitely a challenge to the previously unmatched strength of the USA. Its current economic development has already surpassed that of the USA and will predictably continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The outcome of this challenge is more likely dangerous for the rest of the world since a hegemonic power, the USA, is eager to retain the status quo and would defend its position as opposed to losing it to another country, China. The rise of China is a major occurrence of the twenty-first century and calls for both the USA and China to establish a functional way to manage their bilateral relationship in a manner that will involve coexistence and compromises on both sides.