By Amitai Etzioni
The provocative political scientist foresees tense relations between the U.S. and China.
In the new edition of his 2001 book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John J. Mearsheimer lives up to his reputation as a provocative political scientist. In a substantial new chapter on China, Mearsheimer extends his previous argument that the United States and China are about to engage in a “security competition” that is likely to end in war.
Mearsheimer believes that China’s “best way to survive under international anarchy” is to achieve regional hegemony in Asia “the way the United States dominates the Western hemisphere.” To accomplish this goal, China will first “seek to maximize the power gap with its neighbors, especially larger countries like India, Japan, and Russia” and thus gain military dominance in the region. Furthermore, Mearsheimer holds that China is likely to attempt to “push the United States out of the Asia-Pacific region,” in part by driving the U.S. Navy out of the ocean between China’s coast and the first island chain. A major reason Mearsheimer makes this dire prediction is that he believes China’s hegemony over the region would offer China great benefits, including the ability to favorably resolve ongoing disputes over territory and natural resources; to secure its interests in Africa and the Middle East and its control over critical sea lanes; and even the opportunity to undermine the United States’ own regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
Mearsheimer believes that containment is the United States’ only way to prevent China from achieving regional hegemony. (He dismisses preventative war because China possesses a nuclear deterrent, nixes policies to inhibit China’s economic growth on the grounds that they would hurt the United States’ own economy, and notes that attempting to topple China-friendly regimes and fomenting rebellion within China is likely to fail.) Containment would entail forming “a balancing coalition” with China’s neighbors, which would require the United States’ active coordination and military backing. To many it seems that the United States has indeed begun to form such a coalition.
Read the full story at The Diplomat