By Jin Kai
Conflict between the two powers has been and will be the norm.
It is not contradictory to talk about China-U.S. distrust and discord when two sides just concluded their seventh Strategic and Economic Dialogue and sixth Consultation on People-to-People Exchange in Washington, D.C. In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping particularly expressed his concern about strategic misjudgments between China and the U.S. to his counterpart, President Barack Obama, through this dialogue. Verbally, the two sides have again reached a consensus on cooperation — the same consensus that has been reached and more or less shelved many times in the past.
China-U.S. conflicts are structural in nature. In an analysis of power dynamics between the largest two economies — and top two military spenders — in the world, power parity provides the structural conditions for conflict and cooperation. The question is, why is the incumbent United States so concerned and anxious when the rise of China has yet to fundamentally change the power structure? The most popular explanation involves theThucydides Trap, a psychological tendency for the dominant power to take the initiative to act against a perceived opponent. Drastic structural changes may bring about significant or even violent consequences, although war is not always inevitable as the peaceful shift of leadership between Great Britain and the United States in the late 1940s shows.
Yet looking at the historical precedents of the original Thucydides Trap, China has not become a truly competitive “empire” as the Athenians were, particularly given Athens’ group of allies that would take its side in a violent standoff with the Peloponnesians. Instead, the United States is more deeply concerned about institutional challenges such as China’s founding the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) rather than compromising in the current U.S.-led financial system. Washington sees such moves as humiliations, especially in the face of traditional U.S. allies.
Read the full story at The Diplomat