The future of the U.S.-China relationship

Editor’s Note: Ali Wyne is a researcher at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University.  This article draws on his essay in thecurrent issue of the Washington Journal of Modern China, “Whither China?  Implications of China’s Rise for the United States.”  Follow him on Twitter.

By Ali Wyne – Special to CNN

In the 40 years since Richard Nixon visited China, it has embarked on what may be the most extraordinary trajectory of any country in history—judged by the scale of its accomplishments and the speed with which it has achieved them.  Between 1981 and 2005, it lifted the equivalent of two Americas—627 million people—out of poverty.  Since 2000 alone, its GDP has increased from $1.2 trillion to $7.5 trillion; its foreign-exchange reserves, from $165 billion to $3.2 trillion.

Along the way, it has become the world’s largest exporter and manufacturer, to cite only two entries on its ever-expanding list of number 1s.  Where China figured only marginally in assessments of the global balance at the beginning of the century, it is now widely regarded as a potential superpower in its own right.

The rise of China, then, underlies a fundamental, eastward shift in the world’s center of gravity; contrary to zero-sum analysis, however, there is room for continued Chinese progress and enduring American leadership to coexist. 

Economic Power: The connection between economic size and global leadership is not straightforward.  The United States did not emerge as the world’s leading power until after World War II even though it became the largest economy in the 1880s.  Importantly, its per-capita GDP at that time was roughly equal to that of the dominant industrial power, Britain.  When China becomes the largest economy, however, its per-capita GDP will only be one-fourth of America’s.  Furthermore, it will have to grapple with a growth model that China’s leaders have themselves declared unsustainable, a fast-shrinking ratio of working-age to elderly individuals, and an increasing dependence on distant, often unstable countries for the vital commodities that sustain its growth.

Military Power: While the balance of forces in the Asia-Pacific is becoming increasingly contested, the People’s Liberation Army is unlikely to rival America’s military on a global scale for a long time, if ever.  Even as it develops and refines a wide array of anti-access/area-denial instruments, China is constrained regionally by its neighbors’ growing military capabilities and internally by growing tumult in its restive provinces.

Political Power: The global financial crisis initially seemed to validate the “Beijing Consensus”; three years on, however, notes Kenneth Rogoff, “the only serious alternatives to today’s dominant Anglo-American paradigm are other forms of capitalism.”  Furthermore, despite making impressive efforts to cultivate its soft power, Joseph Nye concludes that China “has had a limited return on its investment.”  Perhaps most importantly, while the past decade has undermined global opinion of U.S. power and policy, China has been unable to develop strong alliances.  Indeed, to hedge against the possibility that it may try to dominate the Asia-Pacific, China’s neighbors are strengthening their diplomatic and military ties with the U.S even as they try to boost their economic ties with China.

In short, while the gap between America and China’s power resources has diminished, it remains significant.  Even so, the U.S. cannot prevent China’s rise any more than China can exclude it from the Asia-Pacific.  Neither country can dominate the other, let alone the international system; that being said, the international system’s health will depend in large part on how the U.S. and China allocate their collective energies between contesting one another and addressing global challenges.

The good news is that while strategic tension between them is inevitable, a military conflict is not.  The RAND Corporation recently explored six flashpoints that could trigger one, but concluded that war was not “probable in any of the cases” over the next 30 years.  Meanwhile, a new survey of 1,600 U.S. international-relations scholars assigns U.S.-China war a 23% probability over that same window—appreciable, but low.

The bad news is that China’s long-term objectives are unclear.  Doubtless having been taken aback at how rapidly the country’s power and influence have grown in just over a decade, China’s leaders may simply be focused on using that newfound heft to achieve domestic imperatives.  Alternatively, however, mindful of China’s former status as the “middle kingdom,” attentive to America’s relative decline, and encouraged by trend lines that point to a continued reduction in the U.S.-China gap, they may increasingly countenance the possibility of China’s becoming the dominant power in Asia, surpassing the U.S. as the world’s leading power, and ultimately presiding over a Chinese-molded international order.

Two questions arise: (1) Will China forsake the pursuit of such objectives to preserve the delicate U.S.-China equilibrium that now prevails?  (2) Will the U.S. be able to resist the temptation to contain China, especially if China’s emergence as the largest economy compels a broad segment of the American public to voice support for such a policy?  China continues to avow that it will never seek global dominance, and the U.S. continues to declare that it welcomes China’s ascent.  Paradoxically, however, repeating such “bromides” may actually exacerbate the mutual distrust that they aim to mitigate.  Voicing the concern of American leaders, Henry Kissinger asks: “were any nation determined to achieve dominance, would it not be offering assurances of peaceful intent?”  China’s leaders would likely counter: “were any nation determined to preclude a peer competitor, would it not be providing analyses of emerging multipolarity?”

If it is naïve to expect that nuclear weapons, separation by the Pacific Ocean, and extraordinary economic interdependence will prevent a great-power struggle between the U.S. and China, it is hopefully not too far-fetched to think that these factors will at least circumscribe the contest.  Given the sobering track record of past power transitions, two of which culminated in world wars, a bounded U.S.-China rivalry might just be an acceptable outcome.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Ali Wyne.