With the recent return of great-power politics, we are also seeing a resurrection of power transition, a realist theory in international relations.[1] Positing an inevitable war between the reigning power and the contending state, power transition seems well suited to explain the unrelenting competition between the United States and China in the last few years. There is evidence that policy communities in both countries have bought into its underlying logic, if not explicitly. Chinese scholars speak of the “structural contradictions” between the No.1 and No. 2 powers as a go-to explanation for US-China competition.[2] The logic, popularized by “Thucycides’s Trap,” risks driving “groupthink” in both capitals across the Pacific.[3] Steve Chan’s latest book, Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War, takes on the master narrative, debunking each of its key propositions and its application to US-China relations.
H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum
Roundtable Review 15-10
Steve Chan. Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Paper ISBN: 9780231208451; Hardcover ISBN: 9780231557436.
23 October 2023 |PDF: https://issforum.org/to/jrt15-10 | Website: rjissf.org | Twitter: @HDiplo
Editor: Diane Labrosse
Commissioning Editor: Thomas Maddux
Production Editor: Christopher Ball
Copy Editor: Bethany Keenan
Contents
Introduction by Yong Deng, US Naval Academy. 2
Review by Rosemary Foot, University of Oxford. 6
Review by Todd Hall, University of Oxford. 11
Review by William R. Thompson, Indiana University, Emeritus 14
Review by Xiaoyu Pu, University of Nevada, Reno. 18
Response by Steve Chan, the University of Colorado, Boulder, Emeritus. 21
Introduction by Yong Deng, US Naval Academy
With the recent return of great-power politics, we are also seeing a resurrection of power transition, a realist theory in international relations.[1] Positing an inevitable war between the reigning power and the contending state, power transition seems well suited to explain the unrelenting competition between the United States and China in the last few years. There is evidence that policy communities in both countries have bought into its underlying logic, if not explicitly. Chinese scholars speak of the “structural contradictions” between the No.1 and No. 2 powers as a go-to explanation for US-China competition.[2] The logic, popularized by “Thucycides’s Trap,” risks driving “groupthink” in both capitals across the Pacific.[3] Steve Chan’s latest book, Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War, takes on the master narrative, debunking each of its key propositions and its application to US-China relations.
Chan starts with the observation that power transition does not lead to war in most historical cases. He then argues that the theory does not apply to contemporary US-China relations for the lack of two structural conditions. One, China has gained tremendous power lately, but it is yet to qualify as the contender to the United States; there is power shift between the two countries, but no power transition. US structural power encompassing the military, technology, commerce, and soft power remains unrivalled. Two, power-transition theory attributes war to an innate revisionism of the rising power. Contrary to the proposition, Chan observes, reformist and globalizing China has not been involved in war since 1979. Nor are its interests best served by radically changing the international status quo. Separating Beijing’s threat on Taiwan from his consideration of Chinese revisionism, he shows, a combustible mix of domestic politics, power shift, and third party factor—not structural conditions—explains the danger of war across the Strait.
Chan questions many of the common assumptions about a US-China showdown. As mentioned, he takes aim at power-transition theory. But in the process he also challenges much of the conventional thinking on US-China relations. Cognizant that the approach will spark controversy, he is explicit that he wants the book to “offer an opportunity for a vigorous debate” (1). Rosemary Foot, Todd Hall, Xiaoyu Pu, and William R. Thompson, the four distinguished scholars in this roundtable, answered his call, critically engaging with many of his observations and arguments.
Chan first lays out and dissects the key propositions of power-transition theory and then devotes each chapter to refuting them in turn. Foot notes his “eclectic” use of theories, concepts, and evidence. Hall is impressed that the book “is packed from cover-to-cover with insights, arguments, and assertions,” while marveling at the many “novel, incisive observations” throughout. Thompson, however, takes issue with Chan’s take on power transition, most notably his definition of revisionism and his contention that China is not revisionist compared to the United States. He also asks if US-China competition should be appropriately viewed as a rivalry over regional dominance in the Indo-Pacific, rather than one involving systemic change. If Taiwan concerns only regional competition instead of systemic primacy, then the issue involves much less stake, and is hence a more distant danger than it appears now.
As Thompson reminds us, until recently American college students found the idea of China’s threat to US hegemony “laughable.” Then what explains the sudden downfall of the bilateral relationship? Who is to blame? Here, the reviewers agree that Chan is forthright in criticizing US behavior, while they also note, in Foot’s words, “a tendency to temper his criticism” on China on issues ranging from human rights to the South China Sea. In particular, Pu, Foot, and Hall all flag Chan’s inadequate attention to China’s human rights record, most notably concerning the recent violations of Uighur ethno-religious rights in Xinjiang. For Hall, Chan’s comparative attention to US cynicism and record on human rights all but borders on “what-aboutism.” For Pu, inadequate attention to heightened Party-State control and President Xi Jinping’s personalist rule in Chinese politics ultimately represents no less than analytic blinders. China’s human rights behavior affects its international standing, and ideological differences have powerfully contributed to the US domestic consensus on the need to confront China. Chan deftly uses international history throughout the book, yet the reviewers uniformly point to a lack of historical context when it comes to ideology and human rights in his analysis of contemporary Sino-American relations.
The reviewers find Chan’s central thesis persuasive, broadly agreeing that power-transition theory applies poorly to current US-China relations. In terms of the future trajectory of the US-China relationship, Thompson raises the “question of temporal horizons,” asking how anticipation of a future power transition might affect policies now. In fact, Foot cautions, power transition may be drawing nearer than Chan believes. Observers may have underestimated China’s power by using traditional metrics, she notes, as China is already catching up with the United States and is striving to dominate in frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, renewable energies, automation, and quantum computing. Whether the United States and China are caught in the power transition now or not, the reviewers all suggest, the relationship will likely evolve under its shadow.
Chan offers a thoughtful response to the reviews. He acknowledges the importance of historical context in addressing the saliency of issues in US-China relations, most notably ideology and human rights. Challenging the assumption that China’s repressive politics have caused rising US-China geopolitical tension, however, Chan asks if ideology and human rights might also have been manipulated and used to serve great-power competition. When it comes to China’s assertive behaviors, Chan challenges the reviewers to be clearer on “the benchmark for making evaluations.” President Donald Trump might have broken with US foreign policy tradition more radically than President Xi Jinping did with reformist China’s policy paradigm, he suggests.
On the broad question of the book’s US-China comparison, Chan accepts the criticism of whataboutism. At the same time, he argues, US preponderance of power should justify closer scrutiny on its human rights record both at home and abroad. Ultimately, he counsels further comparative analysis, noting that scholars should not treat “China as sui generis and in isolation” as is commonly done in the literature. This is a piece of well-taken advice for China studies.
On the agency-structure debate, Chan attaches greater importance to “domestic structure” than international structure. He also believes that prevailing narratives attribute China with too much agency, portraying “China much more in the role of acting rather than reacting.” Whether his assessment is fair or not, it is important to consider China’s foreign policy as, in Avery Goldstein’s words, “the realm of interdependent choice.”[4] As a rising power, China has greater agency than ever before, but it also must react to a quickly deteriorating, deeply uncertain international environment.[5]
Rumbles of Thunder helps dispel the fatalism, if not the pessimism, about war in US-China relations. As Pu puts it, the book does not leave us with “enough room for agency” to avert the structural crisis. One hopes, however, as Thompson does, “it may help to fight against policies that make the situation worse than it already is.” Hall finds it so rich and thought-provoking that “one could structure an entire graduate course around the book, with each week devoted to evaluating, interrogating, and challenging the content of a different chapter.” Of the ballooning literature on US-China relations, rarely does one see a book like Chan’s that deeply engages mainstream international relations theories while challenging many conventional assumptions on the emerging great power politics. As noted above, Chan set out to write a book that would spark a vigorous debate about the underlying assumptions of US-China relations. He has succeeded in meeting that goal. One hopes this roundtable opens that debate, in academia and beyond.
Contributors:
Steve Chan (PhD 1976) is College Professor of Distinction, Emeritus, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His most recent books are Culture, Economic Growth, and Interstate Power Shifts: Implications for Competition between China and the United States (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War (Columbia University Press, 2023); Contesting Revisionism: China, the United States, and the Transformation of International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021; coauthored with Huiyun Feng, Kai He, and Weixing Hu); and Thucydides’s Trap? Historical Interpretation, Logic of Inquiry, and the Future of Sino-American Relations (University of Michigan Press, 2020).
Yong Deng is Professor of Political Science at US Naval Academy, and author of China’s Strategic Opportunity: Change and Revisionism in Chinese Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2022). His other books are Promoting Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: Perspectives from East Asia (1997), In the Eyes of the Dragon: China Views the World (co-edited with Fei-ling Wang, 1999), China Rising: Power and Motivation in Chinese Foreign Policy (co-edited with Fei-ling Wang, 2005), and China’s Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Rosemary Foot is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Research Associate of Oxford’s China Centre. In 1996, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research interests and publications cover security relations in the Asia-Pacific, China and regional and global order, and China-US relations. Author or editor of fourteen books, these include China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image (Oxford University Press, 2020); (with Andrew Walter) China, the United States and Global Order (Cambridge University Press, 2011); Rights Beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China (Oxford University Press, 2000); The Practice of Power: U.S. Relations with China Since 1949, (Oxford University Press, 1995, paperback edition, 1997); A Substitute for Victory: the Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks (Cornell University Press, 1990); The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950-1953 (Cornell University Press, 1985). She was also co-editor (with Saadia M Pekkanen and John Ravenhill), of The Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia (Oxford University Press, 2014); and editor of China Across the Divide: The Domestic and Global in Politics and Society (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Todd Hall is Professor of International Relations and Director of the China Centre at the University of Oxford. Hall earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2008 and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Harvard, as well as visiting scholar appointments at the Free University of Berlin, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and the University of Tokyo. Prior to joining the University of Oxford, Hall held the position of Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Toronto (2010-2013). Hall’s research interests include theorizing the role of emotions and affect in international politics, and international relations of East Asia, with a specific focus on the foreign policy of China. Hall’s publications include Emotional Diplomacy: Official Emotion on the International Stage (Cornell University Press, 2015) and a number of articles.
Xiaoyu Pu is an Associate Professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a member of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR). He is the author of Rebranding China: Contested Status Signaling in the Changing Global Order (Stanford University Press, 2019). He serves on the editorial boards of The Chinese Journal of International Politics and Foreign Affairs Review. He received his PhD from Ohio State University.
William R. Thompson is Distinguished Professor and Donald A. Rogers Chair in Political Science Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. Recent books include The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of the Military in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022, co-edited with Hicham Bou Nasif); Analyzing Strategic Rivalries in World Politics: Type of Rivalries, Regional Variation and Escalation-De-escalation(Springer, 2022, co-authored with Kentaro Sakuwa and Prashant Hosur Suhas); American Global Pre-eminence: The Development and Erosion of Systemic Leadership (Oxford University Press, 2022); Regions, Power and Conflict: Constraints, Capabilities, Hierarchy, and Rivalry (Springer, 2022, co-authored with Paul Bezarra, Jacob Cramer, Kelly Gordell, Manjeet Pardesi, Karen Rasler, J. Patrick Rhamey, Jr., Kentaro Sakuwa, Rachel Van Nostrand, and Thomas Volgy); and The Sino-Indian Rivalry: Its Implications for Global Order(Cambridge University Press, 2023, co-authored with Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet Pardesi). Current projects include modeling peace processes, regional order in the MENA, and the balance of power in European history.
Review by Rosemary Foot, University of Oxford
I started my reading of this book a month or so after President Xi Jinping, as well as China’s new Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, directly condemned the US government—and unusually by name—for seeking to contain, encircle and suppress China.[6] On the US side, President Joe Biden used his 2023 State of the Union address to mention Xi by name, asking his audience to ponder whether they thought any world leader would want to change places with the Chinese president given the problems Biden believed China then faced.[7] This period had been marked, too, by the Biden administration’s postponement of a visit to China by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, as well as the shooting down of a Chinese surveillance balloon drifting over American territory. Although the tensions over this incident have abated, there continue to be daily reminders of the perceived challenge that a more powerful China is said to pose to US interests and global order, as well as regular evidence, as Beijing sees it, that US hegemonic pretentions have generated Cold War, zero-sum, thinking.
This book, as a consequence, is particularly timely and important. It adds significantly to a large body of writing that marries International Relations (IR) approaches to detailed empirical treatment of the Sino-American relationship in an era of rising Chinese power and influence.[8] In particular, this work urges dialing back the rhetoric and reconsidering many of the judgments about the other side that each government has arrived at. Chan warns the book’s American readers that there will be much in these pages to challenge the self-image of the United States as a “benevolent, rule-abiding, and status-quo hegemon” (1). For Chinese readers, Chan states, they will need to reflect on the fact that this is still a world dominated by the United States, and that there is a “pervasive negative image of China in foreign countries” (2). Beijing’s values and identities lack appeal in many parts of the world, he notes, and it still cannot compete with America’s soft power.
Beyond those two specific warnings, Chan sees his arguments as a challenge to the “groupthink” that characterizes contemporary understandings in both societies and that have brought the two states closer to outright conflict. Chan sees war between these two nuclear weapons states as not being unthinkable and notes the presence of many of the factors that more broadly can explain the outbreak of wars. Notably, and not unsurprisingly, he sees the Taiwan issue as the most likely catalyst for a Sino-American confrontation.
Chan, a major voice in the study of the International Relations of the Asia-Pacific and of China-US relations, refreshes a number of his arguments made in earlier books[9] and adds new points that are of major importance to ponder. His approach is eclectic in terms of his IR theorizing and use of IR-related concepts, as well as in his empirical examples. In terms of the former, his references include prospect theory, bargaining theory, the war proneness of particular political actors, the validity or otherwise of power transition theory, and the role of power balancing. Empirical examples are also many and varied. They include the nineteenth-century Anglo-American power transition, and pre-World War I Europe. The chapter on Taiwan, for comparative purposes, contains a discussion of the Malvinas/Falklands conflict of 1982 (200-201). Chan perceives the unfolding of that crisis between Argentina and the United Kingdom as offering an important lesson for Taiwan-US-Chinese relations today.
Indeed, comparisons are particularly central to Chan’s dissection of the China-US relationship. In particular, he uses comparison to underline not only that the United States, especially in the post-Cold War era, has been more of a revisionist state than the People’s Republic since the advent of the Deng Xiaoping era, but also that US administrations have behaved in ways that mirror many of the actions it associates with Beijing and that Washington finds so reprehensible in contemporary Chinese conduct. As Chan puts it, the “larger point is that we need to consider China’s record in a comparative light, contrasting it with its own past and the performance of other countries while considering the extent, direction, and rate of the pertinent change” (55)—a statement with which I wholly agree.
These arguments are developed cumulatively over five main chapters, together with a detailed introduction and conclusion. The first chapter sets out to explain that perceived changes in the balance of power between these two states hold the key to the recent deterioration of relations, though power balance is a necessary and not sufficient condition for that deterioration (otherwise, how would we explain so many peaceful transitions in power?) Chan’s finding rests in part on the fact that, compared with the Maoist era, China is less authoritarian today. When the 1971-1972 rapprochement in China-US relations occurred and led onto the normalisation of ties in 1979, Beijing had one-Party rule, still adhered strictly to a Communist ideology, and had a particularly egregious human rights record. And yet rapprochement and normalization proceeded. Moreover, this was happening at the time that Taiwan was becoming more democratic and therefore potentially more and not less deserving of American support, Chan argues.
The logic of this position is strong, but there is no detailed consideration of the argument that initial alignment came about partly as a result of both governments regarding the former Soviet Union as their major strategic enemy at that time. Nor is there consideration of normative developments that came into prominence only in the main in the post-Cold War era and which led many governments and international organizations to give greater attention to the protection and promotion of human rights and the benefits of democratic forms of governing.
The second and third chapters focus on the concept of power and on the balance of power between these two states, arguing that analysts—but perhaps more significantly, policy-makers in both capitals—need to adopt a more sophisticated understanding of how to conceive of and measure power. In Chan’s view, conceptual sophistication would show that the United States is not in fact in decline, is still well ahead of China in a number of domains, and enjoys overwhelming structural power in the system. Therefore, its sense of a China threat is exaggerated.
Perhaps this argument would have benefited from a longer discussion of trends in power shifts. Globally, relative power has shifted: there is both a diffusion of power and a shift in power to non-state actors of various kinds. To return to the Sino-American relationship, one example of import to both protagonists involves high-technology. US administrations have noted that the Xi government’s investment in leading-edge technologies—such as artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented and virtual reality, and telecommunications—now are capable of challenging two of the central assumptions that have underpinned US thinking about China’s access to dual-use technologies. That is, that the US would stay several generations ahead of China in leading technologies and that it could fence China off from acquiring several of those critical technologies. These assumptions have changed, with growing fears that the US is no longer sufficiently in the lead, indeed is behind in AI, and that China’s investments in US firms and startups, along with its overt and covert acquisitions of US technologies, mean that it has become singularly more difficult to reliably prevent Beijing from building on its prominence in all these areas.[10] Moreover, rightly or wrongly, the US National Security Strategy of 2022 claims that Beijing is “using its technological capacity and increasing influence over international institutions to create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model, and to mold global technology use and norms to privilege its interests and values.”[11] In response, Washington has developed policies designed to freeze China in place[12]: that is, to prevent China from dominating the technologies of the future.
Chapter four turns to domestic sources of foreign policy, noting that the effects of power shifts are mediated by domestic politics. In the case of the United States and China, the deterioration in their relationship is reinforced by nationalist sentiment in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and populist sentiment in the United States. Of more consequence, Chan notes that both the United States and China “believe in their uniqueness and exceptionalism. Both exude supreme confidence, conceit, and self-righteousness, and both display no small degree of ethnocentrism and hubris. The Chinese no less than the Americans have a sense of entitlement and a belief in their country’s manifest destiny” (159). Inevitably this makes compromise far less likely.
Yet, in Chan’s view, there is a key difference between the two: China, unlike the United States, has refrained from exporting its model of governance and economic development. Indeed, Chan makes the point that the focus during the Deng Xiaoping era on China “biding its time” is largely intact, and that there are many continuities in China’s foreign policy despite the advent of the Xi era (223-25). Chan does not address Chinese statements and activity that suggest otherwise. Xi, for example, has initiated a series of work conferences and high-level meetings to set out his particular vision for China’s external relations and has committed China to move from keeping a low profile to “Striving for Achievement.” Xi has made multiple visits overseas (pre- and now post-Covid) and notably has notched up about 40 meetings with President Vladimir Putin. To give a few well-known examples, Xi took the decision to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, inaugurated the “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure investment project, decided that combat troops would be added to its UN peacekeeping contingents, and setup internship programs to train Chinese as international civil servants, as well as a China-UN Peace and Development Trust Fund. This activity has continued in the last two years: Beijing has initiated the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilizations Initiative.
The Chinese president has also made a series of speeches in which he has offered “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.” Xi exhorts Chinese officials not only to take a leading role in the reform of global governance, but also actively to formulate global rules. He, his foreign minister, and other leading officials frequently encourage others to recognise that China has blazed “a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernisation,” and that it has offered a “new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development.”[13] In a 2021 White Paper on poverty alleviation, the State Council boldly stated that China’s successes offer an “approach to solving the problem of modern national governance and creating brighter prospects for social progress.”[14] Xi reinforced these sentiments in his July 2021 speech celebrating 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party. In it he noted that China had “created a new model for human advancement.”[15] At a South-South Human Rights Forum in Beijing in 2017, a Chinese Vice Foreign Minister made an especially striking claim, asserting that the meeting had enhanced China’s soft power “by translating domestic governance philosophies into international consensus.”[16] None of this represents aggressive behaviour, but it does imply a Chinese leadership that operates in ways that differ from earlier eras, especially if we define assertive behaviour as confident behaviour. It could also be interpreted as a Chinese attempt to persuade others in the developing world to emulate the politico-economic path it has chosen.
Chapter five, the final substantive chapter, deals with Taiwan, which Chan sees as a contest for regional hegemony. But Taiwan itself, as Chan acknowledges, needs to be accorded proper attention, not least because the trends are growing to support independence and particularly among Taiwan’s young. Chan suggests that all three parties involved in this dispute “are likely to feel that they are in the domain of prospective loss” which in any absence of rationalist calculation, and the motivations of sub-national players, might lead them to take risks (199-200).
The picture painted of China and the United States in this study suggests that despite statements on mutual exceptionalism, one is more war-prone and more revisionist than the other, and thus perhaps more willing to take risks over Taiwan: that is, the United States. Chan is particularly keen to reprove the United States in particular for its double standards, hypocrisy, and selectivity with respect to global norms, especially with regard to the use of force and human rights. He argues that greater attention to this historical record would help to explain Beijing’s foreign policy responses and rein in some of the tensions that have arisen between the two protagonists.
There is much in his depiction of US foreign policy to agree with. However, when Chan comes to explain those Chinese responses or China’s policies themselves there is a tendency to temper his criticism. For example, with regard to the South China Sea, Chan notes that China has undertaken “the largest military programs and land reclamation projects” of all “the various claimant states but China was not the first to do so,” raising for me the question of whether timing or scale matters here (56, emphasis added).
In the discussion of human rights violations in the United States, Chan provides a long list including the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II, the forcible removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands, and the more recent Black Lives Matter movement. Such discussion with respect to Beijing is largely absent, however. For example, Chan writes: “In narratives on worsening relations between China and the United States, one also often hears criticisms of China’s record on human rights, including its mistreatment of the Uighurs and its suppression of Hong Kong’s demonstrators” (52). But that is all that is said about this; the next sentence turns back to the US record and how China’s critics “tend to overlook the plight of Palestinians and America’s own racial and ethnic minorities” (52).
Greater attention to China’s domestic repression could have led to a longer discussion of why it is that Beijing does have a “pervasive negative image” (2) in other countries including among elites in its own neighbourhood.[17] The Beijing government does not allow debate or reflection on a past record that includes massive violations of human rights such as occurred when the PRC government was established, during its anti-rightist movement from 1957-1959, and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), as well as after protests in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. It is surely necessary for Chan to discuss the violations of rights in Xinjiang province which the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights argues in its report “may amount to crimes against humanity.”[18] Neither does Chan note the many voices inside the United States that are critical of several aspects of US policy including the country’s own human rights record. Twenty years on, the chorus of disapproval in the United States of the decision to intervene in Iraq in 2003 is widespread and has been the occasion to remember many of the horrors that were released by that “war of choice.”
Professor Chan has offered us another major contribution to understanding the US-China relationship. Much of it convinces, but greater attention to Beijing as agent rather than as responder to a powerful and antagonistic Washington would more likely have helped him further fulfil his goal of deepening our understanding of this most consequential of state-to-state relationships.
Review by Todd Hall, University of Oxford
Steven Chan’s most recent book, Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War, is a book packed from cover-to-cover with insights, arguments, and assertions. Some of the claims pertain to international relations concepts and theories, others to the nature and causes of Sino-American competition, and others yet to what the future may hold. To give the reader a feel for the book, here are but a few of the arguments he advances:
Power transition theory has it wrong; it is more likely the declining state that will seek to change the rules of the system (207).
Power transitions do not motivate rising states to engage in war with the dominant power, the former instead often go after lesser states over local issues prompting the latter to intervene in the conflict (176-177; 209).
There is no fixed international order, it is constantly under negotiation (35).
Simply looking at states’ domestic material resources provides a skewed perception of the power balance, one also has to consider states’ abilities and their various forms of structural power, which include the global position, dispersion, and reach of their military, financial, productive, and knowledge-generating assets (111-115).
The United States is still unlikely to be surpassed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) any time soon; one should not overlook its significant ongoing advantage in structural power (111-141).
The major source of Sino-American tensions is the shifting power between the two. Other explanations, such as the PRC’s international behaviour, its political system, unfair trading practices, or any of the other standard reasons given are red herrings. Washington has in many cases looked the other way concerning human rights violations or undemocratic behaviour in other states when it suits its interests, and in quite a few instances is also guilty—to greater or lesser degree—of what it is accusing the PRC of doing (43-84).
We need to pay attention to domestic politics—it is the source of sentiments and demands for intangible goods that can drive the deterioration of relations between states (142-175).
If there is going to be a war between the United States and the PRC, it will be over Taiwan. A key reason is that all three parties (Washington, Beijing, and Taipei) are increasingly perceiving themselves as entering the domain of loss given current trends and thus, as prospect theory tells us, will be motivated to engage in risky behaviour. Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity makes this worse (176-205).
As Chan himself notes at the outset of his book, “It will likely be a source of discomfiture, irritation, and disagreement for many readers” (1). That is the one claim Chan advances in his book that will likely find little argument. It is a book in which readers of almost any background will likely be able to find something with which to take issue. That said, it is simultaneously one in which they will discover novel, incisive observations that challenge them to rethink the received wisdom.
The overall thrust of the book is an argument against the ways in which power transition theory has been applied to Sino-American relations to posit that a rising, revisionist People’s Republic of China is likely to initiate a systemic war against the United States.[19] Instead, Chan counters that the real risk is that perceptions of a power shift, exacerbated by domestic political factors, will create the conditions for a local conflict over Taiwan to lead to an armed clash between the two powers. I use the term “overall thrust” above consciously, as readers will need to work to follow this argument through the dense thicket of other points, observations, and assertions Chan makes in each of his chapters. Given the wealth of contentious contentions to be found in its pages, I at times found myself thinking that one could structure an entire graduate course around the book, with each week devoted to evaluating, interrogating, and challenging the content of a different chapter.
Indeed, Chan makes many claims that offer excellent prompts to stimulate a heated seminar debate. Consider, for instance, his assertion that “The trendlines belie the rhetoric that one hears today that the United States must support Taiwan because it is a democracy. It appears instead that the nature of Taiwan’s political system does not matter very much to Washington. Indeed, in the years immediately after Beijing and Washington established formal diplomatic relations, the United States aligned more closely with China—just when Taiwan was becoming more democratic” (49). What this claim arguably glosses, however, is the vast differences between then and now—in terms of the historical context of the significance of the Cold War, in terms of the changing perceptions of trends within the PRC, in terms of the major shift in military capabilities that now render Taiwan much more vulnerable, and in the ways in which Taiwanese moves toward democracy may themselves included considerations of the effects this would have on US-Taiwan relations. There is a considerable amount of complexity in US policy towards Taiwan that reflects shifting efforts over time to navigate numerous different pressures, risks, and objectives.[20]
Or, alternately, consider his suggestion that the US expressions of support for human rights are “just excuses or a camouflage for policies undertaken for realpolitik reasons” (221). Here too is a provocation to a complicated debate. Certainly, one might argue that some policymakers may have cynical reasons for their sudden attention to the PRC’s human rights violations. But one might also counter that Beijing’s treatment of its minorities—especially in Xinjiang—has of late undergone a major shift in nature and scale in ways that are seriously and sincerely alarming for observers in the United States and beyond. The effect is not trivial, as it has contributed to progressive participation in a left-right consensus on the need to take a harder stance vis-à-vis the PRC.[21]
And furthermore, there is his claim that the PRC’s “political system has become less authoritarian… [and] it has reformed it economy to emphasize private enterprises and to open it to foreign companies’ operations” (46). Here one might debate what the basis for this evaluation is. If one compares the current PRC to its character at the height of the Cultural Revolution, arguably this is defensible. But if one is looking back over two decades, the claim becomes possibly more difficult to sustain. And trendlines under President Xi Jinping going forward appear to be heading in the opposite direction of greater political or economic liberalisation.[22]
All this is to say that Chan has composed a very rich, provocative tome that brings together and builds upon much of previous work. One could argue that it is almost too rich—that the plethora of claims and points distract from what could be a more streamlined and focused argument. One could also question whether his claims at times over-simplify the differences over time in context and the complex multi-causal relationships that shaped and continue to shape Sino-American relations. And despite Chan’s caveats, one could object that the side-by-side comparison of U.S. and PRC human rights records risks appearing a little too “what-aboutist.” Nevertheless, it is difficult to read this book without being forced in some way to re-examine one’s own beliefs, assumptions, and perceptions. I, for one, will be asking my students to read it and respond.
Review by William R. Thompson, Indiana University, Emeritus
Steve Chan’s book, Rumbles of Thunder, might best be called a critique of power transition perspectives. One problem is that it is not always clear which power transition argument he is criticizing, and the power transition tent shelters a variety of arguments and schools of thought. But putting that aside, it is clear that he is most adamant that a power transition between the United States and China is not likely to occur soon. Even if it does occur, it will not necessarily be violent. Thus, two of his main points are that no power transition is close at hand (3, 5, 142, 209), and that war between the two powerful states is not inevitable even if a transition does occur (3, 8, 210). A third point is that while a power transition is not foreseeable in the near future, shifts in the dyadic balance of power between the two states are most responsible[23] for increasing Sino-American tension (5, 11, 142-143) . In general, I have no problems with these three assertions in the abstract, although why I think they are tenable may differ from Chan’s logic at various junctures in his presentation.
I taught an undergraduate honors seminar about midway through this century’s first decade. The topic was whether China was threatening to become the main threat to the United States’ position of preeminence in world politics. I was a bit surprised to find that most of the students in the seminar, a number of them with personal foci on East Asian topics, thought the idea was laughable. Some of them had consulted professors of East Asia after being hit with my syllabus and had been reassured that the idea was a non-starter.[24] China was not a threat to the United States’ dominance of the world political hierarchy and was unlikely to become one in the future. It made for an awkward seminar in which I had to persuade them that just maybe there was something worth talking about along these lines week after week. The point of the anecdote is that it was not that long ago that this rise-and-fall question was not particularly salient.[25]
Times change.
Part of the problem is that some analysts were and still are relying on population and economy size information to buttress their claims that the United States is being passed in the dust by a rising China.[26] If one accepts those indicators as the most appropriate metrics for comparing power in the international system, it is not surprising that China’s rise is a frightening proposition to some observers. It is hard to compete with the sheer bulk of China (although India’s population size will be greater than China’s sometime in the first half of 2023 and presumably thereafter). Yet it is also possible to point out that these bulk indicators are not all that helpful. Chan stresses, for instance, that the United States has a military and technological lead, and a much stronger position in terms of global structural power than does China. In this sense, China is not poised to catch up or surpass the United States any time soon.[27] The question here is which indicators are most important, and I would certainly side with Chan’s interpretation. One problem, however, is that Chan’s emphasis is placed on minimizing the importance of current transitions and emphasizing near term prospects for transition. China is working hard to catch up to the United States and come, say, 2050, the question of whether or not a power transition process is in play, however early on, may be less easy to dismiss. It is a question of temporal horizons. Are we talking about today, tomorrow, or a generation or two down the road? China’s progress may stall; US preeminence will continue to decay—but at what rate? It is difficult to forecast what may be coming with any sense of precision.
Is a Sino-American war inevitable? Of course not; nothing is inevitable. Is it probable and if so, how probable? There are really two sets of questions here. If China were surpassing US power, would that imply warfare is likely? Even if there is no power transition in the offing, might China and the United States come to blows anyway? Chan argues that systemic war is not all that probable because he thinks that China is still way behind and, as he notes, the top two economic powers in the world economy have not gone to war in the past. Moreover, many power transitions are peaceful and China is not a revisionist power.
This last assertion is a weakness of the argument, because Chan uses revisionism in different ways. He notes that China does not seem to be all that interested in challenging the world order that was put into place after 1945. China’s rise has benefited from the order, so why rebel against it? Thus, in order to revise a world order so that China benefits more than it has in the past is the standard kind of revisionism in the sense that revisionists wish to challenge the status quo. Chan argues that power transition theories assume revisionist behavior, so that is also part of his critique about those theories. But at another point, he suggests that revisionism is about countries using their increased power to alter the existing distribution of power (207). This is a puzzling argument. Revisionists wish to alter the existing distribution of privileges, not power per se, because their relative power has changed. It also leads him to argue that the United States is more revisionist than China. But US revisionism seems to be more about democratic and human rights crusades, and perhaps Taiwan’s status, than anything else. While that might be an issue for attacking Afghanistan or Iraq, it is not clear that it works the same way with strong states like China.
However, the question of war probability also involves a framing problem. What is the nature of the current Sino-American rivalry (as compared to the earlier Cold War Sino-American rivalry)? Chan appears to view it as pecking order contest on the global hierarchy (as implied by the #1 vs #2 comparison). That may be what it will become, but in my opinion it is not there just yet. The nature of the current rivalry is more regionally focused. Regions have their own hierarchies. They also have external powers intruding into the region. The current structural problem is that China wishes to be at the top of the regional hierarchy – and some would say it already is. But one cannot be a regional hegemon if there is one or more very strong external powers operating in the region. Either the United States must acknowledge China’s regional hegemony and back off (as Britain did vis-à-vis North America in the nineteenth century), or China must be content to be something less than the status of a regional hegemon.[28] Since neither China nor the United States seem likely to move to these stances, they are rivals for structural preeminence in East Asia, or what is now sometimes called the Indo-Pacific region. Could this standoff lead to combat? There are many opportunities for escalating collisions at sea or in the air. There is also the Taiwan issue on which the Chinese have been very consistent, and the United States has waffled. Hence, there is some possibility of war (prior to 2050) that would probably be considerably less than a system war for all the global marbles. Even here, however, the probability of a war over Taiwan is easily exaggerated. For now, both sides seem cognizant of the difficulties associated with a Chinese coercive takeover of the island.
But Chan has a fourth point to make on the question of war. He notes that structures do not make wars; decision-makers do. Often, according to Chan, decisions to go to war reflect the pushes and pulls of domestic politics—as opposed to a unitary actor government rationally responding to structural imperatives. That is certainly an important point. American politicians of both Republican and Democrat persuasions use the Taiwan issue to make points with their constituencies. Chinese decision-makers respond to visits to Taiwan by these politicians (and Taiwanese politicians to the United States) by military intimidation. Hardliners on both sides push for more militant policies at every opportunity. It is a worrisome element in the strategic decision-making calculus. It is also difficult to claim that the vicissitudes of domestic politics lessen the probability of miscalculations. There are also at least three domestic politics (China, Taiwan, and the United States) to factor in. That problem hardly lessens the probability of miscalculation or armed conflict. Throughout, “hubris, prejudice, excessive confidence, overweening ambition, scapegoating, and stereotyping” are, not surprisingly, at work on both sides” (2). It will not be a rivalry that is immune to human foibles. What rivalry is? Still, the open-ended question is whether these factors can trump decision-making prudence and stimulate overt violence in the Sino-American relationship.
In sum, Chan suggests that forecasts of American decline, structural eclipse, and systemic war are overblown. Relative Chinese power has improved, but China is not close to taking over the world system. The United States still predominates in what is described as a unipolar setting. His points are welcome in the context of debatable generalizations about where we are at in terms of system change. It is possible to agree with many of his main points without buying into some of the reasons he puts forward as justifying his position. For instance, I would point to more US relative decline and far less unipolarity than he does, but that does not mean that the United States is about to be reduced to a small and weak power. How one calculates the likelihood of war probability hinges on one’s historical script and theoretical frame. Unfortunately, many analysts work with vastly different ideas of how history has worked and what theoretical frame is most applicable. For instance, there is considerable disarray on how one counts transitions. Some are willing to count loosely dissimilar transitions (as in Thucydides Trap estimations), while others see a Portuguese-Dutch-British-US sequence of increasing centrality in the world economy contesting Spanish, French, German, and Soviet challenges primarily, but not exclusively, in Europe.[29] Of course, there are intermediate positions along this continuum with some accepting a British-US sequence or a Dutch-British-US sequence, while others gravitate towards far less selective sequences. Given the great variance in historical scripts and distinctions between regional and global actors at play in this literature, it is very difficult to dispute whose generalizations are right or wrong. We tend to operate in relatively autonomous silos built on much different assumptions and interpretations. We end up not speaking the same International Relations (IR) languages.
Yet we have to try to get it “right.” The world’s health and welfare may depend on it. Managing the current Sino-American rivalry II (not to be confused with the Cold War Sino-American rivalry I) may prove to be one of the more salient processes in twenty-first century world politics. Chan resists some strong and popular interpretations that he thinks are not only wrong but also encourage over-reaction. That may not deter leaders from developing bad policies (e.g., tariffs, insisting that a rival abandon technological innovation, constructing islands in the South China Sea). But it may help to fight against policies that make the situation worse than it already is. And even if it is naïve to think that policy makers pay attention to the things we argue about, at the very least Chan’s familiarity with and employment of IR theory (not the “isms” kind) to support his interpretations are also welcome in a literature that is too often devoid of social science interventions. Equally welcome is his argument that if China were to fully embrace democracy, renounce Communism, and adopt less aggressive rhetoric, Sino-American relations would not be tension free. At heart, it is a structural phenomenon. The question remains just what sort of structural competition is at stake.
Review by Xiaoyu Pu, University of Nevada, Reno
The relationship between China and the United States has undergone significant shifts in recent years that can be characterized by a growing sense of competition and tension. The dominant narrative describes the tension as the outcome of a rising power challenging the existing hegemonic power. In Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War, Steve Chan offers a timely and thorough analysis of the US-China rivalry. The book challenges many of the conventional assumptions and offers a more nuanced understanding of the complex dynamics that shape this critical relationship.
The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the various factors driving Sino-American tensions and proposes potential paths for peaceful coexistence. According to Chan, the power shift between China and the United States provides a better explanation for the worsening Sino-American relations compared to other explanations, including power transition theory. The measurement of power in international relations can be complex, as power can be viewed as stemming from resources, capability, or outcome.[30] Drawing on the work of Susan Strange,[31] Chan highlights the importance of structural power. While acknowledging China’s rise, Chan suggests that the US still has some enduring advantages. Chan argues that domestic politics translates a power shift at the inter-state level into a state’s foreign policy. Rejecting the power-transition model, Chan emphasizes that states “fight over issues or, more specifically, grievances over issues” (201). Taiwan is such a potential catalyst for Sino-American conflict with implications for regional and global security.
The book makes several significant contributions to the literature on US-China relations. First, Chan challenges the dominant narrative of power transition and the so-called “Thucydides’ Trap.”[32] The power-transition model suggests that when a rising power challenges an established power, war is likely to occur.[33] Chan emphasizes that what occurs between the US and China is better viewed as a power shift instead of a power transition. He argues that the power transition narrative overlooks the complexity of the power shift between the US and China and fails to consider the many factors that influence their relations. Second, Chan provides an updated and realistic analysis of the power shift between the US and China. He acknowledges that China has made significant progress in economic and military power, but also notes that the US still holds significant advantages in many areas, such as technology, innovation, and global influence. Chan argues that it is the interaction between these two powers that will shape the future of their relationship, rather than a simple power transition. Third, Chan challenges many conventional understandings of US-China relations. He examines the various factors that shape US-China relations, including ideology, domestic politics, and economic interdependence, noting that domestic politics in both countries can influence their foreign policies, but these influences are often more nuanced and complex than commonly assumed. Finally, Chan provides an insightful analysis of the potential for war between the US and China. He notes that while the risk of war is real, it is not inevitable. He argues that there are many factors that can mitigate tensions between the two countries, such as economic interdependence, diplomatic engagement, and international institutions. He also notes that the costs of war would be catastrophic for both countries and the world, and that this fact alone should motivate both countries to seek peaceful solutions to their disputes.
Although acknowledging the valuable contributions made by the book, I have some questions for further discussion. First, while Chan rejects the deterministic view of power-transition theory, it is not clear that there is enough room for agency in his analysis. Chan clarifies that the power-transition model might be inaccurate or even misleading, as there might be still a significant power gap between China and the US. In various places, Chan seems to acknowledge the role of leadership and domestic politics in shaping foreign policy behaviors. But by highlighting the crucial role of power shift in explaining the worsening of Sino-American relations, Chan seems to move in the same direction as power transition theorists, ultimately downplaying all the non-structural factors. As Chan writes, “This deterioration has less to do with China’s regime type or even its current foreign policies than the evolving power balance that, in Washington’s view, poses a threat to its international dominance” (80). If the power balance ultimately shapes the Sino-American relationship in such a fundamental way, where is the appropriate role of leadership and policy adjustment?
Second, Chan underestimates the crucial role that ideology could play in shaping Sino-American relations. Admittedly, the US and China cooperated in the Nixon-Mao era even though the two countries were ideologically more different. According to Chan, “China’s society and economy have surely become more open since the 1970s. Its political system has also become less authoritarian” (46). In this context, Chan argues that the ideological impact might be overstated in the contemporary era. However, Chan does not acknowledge that American elites and the general public may have had different expectations in their evaluation of China’s political trajectory. In the 1970s, they anticipated that China would become more open and move away from its previously closed system. However, in recent years, Americans have observed China shifting towards more authoritarianism, after a relatively more open era in the 1990s and early 2000s. While the assertion of the United States’ failure to engage with China is an exaggeration,[34] it is undeniable that American elites, including Sinologists and China studies communities, are disappointed and widely frustrated. Such sentiments have likely contributed to the more competitive turn in US-China policy.[35] Furthermore, ideological differences play a significant role in shaping the Sino-American rivalry. Ideology serves as a political frame for domestic mobilization, influencing how elites define national security and national interests. As a result, Sino-American relations have become increasingly “securitized,” with the process being partially shaped by competing ideological narratives between the two countries.[36]
Finally, by offering a deep critique of power transition mode, Chan corrects some misperceptions that typically blame a rising China for the Sino-American tension. However, Chan underestimates the role of Chinese policy change under Xi Jinping in shaping US perception and policy. While there may be interactive effects between the US and China on their respective policies towards each other, Chinese policy changes have had a significant impact on US policy towards China. As Susan Shirk suggests, the US overreaction may be partially driven by China’s overreach, both domestically and internationally.[37] Once again, there is an issue regarding the benchmark used for evaluation. Chan emphasizes that China under Xi Jinping’s leadership might still be less authoritarian than during the Mao era, and its external behavior can be viewed as more prudent and restrained than that of the US. However, when compared to China in the 1990s, China today has become more authoritarian at home and more assertive on the international stage. Since taking power in 2012, Xi Jinping has implemented a range of domestic and foreign policies that have reshaped China’s trajectory both at home and abroad. Domestically, Xi has taken a more authoritarian approach, tightening control over societal and business sectors and consolidating his own power within the Communist Party of China (CPC). Internationally, Xi has pursued a more assertive foreign policy.[38]
As the Sino-American relationship enters a new stage with rising tension and uncertainty, it is important for both scholars and policy-makers to analyze it as objectively as possible. Chan’s book offers valuable insights into the complex dynamics that shape this critical relationship. Challenging many conventional assumptions and group-thinking, the book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in understanding contemporary international relations and US-China relations.
Response by Steve Chan, the University of Colorado, Boulder, Emeritus
I am very grateful that Rosemary Foot, Todd Hall, William R. Thompson, and Xiaoyu Pu have taken time from their busy lives to comment on my book. I appreciate their constructive feedback, which invites me to consider more carefully my views and approaches in this book. I also want to thank Deng Yong for chairing this forum and for writing the introduction to this exchange of views on my book. These scholars are among my favorite authors. I have learned much from them elsewhere and on other occasions, and their comments are again very useful this time as I continue to work on this line of research. As I note below, on several issues the reviewers make similar observations independently, and on at least one issue I see them diverging in their perspective.
I agree with Rosemary Foot that historical context matters. When China and the United States began their rapprochement in the early 1970s, both countries were motivated by realpolitik reasons to cooperate in a joint effort to oppose the former Soviet Union. After the Cold War ended, human rights concerns became increasingly salient in Western countries’ diplomacy. The other three commentators made similar points. Thus, Todd Hall points to “the vast differences between then and now—in terms of the historical context of the significance of the Cold War, in terms of the changing perceptions of trends within the PRC…” In a similar vein, Xiaoyu Pu notes that Westerners have become disappointed by China’s recent turn to authoritarianism, cautioning that one should not underestimate changes since President Xi Jinping took power, including the importance of ideological context. Finally, William Thompson reminds us that “times change.” These are good points about how officials, scholars, and people in general go about framing issues and questions.
At the same time, the argument made by the reviewers that “now is now, and then was then” (that is, circumstances have changed, and policies necessarily reflect changing circumstances) also begs an important question. How sincere and steadfast is the West’s commitment, for example, to human rights? Are its policies of promoting human rights today just a cover to advance realpolitik considerations, and can they be subordinated to these considerations again when circumstances change? This debate at its core concerns the motivations that drive states’ foreign policies. Is a state’s support for human rights motivated by just instrumental reasons and not genuine concern?
The issue of framing raises the question of which benchmarks we use in making evaluations, a point that Foot, Hall, and Pu raise. Prospect theory, of course, stresses the importance of benchmark (or “reference point” and “anchor effect”) in people’s judgments.[39] Thus, has Xi Jinping been breaking patterns set by his predecessors? How large are the changes in Chinese leaders’ world views? How much more assertive or aggressive have Beijing’s policies become and compared to when and whom? I would argue that we need more comparative analysis. For example, did President Donald Trump introduce even larger policy changes from traditional US foreign policy compared to Xi in China?[40] If so, does it matter? Just as China’s image has suffered recently in many countries, negative perceptions of the US also rose sharply during Trump’s presidency.[41] Pu has written persuasively about Chinese officials’ sensitivity to their country’s image abroad.[42]
There is much evidence of chest-beating bravado on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Chinese leaders’ public statements, as Foot points out, have become more confident (perhaps even overconfident) and celebratory of China’s achievements. We can easily find examples in the US as well. I have, however, always been intrigued by Jared Diamond’s question, “why was proselyting religion [Christianity and Islam] a driving force for colonization and conquest among Europeans and West Asians but not among Chinese?”[43] Here I do not mean just in seeking religious converts (Mormon missionaries are a common sight in East Asia). I have in mind also efforts to change the world in one’s image and the tendency to go on moral crusades. For example, I quote in my book Nebraska’s Senator Kenneth Wherry, who noted in 1940 that “with God’s help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas City” (134). One still often hears echoes of such evangelical zeal in Washington’s efforts to promote regime change abroad.[44]
Both Foot and Hall bring up “what aboutism.” Their point is well taken. It seems to me that we should demand more from those countries which are powerful and therefore can do more harm (as well as good), and which are preaching to others and therefore should be expected to act according to what they preach. Shouldn’t we expect more from the world’s leading power, and hold it to its own declared principles and higher standards of behavior? When this country acts badly, it is especially damaging to international norms of decency and trust. Naturally, we should not look the other way when human rights are being violated in Xinjiang, Rwanda, America’s Dixieland, and South Africa under apartheid. Introspection is always helpful.
I do note in the book, Singapore’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani, stated that even during the relatively peaceful administration of Barack Obama, the US had dropped 26,000 bombs on seven countries in 2016 alone, whereas China has not fired a shot across its border since 1979 when it fought its last war with Vietnam (60). Mea culpa on “whataboutism.” But I do think we need more comparison so that we can judge assertions of an aggressive China, for example, in a more meaningful light. There has been, I believe, too little attention paid to undertaking this sort of comparison in the current literature, and too great an analytic tendency to study China as sui generis and in isolation.[45]
The participants of this forum introduce another important topic. It pertains to the question about agency and structure. I see Thompson’s prior scholarship as leaning more in the structure end of the spectrum and those of the others in the other (agency) direction. I tend to see structure constraining policy choices, but it obviously does not determine policies. Those structures I have in mind are not only or necessarily located at the macro-level of international environment or dyadic relations between states. In fact, I see domestic structures often playing a larger role. For example, they influence economic performance more than international structure. Thompson brings up the matter of temporal horizon. When will China overtake the US, or will it ever be able to do so? I tend to think that domestic forces are especially pertinent to answering this question. I have been working on a project on how changes in a country’s culture can affect its economic growth, which can in turn affect its international competitiveness.[46] Ronald Inglehart’s work, drawing attention to the culture shift from materialism to post-materialism, seems to me especially relevant.[47]
The question about agency and structure is related to another aspect characterizing many studies on China’s foreign policy.[48] My impression is that they tend to see China much more in the role of acting rather than reacting. That is, China initiates and other countries are forced to respond. There seems to be less attention given to how China may be reacting to what other countries are doing and how its environment is changing. Harry Harding wrote some time ago that this tendency lends an air of omnipotence to Chinese leaders and presents China as if it is a ship on automatic pilot, “plowing its way single-mindedly through the oceans of international affairs, relatively uninfluenced by the waves and storms around it.”[49] One may want to probe why, for example, China under Xi Jinping has been acting the way it has. Is China’s perceived swagger simply due to its increased clout?
I also very much agree with Foot that interstate competition may be taking place or intensifying in a new form or arena, specifically the role of technology contesting and denial in Sino-American relations. Thompson has written extensively by himself and with co-authors on the role of technology innovation in promoting lead industries, which in turn have buttressed the economic and military power of the world’s leading powers in previous eras.[50] I have also just completed a study which includes a section on China’s efforts to catch up technologically.[51]
The reviewers are also helpful in pointing out arguments that I should have made clearer. For instance, Thompson calls to my attention the meaning of revisionism as discussed in my book. I in fact disagree with one of the ways that this concept has been deployed, namely, equating it with actions that change the interstate distribution of power.[52] Besides duplicating the other independent variable in the power-transition theory (namely, interstate power shift), which country does not wish to improve its international position? I also agree with Thompson that much of the extant literature fails to draw the crucial distinction between regional hierarchy and global hierarchy. China is still only a regional power, whereas the US is the only country with a global reach.[53] One of my objections to power-transition theory is that it conflates regional rivalries with hegemonic bids for global supremacy.
Finally, on the topic of Taiwan as a possible fuse for a larger conflict, I believe that the leaders for all three parties (China, Taiwan, and the United States) know fully well the others’ redlines, but they often feel compelled to placate their domestic constituents and are tempted to make partisan gains by bashing foreign scapegoats. In doing so, they may trap themselves in their own exaggerated rhetoric and their one-upmanship in trying to demonstrate they are more patriotic than their domestic rivals may cause their respective countries serious harm.
In closing, I am indebted to the participants of this forum and appreciate the opportunity to exchange our views. As I note in the introduction to my book, conformist thinking, academic orthodoxy, and blithe acceptance of received wisdom are dangerous. So even when my colleagues disagree with me, there is value in our disagreements. I especially appreciate the stated willingness of Hall and Thompson to introduce controversial readings to their students. I have used exchanges provided by this forum in my seminars. These seminars would be much duller and less informative in the absence of the intellectual sparks they provide.
[1] See, for example, Rush Doshi, The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021); Graham Allison. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017); John J. Mearsheimer, “The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to U.S. Power in Asia,” Chinese Journal of International Relations 3: 4 (2010), pp. 381-396. The theory has also gained prominence thanks to a growing number of works that address its central thesis on great-power war, including Steve Chan, Huiyun Feng, Kai He, and Weixing Hu, Contesting Revisionism: China, the United States, and the Transformation of International Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021); Joshua R. Shifrinson, Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018).
[2] Minghao Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable? Chinese Perspectives on US–China Strategic Competition,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 12: 3 (2019), 371–394.
[3] Jessica Chen Weiss, “The China Trap: US Foreign Policy and the Perilous Logic of Zero-Sum Competition,” Foreign Affairs 101: 5 (September/October 2022), 40-58; Allison, Destined for War.
[4] Avery Goldstein, “China’s Grand Strategy under Xi Jinping: Reassurance, Reform, and Resistance,” International Security 45: 1 (Summer 2020): pp. 164-201, here, 192.
[5] I explore this in Yong Deng, China’s Strategic Opportunity: Change and Revisionism in Chinese Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
[6] “Xi Jinping condemns US-led ‘suppression of China,’ state media reports”, Hong Kong Free Press, 7 March 2023, https://hongkongfp.com/2023/03/07/xi-jinping-condemns-us-led-suppression-of-china-state-media-reports/; “Foreign Minister Qin Gang Meets the Press,” https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/202303/t20230307_11037190.html.
[7] State of the Union Address, 7 February 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2023/.
[8] For example, on power transition theory, see in particular Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017); on foreign policy decision-making and its escalatory consequences, see Susan L. Shirk, Overreach: How China Derailed its Peaceful Rise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023); and on the domestication of Chinese and American Foreign Policy, see Scott Kennedy and Wang Jisi, “Breaking the Ice: the Role of Scholarly Exchange in Stabilizing U.S.-China Relations,” Washington, DC: CSIS Report, 7 April 2023.
[9] In this major corpus, I would signal out the following as particularly relevant context for this book: Steve Chan, China, the U.S. and the Power-Transition Theory (London: Routledge, 2008); Chan, Looking for Balance: China, the United States, and Power Balancing in East Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012); (with Huiyun Feng, Kai He, and Weixing Hu), Chan, Contesting Revisionism: China, the United States, and the Transformation of International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
[10] For more on this US perspective, see Rosemary Foot and Amy King, “Assessing the Deterioration in China-US Relations: US Governmental Perspectives on the Economic-Security Nexus,” China International Strategy Review 1:1 (June 2019) 39-50.
[11] US National Security Strategy, October 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf, p.23.
[12] For more detail on this point see Reva Goujon, Lauren Dudley, Jan-Peter Kleinhaus, and Agatha Kratz, “Freeze-in-Place: The Impact of US Tech Controls on China,” Rhodium Group Note, 21 October 2022, https://rhg.com/research/freeze-in-place/.
[13] Jinping Xi, “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” speech delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, 18 October, 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdf
[14] State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, “Poverty Alleviation: China’s Experience and Contribution,” (April 2021), http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/2021-4-6/FullText.pdf
[15] Xinhua, “Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers his speech in Beijing on Thursday,” 1 July 2021, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2021-07/01/c_1310038244.htm
[16] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, “Writing a New Chapter of International Human Rights Exchanges and Cooperation,” Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of Lithuania, 10 December 2017, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/celt/eng/xwdt/t1519583.htm
[17] The State of Southeast Asia Survey Report, ASEAN Studies Centre: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, http://www.iseas.edu.sg/, 9 February 2023.
[18] “OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China,” 31 August 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf.
[19] For the central articulation of this position, see: Graham T. Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Melbourne: Scribe, 2018).
[20] For a classic work on this, see Alan D. Romberg, Rein in at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy toward Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations (Washington, D.C.: Henry L Stimson Center, 2003), https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/files/file-attachments/Complete%20Rein%20In%203rd%20Ed.pdf.
[21] See Rachel Kleinfeld and Steven Feldstein, “Is Democratic Opposition to China’s Repression in Xinjiang Getting Stronger?”(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2021). Accessed 12 June 2023 at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/31/is-democratic-opposition-to-china-s-repression-in-xinjiang-getting-stronger-pub-84225.
[22] See, for instance, Susan Shirk’s arguments in her latest book, Overreach (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).
[23] Technically, one could argue that there is a single power transition research program that is associated with the work of Organski, Kugler, and their colleagues. See, for instance, Ronald L. Tammen, Jacek Kugler, Douglas Lemke, Allan C. Stam III, Carole Alsharabarti, Mark A. Abhollahian, Brian Efird, and AFK Organski, Power Transitions: Strategies for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Chatham House, 2000). But a number of interpretations of international relations include a focus on transitions in systemic political leadership. See, for instance, Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Leading Sectors and World Power: The Coevolution of Global Economics and Politics (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996); Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2017).
[24] The following works illustrate the type of sources that were emphasized: Karen Rasler and William R. Thompson, The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490-1990 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994); Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and Empty Fortress: China’s Search for Security (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997); Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Vintage, 1998); John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001). Since the turn of the century, the literature on a US-China transition, of course, has ballooned.
[25] Chan notes an interesting facet of the Sino-American relationship when he argues that the American response to China’s perceived threat was postponed by US involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, the war on terrorism, and financial meltdown in 2008-09 (226). COVID-19 and Ukraine have also interfered even though both events have introduced new areas of bilateral discord. US reliance on Chinese manufacturing, investment, and raw materials and cooperation on climate change muddy the water as well. Is it possible that the long-term Sino-American rivalry will continue to be crowded out of American attention/fixation by more pressing events in the short term? If so, how exactly will that shape the nature of the rivalry?
[26] It has become somewhat less common to hear popular press references to China’s economic size passing the size of the U.S. economy since its shock value has declined with frequent references. Among the social science approaches to this question, the A.F.K Organski and Jack Kugler power transition argument is quite explicit on this issue. They argue that power equals population size multiplied by GDP per capita which, in turn, equals GDP. See A.F.K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 1980), 34.
[27] Even if it did surpass the United States, Chan argues that China’s political and cultural package is not all that attractive to the outside world (132), thereby raising implicitly the interesting question of how much that element matters in rise and fall dynamics.
[28] Chan writes something similar when he notes that China aspires to be the East Asian hegemon and the United States prefers that it not be successful in that quest (17).
[29] For instance, Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), sees only one Britain to United States transition. Immanuel Wallerstein emphasized three transitions (Netherlands-Britain-United States) in Wallerstein, “The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the Capitalist World-Economy,” in Gerhard Lenski, ed., Current Issues and Research in Macrosociology (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 100-108. Peter J. Hugill in “Transitions to Hegemony: A Theory Based on State Type and Technology,” in William R. Thompson, ed., Systemic Transitions: Past, Present, and Future (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 31-54, sees four (Portugal/Spain to Netherlands to Britain to United States) while Modelski and Thompson, Leading Sectors and World Power, have five after 1494 (Britain succeeded itself in 1815) and several pre-1494 transitions (Song China to Genoa to Venice and then to the Portuguese). Allison’s Destined for War looks at sixteen transitions of various kinds.
[30] David A. Baldwin, Power and International Relations: A Conceptual Approach (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016); Michael Beckley, “The Power of Nations: Measuring What Matters,” International Security 43: 2 (Fall 2018): 7-44. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00328.
[31] Susan Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” International Organization 41:4 (1987): 551-574.
[32] Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).
[33] Ronald L. Tammen and Jacek Kugler, “Power Transition and China–US Conflicts,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 1:1 (July 1, 2006): 35–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/pol003.
[34] Alastair Iain Johnston, “The Failures of the ‘Failure of Engagement’ with China,” The Washington Quarterly 42:2 (2019): 99–114.
[35] David M. McCourt, “Knowledge Communities in US Foreign Policy Making: The American China Field and the End of Engagement with the PRC,” Security Studies 31:4 (2022): 593–633.
[36] Evan S. Medeiros, “The Changing Fundamentals of US-China Relations,” The Washington Quarterly 42: 3 (July 3, 2019): 93–119; Dalei Jie, “The Emerging Ideological Security Dilemma between China and the U.S.,” China International Strategy Review 2:2 (2020): 184–96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42533-020-00059-3.
[37] Susan L. Shirk, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2023).
[38] Jude Blanchette and Evan S. Medeiros, “Xi Jinping’s Third Term.” Survival 64: 5 (September 3, 2022): 61–90.
[39] Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47:2 (1979): 263-292.
[40] Steve Chan, Huiyun Feng, Kai He, and Weixing Hu, Contesting Revisionism: China, the United States, and the Transformation of International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
[41] Chan et al, Contesting Revisionism, 114-115.
[42] Xiaoyu Pu, Rebranding China: Contested Status Signaling in the Changing Global Order (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019).
[43] Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 2017), 424.
[44] Steve Chan, “Bewildered and Befuddled: The West’s Convoluted Narrative on China’s Rise,” Asian Survey 63:1 (May/June 2023): 1-25.
[45] For a refreshing exception to this tendency, see Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter, China, the United States and Global Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
[46] Steve Chan, Culture, Economic Growth, and Interstate Power Shifts: Implications for Competition between China and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
[47] Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1900), and Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
[48] An excellent example that gives attention to both agency and structure is Rosemary Foot, China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, and Image (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
[49] Harry Harding, “Linkages Between Chinese Domestic and Foreign Policy,” paper presented at the Workshop on Chinese Foreign Policy, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 12-14 August 1976, 1.
[50] See, for example, William R. Thompson, Power Concentration in World Politics: The Political Economy of Systemic Leadership, Growth, and Conflict (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020); Thompson, American Global Pre-Eminence: The Development and Erosion of Systemic Leadership (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022); and Thompson and Leila Zakhirova, Racing to the Top: How Energy Fuels Systemic Leadership in World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
[51] Chan, Culture, Economic Growth, and Interstate Power Shifts.
[52] Kai He, Huiyung Feng, Steve Chan, and Weixing Hu, “Rethinking Revisionism in World Politics,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 14:2 (Summer 2021): 159-186.
[53] Thompson, Power Concentration in World Politics and American Global Pre-Eminence.