Opinion | Why US, China power transition does not have to be dangerous and lead to war
- It is not their power positions but their domestic and foreign policies that determine whether nations go to war
- Domestic politics are causing the deteriorating Washington/Beijing relationship, including the most dangerous issue: Taiwan
Power transition is a powerful logic in international relations discourse. Between rising powers and existing powers – or a formerly weaker power overtaking a stronger one – it is often viewed as dangerous in world politics. International relations scholars A.F.K. Organski, Jacek Kugler, and Robert Gilpin have long argued that power transition is a basic cause of systemic war.
We have seen many wars occur when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing power. The rise and fall of great powers have happened like this throughout history. A few years ago, Harvard professor Graham Allison coined the term “Thucydides Trap” to describe the likelihood that the US and China would go to war, as Sparta and Athens did in ancient Greece 2,000 years ago, when Athens was threatening to overtake Sparta.
The Thucydides Trap has framed today’s mainstream thinking and academic discourse. The world is increasingly concerned by the idea that China and the US may fall into the Thucydides Trap when the former overtakes the latter.
Yet, although wars have often occurred in the context of power transition, they are ultimately caused by human error, not by power rivalry at the international level. Using the power transition theory to predict war is deadly wrong.
It is true that power transfers between rising and existing powers as they grow at differential rates, altering their relative power. However, a power transition between competing powers is not a necessary and sufficient condition for war. It is not countries’ relative power position but their domestic and foreign policies that determine whether they go to war.
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The rise of China is inevitable, and the power transition between China and the US can be peaceful. Many of the concerns over China catching up with or even overtaking the US in the short run are exaggerated. The rise of China and the relative decline of the US power will not turn the post-war international order upside down.
