China And America Destined For Conflict

NATIONAL BESTSELLER | NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR. From an eminent international security scholar, an urgent examination of the conditions that could produce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and China—and how it might be prevented. China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants. The reason is Thucydides’s Trap: when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, violence is the likeliest result. Over the past five hundred years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times; war broke out in twelve. At the time of publication, an unstoppable China approached an immovable America, and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promised to make their countries “great again,” the seventeenth case was looking grim—it still is. A trade conflict, cyberattack, Korean crisis, or accident at sea could easily spark a major war. In Destined for War, eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison masterfully blends history and current events to explain the timeless machinery of Thucydides’s Trap—and to explore the painful steps that might prevent disaster today. SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES (LONDON)* AMAZON “Allison is one of the keenest observers of international affairs around.” — President Joe Biden “[A] must-read book in both Washington and Beijing.” — Boston Globe “[Full of] wide-ranging, erudite case studies that span human history . . . [A] fine book.”— New York Times Book Review

This book explores the possibility and feasibility of building a new model of major-country relations between China and the United States, which is of great significance to the sound interaction between the two countries and the preservation of peace and stability of the world. In early June 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama reached a consensus on building a new model of major-country relations at the historical Sunny lands meeting in California. In the years that followed, the two leaders were committed to that goal despite the different interpretations in its substance. How is the new model of major-country relations conceptualized and developed? What renders it possible? Is the major-country conflict inevitable? These are the basic issues addressed in this book. Now, China-US relations are at a critical juncture. The international community is watching the world’s two largest economies and is quite concerned about the future of one of the world’s most complicated bilateral relationships. This timely publication of Professor Tao Wenzhao provides us with a realistic approach to managing this vital relationship in a candid and balanced way.

Will the twenty-first century be defined by the inevitability of conflict between China and the USA?When Athens went to war with Sparta some 2,500 years ago, the Greek historian Thucydides identified one simple cause- a rising power threatened to displace a ruling one, leading inexorably to conflict. As Graham Allison explains, in the past 500 years, great powers have found themselves in 'Thucydides's Trap' sixteen times. In twelve of the sixteen - from war between the French and the Hapsburgs in the sixteenth century to the two world wars of the twentieth - the results have been catastrophic. Today, the same structural forces propel China and the United States toward a cataclysm of unseen proportions, even as both sides insist that such a war could never occur. In Destined for War, Allison compares the U.S.-China conflict to its closest parallel- World War I. There, a rising Germany threatened the supremacy of the British Empire. He sketches several scenarios in which America and China might slide, against their intent and better judgment, into a similar conflict. But he also examines the rare instances when two clashing powers have avoided disaster, and speculates about whether the current standoff could be one of those exceptions.

China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants. The reason is Thucydides' Trap, a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one. This phenomenon is as old as history itself. About the Peloponnesian War that devastated ancient Greece, the historian Thucydides explained- 'It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.' Over the past 500 years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times. War broke out in twelve of them. Today, as an unstoppable China approaches an immovable America, and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promise to make their countries 'great again', the seventeenth case looks grim. Unless China is willing to scale back its ambitions or Washington can accept becoming number two in the Pacific, a trade conflict, cyberattack, or accident at sea could soon escalate into all-out war. In Destined for War, the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains why Thucydides' Trap is the best lens for understanding U.S.-China relations in the twenty-first century. Through uncanny historical parallels and war scenarios, he shows how close we are to the unthinkable. Yet, stressing that war is not inevitable, Allison also reveals how clashing powers have kept the peace in the past - and what painful steps the United States and China must take to avoid disaster today.

The notion of a "Thucydides Trap" that will ensnare China and the United States in a 21st century conflict-much as the rising power of Athens alarmed Sparta and made war "inevitable" between the Aegean superpowers of the 5th century BCE-has received global attention since entering the international relations lexicon 6 years ago. Scholars, journalists, bloggers, and politicians in many countries, notably China, have embraced this beguiling metaphor, coined by Harvard political science professor Graham Allison, as a framework for examining the likelihood of a Sino-American war. This case study examines the Thucydides Trap metaphor and the response it has elicited. Hewing closely to what the historian of the Peloponnesian War actually says about the causes and inevitability of war, it argues that, while Thucydides' text does not support Allison's normative assertion about the "inevitable" result of an encounter between "rising" and "ruling" powers, the History of the Peloponnesian War (hereafter, History) does identify elements of leadership and political dynamic that bear directly on whether a clash of interests between two states is resolved through peaceful means or escalates to war. It is precisely because war typically begins with a considered decision by a national command authority to reject other options and mobilize for conflict (and thus always entails an element of choice) that insight from Thucydides' History remains relevant and beneficial for the contemporary strategist, or citizen, concerned in such decisions.Accordingly, this case study concludes that the Thucydides Trap, as conceived and presented by Graham Allison, draws welcome attention both to Thucydides and to the pitfalls of great power competition, but fails as a heuristic device or predictive tool in the analysis of contemporary events. Allison's metaphor offers, at best, a potentially misleading over-simplification of Thucydides' nuanced and problematic account of the origins of the epochal conflict that defined his age. Moreover, it overlooks actual insights from the History that can help political decisionmakers-including, but not limited to, those of the United States and China-either avoid war or, if ignored, pose genuine policy "traps" that can make an avoidable war more likely, and a necessary war more costly.

From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy. For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China's present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become--and to interact wisely with a future peer. Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best.

A provocative and urgent analysis of the U.S.–China rivalry. It has become conventional wisdom that America and China are running a “superpower marathon” that may last a century. Yet Hal Brands and Michael Beckley pose a counterintuitive question: What if the sharpest phase of that competition is more like a decade-long sprint? The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the 21st century. But both history and China’s current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s. China is at a perilous moment: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet losing confidence that time is on its side. Numerous examples from antiquity to the present show that rising powers become most aggressive when their fortunes fade, their difficulties multiply, and they realize they must achieve their ambitions now or miss the chance to do so forever. China has already started down this path. Witness its aggression toward Taiwan, its record-breaking military buildup, and its efforts to dominate the critical technologies that will shape the world’s future. Over the long run, the Chinese challenge will most likely prove more manageable than many pessimists currently believe—but during the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real. America, Brands and Beckley argue, will still need a sustainable approach to winning a protracted global competition. But first, it needs a near-term strategy for navigating the danger zone ahead.

"A superb book.…Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers."—Barry R. Posen, The National Interest The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully? In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable.