BOOK REVIEW: CHINA IN DECLINEChina Is a Threat Not Because It is Ascendant, but Because It Is on a Downward Trajectory
The prevailing consensus for the past few years has been that an ascendant China is threatening to overtake a slumping America. Because research suggests that a geopolitical power transition is most likely to take place when a surging challenger overtakes an exhausted hegemon, many believe that a turbo-charged China has increased the likelihood of conflict with America. In their book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, Hal Brands and Michael Beckley challenge this notion and offer a more nuanced view.
The prevailing consensus for the past few years has been that an ascendant China is threatening to overtake a slumping America. ‘If we don’t get moving, they [China] are going to eat our lunch,’ US President Joe Biden told a group of senators in 2021.
Research suggests that a geopolitical power transition is most likely to take place when a surging challenger overtakes an exhausted hegemon. In assessing the threat posed by China, it has become popular to refer to the Thucydides’ trap, named after the Greek historian and general who blamed the Peloponnesian War on the threat posed by a rising Athens to an established Sparta. The message is clear: a turbo-charged China has increased the likelihood of conflict with America.
In Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China,Hal Brands and Michael Beckley challenge this notion and offer a more nuanced view. Brands is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and Beckley is an associate professor at Tufts University. In their cogently argued book, they provide a fresh take on the likelihood of Sino-American war.
As Brands and Beckley see it, China is simultaneously both a rising and a declining power. While China continues to rise in terms of military might, measured in economic and demographic terms it is already firmly on a downward trajectory. No less significant, President Xi Jinping’s assertiveness has alerted the world to China’s ambitions, and the world is gearing up to respond. Consequently, China has a rapidly closing window of time in which to realize its plans.
The authors call this the ‘peaking power trap’. Conventional thinking suggests that China will bide its time until its military is strong enough to guarantee success, but the authors suggest that the pressure is on, and a conflict could be imminent.
Brands and Beckley remind us that China’s economic performance peaked more than a decade ago. With the effects of the government’s Covid-19 policies cramping productivity and real-estate markets tanking, the economy grew by a historical low of only 3.0% in 2022 and is expected to grow by 4.3% this year. China’s boom years are a thing of the past.
