My Take | Why the US will want war but not China

In his early writings as an academic political scientist, Henry Kissinger developed several interesting pairs of concepts. One pair was a revolutionary power vs a legitimist power.

The latter is one that is satisfied with the existing international system because its interests are best met by maintaining and supporting it. The former wants to overturn it or at least rewrite its rules because it thinks its interests are not met or even undermined.

Today, the United States is usually seen as the legitimist power and China the revolutionary power. Or, in the loaded language of Washington, China doesn’t play by the rules. In reality, though, the roles may have already been reversed, as a declining power finds itself no longer in a position to exploit and dictate the rules of the game. The rising power, however, has benefited from the international system and has every interest in maintaining it.

To save ourselves being entangled in rhetoric and propaganda, let’s consider the ultimate test: war. A revolutionary power may risk war to rearrange the existing international system; a legitimist power will try its utmost to avoid war. Which has the most to lose in a hot war between China and the US?

War breaks out when the international system fails. Such a war will be fought in the South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait, in other words, China’s backyard. Win or lose, it will devastate the Chinese economy much more so than America’s.

Consider some data I have quoted in this space before, but in different contexts. Measured at purchasing power parity, the International Monetary Fund and the Central Intelligence Agency already consider China’s economy to be the largest in the world. Measured by output per head, again at purchasing power parity, China’s economy is currently a third of America’s and half of the European Union’s. It only needs to rise to half of the US level to have an economy as big as those of the US and EU, combined.