Opinion | US-China relations: new era of great power competition will leave the whole world better off
- The United States and the West have got to be realistic about what is possible with ‘containing’ China as Asia becomes the global centre of gravity
- If they do, strategic competition between China and the West will benefit the rest of the world and make the race to the moon pale in comparison
When it comes to geopolitics, Graham Allison’s book Destined For War on the “Thucydides trap” is mandatory reading. Allison has just published a short summary which includes this quote: “Obama called for the US to put less weight on our left foot (in the Middle East fighting wars) in order to put more weight on our right foot in Asia, where the future lies. While applauding the objective, to illustrate the impact of the tectonic shift, I suggested we imagine the US and China as two kids on a playground sitting on opposite ends of a see-saw, each represented by the size of its GDP (PPP). As we were debating aspirations, we barely noticed that both feet had lifted off the ground.”
I could not agree more. The United States and the West have got to get realistic about what is possible with “containing” China. The Asian economy as a whole will one day surpass the combined size of the EU and the US, and China will form the nucleus of that integrated Asian economy.
The US and the EU will be just two moons orbiting the Asian centre of gravity. I accept that might still be 50 or more years away, but sometimes in geopolitics 50 years is a short time. The Asians of 2070 will remember how the West conducted its strategic competition of the 2020s.
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What should the West do? As an engineer and businessman, I would dust off The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and say that we all should focus on our competitive advantage. The West should compete just like everyone else and focus on areas that are its competitive advantages.