The end of World War II has left the United States with the doubt of encountering a rising

authoritarian country determined to expand its boundaries, overwhelm its surrounding

nations, challenge democratic institutions, spread its authoritarian regulation model and so
on. The consequence, after a phase of initial argument and hesitation in America’s policy,
was the Cold War: a rivalry over influence, dominance and the establishment of international
command lasting for 40 years. Such 40-years of mutually advantageous relation tie between
America and China has , to some extent, confronted national, global, and ideological barriers
that gradually worsened their interaction. A relationship that used to combine both
competitiveness and cooperativeness now remains basically competitive in both two nations.
Since conflict between Beijing and Washington shows no sign of ceasing, there exist en
emerging distress that the two countries are becoming engaged in a new cold war—another
long-lasting fight to form the global system. Hence there starts a growing concern about the
origin of their rivalry, the one liable for the destruction in the relationship and their positioning
within this conflict. This essay will respectively discuss those questions with the first part
depicting the origin of their rivalry and second part assessing both strongpoints and
weaknesses of the two superpowers.

It is advisable to look at the timeline of this worsening two-sided relationship to see where
the deterioration begins. Some might believe Beijing’s “new assertiveness” appearing in
2008 and a year after can be seen one of the reasons. This was when the majority of
countries were experiencing economic downturns, when America’ president Obama was
emphasizing the necessity to reassure China’s capital, stating the occurrence of the
multipolar concept and mentioning the probability of founding a “G2” for handling
international issues. This action was depicted more of USA weakness and adaptation rather
than of rising hostility, which somehow cement the platform for China’s rising pressure in the
country’s South Sea, East Sea, and other zones also.

Another reason for the rising tension between the two powerhouses may lie in China’s
unprecedented modifications under the regime of Xi Jinping. It is undoubted that China has
become more competitive, hostile, and authoritarianism-oriented than ever. His policies to
enhance political governing, alter China into an extremely high-tech police nation, substitute
group leadership into individualized controlling has strengthened the postion of China. In
Asian zone, China’s increasing investment in military and paramilitary forces and its
experiments have stressed, antagonized, and strictly interrupted the authority of other
nations like Japan and India. Furthermore, Xi also official and publicly challenge America’s
influence. Many of its military projects have disturbed the allowed limit whilst “Made in China
2025” project voices an aspiration to seize economic superiority from the USA (Wadekar et
al., 2020). His regime has also confirmed that China can be an ideological substitute for
America and willingly attempt to advocate authoritarians and minimize the impact of
democracy. It can totally be observed that China has changed drastically under the
temporary president’s regime.

Another element contributing to their declined relationship might be the changing power
dynamics and the natural concept of global affairs themselves. The rivalry starts when there
is no more balance between their power. China’s remarkable economic rise is even
described as “the fastest sustained growth by an economy in history”, as unpredicted miracle
in temporary economy (China, 2020). There are huge rises witnessed in both its GDP and
military budget. It also lies in top rankings in AI and telecommunications industries while
gradually achieving the top position in other segments such as sustainable energy and
technology sector. China is evolving from an international assembly factory to a design
region and a manufacturing facility for valuable products. Besides, the country not only
possessed more progressive military competences but also strong economic foundation to
affect from Southeast Asia countries to those further abroad. Beijing has apparently changed
its tactics from maintaining a low profile to endorsing huge power diplomacy. Its increasing
strengths, in result, have fostered the impetus toward greater conflict. Beijing’s expanding
power has rendered several developed countries diminish their international impact, even
threatened America’s positions in the area as a top threat. All those have finally obliged U.S.
policy makers to make moves in response in any means to undermine China’s economic
power.

For better evaluation of power between America and China, it’s important to understand the
concept. The notion of power has been in limelight for decades given the controversy
associated with its definition. Many researchers such as Max Weber (1947: 152) and Talcott
Parsons (1967) stated their own definitions bases on system resources and other elements.
However, all of those statements receive so much arguments that there exists no agreed
concept of power until now. Even so, power still remains the chief factor in deciding the
country’s position in the economic race. In this part, the concept of power’s sources by Mann
and Types of power by Nye will be applied to comprehend each country strong points and
spots for improvement.

Mann’s conceptualization of four source of social power, military, economics, political, and
ideological can be utilized in this case. In terms of economics, America has been the world’s
biggest economy, staying unchallenged for roughly 140 years and it approximately takes up
22% of global GDP. The competition in income, however, can be seen unequal. The USA’s
Gross Deomestic Product (GDP) in 2009 was closely $16 trillion, whist China’s was around
$6 trillion, though its population scale is four times larger than that of the USA. On average ,
an American income varies around $50,000 in 2009 meanwhile a Chinese citizen earns less
than $6,000 (The United States vs. China—Which Economy Is Bigger, Which Is Better,
2018). All these gaps seemed to be narrowed down years after however the gap between
them still remains pretty high. It can be seen that China recently has dominated US by at
least one measurement segment in the economic rating scale, which is GDP based on
purchasing power parity (PPP) (Desjardins, 2020). Moreover, when it comes to the
contribution of each economy, the differences are obvious. While USA is a complex and
highly expanded economy with a wide array of industry segments which are is based on
services, finance, and consumption from the middle class and above. China may have
similar future orientations yet for now it is resource-focused development engine creating the
modification from a producing center to a design-focused and consumer-oriented economy.
China’s economy is obviously chasing up with America’s and potentially capable of takeing
on the leasing role in some crucial economic and trade segments soon soon, even while
resuming to stay behind in others.

Considering the political system, China strength may lie in its strong command by the
application of one party. Strong directions from China’s government means the strict
enforcement of rule and regulations , which has lead to considerable impressive
technological discoveries. China is now hub to “the world’s biggest hydroelectric dam and
the world’s fastest supercomputer” and attained many more achievements for itself thanks to
effective government policies. Nevertheless, these strengths can also turn its weaknesses.
In spite of its strong centralization of political power, China distributes authority to local
below units without extreme measurements to ensure the goals and requirements can be
effectively met. Moreover as run by an authoritarian government, a robust free of speech is
apparently of deficiency.

In terms of power types, (Nye, 1990) believes that one of the problems with the factors of the
domestic power approach is the matter of power conversion which is ‘the ability to change
promising power, as evaluated by resources, to recognized power, as assessed by the
modifying behavioral patterns of others’. Thus, the pure ownership of power resources if not
ultimate priority. It is the capability to alter these into real influence really matters. Since the
nature of global external relations strategies were changing, the firm interpretation of power
also begun to modify. To be more specific, Joseph Nye (1990) stated that the modifying form
of global framework has re-focused the usage of metaphysical types of power like culture,
ideology, and institutions. Nye divides power into two shapes: hard and soft. Nye’s forms of
power will be applied in this part as a framework for the assessment. While hard power can
be accessed via criteria such as population size, territory, geography, biological resources,
military, and economic strength, soft power lies on the opposite. It is referred to as the use of
abstract concepts like culture, political values, institutions, and policies that are regard as
lawful or obtaining ethical authority (Nye, 2008). Legitimacy is of significance for soft power.
The question might be what will be the type of power each of the nations are pursuing. For
Nye, the foundation of USA’s soft power is centered around its liberal democratic political
tactics, no-tied market economics, and primary ethical values such as human privileges or in
other words called liberalism. After the America conquered the Cold War, American
liberalism had raised huge attraction on a global scale. Every individual aspired to go voting,
buy jeans and have the right to have personal freedom of speech. Francis Fukuyama as a
theoretical philosophy even mentioned “the end of history” phase as a way to describe the
opinion that whole world was moving toward the so-called a politics end destination already
accomplished by the American (Medalis, 2011). Around the period of from 1980s to 2010s,
the rise of liberal democracies was unbelievable with the number growing from around 100
to approximately 150 (Medalis, 2011). Human modern history has never witnessed
considerable nations rejecting their conventional outdated political methods and economic
preparations for a new arisen system. However, based on Nye’s concept of soft power,
China might make a different name for itself while not fitting the standards. However, time
has answered for everything. In the regime of soft power, China maintains the only country
that established its own trend. It joined itself into the post-World War II worldwide command
by growing cultural and economic relations with the majority of countries worldwide. It is
now the biggest trading country worldwide and in history. It shows objection to becoming and
being blended in as a customer of American-affect soft power. It cultivated its own highly
complicated changed from a merely production economy to a consumer-driven economy
while not enabling the market to go out of the control. It eliminates the Western notion of
democracy, and reinforced its one-party political system. In other words, China did not agree
to be compromised. It might see the international trend at the time but it does not want what
the west wants it to want. There is no doubt that not least in China, that any form of soft
power can exist and thrive without harnessing hard power. China’s way of apply power types
is more accommodating of difference. By not forcing other countries into its own mold,
China’s new form of soft power can mean a more peaceful 21st century
Overall it can be seen the rivalry between the two nations might be triggered for many
reasons. Those can be the effect of historical war in the past, the magnificent changes of
China under Xi, Beijing’s increasing power which somehow becomes threatening to the long-
established position of America and many more. Above all, the key triggering factors lie in
the varying power and the deep-rooted nature of the regime. China and USA shows different
angels of strengths and weaknesses themselves when applied model of Mann and Nye. The
different strategies in economics polices, in harnessing hard and soft powers has definitely
created different positioning for each nation in the growing conflict.

References

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