CHAPTER 3

How the Rise of China Will Be Different:

Historical Analysis of Previous Power
Transitions

3.1 CHOOSING HISTORICAL CASES BASED ON CHANGE

OF GDP SHARE

History is an abundant database that can show us what has happened

before, so that we may carefully review the past and discuss how and
whence we are moving forward. Without studying the history of world
politics, an appropriate analysis of contemporary issue can hardly be made.
This is particularly true with regard to the discussion of the rise of China,
or as some may argue, the return of China.
Human history is full of conflicts and wars, unfortunately. This is
not a pessimistic view of the world, but a rational and reasonable state-
ment. This being said, war can be avoided, as power transitions can also
be peaceful. However, finding a period of time when wars occurred
along with changes in power will help us to understand power transi-
tions in different historical circumstances. According to the statistical
work conducted by Angus Maddison, the world GDP share among
countries has changed significantly across different historical periods.
Particularly, in the past 500 years, we can see that when there were
significant changes in GDP rankings, share percentages, and especially
power parity (measured by GDP) among countries, there were also
power transitions, sometimes accompanied with violent disagreements
or even wars, such as at the dawn of the twentieth century, when China

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 57

K. Jin, Rising China in a Changing World,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0827-6_3
58 K. JIN

lost its dominance to Japan in the East; during the 1940s and 1950s,
when the United States finally took over world’s leadership from Great
Britain; and in the 1980s when the Japanese economy boomed and
significantly challenged the economic dominance of the United States
throughout the world.
The findings of the Maddison Project show that GDP shares among
major powers like France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States,
China, and Japan have been significantly changing since 1500, and the
world politics in the past 500 years has witnessed a series of competi-
tions, violent disagreements, and even wars, generally when there were
some major changes in GDP shares among these major powers. China
particularly has gone through a series of changes or crises in this period
with regard to its share of GDP and its consequent world status. For
example, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Qing Empire
was involved in two Opium wars with the British and the Sino-Japanese
War of 1894–1895 with Meiji Japan. This was followed by the Japanese
invasion of China in the 1930s to the 1940s. More recently, as the
Chinese economy has truly flourished since the 1990s, there was a
China threat theory, and various conflicts and disputes between China
and other states, including its neighbors and the United States, have
emerged. Another example is when Japanese economy boomed in the
1980s, and there was an attendant economic competition over whether
the United States or Japan would assume an economically dominant
role on the world stage.
Therefore, although GDP alone does not equate to comprehensive
national power, it reflects the most direct output of a nation during a
certain period.1 In the past few hundred years, the times when GDP
rankings or power parity change rapidly are quite often the period full
of conflicts, disputes, and even wars among great powers. Therefore, the
historical review and analysis presented here accordingly focus on the fol-
lowing three power transitions in three periods: the Sino-Japanese War of
1894–1895  in the 1890s, the peaceful power transition between Great
Britain and the United States in the 1940s, and the economic competition
between Japan and the United States in the 1980s. The first two cases in
particular show that the shift of leadership can be realized before or after
the typical power-parity period.
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 59

Change of GDP Comparison in 500 Years

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

UK USA China Japan

Fig. 3.1 Change of GDP comparison in the past 500 years (Source and
Copyright: Angus Maddison, University of Groningen. Note: The data set,
especially with regard to GDP statistics of the above countries in recent years
provided in Maddison-Project, may be slightly different from the widely
used ones released by international organizations like the World Bank, but in
general it stays in line with the evolution of world’s power structure for hun-
dreds of years)

3.2 THE SINO–JAPANESE WAR OF 1894–1895:

A FAILED ENGAGEMENT
3.2.1 A Historical Review
The late nineteenth century was the period when the tribute system
dominated by China for many centuries failed. Even though Qing China
struggled desperately to maintain the status quo, the dominant tribute
system in East Asia was shattered in theory as well as in practice.2 The
fall of China’s suzerainty in this period may also be examined via Power
Transition theory, since Qing China’s predominance was built on a com-
monly recognized set of norms, rules, customs, and traditions (such as
the values and tenets of Confucianism) that were widely accepted and
respected by member states in the region. Even after experiencing a rela-
tive decline of national power, particularly after series of wars with the
West, Qing China still tried to maintain its superiority and leadership in
60 K. JIN

the region. For example, Qing China still tried to maintain its unique tie
with Chosun Kingdom prior to the war with Japan. However, Japan had
risen rapidly, particularly since the introduction of Meiji Restoration and
posed a great challenge to the dominant Qing Empire. From the perspec-
tive of Power Transition theory, Qing China as the dominant power and
the tributary system as the status quo lost their superior position.
It was in this period that the Meiji Sino-Japanese War broke out and
brought about fundamental consequences in the region. That war proves
exactly how important accommodating changes of power distribution
could have been, and how industrialization and political efficiency (which
Power Transition theory regards as two of three main determinants of
power, and the other one is population) matter. Specifically, the war broke
out between a semi-industrialized Japan and a still-underdeveloped Qing
China, primarily over the control of Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula,
which coincided with Japan’s increased degree of dissatisfaction toward
the Qing Empire’s predominance and the East Asian tribute system that
had already been shattered internally and externally by the treaties with
the West. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan overtook China and seized
regional predominance for the first time. At least two points stand out
when we analyze the nature of this regional war.
First, at the regional level, Japan was never a true part of the previously
prevailing Confucian community in which China was predominant.3 Japan,
though it sent tribute delegates to China no later than Han dynasty, had
never been regarded as a true member of East Asian Confucian community.
In Power Transition theory, this is the most critically dangerous scenario: a
falling dominant system versus a rapidly rising challenger particularly from
(more or less) the outside. Both sides, however, were dissatisfied: Qing
China had been humiliated by Western powers since the first Opium War in
many violent conflicts like those on the Indo-China and Korean peninsulas;
meanwhile Japan was desperate to grow and expand its influence on the
continent after it was also forced to open itself to the West. However, Japan
took a different and much effective approach to rise compared to that of
Qing China. Unfortunately, there were no successful accommodations or
engagements by Qing China with Japan, its regional rival. Even though
the system upheld by the declining Qing Empire was in crisis, both inter-
nally and externally, Qing China would not give up the Korean Peninsula
and Taiwan voluntarily. Meanwhile, Japan was confident it could shake and
eventually topple the already falling Chinese-dominant system. Inevitably,
as a consequence of failed reconciliation and engagement, war broke out.
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 61

Second, the question remains, How could Japan win the war when,
measured by national power as a whole, it was still a relatively weaker
power compared to Qing China? Industrialization seemed to have played
a major role in Japan’s success.
Meiji Japan had been through a series of socio-economic changes begin-
ning in the middle of nineteenth century. The very significant change,
as shown in the research conducted by Kenichi Ohno, was probably the
change in shares of outputs between indigenous industries versus modern
industries from 1890 to 1900; and in fact share of output by modern
industries jumped from less than 20% to over 40% within a decade and
reached near 80% by the late 1930s.4
Thus, Meiji Japan had witnessed a significant rise in its modern indus-
trial output since the 1890s, and that was the exact period of time when
this unfriendly “little” neighbor defeated Qing China. Actually, while
Meiji Japan had transformed into a semi-industrialized state, Qing China
was still a feudal empire with a very limited number of handicraft indus-
tries. In fact, throughout the whole Chinese empire—which had remained
basically stagnant even though early industrialization had indeed been
initiated—there were only “103 foreign-owned industrial enterprises,
most of them small firms”; and “the total growth of the industrial sec-
tor in this period of China’s early industrialization was minute in abso-
lute terms and modest when compared to the relatively large spurt of new
enterprises which began production in the period 1918–22.”5 In view of
Power Transition theory, Qing China remained far behind Meiji Japan
when it came to a main determinant of power: degree of industrialization
(Organski, 1958).6 Industrialization was not a monopoly of the West,7
and it did in fact contribute to the development of East Asian power rela-
tions in the late nineteenth century. Thus, what actually happened was
that a relatively “weaker” Japan defeated a seemingly “stronger” Qing
China, even though that Qing China definitely surpassed Japan in terms of
national power and national income. For example, in 1890, Qing China’s
estimated GDP was about five times bigger than that of Meiji Japan.8
In a conventional Power Transition theory discussion, the probability
of war becomes significantly high in periods of power parity. However,
this war falls somewhat before power parity occurred, meaning that the
real and violent takeover actually happened before these two rivals entered
a conventional power parity period. As a result, the predominant leading
role was transferred before the two powers actually met in parity (as the
dotted line shows in Fig. 3.2), even though the defender still dominated
62 K. JIN

Fig. 3.2 Power transition between Qing China and Meiji Japan in the 1890s

in sense of overall power. It is worth noting that this power transition

particularly was a violent one.
Nevertheless, the basic rules of Power Transition theory still can be
applied to the discussion of this war. For example, hierarchical structures,
dissatisfaction, industrialization, and GDP still apply.

3.2.2 Implications
Power Transition theory claims that it is the dominant power’s responsi-
bility to promote satisfaction among emerging powers in order to avoid
violent clashes or even war. Hence, failed engagement during the power
transition period will probably lead to war. A number of Power Transition
theorists have conducted many historical studies on war history from this
point of view. For example, Woosang Kim analyzed wars in the Western
world mainly focusing on the period from 1648 to 1975 and came to the
conclusion that power parity increases the probability of war, especially
among dissatisfied powers. However, besides power parity, significant
dissatisfaction as the result of failed engagement is a very important focal
point in the discussion of Power Transition theory.
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 63

Given its power-transitional impact and significance in the history of

the region, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 is instructive in several
ways, two of which at least can be particularly highlighted.
First, Qing China failed to engage Japan in the previous dominant sys-
tem in the region—an East Asian tribute system or Confucian community
that unfortunately had been shattered both internally and externally prior
to the war. The implications for contemporary world politics and especially
for the relations between the United States and China are quite obvious.
Though troubled by some internal and external discords, the United States
and the Western system under the leadership of the United States are not
collapsing, even as China has been rapidly catching up and surpassing other
major world powers, particularly with its ever-expanding economic power.
Further, the structure and distribution of power, especially in the East
Asian region, is changing but has not been overturned yet. The alliance
system has been maintained and even strengthened between the United
States and its East Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea. Interestingly,
when South Korea was believed to have moved closer to China under
Beijing’s charm offensive, the U.S.-South Korea relationship was declared
to have been upgraded to an alliance based on common norms and values
that involve shared global responsibilities. However much China rises, the
generally accepted view is that the United States still holds its unique lead-
ership position in the world and in the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, the
United States and the dominant system under its leadership still have the
major responsibility of accommodating and engaging China during certain
changes of power distribution brought about by the latter’s rise, before
these changes can significantly increase the probability of violent conflict
between China and its neighbors and the dominant United States.
Secondly, the Sino–Japanese war suggests that quality and mobility, or the
real “gold content” of GDP, are also significant in addition to its mere size.
Hence, the implication is also crystal clear: The United States’ continuing
leading role in industrial creativity, high technology, and so on supports its
current dominant position. What’s more, even with a relatively lower growth
rate, a substantially bigger GDP plus a smaller but still considerably large and
energetic population could somehow help the United States to keep its supe-
riority for a long time. By contrast, for example, the Chinese state-run enter-
prises—however many of them are largely supported by the state through
government subsidies for structural reasons—have made a great contribution
to China’s economic growth. Another interesting fact can be found in the
composition of top enterprises from these two countries. The fact is that
that although there are 106 Chinese firms and 128 American firms on the
64 K. JIN

“Fortune Global 500” 2015 list, the U.S. private firms still dominated the
top 100 with 32, with some of them from high-tech industry, including such
innovative and creative companies like Apple (rank 15), Hewlett-Packard
(rank 53), IBM (rank 82), and Microsoft (rank 95). In contrast, only 18
Chinese firms are listed in the top 100, and they are mostly state-owned banks
and enterprises like Sinopec Group (rank 2), China National Petroleum (rank
4), State Grid (rank 7), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (rank 18),
China Construction Bank (rank 29), Agricultural Bank of China (rank 36),
China State Construction Engineering (rank 37), Bank of China (rank 45),
China National Offshore Oil (rank 72), and China Development Bank (rank
87).9 Hence, the “Fortune Global 500” list shows that China and the United
States are still in very different developmental stages; and regarding the
maturity of its national economy, China still has a long way to go, especially
considering that the United States has virtually entered the stage of post-
industrialization, while China is still experiencing a series of difficult structural
adjustments in its ongoing industrialization. Therefore, in the comprehensive
discussion of power transition between the United States and China, it must
be emphasized that a more industrialized dominant power with a bigger and
more advanced GDP would have more confidence, initiative, and advan-
tages in engaging a still relatively inferior rising power. In the discussion of an
ongoing power transition, the strategic miscalculation sometimes comes from
not only the extensive assertiveness of the challenger, but also the unnecessary
self-deprecation of the defender. It is in this regard that the United States may
need to make extra effort to avoid falling into a “Thucydides Trap” when it
comes to its policies toward the rise China.

3.3 A CULTURALLY PEACEFUL POWER TRANSITION:

SHIFT OF LEADERSHIP FROM GREAT BRITAIN
TO THE UNITED STATES

3.3.1 A Historical Review

A power transition can be peaceful, no matter if it is regional or global.
As the United States gradually overtook Great Britain in the early twen-
tieth century in terms of national power, no major violent clashes or wars
between these two nations were recorded. Conventionally, the probability
of conflict was high. However, no violent conflicts actually arose when
power was transferred between these two “pals.”
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 65

How could this power transition have been realized in such a peaceful
way? Different explanations are possible. For example, common threats
from Germany and Japan created a chance for the United States and
Britain to join forces and eliminate discords between them that otherwise
might have dragged them into a power-transitional war. But in fact, a far big-
ger contributor to this peaceful transition was a common acknowledgment
of shared norms, ideologies, cultural traditions, and political principles.
As already proven by the Sino–Japanese war of 1894–1895, industri-
alization plays a significantly important role in transforming an emerging
power into a dominant power. As a matter of fact, the United States over-
took Great Britain in terms of industrial productivity considerably long
before it took over the leadership position and completed the peaceful
power transition in late 1940s. A simple comparison between the coal
production of Britain and the United States is instructive in this regard. In
1854, Britain produced 64.7 million tons of coal, while production in the
United States was 7.4 million tons. In 1920, however, Britain produced
229.5 million tons of coal while the United States produced 568.7 million
tons. Similarly, in 1860, Britain produced 3.827 million tons of pig iron
and the United States produced 2.873 million tons. By1920, while Britain
produced 8.035 million tons, the United States produced 67.604 million
tons. As far as steel production is concerned, in 1876 Britain produced
0.828 million tons and the United States produced 0.597 million tons.
However, by 1920, Britain produced 9.067 million tons of steel, while the
United States had a surprising output of 46.183 million tons.10
However, even when the United States had reached power parity with
Great Britain (and actually had overtaken it), a genuine power transition did
not occur immediately. More specifically, a shift in leadership was not realized
until the end of World War II. U.S. isolationism might have played a role in
the United States’ low profile in this period of history. The 1823 Monroe
Doctrine generally had a very profound impact on the United States’ foreign
policies and its attitude to international involvements for roughly a century,
during which bandwagoning with Great Britain and isolationism within
America continent had remained as Washington’s most favored choices.
Although the United States joined with the British in the First World
War, it was not until the Japanese humiliated the United States by bombing
Pearl Harbor in 1941 that the United States made its final decision to join
World War II and indeed assume leadership throughout the battlefields
in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. At that moment, a true superpower seek-
ing global predominance emerged in world politics and fundamentally
changed the structure and development of world politics.
66 K. JIN

Suspicions and questions have be raised by those who doubt the true
intentions behind a reluctant U.S’s being “self-isolated” for such a long
period of time.11 After all, the U.S.  GNP had already overtaken Great
Britain’s long before 1945 (when the war ended). In fact, the GNP of
Britain during the war years in 1939, 1941, 1943 and 1945 was, respec-
tively, USD 23.0, 27.1, 31.9, and 33.2 billion, while the figures for the
United States were USD 90.5, 124.5, 191.6, and 211.9.12
A still meaningful way originally developed by Power Transition theo-
rists to describe and measure “power” in a comparison between two rivals
is to refer to the equation “Power = Population x GNP/Population =
GNP,” which may give us a rough idea about which one is relatively more
powerful in a quick look. Therefore, theoretically, the above GNP com-
parison indicates that the United States actually overtook Great Britain
long before World War II broke out. In this case, the power transition
between Great Britain and the United States and more specifically the
time of the actual takeover and the transfer of leadership happened after
the power-parity period (as the dotted line shows in Fig. 3.3); and this
power transition was a peaceful one.

Fig. 3.3 Power transition between Great Britain and the United States in the
1940s
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 67

3.3.2 Implications
Why did the United States wait for so long? First, one of the most
significant implications of the above discussions is the concept of “ini-
tiative choice” by both the incumbent power and the challenger. The
dominant power shared a wide range of preferences with the emerging
challenger; and, probably intentionally, the emerging power avoided
directly challenging the dominant power. This may have led to two
totally different scenarios. The emerging power may try to postpone an
unwanted power transition, be it peaceful or violent, or the emerging
power may want more time to allow the dominant to accommodate and
engage its own emergence within the dominant but relatively declin-
ing system in order for the emerging power to implement its different
attitude and substitute plans. For example, the alliance system led by
the United States eventually replaced the colonial system dominated by
Great Britain.
Ultimately, power parity does not always lead to war or power transi-
tion or, more specifically, the transition of predominance and regional
and global leadership. Great powers may have choices, as shown by the
United States in the two World Wars. In those war periods, Great Britain
actually maintained the most powerful and functional governmental
administration in the world, and that system had dominated and spread
throughout the world for hundreds of years, when the United States had
remained as a de facto regional power. The point is that a peaceful transi-
tion of leadership was gradually realized, without violent conflicts, from
a declining incumbent to a rising challenger. Beyond that, a strategic
alliance (NATO) was formed, which, until the present day, has played
a critically important role in the prevailing dominant system under the
U.S. leadership.
Why, however, was this power transition a peaceful one? The realists
explain it from the perspective of a “balance of threats.” For example,
when Great Britain faced a number of threats, such as those from the
United States, Germany, Japan, and Italy, it simply chose to engage with
the main challenger closest in geographical proximity.13 However, Feng
Yongping claimed that the realists could not satisfactorily explain the
further proximity between these two powers, neither could the balance-
of-power theory, which is obviously challenged by the industrial-output
statistics shown in the above context. Feng Yongping also disagreed with
Organski, who described the United States as a “large power” satisfied
with the existing international system prior to the shift of leadership.
68 K. JIN

He pointed out that it is extremely difficult (and actually unrealistic) for

a rising newcomer to be truly satisfied with the existing international
system built by the former dominant power. Thus, there must be a new
approach to explain this peaceful power transition.
Constructivism, in fact, provided a very convincing explanation of this
peaceful power transition. Beyond “balance of threat” and “balance of
power,” identity construction and cultural homogeneity played very signifi-
cant roles in paving the way for the historic peaceful power transition from
the declining Great Britain to the already ascending United States. There are
a number of implications with great significance here. For example, the ini-
tiative or conscious choice by the challenger, identity building, and cultural
homogeneity between the dominant and the emerging nations are particu-
larly meaningful factors in this or probably any peaceful power transition.14
There are several important points to discuss. First, for a very long time
the United States had not shown an obviously high degree of dissatisfac-
tion toward Great Britain’s leadership, although there naturally could have
been disapproval and discord; and there had been much room and common
ground for these two great powers to collaborate and cooperate. Second, it
was a soft, natural, and highly mature power transition between two close
powers that had played critical roles on the same front—the Allies war
against the common enemies. The two powers not only shared cultural,
religious, and political traditions, but also were largely of the same race.
More importantly, the United States provided a far more welcoming and
stable system than the one Great Britain had maintained—and so the newly
built alliance system finally took over from the decadent colonial system.
Obviously, in this case, much of the degree of satisfaction on both sides
comes from the wide range of shared preferences over various issues.
Further, this peaceful power transition is reminiscent of the “New Type
of Major Power Relations” suggested by Beijing, which in general has
been made a point of consensus with Washington, diplomatically at least.
In Beijing’s view, major or great powers particularly need to acknowl-
edge their respective problems and differences and seek solutions through
dialogue and negotiation, including cooperation in various regional and
international institutions; and only in this way can great powers avoid the
traditional security dilemma. This is particularly true for China and the
United States, as they have very different political cultures and beliefs.
Simply being alien to each other does not inevitably lead to the conclusion
that there must be violent conflict. Naturally, vigilance and fear may come
from a psychological state of “not knowing” your rival, and the sense
of insecurity may intensify as something or someone alien is getting
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 69

stronger and is approaching rapidly. If the United States can somehow find
shared preferences or “commonalities” with an emerging China, peace
may be sustained. Building such shared preferences and commonalities
might have been rather unrealistic in the Cold War era, but as the world
situation changes, economic interdependence and cross-border issues may
help two rivals, however much they may oppose each other on political or
ideological grounds, to find a way to accommodate, engage, compromise,
and reconcile. Regarding the “commonalities,” Samuel P.  Huntington
suggested, “In a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to
renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities.”15

3.4 A STRUCTURALLY PEACEFUL CASE: ECONOMIC

COMPETITION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN16
3.4.1 A Historical Review
When Japan’s economy expanded rapidly from the 1950s to the 1980s, there
was indeed a ubiquitous “Japan threat theory”: the whole world and especially
the United States was actually concerned about the economic rise of, and
even “invasion” by, Japan. Time magazine once described an economically ris-
ing Japan using the title, “The Power and The Danger” (Time, 1971);17 and
indeed the fears created by the economic rise of Japan was a major issue for the
United States at that time: “The issue—and the real Japanese challenge—is
nothing less than whether the two mightiest trading nations in the world can
learn to live in commercial peace.”18
Endogenous growth theory claims that developed societies maintain
steady growth rates that will not allow them to remain ahead of rapidly
developing countries.19 As a result, the soaring Japanese economy chal-
lenged America’s economic dominance in the early 1980s. In fact, after
the high-speed economic growth it experienced from the 1950s to the
1970s, Japan actually “threatened” the United States’ economic predomi-
nance throughout the world. Endogenous growth theory also explains
why and how the growth of Japanese economy has evolved in the postwar
era. After Japan challenged the United States with its accumulated eco-
nomic power in the 1960s to 1980s, the Japanese economic growth rate
decreased significantly from an average of 4.7% per annum in the 1980s to
an average of 1.3% in the 1990s.20
Nevertheless, the Japanese economy did pose a serious challenge to
American’s economic dominance in the 1970s and 1980s, when the U.S.
economy had already entered a mature stage with a much lower average
70 K. JIN

growth rate compared to that of Japanese economy in the same period.

That “challenge,” however, was apparently a rather limited one, thus, an
economic and commercial competition; and it did not shatter the power
structure across the region. It was a kind of structurally limited economic
power-transition attempt.
Hence, although the United States did have concerns or even fears
regarding a Japanese economic “invasion,” the fears created by such an
economic challenge by the Japanese were not comparable with the fears
and concerns that arose later over the rise of China. Structurally, Japan has
long been embedded in the dominant Western system and Japan strongly
supports U.S. dominance and leadership in the region and throughout
the world.21 In addition there were shared norms, values, and institutions
between Japan and the United States, even if Japan did challenge the
United States in the economic realm. It is thus understandable that Japan
did not intend to challenge the United States with regard to the whole
power structure and the dominant system; and generally both have been
at peace since both remain in the same structure and the same alliance
system. In fact, after World War II, military occupation and the result-
ing change in political and economic systems did aid in the transitions of
Japan into stable democratic members of the international community.22
In the U.S.-Japan case the intended power transition (an economic one)
between the two nations was a structurally limited and peaceful one.

3.4.2 Implications
Obviously, the United States should encourage China’s economic rise and
continue to react positively to the current economic competition with
China. But the real problem remains: China and the United States are not
allies, and China’s rise or the challenge posed by China’s ambitious expan-
sion could very well be perceived as comprehensive rather than being
regarded as merely a structurally limited economic competition.
This has been the current situation between the United States and
China, particularly since the beginning of the new millennium. As the
world’s largest foreign currency reserve holder and the United States’
largest creditor, China now stands right after the United States as the
world’s second largest economy; and it is still rising though at a slightly
slower rate in the past few years. It is, then, beyond all doubt that the
United States particularly needs to address and engage China’s rise now
when true power parity has yet to come but is gradually approaching.23
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 71

So the question is, In what circumstance can the United States engage
China; or more specifically, how can the United States engage China when
these two great powers are not allies? Through what mechanism could the
dominant United States and the “newcomer” or the “outsider” China
communicate and comprehend each other?
Alliance, according to Stephen M. Walt, is a formal or informal rela-
tionship of security cooperation between two or more sovereign states.24
In Northeast Asia, there are the U.S.-Japan and the U.S.-South Korea
alliances. Yet, alliance-building practices of the United States in Northeast
Asia and its security cooperation in other regions do not and should not
conflict with its constructive cooperation with an emerging China on an
increasing number of regional and global economic, environmental, and
security issues. A new type of comprehensive engagement with China is
probably what the United States needs to seek in addition to its close
political and military ties with its East Asian allies. The reasons are obvi-
ous. For example, the economic interdependence between the United
States and China has probably been deeper and more comprehensive than
any economic ties between any other countries since the 1980s, includ-
ing that between the United State and Japan. China, as a great regional
power, does have its uniquely important role in a number of regional and
global issues. Simply put, the United States also needs to engage China to
ensure that the current regional order will not be overthrown by China in
a risky way. Fortunately, there have been a number of regional and inter-
national institutions through which the Untied States can practice such
engagement, and it surely can serve as a remedy for the structural lack of
trust between Washington and Beijing at present.

3.5 COLLAPSE OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION:

EXCESSIVE COMPETITION CAUSED A GREAT POWER
TO FAIL

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a 50-year-long Cold War ended
between two major world superpowers. Even though the former Soviet
Union once approximated the United States in term of national power
in the late 1980s, it subsequently collapsed in disarray.25 Throughout his-
tory, the principle of “winner takes all” seems to have been proven over
and over each time it prevails with the collapse of a great power or a chal-
lenger. The former Soviet Union failed at the game, and the price was
catastrophic.
72 K. JIN

Interestingly, though China has always claimed to have a “non-

alignment foreign policy,” it has been a strategic partner to both the for-
mer Soviet Union and the United States in an effort to balance them in
different periods based on different strategies and political considerations.
Another interesting fact is that there truly was communication between
the United States and China even during the turmoil in the summer of
1989.26 The question is, does China truly view the United States as its
unavoidable enemy? Would China choose to initiate another Cold War to
challenge the West under the U.S. leadership?
It is interesting to first look at the national power comparison between
the former Soviet Union and the United States before the fall of the Berlin
Wall. In the decades before former Soviet Union collapsed, the highest
level of Soviet GDP per capita compared to that of the United States
was roughly 34% in the 1960s and 1970s. It dropped to 27.1% in 1991,
and, remarkably, the economic growth rate of the former Soviet Union
between 1985 and 1991 was −2.1%, while the United States had a positive
growth rate of 1.1%.27 In 1970, the former Soviet Union possessed 1,694
nuclear warheads in comparison to the United States’ total number of
1,710; and in 1990 the former Soviet Union possessed 10,117 warheads
and the United States a total of only 7,816.28 By contrast, for the year of
2014, China’s GDP per capita as a percentage of the United States’ was
roughly 14%; and China is generally believed to maintain a limited num-
ber of comparatively less advanced nuclear warheads.
The above comparison reveals a simple fact: Despite the fact that
the former Soviet Union was equally powerful or even slightly stronger
than the United States, particularly with regard to its nuclear arsenal,
it lost the game, with enormous costs and long-lasting consequences
in world politics. The former Soviet Union was a strong, rich country;
however, in comparison to the United States, it actually was a relatively
“strong country with poor citizens” in terms of GDP per capita. While
the United States had secured its leadership in the Western world by
implementing a market-oriented free economy and democracy-centered
values, the former Soviet Union had controlled the East Bloc with autar-
chy.29 In this sense, the former Soviet Union was more-or-less defeated
by itself rather than by the United States, and the message to a rising
China has always been simple and clear: the former Soviet Union’s way
is not something for China to follow.
 HOW THE RISE OF CHINA WILL BE DIFFERENT: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS... 73

What’s more, the confrontation and discord between the United States
and the former Soviet Union are different from the strategic competition
between the United States and a rising China: the Soviet-U.S. confronta-
tion involved two completely different and highly antagonistic blocs that
held totally different political and ideological beliefs, while U.S.-China
competition has generally occurred within a U.S.-led world system in
which China has been an increasingly recognized and accepted member
since China opened up and initiated its historic reforms in the late 1970s.30
From the perspective of economic development, China and the West
have been closely interconnected with each other, especially because the
growing Chinese market economy needs investment, technologies, and
customers from the West and the United States as one of its major trade
partners. In this economically intertwined world, it is not appropriate to
simply regard China as an invader or a potential disrupter of the cur-
rent world political and economic system. China has not created any kind
of Beijing Treaty Organization that resembles the Warsaw Pact created
by former Soviet Union. On the contrary, it has joined the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and many other international institutions primar-
ily under U.S. leadership, although it has created Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB)—which is still open to the United States—
because of the protracted length of reforms in the current world finan-
cial system. Overall, the irreconcilable confrontation between the former
Soviet Union and the United States is long past and should not be allowed
to take place between China and the United States. Simply put, neither
country can truly afford to do that.
There are two important implications for the currently rising China
regarding the failure of the former Soviet Union in its doomed competi-
tion with the United States: First, for a number of good reasons, China
will not choose to compete with the United States in the same desperate
way the former Soviet Union did. China has yet to be regarded as a truly
strong and rich country; the United States should acknowledge this so
that does not fall into an unnecessary “Thucydides trap.” A truly powerful
China must be a strong country with genuinely wealthy citizens (≁ᇼഭᕪ,
Min Fu Guo Qiang), and in fact this was accepted as a core mission and
mandate for China in its 12th Five-Year Plan.31 In this regard, ensuring
the sustainability of China’s economic growth in a peaceful environment
rather than pursuing a provocative brinkmanship policy in a power game
with the United States actually has been a consensus of the Chinese lead-
ership, no matter how the United States may view China—as a strategic
74 K. JIN

competitor or even a potential enemy. The United States will not see a
new version of Soviet Union in China; nor should it push China in that
direction, which would truly harm both sides.
Second, to be accepted as a real, responsible “great power,” China
should focus on building comprehensive national power, which particu-
larly supports “soft power,” rather than engage in excessive military com-
petition with the dominant United States. In fact, by emphasizing mutual
respect and coexistence, China has shown that it truly understands the
importance of escaping the conventional doomed fate of excessive com-
petition among great powers—the “Hunger Game.” On one hand, China
definitely needs more time to learn how to act “responsibly” in the inter-
national community. On the other hand, the United States should take
the initiative and allow and encourage such a process of learning or
“socialization” on China’s part, rather than isolating this rising power and
treating it as a inimical challenger to its leadership. The United States and
China should focus on a shared view on common interests rather than
building a divisive iron curtain like the one that had separated the Eastern
and Western blocs in the Cold War.
The former Soviet Union and its allies did build a wall to block the
West, but it collapsed. The West and the United States did not invade or
tear any piece of territory from the Soviet monolith. Rather, it collapsed
because it went in the wrong direction and wound up in the wrong sce-
nario. Beset with tremendous domestic challenges, it collapsed by suf-
focating itself through excessive military competition with the West and
particularly with the United States.
The significance of the collapse of former Soviet Union for the rise of
China with can also be found in a well-known Chinese proverb—“ࡽ䖖ѻ
䢤, ਾһѻᐸDŽ” (meaning, “the past, if not forgotten, will be a guide to
the future”—Qian Che Zhi Jian, Hou Shi Zhi Shi).

NOTES
1. The only difference between GDP and GNP (a measure of power adapted
by the Power Transition theorists) is that GNP includes the value of goods
and services produced by the nationals outside of a certain country. Please
referto:http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/3491/economics/difference-
between-gnp-gdp-and-gni/.