New bipolar world

Despite China and US vying for dominance in East Asia there is unlikely to be a war

The next decade will witness the transformation of the unipolar international configuration that has been dominated by the United States since the end of the Cold War into a sort of bipolar world. The Chinese government continues to implement reform initiatives, which have contributed to the narrowing of the gap in national strength between the US and China during the past four decades. This trend is expected to continue even with a new US administration in office, as it usually takes longer to restore a country's power than to weaken it. In addition to the rise of China, another important factor that shapes the bipolar landscape is the huge gap in national power that separates the other major powers from China and the US.

Currently, there is no major power whose comprehensive national strength is anywhere near that of the US or China. Even if these countries had leaders hoping to narrow the gap in the next 10 years, it is still unlikely for them to build up their national strength to the same level as China, let alone that of the US.

The current progress toward a sort of bipolar international configuration is shifting the center of gravity to East Asia. If a region is to stand as the center of a bipolar world it must satisfy two conditions. First, the region is essential to the strategic competition between the two leading powers. Second, one of the two leading powers must be geographically located in the region. In the next 10 years, the two leading powers will have more strategic interests in East Asia than in any other region, including Europe.

Over the next decade, the geopolitical competition between the US and China will be focused on East Asia. In this sort of new bipolarity, less powerful countries will have to choose between the US and China based on their own specific interests. Their motivations will be different from those that drove them to choose between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

With a failed strategy of containment, the US will have no interest in providing full support for its allies. China, meanwhile, will be cautious in providing its support to countries who may drag it into a proxy war. In response to the policies of these two leading powers, the less powerful states are adopting a different strategy when navigating the Sino-US rivalry to that they adopted amid the US-Soviet rivalry. Instead of supporting one particular superpower on every issue, they will take sides with whichever one of the two that they share specific interests with. Some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have already adopted a hedging strategy, siding with China on economic issues and with the US on security issues. This kind of hedging strategy may become popular among the smaller countries in a bipolar world.

A direct war between the US and China is highly unlikely in the next decade. Nuclear weapons effectively prevented direct war between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and will continue to do so in the strategic confrontation between the US and China. The US has never engaged in direct warfare with a nuclear power since the Cold War. The US government has even avoided using military means to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue since the Democratic People's Republic of Korea possessed nuclear weapons. These facts suggest that neither the US nor China is likely to seek to engage in direct war.

A proxy war between the US and China is also unlikely in the next 10 years. Different from Russia's strategic preference, China has no interest in using proxies to exert its power. Instead, China sees its economy as the foundation of its national strength and therefore prefers to expand its international influence through economic means, for example launching the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Therefore, China is unlikely to engage in a proxy war with the US in the next decade, which is in stark contrast to the US-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War.

No direct or indirect war between the US and China should mean there is little risk of a world war or proxy wars between the two leading powers. However, this cannot guarantee ongoing peace for other countries in the next 10 years. In regions far from the leading powers geographically, regional military conflicts may increase as the regional powers may take advantage of the leading powers' reluctance to get involved in the local security disputes when regional powers are in conflict with their surrounding states in their spheres of influence.

The author is a distinguished professor at Tsinghua University. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.