On the United States and China

Abstract

This chapter employs intentions pessimism to predict the future of U.S.-China relations. It begins with a review of the theory and a summary of the historical case studies described in chapters 3-6, focusing on the fact that great powers have invariably been uncertain about each other’s intentions, a situation that has caused them to compete for security. The chapter then turns to U.S.-China relations from 2000 to 2020 and shows that the United States has already begun to compete with China, because Washington is acutely uncertain about Beijing’s intentions. The final section addresses the issue of the future, demonstrating that U.S. decision makers will in all likelihood be far from confident that their Chinese counterparts have benign intentions, and arguing that if China completes its rise this uncertainty will make for a considerably more intense security competition and a higher chance of war than is the case today.