Balancing Grand Strategy for America to Offset Thucydides’s Trap with China

Abstract

China’s vastly increased economic and military might has alarmed the United States about sustaining its relative power in the world. Observing the growing influence of Beijing in the international world order, experts of ‘great power competition’ are now asking: What will be the reaction of the United States once China achieves parity or even comes close to achieving parity with Washington?As could be expected from its nature, the question has generated sharp polarising viewpoints but none has spawned more interest and controversy than Harvard Professor Graham T. Allison’s ‘Thucydides’ Trap’ discourse which argues that China’s spectacular rise could lead to a violent yet avoidable war with the United States along the lines of previous conflicts between a rulingpower and a risingpower. This study describes that if the United States continues to pursue its hegemonic grand strategy, it will accelerate the conflict which might trigger the Thucydides’ trap with China. The aim and objective of this study is to recommend a revision in the United States grand strategy from hegemony to a ‘balancing’ strategy to reduce the risk of strategic rivalry with China turning into a full-blown war.