Is there a power transition between the U.S. and China? The different faces of national power

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 687-701

  Chan, Steve ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GEOPOLITICS; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; POWER RELATIONS;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 31144431846     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.5.687     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. For discussions of such concerns, reflecting different degrees of alarm and threat assessment, see, for example, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, "The Coming Conflict with America," Foreign Affairs 76:2 (March/ April 1997), pp. 18-32
2. Gerald Segal, "East Asia and the 'Constrainment' of China," International Security 20:4 (Spring 1996), pp. 107-35
3. and Denny Roy, "Hegemon on the Horizon? China's Threat to East Asian Security," ibid., 19:1 (Summer 1994), pp. 149-68.
4. For representatives of a more nuanced, perhaps even a more skeptical view, see Alastair Iain Johnston, "Is China a Status Quo Power?" ibid., 27:4 (Spring 2003), pp. 57-85
5. Thomas J. Christensen, "Posing Problems without Catching Up: China's Rise and Challenges for U.S. Security Policy," ibid., 25:4 (Spring 2001), pp. 5-40;
6. and Robert S. Ross, "Beijing as a Conservative Power," Foreign Affairs 76:2 (March/April 1997), pp. 33-44.
7. Mounting interest in the applicability of the power transition theory to Sino-American relations is shown, for instance, in the thematic focus of a recent conference of Chinese and U.S. scholars. The topic of the Sino-American Security Dialogue Conference, held in Beijing in October 2003, was "'China's Rise' and U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century: Power Transitions and the Question of 'Revisionism'." A leading example of quantitative international relations scholarship addressing the rise of China can be found in Ronald L. Tammer, Jacek Kugler, Douglas Lemke, Allan C. Stam III, Mark Abdollahian, Carole Alsharabati, Brian Efird, and A. F. K. Organski, Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century (New York: Chatham House, 2000).
8. A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1968);
9. and A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
10. The COW project has spawned a huge literature. For one of the earlier descriptions about this project, see Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982).
11. The original analysis of national material capabilities can be found in J. David Singer, Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey, "Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965," in Peace, War, and Numbers, ed. Bruce M. Russett (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1972), pp. 19-48.
12. A subsequent account explaining the expansion of the data coverage to states beyond the original great powers can be found in J. David Singer, "Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816-1985," International Interactions 14:2 (1987), pp. 115-32.
13. The original work on power cycle theory appeared in Charles F. Doran and Wes Parsons, "War and the Cycle of Relative Power," American Political Science Review 74:4 (December 1980), pp. 947-65.
14. The most recent compilation of work attending to this theory was featured in a special issue of the International Political Science Review on "Power Cycle Theory and Global Politics."
15. See, for instance, the lead article by Doran, "Economics, Philosophy of History, and the 'Single Dynamic' of Power Cycle Theory: Expectations, Competition, and Statecraft," ibid., 24:1 (January 2003), pp. 13-49.
16. Parenthetically, there is a general consensus that U.S. sources had tended to overestimate the communist states' military expenditures during the Cold War years. Even without the cloak of secrecy surrounding expenditures related to national security, the reliability and validity of statistical estimates may be questioned, especially as one reaches back to the more distant past. Therefore, the data presented in this article are intended to indicate approximate magnitudes rather than precise levels.
17. For a discussion on soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990).
18. Kevin Sweeney, "The Changing Face of National Capability," Ohio State University, manuscript, n.d.
19. See Bruce M. Russett, "The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony: Or, Is Mark Twain Really Dead?" International Organization 39:2 (Spring 1985), pp. 207-32.
20. Still another penetrating analysis on the topic of supposed U.S. decline was offered by Susan Strange, "The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony," ibid., 41:4 (Autumn 1987), pp. 551-75.
21. The pioneering work on this subject was authored by Morris D. Morris, Measuring the Condition of the World's Poor: The Physical Quality of Life Index (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979).
22. Alan Heston, Robert Summers, and Bettina Aten, Penn World Tables, Version 6.1, Center for International Comparisons, University of Pennsylvania, 2002.
23. In 1955, the U.S. average income was about 40 times larger than that of China. Although this gap had shrunk over time, the U.S. figure was still nine times larger in 2000. Naturally, the absolute size of this gap may be of less concern than the rate of change at which China may be closing it. It is important to attend to the sources that are responsible for differential national growth rates. I argue in this article that success in developing human capital and capacity for undertaking innovation are critical factors in determining these growth trajectories.
24. Organski and Kugler, The War Ledger, p. 45.
25. Ibid.;
26. see also Douglas Lemke and Suzanne Werner, "Power Parity, Commitment to Change, and War," International Studies Quarterly 40:2 (June 1996), p. 246.
27. Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
28. David Rapkin and William R. Thompson, "Power Transition, Challenge and the (Re)Emergence of China," International Interactions 29:3 (2003), p. 323.