China and America — competitive coexistence

Express Tribune

2 days ago

The writer is a retired major general and has an interest in International Relations and Political Sociology. He can be reached at [e-mail] and tweets @20_Inam
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Last week while discussing Sino-US rivalry, we concluded the improbability of a war over Taiwan. And although the US leads in many critical sectors, China is rapidly closing the capability gap, as capacity or scale has never been a problem for Beijing. This piece will discuss additional facets of Sino-US competition.
The comparison of both countries' national power potential (NPP) becomes confusing, as there are strong arguments on both sides which gravitate to declare either side a winner. In the May-June 2025 issue of Foreign Affairs, Kurt M Campbell and Rush Doshi argue that China has the advantage of 'scale and mass' compared to a 'strategically distracted and politically paralysed US'.
They define 'scale' as the ability to use 'size' for generating efficiency and productivity to outcompete rivals. They dispel the notion that 'an aging, slowing, and increasingly nimble China would not overtake an ascendant US in due course of time.' They make the case that on many critical metrics, PRC has already outmatched the US. And even if China falters and slows down, as many pundits believe, it remains formidable technologically, militarily and economically.
For China, scale or 'quantity has a quality all its own' as the Soviet leaders used to say about the USSR. To undo the Chinese advantage of scale — the cited writers recommend - Washington should revamp its alliances, shunning the legacy approach of treating allies as 'dependent recipients of protection'; and instead consider its alliance architecture as a collection of 'managed relationships' for pooled and integrated capacity across military, economic and technological domains. They posit that the US must play for 'cohesion and collective leverage' against Beijing, playing for 'time and mass'. The combined economies of America, together with its main anti-China allies including Canada, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand and EU are $60 trillion, compared to China's $18 trillion.
In the absence of cited alliance, China is destined to win the race for power and hegemony all over the world, except Europe, where the US power is likely to be confined, in the mid to long-term. Despite China's challenges such as demography, dependency ratio (adult workers to children and retirees), labour shortfalls (compensated by AI and robotics in future) and debt, China will continue to play the long game.
Using the World Bank methodology, China economically 'surpassed' the US about a decade ago and is 25% larger today. PRC's productive capacity is three times larger than the US; its share of global manufacturing is 30% compared to America's 15% (projected to come down to 11% by 2030); China's cement production is 20 times, steel 13 times, cars 3 times, power generation 2 times larger than the US.
China produces almost half of the world's chemicals, three quarters of electric batteries, more than two-thirds of electric vehicles, half of the world's ships, 80% of consumer drones, 90% of solar panels and almost monopolises rare earths' supply chain. China has helped install half of the world's industrial robots (seven times larger than the US) and is way ahead of the US in fourth-generation nuclear technology. So, rise of the Middle Kingdom to Global prominence is only a matter of time.
Realising the above inevitability, another analyst, Rana Mitter in the cited magazine, emphasises co-existence with China urging the West Plus to avoid policies that make conflict inescapable. To him, China ardently follows the Qing Dynasty (ruled 1644-1912) slogans of "Rich Country and Strong Army" and "Chinese for Essence and Western for Usage". Under President Xi Jinping, China has continued to pursue a 'harmonious world'; democracy with Chinese characteristics; and material progress without becoming Western. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made PRC militarily strong and economically secure. It has pursued the 'Confucian Canon Project', stressing the importance of harmony in public life.
China's upward trajectory is likely to continue unless it involves itself or is drawn into military conflict. Although, Chinese nationalists would want Beijing to have a more muscular, aggressive and assertive international and regional posturing, shunning the image of a 'hesitant power'. A conflict would scare away China's neighbours especially in Southeast Asia, with whom China has territorial disputes, driving them to anti-China camp more staunchly. Conflict also erodes China's soft power. CCP understands this, hence, believing in peaceful rise, it would avoid conflict over Tiawan, as argued last week. The Party in all pragmatism, would de-prioritise its quest for unification of Taiwan with mainland and continue with military 'posturing' only.
China's present and future leadership see value in 'cooperative existence' within an inter-connected and inextricably linked world. Beijing has recently moved to that position by becoming peacemaker in the Middle East like other cooperative actors Türkiye, Qatar, the UAE, etc, even though their internal policies are not reflective of democracy and other trappings of Western-styled governance.
China would need to overcome global scepticism about its intentions, as some analysts argue. And sell itself abroad like America does, despite internal discord within the US over various issues. As the world sees more strongmen in positions of power and democracy eroding, China's humanistic values steeped in Confucianism can lead to greater peace and amity under some sort of 'authoritarian welfarism'. Beijing can champion clean and green energy, for example, humanise AI, emerge as a technology hub and a centre of hybrid cultures fusing elements from China and the West, creating a more peaceful Global Order than the one that brought wars, destruction, pain and suffering.
A Wess Mitchel partially emphasises the above sentiment by stressing "The Return of Great-Power Diplomacy" as a way forward. Since the US is increasingly becoming militarily incapable to fight forever wars, especially in the future against China and Russia simultaneously, it must return to 'strategic diplomacy' by containing the weaker (Russia) partner through détente and focusing against the stronger (China) and nudge Europe along. He also emphasises building the largest possible coalition against China, starting in Aisa.
From the above discussion, one thing is clear. Chinese power is unsettling to the West with strong contenders for containing it or coexisting with it competitively. Drawing Beijing into war may be necessary for Western hawks, and CCP needs to reckon with it.