Читать книгу The United States vs. China - C. Fred Bergsten - Страница 18

The world economy is thus threatened by two potentially mutually reinforcing pressures: the rising capability of a new superpower, and the declining will of its traditional leader. The resulting leadership vacuum eerily inverts that of the early 1930s, when incumbent Great Britain no longer had the capacity to lead and rising America was not yet willing. That unique juxtaposition converted the national recessions of the day, via a downward spiral of trade and capital flows, into the Great Depression (Kindleberger 1973).

On this occasion, the incumbent power is still capable but may be losing its will, while the rising power does not yet have full capacity (and may not want to assert true leadership either). The world economy could thus succumb again to a “Kindleberger trap,” especially if faced with another shock like the global financial crisis of 2008–9 or the deep recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. At the same time, China – United States confrontation could presage a “Thucydides trap” conflict between the two superpowers.

There are several possible paths for future systemic evolution. As chapter 7 will show, the leaderless non-system could prove sustainable (G-0_s) for at least a while if the key middle powers – notably, Europe and Japan – and the existing international institutions prove able to hold it together. This would be true especially if China would help to do so, which it should as it espouses multi-polarity and such an evolution would contribute to a reduction of American hegemony. But an unstable G-0_u could also prevail if it turns out that a single dedicated leader is in fact required to produce systemic success.

China could make a dash for dominance to exploit the US abdication and seize leadership (G-1), as posited in chapter 8. This would require it to adopt important policy reforms and the rest of the world to accept at least some of its very different values. The United States could seek to reassert its traditional role, though it cannot restore dominance due to the rise of China. It is unlikely to try anyway, due to the underlying anti-globalization swing in its domestic politics and the lingering impact of Trumpism.

Or China and the United States could resolve to work together, at least on issues of sufficient importance to sustain the system, to provide effective co-leadership through what I will call conditional competitive cooperation. The strong form of this alternative would be a G-2 through which the two economic superpowers would exercise joint leadership of the world economy, radiating out through concentric circles of other countries (G-3/4, G-7/20, the formal multilateral institutions), as outlined in chapter 9.