WHY CHINA WILL LOSE A WAR AGAINST US

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/why-china-will-lose-a-war-against-us.html

Wednesday, 07 October 2015 | Gwynne Dyer | 

If at all there is a US-China war, Chinese win is possible only with a growing economy. With a growth rate of four per cent, China cannot overtake the US any time soon

There is a small but significant industry in the United States that predicts the ‘coming war’ with China, and The Atlantic Magazine is foremost among reputable American monthlies in giving a home to such speculation. It has just done it again, in an article that includes a hearty dose of geopolitical theory. The theory is ‘The Thucydides Trap’.

The author is Graham Allison of Harvard University, the man who coined that phrase. Thucydides, the historian of the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC, explained what caused the war this way: “It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta, that made war inevitable.” It lasted for 20 years, and at the end of it, the two great powers of the ancient Greek world were both devastated.

Yet, they didn't really go to war over anything in particular, according to Thucydides. The problem was that Athens was overtaking Sparta in power (like China is overtaking the United States now), and just that one fact was enough to send them to war. So are China and the United States doomed to go to war in the next decade?

Mr Allison knows better than to make a hard prediction, but he does point out that out of the past 16 cases, when one major power was gaining in power and its rival feared relegation to the second rank, 12 ended in war.

Does it really matter who's more powerful when China and the United States have no shared border, make no territorial claims against each other, and are separated by the world's largest ocean? Lots of people in each country would say no, but both countries have military, industrial, academic complexes that thrive on the threat of a US-Chinese military conflict.

They wouldn't benefit from an actual war, of course. But the threat of a great war kept millions of people in the military, in defence industries and in various universities and think-tanks in interesting and sometimes very profitable work during the four decades of the US-Soviet Cold War.

The threat of a US-Chinese war already provides gainful employment to a lot of people, though nothing like as many as those who made a living off the threat of World War III during the Cold War. If the perceived threat of war grows, so will the number of American and Chinese experts, who make a living from it. So it's worth examining Mr Allison's assumptions to see if they hold water.

There are only two key assumptions. One is that China will decisively surpass the United States in national power in the coming decade. The other is that such transfers of power from one dominant nation to another are still likely to end in war. Neither is as certain as it seems.

Chinese dominance is certain, if the country keeps growing economically even at its new, lower rate of seven per cent a year. That is still at least twice the US rate, and the magic of compound interest will still do its work. But the era of 10 per cent annual growth ended for Japan and South Korea, the other East Asian ‘miracles’, after about 30 years. Each country then fell to a normal industrialised country growth rate or (in Japan's case) below it.

Most observers believe that China's economic growth this year is already below seven per cent — maybe four per cent or even less. Neither of the other East Asian miracles ever got back onto the ultra-high growth track after they fell off it. At four per cent growth or less, China would not be overtaking the United States any time soon.