Graham Allison
Watching the extraordinary performance of athletes competing in the Paris Olympics is a humbling experience. It is amazing to see what fellow human beings are capable of. Each time an athlete beats the previous world record, I cheer. But like most Americans viewing coverage of these events, I’m certainly not neutral. I note which countries’ athletes win gold and which do not. I’m heartened to hear our national anthem played first and most often at the podium where the medals are awarded.
In this Olympics, as in most other races in the world today, there are two—and only two—superpowers: China and the United States. As of August 9, the United States has won thirty gold medals, compared to China’s thirty-two. In the total medal count, the U.S. athletes now have gained 104 and their Chinese competitors seventy-seven. When the last of the 987 medals are awarded next Sunday and the French hosts do their best to deliver a closing shock that matches their opening, the odds that the United States will emerge as number one are roughly 80 percent. But, of course, as Yogi Berra taught us: “it ain’t over till it’s over.” As one avid sports fan who also happens to be the President of China, Xi Jinping, has noted: “Unpredictability is what makes a sports match…exciting.”
China’s rise from essentially nowhere to become the leading rival of the United States in the Olympics mirrors its rise in virtually every other dimension to become the defining geopolitical rival in the twenty-first century. Until four decades ago, China had never won a medal in the modern Olympics. Its first medal came at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. A quarter century later, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China won forty-eight gold medals to the United State’s thirty-six. As Figure 1 shows, the United States snapped back. In Tokyo in 2021, the United States took home thirty-nine gold medals, a total of 113, compared to China’s thirty-eight and eighty-nine.
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