[The American Conservative] The Defining Decade

A new book argues that open conflict with China is growing likelier in the 2020s not because the country keeps rising, but precisely because of the anxiety produced by subpar growth.

Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China. By Hal Brands & Michael Beckley. Norton; 261 pages; $29.99.

In forecasting the trajectory of China’s ongoing rise, America’s strategic discussion has erred on two related grounds, argues the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) duo of Sinologists — Michael Beckley and Hal Brands — in their pathbreaking new book, Danger Zone (2022). For starters, China is not predestined to surpass the United States (US) in economic might and military prowess as early as was expected, or at least not in a way that makes open conflict inevitable when the two countries’ respective trendlines eventually meet. Though the roughly $5 trillion gap between America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — $23 trillion — and China’s — $18 trillion — is still projected to close sometime in the mid 2030s, Beckley and Brands argue that China’s best days of bonanza are upon it. Its “miraculous, multi-decade rise”, they write about the period launched by Deng Xiaoping’s liberalizing reforms in the 1980s that ended with the 2008 global financial crisis, “was aided by strong tailwinds that have since become headwinds”, meaning China “will be a falling power sooner than most think”.

Continue reading the entire piece at The American Conservative here.