The Long Period of Strategic Stalemate Between USA and China 2020-2050
In 2025, Will China and the United States Enter a New Period of Intensified Battle?
December 2023
Author Huang Renwei is the Vice President of the China International Relations Society, Dean of the Institute of International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs of Shanghai International Studies University
The Historical Origin and Phases of the Sino-US “Strategic Stalemate”
The concept of “strategic stalemate phase” was proposed by Mao Zedong in his On Protracted War during the Anti-Japanese War. Mao proposed that the Anti-Japanese War included three phases: Japan’s strategic offensive, China’s strategic stalemate with Japan, and China’s strategic counterattack. This article borrows this concept to describe the development trend of Sino-US relations.
Today’s Sino-US strategic stalemate
Compared with the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, today’s Sino-US strategic stalemate has three main differences.
First, the most fundamental difference is that the Sino-US strategic competition is not in a state of war, while the strategic stalemate during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was completely in a state of war.
Second, the next stage of the Sino-US strategic stalemate is not a strategic counterattack stage, China does not have the strategic goal of completely defeating the United States.
Third, after a long period of strategic stalemate, Sino-US relations will enter a state of coexistence and co-governance.
The so-called new type of major power relations can only be formed after a long period of competition in strategic stalemate.
From a theoretical perspective, “strategic stalemate” should contain three characteristics: First, the forces of the two sides in the strategic stalemate are relatively balanced. Only when neither side has an overwhelming advantage can the “strategic stalemate” be maintained.
Second, over a long period of time, it is difficult for either side to defeat the other, and there is no distinction between victory and defeat.
Third, both sides have strong institutional confidence to maintain the resilience of the strategic stalemate. The United States is confident that it will maintain world hegemony for more than 50 years, and China is confident that it will achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2050, that is, the second centenary goal.
How long will the strategic stalemate last?
It will be about 30 years from 2021 to 2050. This depends not only on the conditions for China to achieve its goal of becoming a modernized powerful country, but also on the changes in the balance of power between the United States and China.
Since China has proposed the goal of “two centuries”, the long-term strategic plan for China by American think tanks also defines the time coordinate as 2050. The 2020 strategic report released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US strategic think tank, defines the time period of Sino-US strategic competition as 2020-2050. Another important think tank, the “2049 Center”, also defines the time period of Sino-US strategic competition as 2020-2050.
The name of the think tank “2049 Center” is based on China’s second centenary goal as its hypothetical object. It can be seen that 2050 is the strategic expected goal of both sides, and this goal positioning determines the time dimension of the stalemate stage. In these 30 years, as long as the balance of power between the two sides does not reverse, strategic competition will always exist as the new normal of Sino-US relations.
Three Characteristics of the Sino-US Strategic Stalemate
One of the characteristics of the Sino-US strategic stalemate is the duality of the Sino-US power structure.
The duality of the two countries is the basic characteristic of the strategic stalemate. The United States has maintained a relatively strong force during its long decline period, and China has always had weaknesses during its rise. This duality of the two sides is the main axis of the great changes that have not been seen in a century, and will change over time.
The duality of the United States is reflected in the widening gap between its hegemonic power and its goals.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union were two superpowers, and the United States’ world hegemony was not complete. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world’s only superpower, and American hegemony constituted a “unipolar world” of “one superpower and many strong countries”.
After the 2008 international financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, American hegemony showed a trajectory of decline, and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the Ukrainian crisis further demonstrated the existence of this trajectory.
The decline of US hegemony is a long historical process, during which the US still maintains its position as the most powerful country.
The US still has the strongest financial control, scientific and technological innovation, military strike and public opinion shaping capabilities in the world. The decline of hegemony does not mean the weakening of the US comprehensive national strength. The current international system, including the United Nations system, the Western alliance system and the international monetary and financial system, was established under the leadership of the United States after World War II, and the United States still has a decisive influence in these instiutions.
International rules, especially international economic rules, are largely created by the United States. The so-called “rules-based international order” is essentially a “world order based on American rules.”
The decline of hegemony refers to the continuous decline of the United States’ status and ability to lead international affairs, including the gradual weakening of the United States’ right to shape the international system, the right to create international rules, the dominant power of international discourse, the right to guarantee international security, and the right to mint the dollar as the world currency.
In terms of maintaining, reforming, innovating, and providing public goods in the international system, the United States has increasingly shown serious inadequacies. During the Trump era, the United States continued to break rules and “withdraw from groups”. After Biden came to power, the United States began to restore the rules and re-dominate them.
The dollar hegemony as a world currency serves the US strategy, controls the economic lifeline of other countries, and arbitrarily imposes economic sanctions on other countries. Based on the “dollar hegemony” with the function of world currency, it increasingly serves its own interests, and its function and credit as a world currency are weakening. The decline of the dollar hegemony is one of the important manifestations of the decline of US hegemony.
The rise and fall of national power is reflected in the power comparison between different countries. Compared with China’s rapid rise since the 21st century, the growth of American power is in a state of relative decline.
However, compared with Europe and Japan, the rise of American power is obviously faster than them. The power gap between the United States, Europe and Japan has further widened.
The United States still has the leading ability among Western allies, and there is even a tendency for the United States to strengthen its control over Western allies. If the comprehensive strength of the United States and its allies is viewed as a whole, the gap between China and the United States is still quite large, and the historical inertia of the United States as a superpower will continue for a long time. In the strategic stalemate phase, the balance of power and power transfer between China and the United States produce structural contradictions, but this contradiction can have two development trends: confrontation and cooperation.
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