ABSTRACT
A challenge to China’s rise to world power is described by power transition theory. It finds that a rising super power, in this case, the PRC, often initiates a war against the existing superpower, in this case, the USA. Many Chinese analysts see the world just this way, as a “conflict between China as a rising power and the United States as the sole superpower.”1 This historical tendency of a rising superpower to initiate a war against the existing power was invoked by Henry Kissinger in a 11 May 2009 speech at Macao Polytechnic Institute on America-China relations. Chinese leaders see a world which has excluded China from shaping the rules and
which imposed bad rules on China. This generally makes for a “desire to overturn” those dominating institutions and policies. A declining power “unsure of the aims of the rising state” “prefers to appease the rising state’s demands rather than go to war to oppose them.” But “a more rapid decline makes war more likely”.2 It is just such a situation that the Chinese leadership has experienced since the financial crash began in 2008. Numerous analysts see the post-BrettonWoods era as similar to the pre-World War One era.3
