US-China Great Power Competition

Chinese soldiers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) 196th Infantry Brigade perform drill at their barracks in Yangcun, 100 km east of Beijing, China

The U.S.-China Great Power Competition

How China builds power and what the United States can do to protect its interests at home and around the world

Rising power strategies

How has China managed to build power from a weaker resource position in a U.S.-led international system? A new conceptual framework answers this question and elucidates how the United States can counter unfavorable Chinese activities and successfully compete with China.

Research Focus

The most crucial challenge facing U.S. policymakers today is how to prevail in great power competition with China. The first step to devising an effective U.S. strategy for great power competition is to understand and correctly characterize how China builds power and influence in the international system. Yet serious analysis to answer this question is scant.

The U.S.-China Great Power Competition project aims to fill in this gap. Drawing heavily on Chinese sources and engaging with experts from the diplomatic, economic, technology, and military sectors, it pieces together the logic behind Chinese actions and behavior in foreign policy, military strategy, and the economics and technology realms.

The project uses the crucial case of China’s rise over the past 25 years to explore what shapes the strategic approach of rising powers as they accumulate influence, where they imitate, and where they innovate. It reveals that China builds power largely by differentiating itself from the United States. The findings will make significant contributions to key theoretical and policy debates about China’s intentions and goals and, more broadly, how states compete.

This research will result in a book that analyzes and explains the specific policies, strategies, and approaches China has employed over the past 25 years to build enough power to be considered a great power competitor. The book will make vital theoretical and policy contributions to China studies, international relations and power transition theories, and great power competition. It will allow policymakers to better anticipate China’s actions, develop more effective strategies to counter unfavorable Chinese activities, and understand how to push the competition with China into realms where the United States has the upper hand.

Lead Researcher

cover link

Oriana Skylar Mastro

FSI Center Fellow

Full Biography

Featured Media

China's Strategic Path to Power
APARC Book Talk
June 20, 2024

3d book cover mockup of "Upstart: How China Became a Great Power," by Oriana Skylar Mastro

Upstart: How China Became a Great Power (Oxford University Press, June 2024)

This book explores China's rapid ascent to great power status and its unique strategic approach in navigating the international stage, all while avoiding a significant global backlash.

Learn more and get your copy

Publications

Encounters and Escalation in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives on China’s Military and Implications for Regional Security
National Bureau of Asian Research, May 7, 2024
See also New Report Sheds Light on People's Liberation Army’s Role in Escalating Indo-Pacific Tensions, APARC website, May 13, 2024

The Military Challenge of the People’s Republic of China
In "Defense Budgeting for a Safer World (Hoover Institution Press), November 1, 2023
See also How the U.S. Should Adjust Its Defense Budget to Address China's Military Modernization, APARC website, November 8, 2023

China’s Nuclear Enterprise: Trends, Developments, and Implications for the United States and Its Allies
CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues, September 29, 2023
See also What Chinese Nuclear Modernization Means for U.S. Deterrence Strategy, APARC website, October 6, 2023

Reassurance and Deterrence in Asia
In Security Studies, November 4, 2022

Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific
In "Minilateral Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific," a roundtable in Asia Policy 17:4, October 22, 2022.
See also New Essay Collection Examines Minilateral Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, APARC website, October 2022.

Is China a Challenge to U.S. National Security?
In The China Questions 2: Critical Insights into US-China Relations (Harvard University Press), August 2022.
See also Assessing China’s Conventional and Unconventional Challenges to U.S. National Security, APARC website, August 2022.

Defense, Deterrence, and the Role of Guam
In Defending Guam, The Hudson Institute, July 2022

Understanding the Challenge of China’s Rise: Fixing Conceptual Confusion about Intentions
In Journal of Chinese Political Science, June 2022
See also Problems with Revisionism: A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Chinese Intentions, APARC website, June 2022

Chinese Grand Strategy
In Strategy in the Contemporary World, Oxford University Press, March 2022

China's Grand Strategy
Asia Policy 17.1, January 2022

Nuclear Deterrence and the US-China Strategic Relationship
In Alliances, Nuclear Weapons and Escalation: Managing Deterrence in the 21st Century (eds. Stephan Frühling and Andrew O’Neil), ANU Press, December 2021

Military Competition With China: Harder Than the Cold War?
SMA Perspectives, September 2021

Commentary

The Pivot That Wasn’t
Foreign Affairs Magazine, June 18, 2024

China Hasn’t Reached the Peak of Its Power
Foreign Affairs, August 2022

Beijing Is Used to Learning from Russian Failures
Foreign Policy, April 2022

North Korea Is Becoming an Asset for China
Foreign Affairs, February 2022

In Defense of AUKUS
The Lowy Institute, October 2021

China’s Dangerous Double Game in North Korea
Foreign Affairs, April 2021

The Soft War That America Is Losing
Australian Financial Review, January 2021

Free Nations Must Speak for Australia
Australian Financial Review, December 2020

The United States Must Avoid a Nuclear Arms Race with China
Cato Unbound, September 2020

The Stealth Superpower
Foreign Affairs, January 2019

In the News

Beijing’s New World Order
Financial Times, June 7, 2024

China Top Critic’s Exit From Congress Threatens Anti-Beijing Momentum
Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2024

What China’s 2024 Policy Goals Mean for Ties With the US
Bloomberg News, March 5, 2024

Analysis of the APEC 2023 Convening and the Biden-Xi Summit (featured in multiple media outlets)
See APEC Summit Dominated by U.S.-China Relations, Policy Challenges, APARC Website, November 29, 2023

Discussing President Biden’s summit with leaders of Japan and South Korea
BBC NewsHours, August 18, 2023

China’s New Ambassador to US Meets Pentagon Official
South China Morning Post, July 13, 2023

A U.S.-China Thaw in the Making?
The Dispatch, June 2, 2023

China Is Starting to Act Like a Global Power
Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2023

In the United States, an Aggressive Consensus Against China and a Growing Divide on Ukraine
Le Temps, March 2023

Selection of Comments on US-China Tensions Over Spy Balloon:
- China Files, February 21, 2023
- Time, February 15, 2023
- WBUR's OnPoint, February 14, 2023
- ABC RN, February 13, 2023
- Radio Free Asia, February 12, 2023
- AP, February 6, 2023
- New York Times, February 5, 2023
- NPR, February 3, 2023
- BBC World News, February 3, 2023
- Channel 4 News, February 3, 2023
- South China Morning Post, February 3, 2023