Dr. N. Bruce Pickering, Executive Director Asia Society Northern California
The United States and China are two nations with dramatically different approaches to the international system: the United States has had a two hundred year rise to global preeminence, with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall as the apex of the dominance of the American system - the end of history as Francis Fukuyama called it. Yet America's moment as the world's only superpower lasted a relatively short time; two wars, domestic discord over the future of the American system, and China's re-emergence as a global power have, in short order, completely altered perception of the United States. The Chinese, up until the late 18th Century the most powerful economy on the planet, see themselves as returning to their traditional place at the center of the global system. How the relationship between the US and China plays out in the next few years will go a long way to determining the global economic and political environment.
