China, Penn on the World after COVID-19 The Pandemic and a Deepening U.S.-China Rivalry

Penn on the World after COVID-19 is a joint project of Penn Global and Perry World House. We've asked some of Penn's leading faculty, fellows, and scholars to imagine what the global pandemic will leave in its wake.

Avery Goldstein is the David M. Knott Professor of Global Politics and International Relations in the Political Science Department and the inaugural director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

By 2020, U.S.-China relations had already shifted from a long period of close engagement to an era in which they viewed each other as rivals and potential adversaries. This change predated the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic, however, has compounded concerns about three separate implications of the deepening U.S.-China rivalry that suggest an increasing chance of dangerous conflict between the two greatest powers in the world after COVID-19.

First, over the past decade, both the United States and China have begun to openly prepare for the possibility they will face each other in a military clash. And because military power ultimately rests on economic and technological foundations, the U.S. and China have paid ever greater attention to their relative wealth and scientific prowess. The pandemic has exacerbated concerns about this comparison, highlighted the risks of close interdependence, and accelerated an ongoing trend towards “decoupling.” This trend will erode mutually beneficial economic and scientific ties that have helped keep U.S.-China rivalry within bounds and provided incentives for the two countries to refrain from the use of force.

Second, the massive (though not equal) economic and military capabilities of the United States and China set them apart from all other states on the global stage. In a world of two superpowers, each worries that the other’s gains might come at its expense. This concern has been manifest in the recent tendency for the United States and China to see themselves locked in a competition for influence around the globe. Their focus on relative advantage now extends well beyond East Asia to include areas as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. The pandemic is sharpening this competition as the United States and China each fear that the other will exploit the current situation to accrue political, economic, or military gains that give it an edge after the pandemic subsides. The United States worries that favorable perceptions of China’s management of the pandemic might make others more receptive to a larger international role for China. Beijing, in turn, worries that Washington’s condemnation of its handling of the pandemic will undermine such receptivity and create a world more hostile toward China, serve to reenergize American alliances, and increase the military challenges China faces.

Third, the pandemic is reinforcing the role of domestic politics in each country, deepening their rivalry. In China, the authoritarian regime headed by the Communist Party has long leaned on a nationalist narrative to justify its rule. As the country has become richer and stronger, this narrative has nurtured a growing expectation among many in China that its leaders should more resolutely resist any infringement on what the regime has defined as China’s vital or “core” interests.  In the United States, its liberal democracy rests in part on electoral political competition. The sharpening of U.S.-China rivalry has strengthened the incentives for contending American politicians to claim that they are best suited to adopt the tough line necessary to deal with the economic, political, and military threat that China represents. Thus, in each country, domestic politics is encouraging leaders to stand firm in bilateral disputes and discrediting those who express an interest in compromise.  The pandemic has further magnified and reinforced this trend and will make it more difficult for leaders in the United States and China to manage the kind of conflicts that their deepening rivalry makes ever more likely.

The domestic politics of the rivalry has been apparent in an unseemly pattern that emerged early in the pandemic, as leaders in Washington and Beijing indulged in conspiracy theories and leveled unsubstantiated accusations at one another. The United States sought to pin blame for the global public health crisis on the Chinese Communist regime’s actions in early January. Meanwhile, China belittled American missteps in handling the crisis, especially its failure to heed the obvious warning signs of an impending crisis and take necessary and timely actions in February and March. Each side has asserted that the other’s shortcomings in responding to the pandemic reflect deeper flaws in its political system. In this pattern of mutual recrimination, Beijing has been especially alarmed by Washington’s effort to highlight the invidious comparison between authoritarian China’s and democratic Taiwan’s initial responses to the spreading virus, and by the American effort to seize on this comparison as a reason to advocate for elevating Taipei’s international role, an issue that engages one of China’s most salient core interests.

In sum, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the security concerns resulting from deepening U.S.-China tensions were clear and were already leading each to plan for the possibility that their conflicts could result in war. Fortunately, the pandemic has not eliminated the most important constraint on U.S.-China rivalry that makes war unlikely-- the risk that any such conflict would escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, that risk is only a constraint, not a guarantee. It provides a powerful reason for the United States and China to meet the challenge of managing their rivalry and avert disaster, but the pandemic is undermining confidence that they will remain up to that challenge in the world after COVID-19.

The views expressed in Penn on the World after COVID-19 posts are solely the author’s and not those of Penn, Penn Global or Perry World House.