Forever Competition: The Endgame of Sino-U.S. Rivalry

with Professor Dominic Tierney
Date
Nov 13, 2023, 4:30 pm6:00 pm
Location
Audience
Open to the Public

Speaker

Details

Event Description

The United States has declared an era of strategic competition with China but how might this rivalry end—assuming a positive outcome for U.S. interests? U.S. policymakers have chosen not to pick a favored end state for strategic competition, hoping to maintain flexibility. However, the decision not to choose a termination point could make the rivalry more difficult to resolve. The “negativity bias” in psychology means that threats tend to loom large, limiting the odds of ending strategic competition. The paper applies the negativity bias to potential end state scenarios—China accommodation of U.S. interests, China’s democratization, and China’s collapse—and shows that none of these scenarios will likely end strategic competition. A study of the resolution of U.S. great power rivalries over the last two centuries suggests there is a high bar to end strategic competition. Washington should choose a favored endgame for strategic competition and the best option is sustained Chinese reform or “accommodation plus.” The negativity bias may powerfully influence the course and resolution of the Sino-U.S. rivalry, and it can also help explain many wider behaviors in IR. 

About the Speaker: Dominic Tierney is a professor of political science at Swarthmore College, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and an expert on American foreign policy. Born in the north of England, he completed his doctorate at Oxford University and moved to the United States in 2003. He has held fellowships and academic positions at Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

He writes regularly for The Atlantic, where he was a contributing editor. His work has been published in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and he has appeared on NPR, the BBC, CNN, and MSNBC. 

Sponsor
CISS
Contact
David Pipkin