A new order of things? China, America, and the struggle over world order

This chapter examines the types of challenges that rising states might bring to struggles over international order with a view to the distinctive character of the American-led liberal order and the ways in which this existing order creates constraints and incentives for a rising China. This is contextualized by the geopolitical setting in which China is situated. The chapter argues that even as China faces constraints on the pursuit of a revisionist agenda, it finds incentives to operate within a liberal-oriented international order. China and the United States seem destined to clash over the terms of order in East Asia. But it is a clash that will unfold in a different world-historical setting than past power transitions. The rise of China may bring to an end the era of American hegemony–but it will be harder for China to end the liberal world order that the American era wrought.