Temporal Theory and US-China Relations

This article explains why existing great powers can engage in cooperative relations with rising great powers that fuel the rise of the latter into competitors. By adopting a temporal theoretical lens and providing an examination of US-China relations in the post-Cold War era, it is argued that uncertainty about Chinese long-term intentions, economic benefits from cooperation, and the existence of other clear and imminent challenges to address incentivized the US to adopt a cooperative policy towards China. Assertive moves by China from the late 2000s onwards that the United States perceived to be indications of long-term malign intentions, the emergence of economic competition, and the fading of other challenges to US interests by the 2010s, removed these incentives for engagement and consequently led to a change from cooperative to competitive policies. This article is aimed to address the crucial questions of why the United States helped accelerate the rise of China into a peer competitor, and why that policy has changed to one in which the United States now has engaged in strategic competition with China.