Is China's rise now stalling?

The variations on power transition theory so widely used to frame analysis of U.S.-China relation tend to assume the inevitability or at least strong probability of China surpassing the United States in economic power if not necessarily military power. In the terminology of social psychology's...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pacific review 2019-05, Vol.32 (3), p.446-474
Main Author: Lynch, Daniel C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attribution
Attribution theory
China
Cognitive bias
Communism
Communist parties
Debt
Economic growth
economy
Frame analysis
Identity
Labor force
Mental health
middle-income trap
Noncitizens
Pollution
population
Power
power transition
Public health
rise
Social psychology
Stalls
Terminology
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Summary:The variations on power transition theory so widely used to frame analysis of U.S.-China relation tend to assume the inevitability or at least strong probability of China surpassing the United States in economic power if not necessarily military power. In the terminology of social psychology's attribution theory, China is imputed with the identity of a state that is inevitably rising. The Chinese Communist Party encourages this attribution among Chinese people and foreigners. But China's economic rise - the foundation of its comprehensive rise - appears to have entered an inflection point in the mid-2010s and may now be stalling. In critical respects, China increasingly resembles the last two countries that 'attempted' a globe-level rise: the unsuccessful cases of postwar Japan and the Soviet Union. China's labor force is shrinking; the country relies excessively on unsustainable debt increases to fuel economic growth; and pollution is seriously harming public health. But even if China's rise conclusively stalls, it may take quite some time before the Chinese public and outside observers recognize the new reality because of intrinsic biases in the cognitive logic of attributing identities to actors.
ISSN:0951-2748
1470-1332
DOI:10.1080/09512748.2018.1491884