Graham Allison on how Chinas rising global power could lead to superpower conflictor something else.
It takes a lot to impress Professor Graham Allison when it comes to geopolitics. He is, after all, the Cold Warrior\u2019s Cold Warrior\u2014as one of America\u2019s most influential defense policy analysts and advisors, he was twice awarded the Defense Department\u2019s highest civilian honor for his work on nuclear disarmament with Russia. He\u2019s a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, former director of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, and a renowned political scientist who has served as dean of the Kennedy School and head of the school\u2019s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Yet even Allison says he marvels at the rapid transformation of China, the world's rising economic, technological, and military superpower, and he says it\u2019s well past time for the United States and the rest of the world to hear some hard truths about China\u2019s power and potential dominance of world affairs during the 21st Century. \n\nTo explain how China has not only caught up with, but in numerous cases surpassed, the United States, Allison and a group of colleagues are writing a series of five research papers on the key areas of economics, technological advancement, military power, diplomatic influence, and ideology. The third paper, on China\u2019s extraordinary rise as an economic superpower, states that while some may be tempted to still see China as a developing country, the truth is that it has been adding the equivalent of the entire economy of India to its GDP every four years and that the number of people in the Chinese middle class\u2014some 400 million\u2014now far outnumber the entire population of the United States. \n\nMeanwhile, China is either catching up or leading in foundational technologies of the 21st century like AI, quantum computing, and green tech, while recent war games predict that China\u2019s modernized, expanded military would likely win a military conflict over Taiwan. Graham Allison talks about China\u2019s rise and what could be the next great superpower rivalry\u2014but also about the possibilities for a new paradigm for the US-China relationship that goes beyond Cold War thinking.