The future of US-China relations: a scientific investigation
Belal E. Baaquie, Peter Richmond, Bertrand M. Roehner, Qing-hai Wang
aa r X i v : . [ phy s i c s . h i s t - ph ] J a n The future of US-China relations:a scientific investigation
Belal E. Baaquie , Peter Richmond , Bertrand M. Roehner and Qing-hai Wang Abstract
In earlier centuries kings and governments employed astrologists to help them takethe best decisions. Present-day governments no longer employ astrologists but stillhave no clear analytical tool to replace them. Over the past two decades we have de-veloped a methodology for the scientific investigation of recurrent historical events.It consists in two steps. (i) Identification and comparison of historical episodes drivenby a common mechanism. (ii) Under the reasonable assumption that what has hap-pened several times in the past is likely to happen again, one then derives testablepredictions. This of course is nothing other than the protocol used in experimentalscience when exploring new phenomena. We believe such a tool can give decisionmakers much better insight.In the present paper we illustrate this analysis by considering challenges, that spanmore than a century, to US hegemony in the Pacific. The outcomes suggest that it isonly through the sidelining of one of the contenders that the confrontation will end.At the time of writing (late 2018) early evidence of this confrontation is already visi-ble at three levels. (i) Growing US concerns for domestic security that are leading toa new form of McCarthyism. (ii) Political instability due to China-US polarizationin several Asian countries as well as in the countries participating in the “Belt andRoad Initiative’. (iii) Tension and sanctions in procurement and trade.
Version of 26 January 2019
Key-words: International relations, China, United States, historical events, recurrent, prediction.
1: INCEIF (International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance), The Global University of IslamicFinance, Lorong Universiti A, 59100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email: [email protected]: School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Email: peter [email protected]: Institute for Theoretical and High Energy Physics (LPTHE), Pierre and Marie Curie campus,Sorbonne University, Paris, France. CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research).Email: [email protected]: Physics Department, National University of Singapore. Email: [email protected]
In this paper we address two questions. • During past decades successive Chinese leaders have repeatedly declared thattheir objective is a win-win relation and shared leadership with the United States, butis the US side ready to share world hegemony? • As we shall see, the answer appears to be no and we then ask the second questionnamely: what form does the confrontation take?The distinctive feature of the approach is that it is not based on a discussion of presentcircumstances but on regularities identified within a number of similar events thathave previously occurred.
Introduction
The approach taken by historians can hardly be considered to be science (in thesense of being able to produce testable predictions). Furthermore many historianseven disagree with the very notion that history can be made into a science.Here we take the contrary view, acknowledging that the defining condition of anyscientific investigation is replicability . For example, if the falls of apples and raindrops have common characteristics we may be able to make predictions relating tothe fall of hailstones?Our methodology follows the approach that experimental physics uses to explorenew phenomena. It is very much in the spirit of the methodological guidelines de-fined by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his book entitled “The rules ofsociological method” (Durkheim 1895). It is perhaps not suprising that Durkheim’smethodology is similar to that of experimental physics since at the end of the 19thcentury physics was seen as the compelling approach in science.To study recurrent events the decisive requirement is replicability simply becauseotherwise nothing but noise is observed. But note that even in physics replicabilityis never perfect . When we consider a cluster of similar historical events we must beprepared to see fluctuations that are substantially larger than in most physical obser-vations, and it is necessary to select such events in such a way that the dispersion isminimised. Precedents in the move toward a scientific approach Indeed, Durkheim recommends studying social phenomena as if they were “things” (“comme des choses” in theFrench text). This point is discussed further with reference to a specific example in Appendix C. A broader analysis of the keyimportance of the signal to noise ratio can be found in Roehner (2007) in a chapter entitled “The battle against noise inthe social sciences”.
In order to give credence to the possibility of establishing a “science of recurrenthistorical events” (which in what follows will be called “analytical history”), it isuseful to describe briefly how the transition to science status was achieved in twoother fields, namely astronomy and medicine. Such transitions are summarized inTable 1.It was to provide advice on key-decisions that astrology was developed. This soughtto “rationalize” the activity of numerous oracles and shamans who were consideredintermediates between humans and the world of spirits and gods. From China andMesopotamia, to Greece and western Europe the practice of astrology was wide-spread. We call it a neo-science because it has some characteristics of a real science.It is based on the relative positions of celestial objects which in turn necessitatedaccurate observations of the positions of stars and planets. In the evolutionary per-spective schematized in Table 1, we use the expression neo-science (one could alsocall it pre-science) rather than pseudo-science because the later conveys a derogatorymeaning. Initially, astrology marked progress with respect to divination at least inthe kind of data that it was handling.
Table 1: Transitions from divination stage to neo-science and to science.
Divination stage Neo-scientific factual stage Scientific stage
Transitions already completed
Prophecies by oracles Astrology AstronomyShamanism (vital spirit, soul) Humoralism, bloodletting Medicine
Transition under way
Founding myths, legends Factual historical narratives
Analytical history
Notes:“Humoralism” was based on four, so called, humors whose equilibrium was deemed to be necessary for ahealthy life. Introduced by Hippocrates (460 to 370BC), this view was accepted for over 2,000 years. Theneo-scientific stages defined in the second column of the table differ from those in the first in two main ways:(i) They make little or no reference to gods or supernatural notions. (ii) They were formalized into well definedprotocols. Thus, following Galen (129-200AD) the location and volume of blood lettings were defined by acomplex set of rules based on disease, age, season and weather.The transitions between stages were gradual rather than sudden. For instance, although Galen was wrong onhumoralism, many of his anatomical observations were correct and proved useful for centuries. Incidentally,even today, treatments without real medical justification continue to be performed, as explained in Baugh et al.(2011) for the case of tonsillectomy, i.e. removal of the tonsils on both sides of the pharynx (for more detailssee the Wikipedia section entitled “Tonsillectomy industry”).
In the history of mankind the transition from astrology to astronomy took place onlya few times: first in Greece, before the Roman invasion, then around 900 in theIslamic world and finally in Western Europe around 1600. It is also significant hereto note that both the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) and Johannes
Kepler (1571-1630) were astrologists at the service of the German Emperor RudolfII. The present-day consensus is that the astrologists’ claim of predicting terrestrialevents based on celestial observations is not justified . Describing astrology as a“pseudo-science” emphasizes the point that its claims are not justified.As we have seen the transition from astrology to astronomy was gradual. So wasalso the transition from alchemy to chemistry. The same observation holds formedicine. Even though, during the neo-scientific stage, weird procedures such asrelief by bloodletting were followed, significant contributions were made to anatomyand herbal medicine.Returning to history, although we are currently in the neo-scientific stage, the transi-tion to the scientific stage does not seem welcome or desirable by mainstream histo-rians. That is perhaps why physicists have a role to play. When astrophysicists wantto study a law of neutron stars, quite naturally they do not study just one neutron starbut as many as possible. Our approach follows the same methodology.Incidentally, the transition from the divination stage to the factual stage was not onlygradual but also marked by steps backward. Thus, whereas the accounts written byHerodotus (circa 484 to circa 425 BC) or Thucydides (460 to 400 BC) were fairlyfactual, when one reads contemporary accounts of the “Great London Fire” of 1666one learns more about the sins of people and the intentions of God than about thereal circumstances of the conflagration.Presently, although there is no science of historical events, some sub-fields of history,e.g. demography, already function as sciences. The main obstacle to the develop-ment of analytical history is probably the fact that most historians consider historicalevents to be unique and therefore inappropriate for scientific analysis. We return tothis point in Appendix C. Outline of the investigation of challenges to US hegemony
The investigation will proceed through the following steps • First, we define the mechanism on which we shall focus. • Secondly, we identify historical episodes showcasing this mechanism. • Thirdly, we compare their outcomes and consider to what extent they help pre-dict the future of China-US relations. • Finally, we examine recent events that may confirm and foreshadow impendingconfrontation. Yet, very few really scientific tests have been conducted. One is described by Shawn Carlson in “Nature” (1985).The paper concludes that predictions based on so-called natal charts are no better than pure chance predictions but alsoemphasizes that such tests involves many methodological difficulties. Would experimental tests on animal populationsnot offer better tests of astrological predictions? If planets have an influence on humans, then they must also have aninfluence on animals.
Because not all readers may need or even wish to know the details of our argumentsexplanations that rely on historical facts and accounts are in Appendices A and B.However we emphasise that such “details” are often of crucial importance. For in-stance, our belief (used in Table 2) that in 1900 the United States had already anhegemonic position in the Pacific must be substantiated and we do this by showingthat at that time China had lost its power, Japan was still in a development stageand Britain had accepted US ascendancy in return for a free hand in Hong Kong andMalaysia.
Investigation of challenges to US hegemony in the Pacific
Definition of the mechanism
The question investigated in this paper can be stated as follows.
Class of events: reactions to actions challenging hegemony. We consider sit-uations in which a country (or company or organization), A , holds a dominantposition but is challenged by another country, B . What will happen?. To say that a historical episode involving two countries
A, B belongs to the classdefined above one must show two things:(i) That A holds an hegemonic position in a given area, meaning that A is morepowerful in terms of GDP, technology, armed forces than all other countries in thisarea.(ii) That, at least in the minds of the leaders of A , the action of B is challengingthis position .Sometimes it happens that a country has to give up hegemony just as a result ofgeneral circumstances. This is how hegemony was transfered from Britain to theUnited States. The reason is easy to understand. Basically the two world wars madeEurope weaker and the United States stronger. In 1939, the US GDP was already 3.4times larger than the GDP of the UK. In 1950, the ratio was 7.9 . In addition, theUK was heavily indebted to the US. Thus, the transfer of leadership could hardly bequestioned. This case illustrates the fact that, as in any competition, the contest is ofinterest only when the two contenders are approximately of same strength.In the present paper we analyze the dominant position of the United States in thePacific. Because it relies not only on objective facts but also on their perception, this notion is not always easy to defineprecisely. The data are as follows (Liesner 1989, p.20-21,54-55,74-75):1939: UK GDP=5.96 billion pounds, US GDP=bn $91.3, 1 pound=$4.461950: UK GDP=13.0 bn pounds, US GDP=$288 bn, 1 pound=$2.80.
US hegemony in the Pacific: general view
Why do we limit the study to the Pacific?Historically there have been many cases marked by recurrent conflicts between re-gional contenders. For instance, one can mention the series of conflicts betweenVenice and Genoa from 1250 to 1400, the four Anglo-Dutch wars fought on sea from1650 to 1780, the many wars between Russia and the Ottoman empire. However, allthese cases were rather imperfect examples of challenges to hegemony. They wererather conflicts between two powers of similar strength.The position of the United States in the Pacific is a much clearer case of hegemony.Nowadays (in 2018) what is at stake is not only hegemony in the Pacific rim butworld hegemony. However, the question of world hegemony came on the table onlyafter the demise of the Soviet Union as a global contender. In contrast US hegemonyclaims in the Pacific are much older.On 2 June 1954 at a White House Security Conference, President Eisenhower de-clared: “We have got to keep the Pacific as an American lake”.
Russia−USSR USAChina Ja p a n Fig. 1 Rim of the Pacific
A number of historical circumstances (explained in the text) explain that the UnitedStates gained an hegemonic position in the Pacific as early as the end of the 19th century through the SpanishAmerican war of 1898.
In contrast to a sea, a lake is most often included within the territory of a country.Naturally, here this sentence does not mean that all the countries around the Pacificshould be American but it implies that they should be part of the US zone of influ-ence that is to say should be neither contenders nor opponents. Before World War II the notion of “zone of influence” was well accepted and duly used in diplomatic language.Nowadays, in contrast, it has been replaced by the delusion that UN membership makes even the smallest countries (e.g.
Actually, we will show that the US hegemony in the Pacific did not start after WorldWar II but in fact several decades before, around 1900. Therefore, by restricting ourstudy to the Pacific rim (see Fig. 1) we can draw on more cases than by consideringworld hegemony after 1990.Before closing this subsection we wish to draw attention on an important distinction.Similar historical episodes or similar mechanisms?The starting point of our comparative analysis must be a mechanism , it cannot merelybe an historical fact or episode.For instance, in China there have been successive dynasties and various mechanismscould be at work in their falls (e.g. see Ferguson 2010) For instance, some collapsesmay be due to military factors, others to a contraction of tax income or some otherfactors. In other words, a first step must be to make sure that the falls under consider-ation belong to the same category. Incidentally, one faces exactly the same problemin medicine in the sense that a comparative analysis of symptoms will be meaning-full only once the disease has been clearly defined. For instance, there must be aclear distinction between tuberculosis and influenza for, although the two diseasesattack the lungs, they affect them in different ways. Similarly, an analysis of dy-nasty falls will be all the more fruitful that the set under consideration will be morehomogeneous.
Historical realizations of this mechanism
As already said, for each of the cases included in Table 2 we must examine twopoints. (i) Whether there was indeed an hegemonic position. (ii) Whether there wasa real challengeHegemonic positionEverybody would certainly agree that after Word War II the United States enjoyed ahegemonic position in the Pacific. However, case number 1 of Table 2 assumes thatthe US had already such a position around 1900 which is less obvious and requiressome explanations. In Appendix A we explain the factors which account for the factthat US dominance started at the end of the 19th century.Actions perceived as challenges to hegemonyOnce we agree that as early as 1900 the United States had a dominant position in thePacific, we need to understand why the actions of other countries listed in Table 2were perceived by the US as challenges to this position.For most of the cases (namely Pacific War, Korea and Vietnam War) this is fairlyclear but there are two cases, namely Russia and Indonesia, for which additionalexplanations may be helpful. A historical discussion can be found in Appendix B. “Saint Kitts and Nevis” or Kiribati) fully independent in all and every respects.
In the last three decades of the 19th century the situation in the Pacific can be de-scribed as follows. • China, once the dominant power in East Asia, had become very weak. The twoOpium Wars of 1842 and 1856–1860 had shown that a relatively small western armysupported by the guns of a naval squadron could defeat fairly easily the armies of theQing Empire. After this demonstration, China became a prey for western countriesjust as the decaying Ottoman Empire was in the Mediterranean area. • Through its success in the First Sino-Japanese war (1894–1895), Japan hadshown that it was on the way of replacing China as a regional power. But, as shownin Appendix A, economically it was still far behind the US and even substantiallybehind Russia. In 1900 its total trade was 2.6 times smaller than the trade of Russia . • Until 1898 Spain was present in the Philippines but its quick defeat in the Span-ish American War showed it out. • It is true that other western powers, particularly Britain, France and Germanywere interested in occupying Pacific islands. However, the rapid acceptance byBritain of the US annexation of Hawaii showed that British interests were confinedto the Indian ocean and that it did not wish to challenge US influence in the Pacific.In other words, the only real possible contender was Russia.US hostility toward RussianexpansionIn Appendix B we explain some of the steps in the Russian expansion toward Manchuria,Korea and the shores of the Pacific.Actually, apart from the geopolitical situation, there was another factor which am-plified the US perception of Russia as an unpleasant contender. It was the fact thatbetween 1880 and 1905 there were in Russia recurrent waves of anti-Jewish pogromswhich attracted great international attention especially in the United States. Theseevents amplified US hostility toward Russia in a way somewhat similar to presentday US perception of China as a threat is amplified because China is not only acontender but is ruled by the Communist party.The only other cases to require some more explanations (given in Appendix B) areIndonesia and Chile.
Analysis of a cluster of challenges
Now we put together the information collected and described previously for the dif-ferent cases of challenges. This leads to the cluster of challenges displayed in Table2. What conclusions can one draw? The numbers were 1,340 million rubles for Russia and 500 milion yen for Japan; the ruble:yen exchange was almost1:1 (Mitchell 1978,p.306).
Table 2: Cluster of recurrent challenges to US hegemony in the Pacific
Beginning Challenger Country Country Conflict Direct USof acting for acting for actionchallenge challenger US (no/yes)
Russia None Japan Russo-Japan War: 1904-1905 no
Japan None Several Pacific War: 1941-1945 yes
USSR North Korea Several Korea War: 1950-1953 yes
USSR North Vietnam France Indochina War: 1949-1954 no
USSR North Vietnam Several Vietnam War: 1960-1978 yes
USSR Indonesia Indon.army Mass murders: 1965-1966 no
USSR Chile Chile army Near civil war: 1970-1973 no
USSR Afghanistan Mujahideen 1st Afghan War: 1979-1988 no
China ? Several ? ?Notes:Because cases 1-8 all led to the elimination of the challenge, they suggest that the emergence of a contenderwill simply not be tolerated. This is even more likely when the contender is a major power occupying a vastarea of the Pacific rim as is China. As this has occurred several times in the past, it is likely to be repeatedagain. Despite the interrogation marks left in the row for China, one can draw the conclusion that the US-Chinatension will not abate but (most probably) will rather wax.
Below we give a number of additional comments. • Direct US action means that US troops were involved. • “Mujahideen” does not refer to a country but to Muslim people waging a “jihad” that is to say warfare againstunbelievers. Although Afghanistan is not on the Pacific rim, the fact that it has been fiercely disputed for almostfour decades suggests that, for some reason, it is considered of high strategic value. • France waged the “Indochina War” on behalf of the US in the sense that, along with weapons and funding,the US side gave strategic and tactical advice. • It can be noted that every time the US took directly part in a war it had several allies; for instance, Australia,Britain, China, New Zealand and the Netherlands in the war against Japan. • Note that the Indochina and Vietnam wars were not challenges to US hegemony by themselves but because ofthe “domino effect” theory which speculated that if a state came under Communist control, then all surroundingcountries would also fall one by one. Despite eventually being proved wrong (indeed after the Communistvictory in Vietnam no other country changed side), this theory was used as a justification for massive USintervention by successive US administrations. • The case of Chile was different from the others in the sense that the two sides belonged to the Chilean societywhich is why the confrontation took the form of a low intensity civil war. • In this paper, we do not include the trade war between Japan and US during 1980s-90s because that conflictremained constrained in the economic sector. Japan did not challenge the US politically or militarily.
Sources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist Party of Indonesia; Di et al. (2017), Chapter 5: “The Pacific as anAmerican lake”.
The challenges listed in Table 2 are not all of same kind. Some like Japan, Korea,Vietnam or Afghanistan were military challenges from the very start, others wereideological and political challenges. It is the case of Russia which comes closest to the present situation of China as an expanding economic power. On the other handthe struggle for world hegemony is best described by cases 3-5 corresponding toindirect military confrontations with the Soviet Union. Overall regularities
In the regularities displayed by Table 2 we wish first of all to list the regularities de-riving from cases 1-8. These are valid for any challenger irrespective of its specificidentity. Then in the next subsection we give some comments which apply specifi-cally to China.(1) The main conclusion is that in the past no challenges have been tolerated. Allpossible challengers were targeted and countered.(2) The challengers were defeated in all but one case, namely Vietnam. Note thatregularity (1) holds even in this case. It is only after a bitter struggle and in the faceof domestic protests that defeat was accepted.(3) In all cases, the United States first relied on local forces supported by USmilitary advisers and delivery of weapons. US troops were sent in only when localforces turned out unable to defeat the challenger.(4) Whenever the US intervened directly it was always together with several al-lies. In the Pacific War it had 5 major allies namely Britain, China, France, theNetherlands, and the Soviet Union. It is in the second Vietnam War that the numberof major allies was smallest: neither Britain nor France took part.(5) In all cases where it occurred, direct US interventions were in response toan aggression. This is of course clear for cases 2,3 and 8. The US administrationwanted a similar pretext for Vietnam. Before sending reinforcements the Departmentof Defense wished to show that it was responding to an aggression. This led to thetwo so-called “USS Maddox incidents” in the Gulf of Tonkin (2 and 4 August 1964).Later on, it was recognized by US authorities that the second incident did not takeplace. Even the first was quite unimpressive in the sense that not a single Americanwas injured . Within hours President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes againstNorth Vietnam and announced them to the nation in a TV address broadcast on allchannels at 23:30 on 4 August. In response, on 7 August 1964, the US Congresspassed the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” which authorized President Johnson to useUS armed forces to assist any state in Southeast Asia requesting assistance in defenseof its freedom. The vote was 476-0 in the “House of Representatives” and 88-2 inthe Senate.On 9 August 1964, China said that the US was trying to create a United Nationsforce to turn Vietnam into a second Korea and pledged to aid North Vietnam. A Moreover, the US government did not disclose that the incident of 2 August was preceded on 30,31 July by attacksagainst two North Vietnamese offshore islands. massive anti-US demonstration took place in Beijing. Less than two months laterChina tested its first atomic bomb.Readers may wonder why we gave a fairly detailed account of this episode. Thereason is simple. One expects that whenever the US will decide to escalate the mil-itary confrontation there will be a similar attempt to present it as a response to anaggression. For instance an incident between a Chinese warship and an Australian,Filipino or Vietnamese vessel would allow the US media to portray the US Navy ascoming to the rescue of a weaker country.. Time schedule
Can one say that the confrontations start with a trade war? Not necessarily. The caseof Japan shows that US-Japanese trade remained active until a few months before thewar. In 1931–1935 the average annual US exports to Japan was $169 million whereasit was 238 in 1940. These exports represented only about 3.5% of the Japanese GDP.As a matter of comparison, in 2017 Chinese exports to the US represented about 4%of the GDP of China. So, one cannot say that economic interdependance is strongenough to prevent a confrontation.If needed, this case shows that economic and political rivalry are definitely two dif-ferent things. Economics is about production and consomption whereas politics isabout power and hegemony.In cases 1-8 the average time interval between the start of the challenge and its elim-ination was about 8 years .What can one say about the duration of economic and financial challenges? Forinstance, in Di et al. (2017) there is an estimate of how long it may take for therenminbi to replace the dollar as the dominant currency in the reserves of centralbanks. This estimate is based on only one case namely the replacement of the Britishpound by the US dollar. The time constant was of the order of 50 years; for the RMB-US$ replacement it may well take longer because the dollar holds a much strongerposition than the pound had back in the 19th century.It is true that the composition of central bank reserves is not the only possible cri-terion. However, it may reflect the weight of a currency in global financial transac-tions. As a trading currency the weight of the renminbi may increase faster but infact in present-day market organization trade and financial transactions are closelyinterconnected, particularly through the mechanisms of currency exchange, trade in-surance and debt management. In short, it does not seem that the RMB is a short-or medium-term threat for the domination of the US dollar However, what matters is Russia: 15, Japan: 4, Korea: 4, Vietnam(1): 6, Vietnam (2): 16, Indonesia: 8, Chile: 3, Afghanistan: 9. The averageis: m = 8 . ± . (where 3.6 corresponds to a confidence level of 0.95). As in several cases the start of the challenge isnot well defined, this estimate should be seen as a mere order of magnitude. not the threat itself but rather its perception in the minds of American leaders.We now give some comments which are specific to the case of China. The China-US honeymoon era
In order to understand why awareness of nascent US hostility took decades to spreadin the Chinese public and in the Communist Party it is necessary to remember thesituation prevailing in the period 1980-2018.Numerous statements by Chinese leaders reveal that their vision of US-China rela-tions was a kind of condominium in which the US and China would share worldleadership. It is true that between 1980 and 1990 China was considered by the USas a strategic partner in its confrontation with the Soviet Union. Whereas on the USside that perception already changed in the 1990s it remained unchanged on the sideof China.Among Chinese leaders there was a great admiration for the US. Out of numerousfacts one can mention the following illustrations . • Leading Chinese universities provided scholarship funding to their best studentsto allow them to study in American universities and pay the high tuition costs. Natu-rally, a substantial percentage of them (95% in 1987, 69% in 2007 and 21% in 2017,according to the “South China Morning Post” of 8 December 2018) remained in theUS which means that China accepted to loose some of its most promising students . • Whenever a section of the Communist Party wanted to express its satisfaction toone of its members, a common reward was in the form of a study tour in the US. Inother words, the best agent for spreading US influence in China was the CommunistParty itself. As an illustration, one can mention that from 2002 to 2014 the so-called“Amway Program” brought more than 500 Chinese officials to Harvard’s John F.Kennedy School of Government in order to study public management. They werecalled “Amway Fellows”. Another similar program at the Kennedy School was the“China’s Leaders in Development Program” set up on the American side by AntonySaich . Such programs were certainly an excellent method for creating a network ofChinese officials fluent in English, and sincere admirers of the American way of life.On the Chinese side such programs were supervised by the “China Development Re-search Foundation” under the control of the “State Council”, the chief administrative More details can be found in Roehner (2017a) particularly in chapter 4 entitled “Our constituencies”. It can be noted that the first batch of Chinese students was sent to the United States in 1872 that is to say by the QingEmpire. Japan had also sent its students to western countries, but it seems it was done more cleverly in the sense that theycame back to Japan and greatly contributed to its scientific and technological advancement. In an article entitled “Amway bankrolls Harvard course for Chinese cadres”, Bloomberg news of 24 September 2013reported that next to Saich’s office there was a cartoon on the wall which pictured the same Chinese official some 20 yearsapart. In the first frame, dressed in a Mao suit, he was raising his fist before a Chinese flag saying “I staunchly opposeAmerica’s hegemony!” In the second frame, he was addressed by a seating official in the following terms: “You are verypatriotic. We will send you to Harvard for training next year!” authority in China.In short, the United States was seen by Chinese leaders and people as a well-meaningelder brother. Such a climate can probably explain why, despite clear signs of wax-ing US antagonism in the 2010s (e.g. massive sales of weapons to Taiwan , moreand more visits of the Dalai Lama to the White House) the official policy remainedunchanged. It takes time for younger siblings to rebel against their big brother. Evenin late 2018, despite the trade war and a string of actions targeting Chinese telecomcompanies, an article of “People’s Daily” (the official publication of the Commu-nist Party) of 4 December 2018 was entitled : “Jointly promote a healthy, steadyChina-US relationship”. What does Table 2 say about the Chinese challenge
Coming back to Table 2, in spite of several interrogation marks in the row aboutChina, the clear conclusion is that challengers, including China, should be elimi-nated. As a matter of fact, through its mere existence and economic expansion, Chinais a more serious challenger than was the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. Thefact that it will not be tolerated means that the tension between the two countries willnot decrease but rather increase. In the next section, we examine how this predictioncan be tested. “Who will win?”, a question that we cannot answer.
For the human mind it is a natural tendency to wish a detailed view of the future. Inparticular, one would like to know who will win. Will the challenge be suppressedas it was in almost all previous cases except Vietnam?It must be strongly emphasized that Table 2 only allows us to say that the challengewill not be tolerated and will give rise to a confrontation. This will certainly be foundunsatisfactory by many readers, but to predict who will win is a much more difficultquestion.Instead of restricting ourselves to the regularities which can be derived from Table2 it may be tempting to indulge into an exercise of political fiction. We will refrainfrom doing that. Just to indicate why let us consider the column “Countries actingfor US”. One would of course wish to know which countries may be among the“several” indicated in Table 2. On account of recent events, it may be tempting topredict that Japan will be among them for indeed the re-armament program under-taken since 2015 by the government of Prime Minister Abe suggests that Japan will The implicit understanding of the agreement of 1979 which led to diplomatic recognition of the PRC was that suchsales would gradually slow down. Instead there was an acceleration. To some extent, this policy may be “tactical” in the sense that as time is on the side of China, it is better to postponeany confrontation as long as possible. Naturally, the same reason may convince the US side to start it as soon as possible,yet at the same time avoiding (thanks to its hegemonic position in world media) being perceived as the aggressor. increase its military role in the Pacific. However, this prediction would not be basedon the methodology of recurrent events but rather on a short-term anthropomorphicargument. Would Yukio Hatoyama come back to power the propect would changecompletely. Moreover, contrary to what happened in 1904-1905, this time Japon willnot be able (and would certainly be unwilling) to do the job alone. In this respect,it can be observed that the size and economic system of China makes its challengemore serious than any of the previous challenges listed in Table 2. Is the US a declining power?
This question goes in the same direction as the “Who will win” question but it seemseasier to answer because it is a more structural issue. It is not surprising that differ-ent authors give different answers for the question has several facets. Whether wetalk about economy, finance, foreign relations, scientific leadership or military dom-ination, the answer will not be the same. Just as illustrations consider the followingfacts. • Economic facet
The only reliable way to compare two economies is in termsof “Purchasing Power Parity” because otherwise the comparison depends on the ex-change rate .According to the World Bank, in 2017 China’s GDP at Purchasing Power Paritywas 23.3 trillion USD whereas the US GDP was only 19.4 trillion USD, that’s adifference of 20.1%. Actually, the fact that China is already No 1 is well recognizedby some lucid western publications; see for instance a Blomberg article published on18 October 2017 and entitled:“Who has the world’s No 1 economy? Not the US. By most measures, Chinahas passed the US and is pulling away”.In other words, economically, with respect to China the US is certainly a decliningpower but so are also Japan and the European Union. • Foreign relations facet
Instead of embarking in a broad discussion, one canobserve that in the Vietnam War the US had 5 allies, namely Australia, New Zealand,the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand whereas in the war in Afghanistan (2001–Dec 2014) the US has been leading a coalition of 44 countries. For the occupationof Iraq in the wake of the invasion of 2003 the US had 36 Allies.
The ways and means of the confrontation can be predicted
What can be predicted are the ways and means of the confrontation for these featuresdo not change much in the course of time. They were essentially the same in theRoman Empire, during the Cold War and now. Another way to make a comparison that is fairly independent of exchange rates is through foreign trade (at least if itis mostly carried out in dollars). In 2009, the foreign trade of China surpassed the foreign trade of the US. A non exhaustive list would include the following facets.(W ) Targeting of people (e.g. scientists) suspected of informing the oppositeside.(W ) Economic, industrial and financial warfare.(W ) Effect of confrontation on separatism.(W ) Information warfare.(W ) Containment policy.(W ) Arms raceIn the following sections we describe the first three items; the last three will be leftfor a closer study in a subsequent paper.For each of the issues in the previous list we are on fairly solid ground because wecan rely on a series of previous cases; for instance, several cases of industrial warfareare listed in Table 3. Events indicative of a brewing confrontation
Within five or ten years it will become easy to judge if the Chinese challenge hasindeed led to a serious confrontation. If we do not wish to wait several years, we cantry to detect in recent events indications of a brewing confrontation.
Targeting of scientists seen as security risks
The Cold War precedent: targeting socialists and communistsDuring the first Cold War US scientists who were Communists or had some sympa-thy for socialist ideas were kept under close surveillance by the FBI and in severalcases were blacklisted. This was true even for prominent scientists like David Bohm,Albert Einstein or Robert Oppenheimer. Unlike Einstein, Bohm and Oppenheimerwere both born in the US. Several other colleagues of Oppenheimer at Berkeley wereblacklisted, e.g. Ross Lomanitz, Philip Morrison, Steve Nelson, Frank Oppenheimer(Robert’s younger brother), his wife Jackie Quann and Joseph Weinberg.It should be noted that none of these physicists was accused of spying for the SovietUnion; it was only assumed that because of their opinions they could become securityrisks.The case of Bohm can serve as an illustration. A close collaborator of Einstein atPrinceton, he was called to testify by the “House Un-American Activities Commit-tee” (HUAC) in May 1949 . Following the non-compliance attitude recommended Contrary to senator McCarthy himself, the HUAC was active over several decades (see Roehner 2007, p. 147).However, as it was not a tribunal it did not offer the usual garantees given to defendants: most often they had no counseland it was not uncommon that false witnesses were used against them (see Schrecker 1986, Rader 1979). The HUACwas only one of several similar committees, e.g. one can mention the Rapp-Coudert, Canwell, Tydings, Jenner, Nixon by Einstein himself, he refused to testify. As a result, he was arrested in early 1950,indicted for contempt of Congress, nevertheless freed on bail and eventually acquit-ted by a federal district court in May 1951. However, in the meantime PrincetonUniversity had suspended him and refused to reinstate him. He found a positionat the university of Sao Paulo, but once in Brazil he had to give up his US passportwhich prevented him from traveling. In 1955 he was allowed to move to Israel wherehe spent two years before eventually joining Bristol University in the UK.While Bohm did not collaborate with the HUAC, many others who were called totestify did. For instance, in his testimony of 25 February 1953, Mr. Robert Davis,a teacher from Massachusetts, gave at least 15 names of persons who were membersof the Communist Party in 1938–1939. That is why, just like an epidemic, thishysteria spread wildly (in the sense that the geometric series n increases very fast).Incidentally, in those years the Communist party was supporting the “New Deal”policy of President Roosevelt.Targeting scientists who have contacts in ChinaComing back to the case of China, a law was passed by the US Congress in April2011 which reads as follows (simplified form).None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the “NationalAeronautics and Space Administration” (NASA) or the “Office of Science andTechnology Policy” (OSTP) to develop a bilateral policy or contract of any kindwith China.In other words through this law scientists working in the US, whether US citizens ornot and whether or not employed by NASA, were barred from any NASA or OSTPfunding whenever they had contacts with Chinese research institutions.In fact, the collaboration interdiction did not start in 2011 but already in 1998. Fol-lowing an investigation by a congressional commission led by Christopher Cox, therewas an embargo on US-Chinese cooperation in space. However, the target of the lawof 2011 was much broader than a prohibition of official NASA-China cooperation.It barred cooperation not only with space science researchers but with all Chineseresearchers whatever their fields.The bill of 2011 was sponsored by Representative Frank Wolf who was well-knownfor his anti-Chinese positions and speeches. However it would be a mistake to thinkthat it was a personal matter. When he retired in 2015 he was replaced in the “ScienceSubcommittee” by John Culberson who, like his predecessor, vowed to uphold theembargo on space cooperation with China. Actually, in the shadow of Wolf andCulberson one would expect the Pentagon to be the key factor. The fact that the US committees or the “Senate Internal Security Subcommittee” (SISS). The proceedings of the public hearings (most hearings were in fact not public) are available on line. has an ongoing collaboration with Russia but refuses to cooperate with China clearlysuggests that it is China that is now seen as the strategic opponent. Espionage charges
The Cold War precedentArrests on the charge of spying for the Soviet Union started right after the end of thewar. The defection of Igor Gouzenko on 6 September 1945 led to the arrests of 39persons in the US and Canada on the charge of espionage for the Soviet Union. Nu-merous others were to follow in subsequent years. These arrests targeted employeesand civil servants of the State Department but also many scientists.Chinese American scientists arrested on espionage chargesOn 21 December 2018 US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein declared thatbetween 2012 and 2018 more than 90% of the Department of Justice cases concern-ing economic espionage involved China (Taipei Times 22 December 2018).On Wikipedia there is an article entitled “List of Chinese spy cases in the UnitedStates” which describes the cases of 32 scientists, mostly of Chinese origin, whowere arrested on espionage charges. Except for a few older ones, most of the casesoccurred in the period 2000-2018. The list is not complete; as examples of missingcases one can mention: Gwo Bao Min, Xiaodong Meng, Billy Yui Mak, Fuk HeungLi, Xiaoqing Zheng.The most striking fact is that in about one third of the cases the charges were droppedeither completely or drastically narrowed in a way tantamount to recognizing that theaccusation had collapsed . It is of interest to understand the reason.Most of the persons arrested were Chinese Americans (either born in the US or nat-uralized US citizens) working in the US and maintaining contacts in China. Thesecontacts may have been just for the purpose of scientific cooperation or in the in-tention of creating Chinese start-ups. In both cases, this kind of activity involvedmoving scientific information from the US to China. If this information was deemedproprietary information without even being officially classified it was enough to mo-tivate an arrest.In most cases where the accusation had to be dropped it was because the defenseside could convince the prosecution (represented at state level by a district attorneyor a US attorney at federal level) that the information that was passed on was infact freely available in scientific journals. Needless to say, for scientific or technicalmatters such distinctions can be difficult to make. The following persons can be mentioned in this respect (more details about them can be obtained through Internet key-word searches.): Xiafen Chen, Michael Haehnel, Bo Jiang, Peter Lee, Wen Ho Lee, Katrina Leung, Tai Mak, XiaoxingXi, Hua Jun Zhao. Although we know a number of cases in which the accusation was dropped theremay also be cases in which defenders were wrongly sentenced to terms of severalyears. This can be understood by considering the case of Los Alamos scientist WenHo Lee. The government brought against him 59 charges, including 39 that eachcarried a life sentence. Fortunately, soon after his arrest a prominent law firm whohad agreed to represent him sprang into action. In addition, led by Lee’s daughter, anetwork of people and organizations started to mobilize public opinion on his behalfand contributed to cover the cost of Lee’s lawyers .The question of what would have happened without such a support is a matter ofspeculation, but it is clear that not all scientists who were indicted benefited fromsuch an effective support. In addition it can be observed that in such affairs thepolitical climate plays a role; in 1999 when Lee was arrested US-China relationswere certainly more friendly than 20 years later. Cluster of industrial warfare cases
In 2018 the Chinese telecom giant Huawei was targeted by several rules issued bythe US government. At first sight this may not seem of great significance regardinga looming confrontation for indeed in the past such methods have also been usedagainst foreign companies belonging to US allies. However, the Huawei case wasquite different from the previous ones. To see this point more clearly let us again usethe analytical methodology employed for hegemony challenges.This time the mechanism can be defined as follows.
Industrial warfare How to use US federal rules to limit the penetration offoreign companies into the US market.
A set of such cases is displayed in Table 3.The cases 1-6 show that there is always a combination of three elements. (i) Tech-nical reasons which at first sight seem reasonable. (ii) An amplification of this tech-nical factors beyond what is reasonable. (iii) An intervention of the US government.The weighing and timing of these elements may change but they are always presentin one form or another.The Huawei cases are different from the others in several respects.(1) It is no longer a technical reason that is given but instead a national securityreason.(2) The enacted rules no longer concern a specific product but instead all
Huaweiproducts. In other words it is the company itself which is targeted.(3) The industrial warfare against Huawei is not limited to the US but instead is In his book (Lee 2002) Lee says that the cost was of the order of one million dollars. He thanks the followingorganizations which supported him: (i) “Asian Law Caucus”, (ii) “Chinese for Affirmative Action”, (iii) “Organization ofAsian Americans”. Table 3: Cases in which foreign competitors were targeted on technical grounds
Year Product Country Company or brand
Supersonic airliner (Mach 2) France-UK Concorde
Car Germany Audi/Volkswagen
Mineral water France Perrier
Car Japan Toyota
Car Germany Volkswagen
Cell phone South Korea Samsung (27 Mar.) Cell phone China Huawei (15 Nov.) 5th generation smartphones China Huawei (24 Nov.) Telecom equipment China HuaweiNotes:Audi is the luxury brand of Volkswagen. • On 27 March 2018 it became known that a planned partnership between Huawei and the US telecomcompany ATT will not happen due to political pressure. Verizon had similarly dropped plans to sell Huaweismartphones. Thus Huawei phones could be sold only through independent retailers which represents a verysmall part of the US market. • On 15 November 2018 it became known that the US and Australia have excluded Huawei from the 5thgeneration auction for mobile phones and that the British and German governments were being pressured to dothe same. • On 24 November 2018 it became known that the US government was trying to persuade key allies toavoid using Huawei telecom equipment. This concerned particularly the countries hosting US military bases.In subsequent weeks, there were news in a number of countries of arguments between governments and in-telligence agencies. The latter claimed that Huawei was definitely a threat to national security whereas thegovernments observed that previous investigations had not found any problem. In order to understand suchdisagreements one should recall that since the end of World War II, in all countries which are US allies, the in-telligence agencies have a close but highly asymmetrical relationship with US intelligence agencies. In contrast,the governments were trying to keep open economic opportunities. • Most of the cases listed in the table gave rise to criminal investigations due to accidents allegedly resultingfrom technical defects. • We did not include in this table the sanctions against the Chinese telecom company ZTE, nor the arrestin early December 2018 of Huawei’s chief financial officer because these events were not based on technicalreasons like others in this table, but on political reasons, namely trading with Iran (although later on the chargeswere changed in order to make the US extradition request more acceptable by Canada). We neither includedcases of companies submitted to increased duties as the result of a trade war. extended to all US allies. Worldwide there are 77 countries which host US bases.(4) From March to November 2018 there is an intensification of the offensive.It seems that Huawei must be eliminated because its very existence and success isan intolerable challenge to US technological hegemony (just as was the Concordesome decades ago). In short, the anti-Huawei campaign can be seen as a first step ina coming confrontation with China.
Outcry in the US against Confucius Institutes When the Confucius Institutes were set up in 2002, their main purpose was to teachthe Chinese language. In this sense they were similar to the “Goethe Institutes” forlearning German or the “Alliance Franc¸aise” centers for learning French. However,the Confucius Institutes were a more ambitious project in two respects. (i) Eachforeign institute is located on the campus of an American University. This contrastswith the German and French institutes which have their own buildings off campus.(ii) Each American university which hosts a Confucius Institute has a partnershipwith a Chinese University.To establish partnerships with foreign universities is something fairly common inmany countries worldwide. However, the Confucius Institutes mixes two fairly dif-ferent traditions: (i) The Goethe-Alliance Franc¸aise tradition through which Germanor French culture is promoted abroad and funded by the respective governments. (ii)International partnerships in higher education which is supposed to be funded by therespective universities. When such partnerships are established with state universi-ties (as are the majority of German or French universities) they are of course alsoindirectly funded by the state but in a less visible way.In the present trade war climate one can hardly be surprised by manifestations ofhostility directed at Confucius Institutes. On the website “The Hill” (which reportsnews from the US Congress) one can read an article of 22 February 2018 which hasthe following title: “Get China’s pernicious Confucius Institutes out of US colleges”and which ends with the following sentence: “Confucius Institutes are an affront tointellectual freedom, national security, and American interests. It is time for them toclose, and it is time for the US to act.”For the time being (December 2018), only four US universities in a total of aboutone hundred hosting Confucius Institutes have followed this advice.
Effects of China-US antagonism in South East Asia
During the Cold War there was a power struggle in many countries between leftistparties often suspected of sympathy for the Soviet Union and conservative partiessupported by the US. Leaders considered too friendly to the Soviet Union were usu-ally removed through a coup led by the army. Examples are Chile in 1973, Thailandin 1976 or Pakistan in 1977. One would not be surprised to see a similar effect as aresult of the China-US power struggle. This prediction seems indeed confirmed bycurrent events in several countries of South-East Asia. However it would take toolong to analyze these cases here. One must realize that in each country the antago-nism between China and the US will materialize in a different form determined bydomestic factors. This makes it difficult to decode local events but at the same timeknowledge of the China-US antagonism gives a useful interpretation key. Effects of China-US antagonism in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang
Core interests targeting as a thermometer of China-US antagonismTaiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang are usually referred to by the Chinese Ministry of ForeignAffairs as part of China’s “core interests”. Therefore, the way they are targeted bythe US State Department reflects fairly well the condition of China-US relations. Forinstance between 1980 and 1990, the period of strategic partnership, there was not asingle meeting between a US president and the Dalai Lama .The case of TaiwanTaiwan-US relations reflect China-US antagonism in a much “cleaner” way (that is tosay with less noise due to local factors) than US relations with neighboring countries.When one compares the so-called “Six Assurances” given to Taiwan in 1982 byPresident Reagan with the “Taiwan Security Enhancement Act” of 2000 (a bill neverpassed), the “Taiwan Security Act of 2017” (a bill in committee discussion sinceNovember 2017), the “Taiwan Travel Act” (signed into law in March 2018), onegets the feeling of an accelerated process through which the US encourages Taiwan’sindependence .In our comments about Table 2 we observed that US military interventions werealways in response to an agression (e.g. Japanese attack of 1941, attack of 11September 2001) or to come to the help of a small country under attack (e.g. SouthKorea, South Vietnam, Kuweit). Pushing China to an intervention in Taiwan andthen coming to Taiwan’s rescue might seem an appropriate way to start a limitedconflict with China; but would it remain limited?The case of TibetThe “Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act” was passed by the US Congress on 11 De-cember 2018. It requires the US Secretary of State, within 90 days of the bill beingsigned into law by the president, to identify Chinese officials responsible for exclud-ing US citizens (particularly journalists) from Tibet and then ban them from enteringthe United States.The case of XinjiangIn recent months there have been US decisions targeting the Chinese officials incharge of the administration of Xinjiang.Needless to say, all these actions are of a political nature. They show that the tradewar which started in the Spring of 2018 is only one aspect of a global struggle. The source is a Wikipedia article which lists all trips of the Dalai Lama out of India. This article also reveals that, inthe same decade 1980–1990, and in contrast with the US, there were four meetings of Pope John Paul II with the DalaiLama. For instance in August 2018 Taiwan’s president Tsai was allowed to give a public speech in the US and to visitNASA’s Houston Space Center, a place closed to Chinese space scientists. The invasion of Iraq of 2003 seems to be the only exception. Changes in number of Chinese graduate students in the US
So far most of our predictions were of the no/yes type, that is to say we predictedthe occurrence of some new events and features. By putting together data givenpreviously we can venture to predict that from 2017 onward the number of Chinesegraduate students in the US will grow at an annual rate which will certainly remainunder 3%. Actually, one would, with good likelihood, expect it to become negative.This prediction is based on the combination of two factors.(1) In the past 10 years the proportion of Chinese students staying in the US aftergraduation has shrunk from 69% in 2007 to 21% in 2017. This limited the braindrain and in addition when returning to China, these students brought back the skillsand knowledge acquired during their studies. In a climate of technological warfaresuch a feature will not be seen with favor by the US government.(2) From 2007 to 2013 the number of graduate students in the US has increasedat an annual rate of 20%, but from 2013 to 2017 the average increase rate fell to 3%(Mervis 2018). The inflection following 2013 was likely due to rising tuition costscombined with reduced Chinese scholarships.As one does not expect these trends to be reversed, the increase rate should declineunder 3%, perhaps even become negative. As a matter of fact, it is this last casewhich would best agree with the expectation of Table 2.
Financial implications of strained China-US relations
Currently (in 2018) there are three strong financial connections berween the PRCand the US.(i) China owns a sustantial part (over one trillion dollars) of the foreign debt ofthe US federal government.(ii) More than one hundred major Chinese companies are listed on the New YorkStock Exchange.(iii) In 2018 about 80% of the foreign trade of China was still in dollars.It is difficult to say what will happen in case of an open confrontation for such asituation never happened before. If financial exchanges become frozen one mayexpect the following consequences.(1) US interest payments on Treasury bonds are likely to be suspended. If oneassumes an average interest rate of 5% this represents an annual amount of $50billion, i.e. 0.40% of the Chinese GDP of 2017. In other words this effect is quitenegligible.(2) Chinese companies whose physical assets are located in China will probablyinterrupt dividends payments to American share holders. However, assets of Chinesecompanies located in the US or in allied countries may be taken over. (3) Interruption of the flow of dollars to China and its allies will probably accel-erate the dollar to renminbi substitution, at least in those countries.Before coming to the conclusion we wish to attract the attention of the reader on thediscussion of the question of replication which is given on Appendix C. This is akey-point in our approach for the obvious reason that replicability is the hallmark ofscience. Conclusion
Main results
In this paper we have defined a methodology for the scientific analysis of recurrentevents and we have used it in the investigation of the relations between China and theUnited States and also in the analysis of industrial warfare episodes. This methodol-ogy was already presented (although in a less formalized form) in a book publishedsome 16 years ago (Roehner and Syme 2002). In the meanwhile its relevance andeffectiveness were tested by using it in the investigation of various phenomena (seeRoehner 2007).Our main conclusion based on similar previous episodes (listed in Table 2) is that thevery existence and development of China is to be perceived as a threat by the US andwill not be tolerated. This means that the confrontation will become harsher; it willtake many forms just as was the case during the Cold War. We listed and describedsome events which are early confirmations of this prediction.Actually, Table 2 and the ensuing conclusions were already published in Di et al.(2017) and in Roehner (2017b), that is to say prior to the start of the trade war.At that time the bywords were still cooperation and win-win relations. It is quitepossible that, in line with the wishes of big US corporations, there will be a truce inthe trade war. However, this will not end the confrontation in other fields.
A comment about the rationale for hegemony
Some readers may observe that in this paper we did not explain why a country shouldwish to get and keep hegemony. It was by purpose and we had mainly three reasonsin mind.(1) The motivations may be quite diverse. At the end of World War II the SovietUnion wished to establish its hegemony over East European countries mainly formilitary reasons. As another example, in the 1950s France wished to maintain itshegemony in North Africa because there were over one million French settlers inAlgeria and these people controlled a very effective lobbying network. Even insidethe same country different groups may have specific motivations: the army will insist on overseas bases, large corporations want low taxes both domestically and abroad,and so on.(2) It seems fairly clear that through its hegemony in India Britain secured eco-nomic benefits. However, even in such an obvious case, it would be difficult to givea reliable estimate. In terms of annual GDP growth did they represent 0.1%, 0.5%,2% or more? If we cannot estimate the benefits reliably is it worthwhile to describethem in detail. Moreover, as already said, for the Pentagon GDP growth may not themain concern.(3) Finally, the last and probably most compelling reason results from our wishto follow the guiding lines of physics. Physicists focus on the “how?” question, andignore completely “why?” questions. Why do rain drops fall? Neither newtonianmechanics nor General Relativity gives an answer but the two theories give veryaccurate predictions about how they fall, e.g. speed and acceleration. As a matterof fact, this focus on “how” is exactly what Durkheim says when he recommends tostudy social phenomena as “things” so as to avoid anthropomorphic interference.In short, to see some countries willing to fight to defend their hegemonic position isenough for us. We do not wish to spend time on asking why they are doing that. Future investigations
In this paper we have described the different facets of the confrontation rather briefly.In fact, for each facet one needs to identify, collect and compare a series of similarcases. We plan to do that in subsequent papers.For instance, with respect to the question of separatism, one should compare sev-eral cases in which the US has supported separatist movements in foreign countries.This can be traced back to the early 20th century with the independence of Panamafollowed by Ireland, India, Indonesia, Ukraine, Croatia, Kosovo.
What means “sidelining one of the contenders”?
In the abstract we used the somewhat cryptic wording that “it is only through thesidelining of one of the contenders that the confrontation will end”. Is it possible tobe more specific?First, one should observe, that strictly speaking, the cases in Table 2 do not reallyallow to do that for indeed their outomes are fairly different. In 1905 the setbacksuffered by Russia was mostly confined to the Far East. On the contrary, in 1945Japan suffered a crushing defeat which had long-term implications up to present-day. Nonetheless, based on reasonable assumptions, is it possible to be somewhatmore specific about the possible meanings of “sidelining?For the United States the answer is fairly simple in the sense that having to shareworld hegemony with China would constitute a significant set-back. What would be a significant setback for China is less clear for, contrary to the USSR,China does not yet have a superpower status that it is at risk of losing. However, thefollowing outcomes may be seen as significant US “victories”.(1) To be able to maintain a technological edge in critical hightech sectors (suchas the semiconductor industry) which are essential elements of the supply chain .Although, as already mentioned, the 2017 PPP GDP (Purchasing Power Parity GrossDomestic Product of 2017) of China already surpassed the one of the US, this wouldimply a fateful enduring weakness.(2) Through clever use of softpower, (a combination of financial threats and sanc-tions, use of captive media, public relations campaigns, military cooperation) to beable to isolate China particularly from its Asian neighbors (e.g. India, Vietnam,Malaysia, Indonesia) or from the Central Asian countries located on the silk road.This is but a partial list of possible developments. It is by purpose that we mentionedneither military aspects nor possible domestic upheavals for in such areas predictionsare notably hazardous. What can be learned from the case of the USSR?
We already said that we will refrain from politics fiction and only rely on series ofrecurrent events. One former occurrence is the demise of the USSR. What can it tellus?If one discards the occurrence of a war, what else can make the US accept a lowerstatus? Although the case of the USSR is certainly not the best possible parallel letus nevertheless see what it suggests.Around 1975 after its victory in the Vietnam war the USSR was a very successfulsuperpower. In East Asia it had four vassal states, namely North Korea, Vietnam,Cambodia (at least after the occupation by Vietnam) and Afghanistan. With its alliesit created the “Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation” (Comecon) which alsoincluded East European nations. However, the Comecon could not deliver much interms of economic achievements despite the fact that the tripling of the price of oilwas a huge bonanza for the USSR which is a major exporter.Then, at the end of 1979 the USSR occupied Afghanistan which turned out to bea disaster, and in 1989, encouraged by the US, the East European countries andeven Ukraine, Belarus and other Soviet Republics sided with the west. Among otherthings, they were of course expecting faster economic growth. Did that materialize?One can imagine a similar scenario. Presently, the US has bases in 77 countrieswhich are all more or less vassal states. What will happen if by establishing com- In contrast, high speed trains or nuclear power plants are not critical elements of the supply chain which is why theUS accepted to lose its leadership in such sectors. mercial links with China these countries are led to turn their back on the US?We do not suggest that this scenario is likely. In fact, under present conditions it seems very unlikely. However, this is a purely anthropomorphic judgement, that isto say of the kind Emile Durkheim cautioned us to avoid. Appendix A: Built up of US hegemony in the Pacific
As the annexation of Guam, Hawaii and the Philippines occurred only in 1898, onemight think that there was no real US interest for the Pacific until the end of the 19thcentury. Thus, our argumentation will involve two steps. • First, we explain that US naval and diplomatic activity in the Pacific and in EastAsia has already started in the early and mid-19th century, that is to say decadesearlier than is usually assumed. • Secondly, we show that at the end of the 19th century the US was already farahead of all its contenders in the Pacific in terms of national product and naval power.
Early inroads in the 19th century
There are several facts which suggest that US involvement in the Pacific started inthe early-19th century and developed considerably in the first half of this century. • Diplomatic relations between the US and Thailand were established as earlyas 1818; at that time Thailand was the only country of South East Asia which wasnot part of the British Empire. Then, in 1833 the two countries signed a “Treaty ofAmity and Commerce”.In 1853 through the use of gunboat diplomacy, the United States obtained the open-ing of Japan to western trade. • Despite the fact that annexation occurred only in 1898, from 1840 on the Hawai-ian monarchy was virtually controlled by US missionaries who were so to say theTrojan Horse of the State Department. For instance, in 1874 following riots theUnited States landed troops to restore order.The same can be said of Korea. Although a “Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce andNavigation” was only signed with Korea in 1882 the influence of US missionariesstarted several decades before. • In 1856, the US Congress passed the “Guano Island Act” which authorized UScitizens to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits, that isto say accumulated excrement of seabirds. Guano was used for making gunpowderand fertilizer. In the course of the following decades at least 46 islands came underUS possession. They extended all the way from the coast of Peru and Chile to thePhilippines and Indonesia; nine of them are still officially US Territories.
US hegemony around 1900 Fig. A1 American guano islands.
The two pictures were separated for the sake of clarity. Altogether theyshow 46 islands. These islands were occupied by the United States following the “Guano Islands Act” of1856. Although many were occupied only temporarily, others are still unincorporated US territories. The twobroken lines show the equator and the division line between east (left) and west (right) of Greenwich.
Source:Wikipedia article entitled “List of Guano Island claims”
The clearest indication of a watershed was of course the Spanish American Warof 1898 through which Guam and the Philippine islands were annexed by the US. Adisplay of the effectiveness of US naval forces was given in the Battle of Manilla Baywhere the Spanish squadron was destroyed within a few hours with only 9 woundedon the American side.What was the situation of the other contenders? At that time, the Chinese Empirewas in chaos.Was Japan a more serious competitor? It is true that in the Sino-Japanese War Japanwon a resounding naval victory. However, one should remember that around 1900most of the Japanese warships were still imported from Europe. At that time Japanhad only a small industrial sector which weighed less than the agricultural sector andrepresented 24% of national income. In 1900 the US GDP was about 15 times theGDP of Japan. In 1940, the GDP ratio was still about 10 which means that in a warof long duration Japan was no match for the US. This was of course even more truein 1900 .The fact that the European powers (mainly Britain, France and Germany) did notwish to challenge US hegemony in the central Pacific is well shown by the fact thatthe annexation of Hawaii was hardly opposed. The detailed figures are as follows: US GNP=$19,000 million, Japanese income=2520 million yen, exchange rate:1US$=2 yen. A comparison based on trade data leads to a ratio which is somewhat lower but one must take into accountthe fact that the larger a country, the smaller its GDP/trade ratio. The sources are: Hundred-year statistics of the JapaneseEconomy, Statistics Department of the Bank of Japan 1966, p.28 and Liesner (1989, p.74,102,270). Appendix B: Threats to US interests in the Pacific
Russian expansion toward Mongolia, Manchuria and Korea
First of all, one should emphasize that the sale of Alaska to the US in 1867 doesnot signal a lack of interest for the Far East. Why? The main reason of the sale wasbecause Russia realized it would be unable to defend Alaska in case of a conflict withCanada (still a British dominion) or the US. Secondly, Russian penetration in Alaskawas limited to a few fur traders. Thirdly, Russian expansion was directed toward thesoutheast of the Pacific and for that purpose Alaska was completely out of the way.In 1900 Outer Mongolia was still part of China but because of the weakness of theQing Empire it was in fact controlled by Russia. From Outer Mongolia, Russianinfluence could spread to Inner Mongolia and from there to Tibet because of thestrong cultural ties between the two countries. It was partly in order to prevent thespread of Russian influence that Britain invaded Afghanistan in 1978–1880 andTibet in 1904–1905.Some of the landmark steps in Russian expansion can be summarized as follows(detailed explanations can be found on Internet)(1) 1860: Through the treaty of Peking, Russia got Vladivostok; yet it was not anice-free port.(2) 1875: Through the Treaty of Saint Petersburgh, Russia received the Sakhalinpeninsula.(3) 1896: Through the treaty Li-Lobanov, Russia was allowed occupation andadministration of the Liaodong Peninsula including the ice-free port of Port Arthur(now Dalian).(4) 1900: After the Boxer Rebellion Russia occupied the whole of Manchuriawith a substantial force.(5) 1901: The “North Manchuria Railway” was established by a Russian com-pany.Simultaneously, and in contrast to Alaska, there was a substantial inflow of Russianpopulations. Its legacy is still visible in the architecture of cities like Harbin andDalian.Russian expansion was all the more perceived as a threat because the US could dolittle to counter it. Manchuria may have been far away from Moscow but it was evenmore far away from Washington. At that time the US had no bases in South Koreaor Japan. Thus, in order to stop Russian expansion the US administration had toconvince Japan to confront Russia. It can be noted that in its attempt to fight off the invasion the Afghan leader asked for Russian help. Japan pushed to wage war against Russia
In the cartoon of Fig. B1 Britain is shown as trying to interpose itself; it is indeedtrue that Britain was much less pushing to war than the US but nevertheless, after thewar had started, Britain was on the side of Japan and welcomed Japan’s victory . Fig. B1 Cartoon about the respective roles of Britain and the US in the conflict between Japan andRussia.
In this Russian cartoon the USA is pushing the horse of the emperor of Japan over the brink whileBritain (in red) is trying to interpose itself. At that time Britain had an alliance with France which itself was aclose ally of Russia. In addition in 1902 England had signed a treaty with Japan. Thus, it was certainly not thewish of Britain to see Russia go to war against Japan.
Source: Internet
From the articles published in the “New York Times” in the years 1895–1904 it isclear that this was indeed the policy of the State Department. Whereas, Britain triedto encourage discussions between Japan and Russia, the NYT seized every occasion,not matter how small, to announce that the war was imminent. This was very clearfor the public opinion as shown by cartoons of the time such as the one shown inFig.B1. In order to illustrate that the US played the role of a rablerouser here are afew excerpts of the “New York Times”. Usually the NYT represents fairly well thepositions of the State Department. • The Japanese Army is full of Russian spies disguised as Japanese. (24 Dec 1897) [A rather surprisingallegation.] • Seventeen British warships back an ultimatum against Russian domination. Japan supports the Britishaction. Her fleet of 30 vessels is awaiting the result of the protest against the dismissal [in Korea] of an Englishcustoms officer. (27 Dec 1897) [To see three major fleets go to war for the dismissal of a customs officer wouldbe quite surprising. Indeed, nothing happened.] In contrast France was a close ally of Russia and tried to help it as far as possible for instance by permitting a refuelingstop of the Russian Baltic Fleet in a port of French Indochina. • Japan feels warlike. Captain Sakuzzi, who is in San Francisco, says Russia is treating his country sham-fully. (1 Jan 1898) [Should one take great account of the declaration of a captain?] • The Korea question is settled. England, Japan and Russia have arrived at an agreement. (10 Jan 1898) • Japan is prepared for war. (22 Jan 1898) • There is a war feeling in Japan. (6 April 1898)[Coming 6 years before the war and just weeks after a partial agreement was reached such titles show that,contrary to Britain, the US did not welcome a peace agreement.]
More excerpts of that kind can be found in Roehner (2017, chapter 3).These excerpts also show that it was Korea which was at stake. Japanese goals beganto include Manchuria only after 1917 when the grip of Russia over this region wasweakened as a result of the revolution. It is true that in the war of 1905 there was abattle for Mukden (present day Shenyan) a city which located in South Manchuriabut in fact near the border with Korea; its control was necessary for the purpose ofsecuring the occupation of Korea.
The United States welcomes Japan’s victory
If, as we argued, the US pushed Japan to confront Russia one expects of course thatit was happy with Japan’s victory. This is indeed confirmed by NYT excerpts in thedays following the great Japanese naval victory of Tsushima (27-28 May 1905)
Togo and the men who helped him win his Trafalgar of the Far East shared with the heroes who fought anddied for this country in both eulogy and applause at the memorial exercises held in Carnegie Hall last night.(31 May, 1905)Japan has now free hand on land and can drive Russia from the Pacific coast of Asia (3 June, 1905)The Russian cruisers must sail or be interned. By denying the request of [Russian] Admiral Enquist for anopportunity to repair his fugitive Russian cruisers [including injured sailors] at Manila President Roosevelt laiddown a doctrine that is new. (6 June, 1905)
The last excerpt regarding Russian cruisers which found refuge in the Philippines isparticularly harsh and shows very little sympathy for Russia in Washington.
Indonesia and its powerful Communist party
The second case that requires some explanations is Indonesia.Before its eradication in 1965 after a military coup, the Communist Party of Indone-sia (PKI in Indonesian) was the largest non-ruling (that is to say outside the SovietUnion and China) Communist party in the world. It had been founded in 1915 byDutch socialists (Indonesia was at that time a Dutch colony). Although banned by theDutch authorities, it was able to survive underground until when Indonesia becameindependent around 1947. Because of the role it had played in the fight for indepen-dence and against the Japanese, duly authorized by President Sukarno its member-ship grew quickly to the point of reaching some 3 millions in 1964. In February 1957there was a first coup attempt by the pro-US fraction of the military which failed. A second coup was staged in October 1965 which started (as later on in Chile) with theassassinations of all pro-Sukarno top generals. It was followed by a terrible repres-sion which, according to most sources, claimed of the order of 500,000 deaths. Asa result, the PKI was eradicated and President Sukarno was replaced by PresidentSuharto.Why were Sukarno and the PKI perceived as a major threat by the United States?Firstly, there is a preliminary question. Was the PKI close to the Soviet Union or toChina? Despite the existence in Indonesia of a large minority of ethnic Chinese, thePKI had closer links with Moscow. Secondly, the case of Indonesia should not beconsidered in isolation. It was part of an expansion of Soviet influence not only inAsia but also in the Middle East with Baathist (i.e. socialist) coups in Iraq and Syria. Chile, 1970-1973
The case of Chile is fairly similar in the sense that a leftist government was toppledover through a military coup in September 1973. This case should also be seen inthe broader context of the USSR-US confrontation. The Paris Peace Accords of 27January 1973 had officially ended direct US involvement in the Vietnam War. Theycreated a ceasefire between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and allowed 200,000Communist troops to remain in the south. Thus, they were in fact an acknowledg-ment of US defeat as indeed confirmed by the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In aposition of weakness the US would not tolerate any other challenge. Apart from themilitary coup in Chile, there were also similar ones in Pakistan and Thailand.
Why was Cuba tolerated? In fact, it was not
Finally, a word is required to explain the case of Cuba. Although Cuba is in theCaribbean Sea not in the Pacific, this is certainly also an area that the Americanswish to see as an American lake. Why, then, did they tolerate the leftist regime attheir doorstep?Firstly, one should observe that in fact they did not tolerate it in the sense that thefailed “Bay of Pigs” landing of April 1961 and the 5-year rebellion (1959–1963)in the Escambray Mountains against the Castro government were clear attempts toremove it. However, the real turning point was the missile crisis of October 1962for the agreement which settled the crisis implied that together with Soviet missilesin Cuba, US missiles in Turkey would also be removed and that no other invasionattempt would be made in Cuba.In the decades following the missile crisis the United States continued its attempts toremove the Castro government. As open action was barred, it used some of the otherstandard and less visible means: (i) Containment policy by having Cuba excludedfrom the “Organization of American Countries”; the exclusion was only lifted in ; however several US allies did notenforce the embargo. (iii) Support to organizations Cuban defectors in Florida (e.g.the “Cuban American National Foundation”) and to domestic opponents in Cuba.(iv) International public relations campaigns directed against Cuba.In short, it is only thanks to Soviet support and cracks in the anti-Cuban coalitionthat the socialist regime was narrowly able to survive. In 2015-2016 there was ashort-lived normalization in which Pope Francis played a key-role but a Appendix C. Replication in history versus physics
The question of replication has two facets. • Firstly, we want to specify under what conditions historical events can be sepa-rated from their context. • As the questions of uniqueness and replication are a key issue we want to ex-plain why from physics to history there is a continuity rather than a radical change.This discussion could have been presented in the introduction but it may better beunderstood once a case-study has been presented.
Can one extract events from their historical context?
At first sight the Russo-Japanese War and the Vietnam war seem to have very little incommon. As a matter of fact, the time intervals as well as the countries involved arenot at all the same. However, we do not intend to compare them; the only thing inwhich we are interested is the fact that they took place. Similarly, from an anthropo-morphic perspective an apple and the Moon seem completely different objects; whatthey have in common is that they are both attracted by the Earth according to the lawof gravitation.The advice to refrain from studying social phenomena from an anthropomorphic per-spective was not given by an econophysicist but rather, more than one century ago,by Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology (Durkheim 1894). Inhis book about the methodology of sociology he devotes many pages to this ques-tion and insists on the fact that social effects should be studied “like things” (in theEnglish translation), “comme des choses” in the original French text. Clearly such“things” can be extracted from their historical context for the purpose of comparison.We wished to emphasize this point because it is often a source of misunderstandingswith historians.
Replication in physics and in history
Semi-repetition in history Every year since 1991 the US embargo is denounced by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The fact that something which has happened several times is likely to happen again isa crucial step in our methodology but one must recognize that this statement must begiven a fairly “elastic” meaning. What we mean is best explained by a few examples. • If sunrise was at 6:00 three days ago, at 6:05 two days ago, at 6:10 yesterdayand at 6:15 today is it not likely to occur at 6:20 tomorrow? This may seem a trivialexample, but if we look at it more closely it is less obvious than it could seem. Firstly,one must assume that the person remains at the same location. If he or she moveseastward or westward the prediction will not hold. Moreover, even if the person doesnot move, the prediction is only approximately correct. • A more realistic illustration is provided by influenza outbreaks. According tostatistics for New York City covering a period of 31 years from 1889 to 1919, themonthly number of deaths due to influenza displayed a peak usually in December-January. This regularity allows fairly accurate forecasts, at least in “normal” years.However, it is well-known that for reasons not yet well understood, in 1918 theoutbreak took place in early November and its magnitude was some 8 times higherthan in normal years. This example shows that the predictions based on recurrentevents are probabilistic rather than deterministic. This is related to the fact that thereare parameters which are either not well known or not well controlled. This leads usto replace the notion of recurrent events by the broader notion of paronymous events.
It is explained below. • Everybody knows what are homonyms; they are words which have the samespelling but different meanings; an example is left (past tense of the verb “to leave”)and left (opposite of right). The notion of paronyms is less well known but is merelya generalization: paronymous words are like homonyms whose spellings are allowedto be slightly different; examples are: collision-collusion, differ-defer, continuous-contiguous. The main purpose of this change in vocabulary is to acknowledge twothings (i) That historical events do not, strictly speaking, repeat themselves. (ii) Thatwe are more interested in the form of the events than in their meaning.Paronymous repetition is a weak form of replicability. Does this introduce a drasticdifference with what we see in physics? Actually, in the next subsection we showthat even in physics, strictly speaking, it is impossible to repeat an experiment.
Semi-replication in physics
The main objection of historians to the comparative methodology is to say that his-torical events are unique and therefore cannot be compared. Here we show that thesame objection can be made to experiments in physics. To prove this point we donot need to consider a sophisticated experiment in quantum physics. Instead, our ar-gument is based on one of the simplest possible experiments in classical mechanics,namely the swing of a pendulum (Fig. 2). Earth vibrations g , p , TEarth vibrations g , p , THigh accuracy measurement of the period of a pendulum by two different teams
Sun Moon SunMoon
Fig. C1a,b High accuracy measurements of the periods of a pendulum.
When a high accuracy is desiredone must take into account many effects: amplitude of the angular deviation (the small angle approximationwill no longer be sufficient), local gravity, air pressure and temperature, tidal effect due to the attraction ofthe Sun and Moon. As a result, the experiment becomes strictly speaking non reproducible in the sense thatwhen performed on successive days it leads to different results. It is only when all such changing perturbationsare well understood and can be corrected that successive measurements (done either by the same team or twodifferent teams) become comparable. For over three centuries physicists have been working with patience anddetermination to get a full understanding of all such secondary effects. From Galileo (circa 1600) to FriedrichBessel (circa 1840), to Thomas Mendenhall (circa 1920) the accuracy of the measurement was improved.For instance, in 1817 by using a new type of pendulum Henry Kater was able to determine the length of aseconds pendulum (i.e. a pendulum whose period is 2s) as equal to: L = 994 . ± . mm. Such accuratemeasurements in turn led to several important discoveries for instance the measurement of the density of theearth. The key-point is the connection between replicability and accuracy. • If the period of the pendulum is to be measured with a low precision of onesecond, then even two fairly different experiments in terms of location (which influ-ences the gravity g ), diameter and elasticity of the wire, air pressure and temperaturewill give the same results, provided the two pendulums are (approximately) of samelength. • On the contrary, is the period to be measured with millisecond accuracy thenall previous parameters must be controlled. Moreover, it is likely that due to differ-ences in vibrations the results on week days will differ from those obtained duringweekends. • If nanosecond accuracy is required then one must take into account the tidalforce due to the combined effects of the Sun and Moon. This makes the measure-ments fully time-dependent, in the sense that two observations done at 12:00 and15:00 respectively will give different results.In summary, when only low accuracy is demanded even fairly different historicalepisodes can be considered as acceptable realizations of the same core mechanism. This is all the more true when the observations are of a qualitative nature . Appendix D. A case-study book by political scientists
A remarkable book
In April 2018 a book was published by Cornell University Press (MacDonald et al.2018) which investigates the issue of power struggles between nations. It is writtenby two political scientists but whereas most of the papers or books on the question ofChina-US relations have a short-time perspective which hardly exceeds two decades,this one relies on a series of case-studies which goes back to 1870. A summary table(Table 1, p.22) which lists 16 cases ressembles our Table 2 in the sense that it listsboth the challengers, the powers being challenged and the outcomes. At first sight,this seems a sound starting point and methodology. Fig. D1 Cases of responses to national declines given in MacDonald et al. (2018). “Ordinal rank” meansthe rank of the country in terms of world leadership. In its spirit this table ressembles our Table 2 in the sensethat it lists similar realizations of the same phenomenon. However, a crucial difference is that these cases aresmall incidents rather than major events as in Table 2.
Source: MacDonald et al.(2018, Table 1, p.22).
Why, then, do the authors arrive to a conclusion which is the exact opposite of ours?Indeed, in their conclusion they say:“If our theory is correct, then the United States will respond to its impendingdecline by retrenching. Yet retrenchment will be mild and war very unlikely”(p.191).
A misguided comparative methodology A qualitative description can be seen as made in terms of “no-yes”, i.e. − , which corresponds to error bars of theorder of / . . It has 275 pages, with 61 pages of notes and index; 100% of the references are sources in English. In implementing their comparative program the authors neglect three key lessons thatexperimental physics tells us. • The mechanism that one wishes to explore must be clearly defined. In the 16cases listed in Table 1 there does not seem to be a common mechanism. In somecases a neighboring country tried to take advantage of the supposed decline of acountry, in others it is the challenge itself which led to the decline. In other words,this is very different from the challenges to an hegemonic country listed in Table 2. • When one wishes to study a new phenomenon (e.g. period of a pendulum orsurface tension) one should design experiments which display this phenomenon withgreatest possible clarity and strength. One should not try to observe it in cases wherethe effect is weak for in such cases it will be in competition with other effects whichwill make any conclusion uncertain.Regrettably, this is what the authors are doing. In the langage of physics, insteadof concentrating on first-order effects they mix these with second- and third-ordereffects. The cases considered in their Table 1 are not restricted to major strategicchallenges but includes many situations of short-time regional challenges. For in-stance, in 1883 there is mention of Germany challenging France. However, in 1883France did not have a hegemonic position in Europe. In 1908 there is another men-tion of Germany challenging the UK, but curiously the German challenge of the warof 1914 directed against both France and the UK does not appear in the table . • The second problem is that the authors do not follow Emile Durkheim’s adviceto avoid anthropomorphism. Instead of relying on hard facts and let them speak bythemselves, they depend on statements, opinions and motivations of political leaders.This adds further uncertainty for at any time one can find leaders advocating onecourse of action or its opposite.In their conclusion chapter the authors rely mainly on declarations made by Presi-dent Obama and members of his administration which suggest a policy of moderateretrenchment. They overlook completely the aggressive sanction policy of the De-partment of Justice or the restrictions to scientific exchanges with China (see above).Anyway, the best test will be to see what the future will tell us. This book waspublished shortly before the beginning of the trade war . In the meawhile therewere also several pro-Taiwan bills passed by Congress. All this points to a directionwhich is at variance with the predictions of the authors. Of course, one should notrely on such short term events, let us see what will happen in the next five years. Acknowledgments
One of the authors (B.R.) would like to express his gratitude There are other cases which are difficult to understand. The United States is involved in only one of the 16 cases andthis is not the Japanese challenge which led to the Pacific War, but a problem with the UK in 1872. Quite surprising! Let us recall that our Table 2 was first published in 2017. to the colleagues who gave him the opportunity to give lectures or hold discussionsin their respective departments, particularly to: Hideaki Aoyama (Kyoto Univer-sity), Yuji Aruka (Chuo University), Xiaosong Chen (Beijing Normal University),Marco Cirelli (University of Paris-Sorbonne), Zengru Di (Beijing Normal Univer-sity), Yoshi Fujiwara (Kobe-Riken), Marc Gingold (CEA), Beomjun Kim (Sung-kyunkwan University), Ruiqi Li (Beijing University of Chemical Technology), WeiPan (Peking University), An Zeng (Beijing Normal University). These lectures anddiscussions served as a testing ground for the ideas and cases developed in the presentpaper. References ∼ roehner/prch.phpDurkheim (E.) 1894: Les r`egles de la m´ethode sociologique. Flammarion, Paris.[The book has been translated into English under the title: “The rules of so-ciological method”. Both French and English versions are freely available onInternet.]Ferguson (N.) 2010: Complexity and collapse. Empires on the edge of chaos. For-eign Affairs 89,2,18-32.Lee (W.H.), Zia (H.) 2003: Me vs. my country. Hachette Books.Liesner (T.) 1989: One hundred years of economic statistics. Facts on File, NewYork.MacDonald (P.K.), Parent (J.M.) 2018: Twilight of the titans. Great power declineand retrenchment. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.Mervis (J.) 2018: More restrictive US policy on Chinese graduate student visas raisesalarm. Science 11 June 2018.Rader (M.) 1979: False witness. University of Wshington Press. Seattle.Roehner (B.M.), Syme (T.) 2002: Pattern and repertoire in history. Harvard Univer-sity Press, Cambridge (Mass.).[An updated version is available at: ∼ ∼∼