Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

14 страница из 137

Following China's economic rise over recent decades and emergence as a global power, there has been much speculation about a ‘gathering storm' in Sino-US relations. Academic and policy debate has raged over whether China and America can avoid the ‘Thucydides Trap'. This is the theory first posited by the ancient Athenian historian Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (431–404 BC) that the fear of a rising power challenging the leadership of an incumbent power would inevitably lead to war. Indeed, in the majority of instances where a rising power has challenged the supremacy of the dominant power over the past five hundred years, war has followed – as in the case of Germany versus Great Britain in 1914.ssss1

In the euphoria of the years following the end of the Cold War, such a conflict between two major powers was almost unimaginable. And yet, in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), we have seen a return to populist and nationalist politics, including the open expression of appalling prejudices, that had previously been unknown and regarded as unthinkable to my generation in the liberal democracies of the West. Brexit and the Sino-US trade war are conspicuous examples of this phenomenon, where public opinion and government policies have been heavily influenced by economic factors. At the time of writing, the full long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are yet to be known, but tensions have been escalating.