U.S.-China Power Transitions and Competition: Using Asian History, Not Thucydides and the Pelopponnesian War

Join the Department of Social Sciences for the final event in the Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series.

The U.S.-China power transition debate focuses almost exclusively on European examples from the past 400 years. But China is a massive and ancient civilization centrally located in East Asia. History reveals the prevalence of dynastic transition in China, with most regime changes resulting from internal rebellion, and an emphasis on domestic risks and constraints on great powers. David Kang and Maria Crutcher, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, argue that if scholars and policymakers want a meaningful discussion of a way out of the U.S.-China conflict, they need a more careful analysis of the East Asian historical record itself.