By Fu Ying

August 19, 2015

"I just returned from a trip to the United States in mid-May, during which I met with some U.S. lawmakers and esteemed professors, touched base with seven think tanks and talked to a number of media professionals. It struck me that their views toward China are diversified and their signals mixed. In my view, China watchers in the United States can be divided roughly into three schools of thought.

The first is what I like to call the 'pessimists.' An intriguing exemplar of this class of commentator is John Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. Professor Mearsheimer is probably the most prominent doomsayer with regard to China-U.S. relations. He tries to substantiate his conviction concerning the inevitability of a power conflict between China and the United States by citing the former's exponential growth. He thinks that China is seeking to reshape the current world order to suit its own interests. Professor Mearsheimer believes that the United States and its allies will have to stop China before it gets simply too big to control and that the United States has no time to waste. One of his remarks in particular left an impression on me: China can wait, but we can't! Interestingly, he also stated there is no need for China to challenge the international system as the country is in effect a beneficiary of the current world order. Of course, many scholars have told me not to pay too much mind to theories of this stripe as they deviate from the reality of the two countries' relations."

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