The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

centuries, periodic internal breakups and warfare,
and invasion from outsiders such as the Mongols and
Manchurians as well, the Chinese were able to retain
the Middle Kingdom, assimilate the outsiders into the
Chinese fold, and continue the China-centered international
order in East Asia.
That is not the case in the Eurasian landmass. The
last 2,000 and more years witnessed the rise and fall
of many great powers (the Persian Empire, Roman
Empire, and the Arab Empires, to name a few of the
early hegemonic powers). Some of the empires simply
vanished. Since the 1500s, hegemonic reach took on a
global scale. The Portuguese Empire, Spanish Empire,
Dutch Empire, Russian Empire, French Empire, British
Empire, German Empire, and so on, took turns to
impose colonial rule in different parts of the world.
The rise and fall of these empires and subsequent
change of international order all took place with the
use of force. Hegemonic competition eventually took
a heavy toll on the contending empires in World War
I and World War II. The destruction of imperial Germany
and Japan and the decline of the British Empire
are textbook examples of the “tragedy of great power
struggle.” 10
The shifts of power distribution that set the stage
for World War I and World War II are illustrated in
Figure 2-3. The data are from the Correlates of War
(COW) project constructed at the University of Michigan.
The vital indicators in the COW National Material
Capabilities dataset are iron and steel production,
energy consumption, military expenditure, military
personnel, total population, and urban population.
They reflect the level of economic, military, and demographic
standing each nation had at the time.
These indicators are standardized to produce an index
measuring the share of power capability a nation had
10