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

and China. For centuries, China as the Middle Kingdom
was the dominant power in East Asia without
peers. The Middle Kingdom maintained a tributary
system with its surrounding neighbors, including Japan,
as vassal states. When Japan rose up in power
through its industrialization drive, it used force to defeat
China and tried to replace the Chinese system with
its “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” covering
Manchukuo, Korea, and Southeast Asia, stretching all
the way to Singapore. During its conquering course,
however, Japan joined hands with Nazi Germany to
contend for world dominance. To a large extent, this
move was a key factor in bringing Japan to the World
War II showdown with the British/U.S.-led allies in
the Pacific.
Today, Japan and China are in a very special situation.
For the first time in their history, the two nations
are both strong powers. There is tension between the
two regarding which one leads in East Asia. It appears
that with its bigger potentials, China would enjoy an
upper hand over Japan in East Asia, and the world
as well. But the Japan-China competition will only
be a rivalry sideshow. China’s focus is on the United
States. Japan is a U.S. ally, and its dealing with China
will be unavoidably subsumed under the U.S. strategic
design.
The above screening is straightforward. However,
it is not so with the following second-ranked nations:
Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRIC countries).
This “gang of four” came to the spotlight of international
attention in 2001 through a study by the highpowered
American Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., entitled
Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050. The report
argues that these four countries occupy more than a
quarter of the world’s landmass, hold more than 40
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