Fall 2017 JPI

administrative planning.” 7 It is a different model of economic development compared with the
Western economic development model which valued private business, free trade and market. If the
communist model spread broadly, it would reduce the influence of the American global economic
influence. Second, a challenger should have security alliance to support its world order. The
competition between the two superpowers was also the contest between the Eastern Bloc and the
Western Bloc. The Soviet security alliance provided the global collective defense and sphere of
influence for its alternative world order. Third, a challenger should have a global strategy to challenge
the existing international system and promote its new world order. Although the USSR did not ruin
the world order built up by America, its global strategy of world revolution and the spread of
communism indeed placed the American international system in a swamp.
These three factors are generalized from the history of the Soviet Union, the only real
challenger to the American world order. It is reasonable to argue that the definition drawn from the
USSR is partial because “Wilhelmine Germany (1890–1918), Imperial Japan (1937–45), Nazi Germany
(1933–45), and the Soviet Union (1945–90) all tried to match what the US had achieved in the Western
Hemisphere.” 8 However, the first three competitors were only the challengers to the interest or power
of the US. They were not challengers to the US hegemony because the American world order was not
built up at that time. The definition of a challenger in this essay obviously does not cover all
perspectives of a challenger, but it indeed points out the major characters of a challenger by examining
the economic foundation, security concern, and global strategy.
IS CHINA A CHALLENGER TO THE US HEGEMONY?
From the perspective of international relations, hegemony usually means dominant power or
significant influence in the world. Therefore, to some extent, the US hegemony equals with the
American world order, a global order consolidated and controlled by the US after World War II. After
clearly defining the words “challenger” and “hegemony,” it is time to examine China from the
perspective of model of economic development, security alliance system, and global strategy.
Although China still has its own characteristics in economic development, it also applied the American
model of economic development after the Chinese economic reform. Instead of behaving like the
USSR, which developed its economy by the communist model and stayed outside of the American
system with the ambition to counteract the American economic system, China has changed from the
communist economic model to the American model of economic development. After the openingup
policy, China began to follow the Western model by advocating for the market economy, free
trade, and private business. To some extent, it not only did not threaten the American international
economy system, it also became a beneficiary or even an active promoter of the American model.
“The rapid growth of China’s economy and US-China economic relations have largely conformed
with and been driven by force of international economic globalization.” 9 This globalization is exactly
the most significant element of American world economic order, which facilitates free trade, capital
movement, and interdependent economies. To be more specific, China will not become a revisionist
in the American economic world order if it can continue to enjoy enormous economic benefits by
applying the American model and staying within the American economic world system. For instance,
after joining the WTO in 2001, one of the cornerstone institutions of the American-led economic
7 Philip Hanson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR from 1945, 6.
8 Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 367.
9 Sutter, US-Chinese Relations Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present, 192.
JPI Fall 2017, pg. 45