The United States and China: Collaborators or Rivals?

–– Rejoinder, 24 Years Later ––
There is only a short list of major variables that we can deploy to understand social phenomena. For the international environment really only three: material power (military and economic), material interests, and values. The relative weight that analysts and policymakers give to each of these depends on the specific phenomena that they are trying to understand. For any effort to explain the dynamics of international politics and the nature of international regimes, power remains the single most potent factor. […]