U.S.-China: 19th Anglo-American Rivalry Redux?

Despite all the recent WWI analogies, Sino-American relations may more closely resemble an earlier time.

By Tim Roberts

The Diplomats - February 07, 2014

Imperial Germany’s competition with Britain, culminating in military conflict in 1914, is a common analogy among observers of the Sino-American relationship today. They warn how a rising power once came to blows with an established hegemon. But there could be a better analogy of rivals, whose pragmatic relationship did not lead to war. The Anglo-American relationship through the Civil War in many ways resembles the evolving Sino-American relationship now.
Obviously there are differences between the Anglo-American relationship 175 years ago and Sino-American relations today. Then there was no United Nations, no Kyoto Protocol, no World Trade Organization, and no Nobel Peace Prizes. If there was any international “law” it was largely the British Empire’s declarations for a balance of power in Europe, equal European access to colonial development of Africa and Asia, a cap on European colonial possessions in the Americas (tacitly ensuring the U.S. Monroe Doctrine), and an end to the African slave trade. The British Navy enforced these policies. The world today is more multilateral than in the mid-nineteenth century.

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