Beyond competition: Hegemonic war between the USA and China in East Asia

This research examines the reason behind the unsettled conflict between the USA and China despite their normalized, profitable bilateral relations. The existing literature from liberal scholars, such as Ikenberry, tends to focus on the maintenance of liberal international order, thus argue that the USA and China are facing not more than a competition in which the liberal international order will secure the victory. Attempting to invalidate Ikenberry's thesis, this research argues that the USA and China are currently in the third phase of the hegemonic war in East Asia. In this study, Robert Gilpin's theory of hegemonic war is tested through a qualitative deductive research design, with content/discourse analysis as the selected data-gathering strategy. The process involves analysing numerous speeches from the leaders, bilateral and multilateral agreements, memorandum of understanding, press releases, as well as important meetings, conferences, and correspondences. The study finds that the USA-China rivalry matches the characteristics of Gilpin's theory of hegemonic war when examined under the three important frameworks: political, economic, and ideological competition. In political competition, the duality exists over the creation of the US-led or China-led regionalism. In economic competition, the United States' trade protectionism policy is vis-a-vis China's Belt and Road Initiative. Moreover, in the ideological sphere, China's Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence is currently challenging the existence of liberal values. With these findings, this thesis accomplishes two things. First, it strengthens offensive realists' arguments concerning the topic. Second, it fills the gap of the study by providing a comprehensive study about the precise process of the hegemonic war.