The United States calls China a rising power because rising powers disturb equilibrium.

China calls itself a returning power or a resurgent power because it believes that current

trend lines are not disrupting the status quo, but rather that they're simply restoring the historical status quo in which the Asia Pacific was the world's center of gravity, and China in turn was the center of that center of gravity.

One of the lessons that China took from the Taiwan straits crisis of 95-96, they were, it was

humiliating for them. You know, they had some designs on Taiwan and the Clinton administration

sent two aircraft carrier groups through the Taiwan Straits and the Chinese immediately had to buckle.

And I don't know that China, China envisions that it could win an

out-out naval confrontation with the United States, but it wants to make, it wants to make

the U.S. Navy think a little bit harder about intervening militarily.

Hey, welcome to another episode of the Modern War Institute podcast. I'm John Ambo, editorial director at MWI,

and in this episode, I sit down for a conversation with Ollie Wine. Ollie is currently a policy analyst

at the Rand Corporation, and really one of the most insightful observers of China and the Indo-Pacific

region more broadly, as well as how grand strategy,

both U.S. and Chinese, plays out in the region. I'm also happy to say he is a non-resident

fellow with the Modern War Institute. During our conversation, he addresses really important

questions like how we should conceptualize the shrinking power gap between the United

States and China and what it pretends for the future. In addition, as you'll hear, for all of the

focus on China in U.S. policy and analytical circles, there are still a lot of things very much open

to debate, things we don't and perhaps can't yet understand about China and its future trajectory as a U.S. competitor.

Before we get to the conversation, a couple notes.

First, if you aren't yet following MWI on social media, find us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

It's a great way to stay up to date on all of the new articles, podcast episodes, and research we're publishing every day.

...