Cooperation and Competition

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Global Business Environment         

Spring 2018/2019                                                                

First Essay Assignment

Cooperation and Competition:

Which will prevail?

Patrícia Patrão – 29187

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Introduction

         The World is entering a new era of intensifying International Competition however the consequences of this are not yet precise. Although many countries had been identified as key players in the emerging era of global competition the following essay will be focused on the United States and China, the states that are considered by experts to be the ones that will play a dominant role in the emerging era (Mazarr et al., 2018, p.2) [13].

        The United States of America is considered the most powerful country in the World nonetheless China’s has been a growing threat over US supremacy due to China’s economic expansion as well as military modernization (Kania, 2018) [15]. Consequently, it is important to understand what this rivalry and confrontation between the two major powers might imply in their future relationship. Whether the US-China relationship leads to conflict and becomes even more hostile, this could be the beginning of a second Cold War and an intensify and growth of competitions far beyond the conflict between the US and China (Kania, 2018) [15].

A New Era of Emerging Competition

        Afterward the end of the Second World War and the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union an antagonist period began among these two states (History.com Editors, 2019) [9]. A period of intense US-Soviet strategic competition to define the ideological, political and economic features of the international order stated the beginning of the Cold War (Mazarr et al., 2018, p.11) [13].

        In the post-Cold War period, the US was considered by far the most powerful country in the World and consequently, the international superpower dynamic was characterized by a unipolar system (Shapiro, 2018) [20]. However, over the years a multipolar world is emerging with the rise of China as an economic and geopolitical superpower (Shapiro, 2018) [20].

        The world is entering a New Era of Emerging Competition whose key actors are the United States and China. The main question is whether both countries could avoid the “Thucydides Trap”, thus equates avoiding a war. Thucydides Trap is “the notion that when a rising power challenges the established leader of the international order conflict often ensues” (Sempa, 2018) [19]. The focus nowadays is the future of the relations between the United States and China and even though a US-China competition is emerging both countries’ administrations are committed to cooperate and to prevent conflict (Elmer, 2018) [6].