USA and China: Reluctant Partners? 3301-KA2511

The first decades of the XXI century have seen significant changes in the composition of the world as we knew it after World War Two. Two major contestants, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, no longer solely dominate world politics and economy. Political decline of the Soviet Union and its pivot to the imperial Russia’s legacy and the economic crisis in the West coincided with the rapid ascendancy of the Chinese People’s Republic to prominence if not yet dominance In world affairs. The shift of global center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific is the sign of the new balance of power in global affairs. As other contenders come into play a bipolar system of the Cold War period is being replaced with a more complex state of affairs. In our course we will try to fathom the intricacies of the uneasy relationship between two major players, USA and China , whose complex relationship will have influence on how the world turns in the near future. While the United States is still an unquestionable global military power, China is rapidly gaining equal position in economic potential and is becoming poised as a challenger to American political and military dominance in the Pacific. Election of Donald Trump forced China to review their plans as to the speed and scope of their uncoupling from too close economic ties with the USA. John Biden has maintained a confronting relationship with China in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine and China’s dubious position towards it. As the two powers represent the apex of both Western and Eastern mode of development we will try to understand the specificity of both cultural models and will attempt to foretell the potential development of that relationship in the near future.

1.Introduction of the course.
2.The cultural models which might be basis for further investigation .
3. China’s historic development and cultural heritage.
4. The rise of the United Sates as a global power..
5. China – USA relations at the World War II.
6. Post WWII development and the Vietnam War.
7.Nixon’s era ping-pong diplomacy .
8. Post Mao era of China’s growth.
9. Obama’s attempts to establish US alliances in the Pacific.
10. Xi Jin Ping’s Chinese Dream policy.
11. Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the Chinese challenge.
12. Conclusion of the course.