Ideational Differences, Perception Gaps, and the Emerging Sino–US Rivalry

Abstract

Abstract Bilateral relations between China and the United States have evolved over the past two decades from the ‘same bed, different dreams’ of the 1990s when, despite different interests and perceptions, globalisation and multilateralism drew them closer, to the potential ‘different beds, same nightmare’ scenario where their economies draw further apart and their governments are locked in hegemonic rivalry. Drawing on Wendtian constructivism and cognitive psychology, this article proposes a systematic and dynamic theoretical framework and a review of the evolution of Sino–US relations to explain how and why the above changes happened. We subdivide Sino–US relations since the early 1990s into five periods that describe the United States’ China strategy in four aspects and China’s US strategy in three aspects. Our findings are that the United States’ China strategy has changed dramatically while China’s US strategy has remained relatively stable, and that Sino–US relations from the early 1990s to mid-2010 were characterised by cooperation borne of strategic compatibility, whereas those ensuing were characterised by competition due to strategic incompatibility. We argue that rivalry between the two countries stems from their fundamentally different ideas, namely, Chinese statist nationalism and American liberal hegemony, and that gaps in perception have exacerbated the differences. Simply put, their ‘different dreams’ have led to the ‘same nightmare’.