Description
"By its very nature, the literature on rising powers conceives of the liberal international order (ILO) and its affiliated countries as in decline. Whereas these countries are faltering in status and appeal, rising powers, it is argued, are ascending to the throne of global dominance in terms of military, economic, and diplomatic power. As if right on cue, Chinese President and Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping is steadily promoting his dream of the country’s Great Rejuvenation by 2049. China’s objective of becoming a socialist great power by that time recently inspired a reckoning within these liberal-democratic governments, particularly faced with their own (supposedly) imminent decline. This sentiment saw China branded a great-power competitor by the US, the dominant force in the world now undergoing pursuing the renewal of its traditional position in the world. This paper aims to move beyond the great-power binary of the US-China competition to consider the influence on middle powers that find themselves at the confluence of these two visions for the future. For Britain, and particularly in the isolated position that the country will find itself in the years following Brexit, this question urgently requires answering."
