China’s Rise Is a Threat the U.S. Has Faced for a Century
The nations of the maritime “rimlands” have been very successful at keeping Eurasian superpowers in check.
Rimlands versus Heartland in the Opium Wars.
Source: Hulton Archive via Getty Images
The U.S.-China rivalry can be seen through many lenses. It is, as President Joe Biden has said, a competition between democracy and autocracy. It is a contest between an established power and the upstart seeking to claim its place. It is a race to master advanced technologies that will drive economic growth and military strength in the 21st century.
But most fundamentally, the rivalry is the latest chapter in the central story of modern geopolitics — the clash between Eurasian empires that seek to control the world’s strategic “heartland” and the maritime powers that seek to thwart those designs.