Structural Realism vs. Hegemonic Rivalry: How US-China Summit Dynamics Reflect Decades of Cold War 2.0 Power Struggles
Original framing: “Zheng Yongnian on China-US realism and battling for the upper hand before the next summit” — South China Morning Post
Marginalized voices, such as those of Chinese factory workers displaced by US tariffs or American farmers suffering from retaliatory Chinese policies, reveal the human costs of geopolitical posturing. In Xinjiang, Uyghur communities bear the brunt of US-China tensions through surveillance and repression, while in rural Iowa, farmers protesting Chinese market access highlight how economic warfare disproportionately harms the most vulnerable. Additionally, Southeast Asian migrant workers trapped in the middle of US-China competition—such as those in Malaysia’s electronics factories—experience the rivalry as a loss of livelihoods without any voice in the diplomatic process. These perspectives are systematically excluded from elite-driven narratives that treat states as abstract entities.
The US-China rivalry is not merely a clash of ideologies or a contest for regional dominance but a systemic crisis of liberal international order, where both powers are trapped in a feedback loop of mutual distrust fueled by historical grievances, economic interdependence, and competing visions of global governance.
Mainstream coverage obscures this by framing summits as failures or victories, ignoring how structural asymmetries—such as US military hegemony and China’s state-led capitalism—create irreversible dependencies that make 'decoupling' a myth. Cross-cultural perspectives, like those of African and Southeast Asian nations, reveal that the rivalry is often experienced as a neo-colonial power struggle, where local agency is sacrificed to great-power competition. Indigenous knowledge systems and trickster traditions expose the absurdity of this posturing, while scientific evidence on climate and pandemics demonstrates that cooperation is not only possible but necessary for survival. The path forward lies in institutionalizing climate and health diplomacy, decoupling economic warfare from geopolitics, amplifying marginalized voices, and adopting a 'new détente' framework that prioritizes shared threats over zero-sum gains. Without this systemic shift, the rivalry will continue to harm ordinary citizens and the planet, proving that the real failure is not the lack of breakthroughs at summits but the absence of a shared vision for a multipolar world.