First Things First: The Present (If Not Clear) Danger of Crisis Instability in US-China Relations

University of Pennsylvania's Avery Goldstein will be speaking at Harvard University on US-China Relations instability.

Since the mid-1990s, much has been written about the potentially disruptive impact of China emerging as a peer competitor and challenging the United States. Professor Avery suggests that a more pressing issue is the more immediate danger that the United States and a still weak China will find themselves locked in a crisis that could escalate to the use of force. Although the incentives to resort to force in a Sino-American crisis do not make instability inevitable, the capabilities each side possesses and specific features of the most likely scenarios for US-China crises suggest that escalation pressures will exist, that they will be highest early in a crisis, and that they will compress the time frame for diplomacy to avert military conflict.

Avery Goldstein is the David M. Knott Professor of Global Politics and International Relations in the Political Science Department, Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, and Associate Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on international relations, security studies, and Chinese politics. He is the author of Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and International Security (2005),  Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (2000), and From Bandwagon to Balance of Power Politics: Structural Constraints and Politics in China, 1949-1978 (1991).  Among his other publications are articles in the journals International Security, International Organization, Journal of Strategic Studies, Security Studies, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, Comparative Politics, Orbis, and Polity as well as chapters in a variety of edited volumes. Professor Goldstein is also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.