Join us for this partner event with the Forrest Research Foundation, with guest speaker Dr Naoise McDonagh.

Can the rules-based liberal international economic order survive intact when its two largest members are not only engaged in an intense geopolitical rivalry, but represent fundamentally different models of market economy? Realist theory describes how states become concerned with national security vulnerability when peer states gain large increases in wealth, power and influence, resulting in what realists view as an 'inevitable' long-term geopolitical competition between incumbent and rising powers. As such, realism offers an explanation for why the U.S. and China are now competing geopolitically.

Yet, unlike the Cold War to which today's tensions are often compared, the economic context is very different. Rather than separate blocks, the economies of the United States and China are deeply intermeshed, serving vast mutual economic interests, and both are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Thus China's rise forces us to consider how geopolitics and economics will interact in the coming decades. In particular, Beijing has become increasingly confident in promulgating its economic model, known as a socialist market economy, while the U.S. has become increasingly critical of this model, due to the view that it creates an unfair economic playing field and creates national security risks.

Drawing on realist theory of state competition, and comparative capitalism theory, this talk seeks to address how security competition and systemic economic rivalry between the U.S. and China are interacting dynamically and driving strategic decoupling. This in turn undermines the long-term viability of the post-war liberal international economic order.

Guests will receive a welcome drink on arrival.