Destined for War

Most of this book is discussing historical cases of one growing power starting to supersede an established power. The primary example is Sparta and Greece which is known as the Thucydides’s Trap after the guy who first wrote about it. There are obviously many similar cases in history and many of them don't result in war which makes the title of the book hyperbole.

The authors solution to the problem is to avoid provocations that would publicly bruise the ego of China/USA while undermining the legitimacy of the Chinese government by spreading information to the Chinese people about how they are being exploited or how China is mistreating certain racial groups. I think this is a good strategy and is even easier to implement than the author suggests.

As China grows richer on a per capita basis it's citizens will spend more time travelling the world and will naturally be exposed to many things that will hurt the legitimacy of their government. On top of this when people get rich they naturally want to have their newfound economic power reflected as political power. And America has been through that problem hundreds of years ago. They were born out of countries of newly wealthy people. The Chinese will want their government to look more like America. Though naturally they will imagine a better version of it.

Ultimately America should just treat China as an equal. This alone should be enough to avoid war. And then just wait for the wealth of the Chinese to transmute into political activism. As long as America continues to grow it's own economy then it will be treated as an equal by China and no provocations should be made