Andrew Sheng, a former central banker and distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute, University of Hong Kong, discusses the ongoing US-China rivalry as explored in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The central question posed is who will win the next war, focusing on military and technological competition between the two powers.

At the heart of the debate is a clash of strategic philosophies: the US-led global order versus China’s worldview, which has driven its rise as the world’s second great power. Contributors to the magazine reflect a Western strategic tradition rooted in liberal realism, emphasizing the need for the United States to maintain primacy to ensure global stability, defend democracy, and retain its financial, technological, and military leadership.

Lead essayist Paul Scharre highlights how emerging technologies such as drones, artificial intelligence, and robotics challenge America's traditional air and naval dominance and enable asymmetric warfare by states like Iran, thereby eroding US influence.

Former US Pacific commander Admiral Dennis Blair views China’s military expansion as an offensive effort to change the status quo in East Asia, advocating deterrence through US alliances, forward deployments, and technological superiority to maintain regional stability.

Academics Michael Beckley and Hal Brands apply Anglo-American geopolitical theories—Halford Mackinder’s land-based “heartland” and Nicholas Spykman’s coast-based “rimland”—to frame the US-China contest as a historic struggle between incumbent maritime powers consolidating their positions and land-based revisionist powers. They note that the so-called “autocratic axis” is bound more by shared resentment of US dominance than ideology, while the democratic coalition is divided by competing interests and differing approaches to engaging Beijing.

This analysis underscores the complexity of the US-China rivalry beyond the simplistic question of who will win the next war.

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