Climate change, terrorism, refugee crises erode the US-led world order, and China seeks a power balance to address the problems.

Diplomat and historian George F. Kennan, writing as “Mr. X,” sent an 8,000-word telegram to the State Department in 1946 about Joseph Stalin’s aggressive foreign policy, warning “there would be no permanent peaceful coexistence” between the United States and Soviet Union, whose analysis provided an influential underpinning for America’s Cold War policies. On the Soviet challenge to the US-dominated capitalist and liberal order, Kennan wrote, “the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

The Soviet Union, historically one of the most powerful rivals of the United States, collapsed decades ago. Nonetheless, as author Mark Twain reputedly said, “History often rhymes,”, and threats to the US-led liberal international order have not yet been eliminated.

The current order wrestles with both external interference and internal division. On one hand, the US leadership faces widening bifurcation between “American first” policies and keeping to the path of globalization. On the other hand, a growing China dangles strength with assertive industrial policies and barely disguised ambition to transcend its rival, interpreted by some as the harbinger of a new Cold War between China and the United States.

There are many ways to address the question on whether China challenges the current world order – from Beijing’s intentions or its de facto role in the current system. Many express concern that China is likely to challenge US leadership, and incantation of a “China threat,” the title of a book by Bill Gertz, recalls the Cold War era. Minxin Pei, a political scientist, likewise claimed China is “undermining the Western liberal order” in terms