Two possible scenarios where the two sides might clash

But it does offer evidence that China is leaning towards intensifying its rivalry with the US, having previously maintained a mainstream view that the bilateral relationship can be “neither too good nor too bad”. The full list of respondents was not published, but from the names provided, the survey contacted representatives from universities and think tanks in China, including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Research Development Centre of the State Council.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington are flaring on multiple fronts from the South China Sea, Xinjiang and Tibet, while the US is threatening to sanction Chinese individuals and institutions in response to the controversial national security law in Hong Kong.

FBI director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that China is the “greatest long-term threat” to the US as Beijing is seeking to become the world’s only superpower with a state-directed “campaign of theft and malign influence”

While, the globaltimes says: the author thinks that there are at least two possible scenarios where the two sides might clash.

First, under constant provocations and threats from the US, China will have no choice but to upgrade its countermeasures, which could cause Washington to resort to more dangerous military tactics.

Second, if a conflict happens between China and US and other countries (like Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia) over their control and resource development in China -caused disputed waters, Washington will provide them support; either because of bilateral agreements or out of its own motivations. Either way, this could trigger direct military conflicts between China and US.

Niall Ferguson, historian and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote in an opinion piece published by Bloomberg News that a new cold war is the reality and that it is China, not the US, that started it.

“Today’s proponents of ‘rivalry partnership’ [with China] are overlooking the possibility that the Chinese aren’t interested in being frenemies. They know full well this is a cold war, because they started it,” Ferguson wrote.

A total of 58 per cent of the respondents to the survey by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University, though, believe China and the US can avoid the Thucydides Trap, a term that describes an unavoidable conflict between an existing power and a challenger.

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