Reform can help China win strategic contest

There are many opinions on why China and the United States are locked in a trade dispute. For example, Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, has argued in an article he wrote that the two countries are engaged in a "model competition", an idea shared by many Chinese scholars.

China's achievements over the past four decades can be attributed to reform and opening-up under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and this is exactly what I have said in my new book, Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers. Since the Chinese leadership is better placed compared with its US counterpart when it comes to implementing reform, it has narrowed the power gap between China and the US.

Look at the histories of China and the US, and you will find that the basic social system of neither China nor the US - China's socialist system and the US' capitalist system - has changed since 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded.