US-China rivalry and the Kindleberger Trap: Why inaction – not escalation – is the biggest risk

US-China rivalry and the Kindleberger Trap: Why inaction - not escalation - is the biggest risk - The Business Times
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US-China rivalry and the Kindleberger Trap: Why inaction – not escalation – is the biggest risk
In periods of transition, the greatest threat may not be the clash of powers but the absence of leadership
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US President Donald Trump (left) with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan in October 2025. The most plausible outcome of US-China rivalry is not a clean transition from one hegemon to another, but a fragmented order. PHOTO: REUTERS
Tan Kong Yam
Published
Tue, Apr 28, 2026 · 07:00 AM
THE intensifying rivalry between the US and China is often framed through the lens of conflict – most notably the so-called Thucydides Trap, which warns of war between a rising and an established power.
Yet, an equally important and arguably more insidious danger lies not in direct confrontation, but in systemic neglect. This is captured by the concept of the Kindleberger Trap, a condition in which global instability arises because the incumbent hegemon becomes unwilling or unable to provide essential international public goods, while the rising power is either unable or unwilling to assume that role.
Originally rooted in the work of economic historian Charles Kindleberger and later popularised in geopolitical discourse by political scientist Joseph Nye, the theory draws on the experience of the 1930s.
New Global Order Geopolitics geoeconomics United States China Global economy National security
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MDDI (P) 046/10/2024. Published by SPH Media Limited, Co. Regn. No. 202120748H. Copyright © 2026 SPH Media Limited. All rights reserved.
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