More Alike Than We Admit: Why the U.S. and China Clash

Real conflict rarely begins with difference. It begins with imitation.

In 2018, when Washington imposed tariffs on Chinese imports, Beijing responded in kind. When America restricted Huawei’s access to U.S. technology, China accelerated its push for domestic production. As America erects “trusted supply chains” with its allies, China deepens economic ties across the Global South.

We like to imagine geopolitical drama as a simple contest of ideals: democracy versus autocracy, open markets versus state control. But this neat division conceals something older and more human. The fiercest rivalries don’t arise from opposition. They arise from resemblance.

History’s bitterest conflicts rarely occur between strangers; they ignite among siblings — close enough to share aspirations, similar enough to spark resentment. The U.S. and China, despite their rhetoric of difference, are caught in a game of reflections, each becoming more like the other even as they deny their similarities. Trade wars, tech bans, and sanctions are not the root causes but rituals in a deeper drama — a rivalry born not of opposition but of sameness.

René Girard, the French philosopher who spent a career mapping the hidden architecture of desire, understood this with unsettling clarity: humans don’t invent their desires. We inherit them. We copy them. Mimetic desire, he argued, is the mechanism by which peace devolves into rivalry, admiration into envy, and similarity into conflict.

And that’s where things become dangerous.

Despite cultural and historical differences, the U.S. and China are engaged in a textbook Girardian rivalry. Both seek global influence. Both aim for technological supremacy. Both want to set the world’s rules. Like rival siblings who excel at the same sport, compete for the same praise, and vie for the same seat at the table — their competition emerges from likeness, not difference.

This essay is not about trade policy. It’s a contemplation on why we fight hardest not against opposites but against those who reflect us back to ourselves — distorted enough to provoke denial, yet similar enough to trigger envy.

Mirrored Desire

When China opened its doors, it emulated the West’s path: industrialization, global trade networks, and technological advancement. The “American Dream” inspired Beijing’s “Chinese Dream” of national rejuvenation.

Initially, America welcomed China’s integration into global markets, confident mutual prosperity would secure peace. Yet, as China rose, America’s confidence turned into anxiety. Both countries began to covet dominance in the same arenas: cutting-edge technology, military power, and economic influence — setting them on an inevitable collision course.

Girard noted: “We imitate our rivals and make rivals of those we imitate.” The more China succeeds by adopting American-style capitalism, the more urgently the U.S. moves to reclaim supremacy — even borrowing China’s interventionist methods. Girard captured this paradox succinctly: “We do not fight because we are different, but because we have become the same.”

Consider Shenzhen, once a fishing village, transformed into China’s Silicon Valley by mimicking California’s innovation ecosystems. Today, fearing its own decline, America has embraced industrial policy and semiconductor subsidies — strategies once dismissed as “Chinese-style” state intervention. The mimicry runs both ways.

The U.S.–China dynamic has transcended ideological contrast. It’s become a contest over position — over who leads, who defines the future, who sets the global rules. Two superpowers, alike in ambition and increasingly alike in method, locked in rivalry because neither is willing to accept second place. The conflict isn’t merely economic — it’s existential.

The Intensification of Rivalry

Girard anticipated this. He warned that shared desires breed rivalry because similarity heightens the potential for conflict. In 2007, during a period of optimism about U.S.–China relations, Girard cautioned that a clash was probable (though “not necessarily military”), reasoning that America’s anxiety would grow as China’s rise intensified. When both aspire to dominate the global hierarchy, each gain inevitably feels like the other’s loss.

Sibling rivalries rarely emerge when paths diverge — one a poet, the other a surgeon. Conflict arises when siblings share aims, compete in the same arena, and measure themselves by the same standards. That’s when things turn personal.

Within families, siblings competing for parental affection inevitably collide. In international relations, the prize isn’t affection but dominance, influence, prosperity, and power. When ambitions overlap so closely, admiration quickly morphs into animosity.

The Scapegoat Mechanism

Mimetic rivalry does more than spark competition; it distorts perceptions. Under pressure, communities seek scapegoats to blame — a convenient “other” upon whom internal anxieties are projected. Girard’s scapegoat mechanism describes how groups deflect internal tensions by uniting against external enemies. Today, the U.S. and China increasingly scapegoat each other to solidify identities and divert public frustration.

American politicians blame China for supply chain disruptions, manufacturing decline, and job losses — even when underlying causes are more complex. Vilifying China is easier than confronting domestic decay: ballooning deficits, metastasizing bureaucracy, and military interventions that leave ruin rather than resolution. Thus, China becomes the caricature — an all-powerful saboteur of American greatness.

The United States plays a similar role in China: the foreign oppressor, the meddling hegemon determined to keep China “in its place.” Every tariff, tech ban, or diplomatic slight reinforces this narrative. America isn’t just a competitor; it’s a threat to Chinese renewal.

The Escalation Spiral

This conflict now unfolds as classic tit-for-tat escalation. Each punitive measure triggers retaliation, prompting counter-responses in a dangerous dance of mimetic retribution.

Both sides frame their actions as defensive — justified responses to prior aggression — in line with Girard’s observation that in conflict, “the aggressor has always already been attacked.” Neither admits firing the first shot; each insists it only reacted.

This spiral has led to a partial economic decoupling. Businesses reroute supply chains, critical sectors disengage, and both sides pay steep costs. Yet decoupling is no panacea; it comes with higher costs and inefficiencies for both sides, creating a drag on global growth.

Beyond Ideology

Perhaps the most troubling implication of Girard’s theory is not that conflict is inevitable but that our conceptual framework for understanding international relations is incomplete. We comfort ourselves with the narrative that conflict stems from clashing ideologies — democracy versus autocracy, freedom versus control. And to be fair, values do matter. They shape the rhetoric of leaders, the aspirations of citizens, and the moral justification for policy.

But values are not the whole story. Often, they serve as veneers for something more primal: the fear of being displaced by one’s double. What begins as an ideological contest frequently devolves into a mimetic one. In seeking to define ourselves against a rival, we imitate them. Not because we admire them but because we believe their tools work — and might work better than ours. And we can’t allow them to be better.

Mirror, Mirror

To counter China, America adopts authoritarian tactics: surveillance justified by security, protectionism wrapped in patriotism, censorship via algorithms, and lawfare against political dissent. America increasingly mirrors China’s machinery of control.

China, meanwhile, mirrors America’s historical global strategies. The Belt and Road Initiative mimics U.S. Cold War policies — offering infrastructure and investment in exchange for influence. Confucius Institutes resemble America’s past cultural diplomacy, exporting a national brand of modernity as effectively as Hollywood once did.

The irony is profound: China studied America’s ascent. America, fearing displacement, now mimics China’s methods. Beneath ideological veneers, their strategies, postures, and ambitions increasingly converge.

The Dead End of Mimetic Power

The uncomfortable question isn’t which model will prevail — it’s whether either model, so similar beneath their facades, offers a sustainable path forward. Both nations have mastered the art of state capitalism. Both speak the language of exceptionalism. Both wield the same toolkit: subsidies, surveillance, sanctions, and scapegoating. Beneath the surface, they are not dueling systems. They are competing iterations of the same exhausted paradigm.

This rivalry may not signify the defining clash between competing ideas. It may signal the slow implosion of one tired idea shared by both.

True intellectual courage compels us to ask: What if neither nation represents the future? What if both cling to outdated ideas equating stability with dominance, prosperity with extraction, and power with exclusion?

If so, the true danger isn’t that one side might win. It’s that both might lose.