The recent meeting between Donland Trump and Xi Jinping was convened on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in South Korea. They discussed a wide array of topics, including trade, tariffs, rare earths, soybean purchases, and export restrictions. The meeting signalled a de-escalation in trade frictions and overall ties between China and the US. The meeting might be bilateral; its ripples were felt in several Asian states, including India, which is walking a tightrope.
Before the meeting, Trump posted on his Truth Social media, “THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!” While many experts are sceptical about the prospect of a G2, a few ushered in the coming of a bipolar world with it. The meeting between China and the US caused alarm in the minds of other states, with the possibility of limiting their manoeuvrability. While the prospects of a G2 condominium highlight the features of a bipolar world, it does not cause one. The world has already been bipolar. A lack of sober analysis has led sanguine scholars to view the world as a multipolar one.
Bases of Polarity
There are several ways in which scholars look at the sinews of power and the resultant polarity of the world. Some might argue that, economically, there are five major powers (in nominal terms) in the world— the US, China, Germany, Japan, and India. Militarily, there are three major powers in the world. Many argue that, given the existence of multiple economic and political groupings, as well as the ability of several states to exert their influence through various multilateral mechanisms, the world is multipolar.
Such a way of conceptualising the polarity creates more confusion than it brings any clarity. Such conceptualisation confuses ‘power as resources’ with ‘power as outcome.’ Power is often viewed as the ability to influence decisions or to reach a favourable end as intended. However, power does not always translate into intended outcomes. Gauging polarity depends on the overall distribution of material capabilities, not on the outcome of an event. The US, as one of the two superpowers with its gigantic material capabilities, struggled in the Vietnam War. However, this did not lead one to claim that Vietnam and the US were on the same footing in the international system or that the US had lost its superpower status.
Great powers are not great because they can achieve all they wish, but because of their sheer capabilities. Though the US and Vietnam both struggled in a protracted two-decade war, it had different implications for both. While the former faced an existential crisis, the latter committed merely some foreign policy errors. Great powers enjoy a greater margin of safety than any other state in the system, meaning they can continue to maintain their capability despite several preposterous foreign policy decisions. For other states, a single mistake can threaten their very existence. Great powers are not factored in solely on the basis of their rankings in certain metrics, such as economy or military. Their rank depends on the overall metrics of national comprehensive power: population, territory, resources, economic heft, military strength, productivity, technological dexterity and political stability.
Much of the confusion in assessing polarity arises because of either the sectoral measurement of power or when the presence of a bloc is confounded with polarity. In the case of the former, it is believed that power is assessed differently across domains. An extension of this posits that multiple actors are interdependent on each other in a complex web of relationships. Consequently, big powers are not always able to get their way. Even when actors, big or small, are interdependent on each other, this does not mean that all are equally ‘vulnerable’ to this mutuality of interdependence. Polar powers are better able to adjust to the change in interdependent relations than others.
The latter issue arises when people, absent a clear ideological bloc in the twenty-first century, argue that the world is multipolar. Polarity is not equivalent to the presence of blocs. During World War I, there were two fighting blocs. That did not make the world bipolar. The world during the Cold War was not bipolar due to the presence of two blocs, but rather because of the “preeminence of bloc leaders.” Since there are no stark ideological camps in this century, akin to those of the Cold War, scholars often fail to appreciate the workings of the distribution of material capabilities.
People may further be lulled into believing that the world is multipolar because other states, too, seem to fight wars or create their ‘influence’ without the help of superpowers. Even during the Cold War, Japan’s economy was booming, causing consternation in the minds of the US. States like Britain and France were able to fight in the Suez Crisis. India bifurcated Pakistan in 1971 and seemed to establish a ‘hegemony’ in South Asia. Despite a stiff demarcation of the world into two camps, India had charted its own course through the Non-Aligned Movement. Despite these events, the world was never considered multipolar.
Moreover, the possession of certain kinds of strategic weapons is presented as an argument for a multipolar world. If the possession, for instance, of hypersonic intercontinental missiles or nuclear weapons makes one a great power, North Korea, which can hit the US mainland, should also be considered a major power. The same kind of alluring logic is applied whenever a new kind of disruptive weapon or technology emerges, whether it be gunpowder or the advent of fighter aircraft on the battlefield. Though there are risks associated with the spread of disruptive weapons, merely possessing them does not transform the system or the economic bases of a state.
Finally, political rhetoric or wishes are taken as present conditions of the world. Several of the works on polarity are based on future projections of states’ capabilities. Emerging states conflate future predictions and the current distribution of capabilities. States that benefit from a multipolar world often promote this narrative or take initiatives that are believed to create a multipolar condition in the near future. However, future projections do not reflect current realities.
Two Powers Superseding the Rest
Today, the US and China supersede any other power in terms of overall material capability. The asymmetry between these two powers and the rest can be perceived by the fact that even if, hypothetically speaking, Germany, France, Japan, and India come together to gang up on them, it would not impact the distribution of capabilities within the international system. Alternatively, in a fight between China and the US, even if Japan and Russia switch sides, it would not be an existential threat for either of the powers (talking in terms of entirely conventional fighting). Such was not the case during the multipolar world of the early twentieth century, where shifting alliances caused existential consternation. Though alliance leaders appreciate contributions from their allies, their contributions are not indispensable in a bipolar world.
Today, China and the US far exceed the combined capabilities of the rest of the world’s powers. As of 2025, the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in nominal terms, of the US and China, as a share of the world’s GDP, is 43.71 per cent. These two states contribute around half of the world’s GDP and are much ahead of the third-largest economy. The data is even more lopsided when it comes to military spending. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 2024 data on global military expenditure, China and the US alone account for 49 per cent of the world’s military expenditure. In terms of the world’s manufacturing output, these two states account for around 46 per cent. The gap between these two and the rest of the powers in terms of gross spending (in terms of purchasing power parity) on research and development is even more contrast. In terms of critical technologies, critical minerals, supply chain dominance, and manufacturing capabilities, these two nations fare better than any other advanced industrial economy.
Today, China is much ahead, on most metrics, of what the Soviet Union was at its peak, in comparison to the US. “If the USSR was a superpower then, China is one today.” While there is a possibility of a multipolar world in the coming decades, for now, at least, the world is bipolar. Conditions of bipolarity mean that the US and China fear each other more than the rest of the states in the system. It highlights the long-term infeasibility of a G2 condominium, if it were ever executed.
