It is striking to recall that Britain actually retained responsibility for policing elements of the Anglo-American world order until as late as the 1960s and 1970s. In the Indian Ocean, for example, Britain was relatively content to serve as policeman of this vital geostrategic region for as long as India remained the linchpin of its overseas empire and for several decades after. It was only reluctantly that the Pentagon scrambled to take up the reins in the Indian Ocean after the government of Harold Wilson announced in 1968 that Britain would undertake a military withdrawal “east of Aden.”

Overall, two key lessons can be drawn from the Anglo-American case. First, assuming a peaceful power transition between China and the United States, there will be no flashpoint moment at which it becomes clear that a Pax Sinica has replaced today’s Pax Americana. The shift will be gradual. It will occur at different times and at varying rates across region and issue-area. If China is to supplant the United States anywhere, then it will happen first in China’s own backyard. Beyond East Asia, China will challenge the United States only when it needs to.

Second, the United States may actually underpin Chinese designs for East Asia and the rest of the world for decades to come. Where U.S. hegemony is relatively benign or beneficial to China—such as in ensuring the smooth functioning of a relatively open, capitalist world economy—free riding behavior can be expected to occur. China will not want to take up the mantle of leadership in regions or issue areas where there is no pressing need for it to do so. Indeed, China may never aspire to the level and extent of global influence that the United States has seen fit to amass over the past seven decades.

Of course, all of this assumes that China will continue its upward trajectory and that a peaceful power transition will take place between the United States and China. If China implodes or if U.S.-Chinese bilateral relations descend into conflict, the foregoing discussion will be rendered irrelevant. Yet contrary to popular thinking, not all major shifts in power must result in acrimony. Even if piecemeal—indeed, perhaps because it took place in stages—the Anglo-American power transition was mostly peaceful. In that regard, at least, it presents a good model for U.S.-Chinese relations, today and in the future.

Peter Harris is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at the University of Texas, Austin, and a graduate fellow at the Clements Center for History, Strategy and Statecraft.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Morio/CC by-sa 3.0

Note: This piece first appeared in April 2014. It is being recirculated due to reader interest.