Ray Dalio: US-China struggle for world dominance can lead to war
For thousands of years, China has been operating under a top-down approach to governance and Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio told FOX Business that this could be a problem for the United States.
“We’ve gone from a cooperative relationship to a confrontational relationship recognizing that China and the United States are essentially in a struggle for world dominance,” he said during an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo on Friday. “So this is much more important than trade. I think the trade matters can be dealt with but I think that there’s a way-of-being issue.”
According to Dalio Chinese leaders view the United States as a “bottom-up individualistic society” and that stance may be a reason why the world’s two biggest economies are struggling to work together.
He said the question of whether the U.S. can coexist with China will prove to be “the real test of our time,” and he added that history has shown when a rising power challenges an existing power, it can create very dicey circumstances.
"There’s the possibility of war,” he said. “That’s a big statement, but over that period of time when there is this type of conflict it is conceivable with time that you can have that kind of conflict.”
“When you have that situation that means that behaviors change,” he added. “It means, for example, are countries independent? Can they produce things in one country and have it delivered to another country? What are the supply lines? Issues like that have business and market implications, right? So these types of issues will be with us, I think for a long time.”