Some scholars argue that established great powers tend to launch preventive wars to halt and reverse power transition processes, while others argue that it is the rising great powers that initiate revisionist challenges. Through the application of the preventive war model and the theory of strategic competition, this article argues that we should identify the initiation of a hegemonic war in the agency of established great powers during power transition processes and that hegemonic confrontations, in the age of nuclear weapons, are limited to the diplomatic domain where great powers will compete for relative strategic influence in the world. The argument is then applied for a re-examination of China–USA relations as this provides a novel ground for testing its explanatory power. Based on our findings, the article further argues that the USA has been the instigator of a preventive strategic competition against China aimed to halt and reverse the ongoing power transition process.

一些学者认为，已建立的大国倾向于发动预防性战争以阻止和扭转权力过渡过程，而另一些学者则认为，正是崛起中的大国引发了修正主义挑战。本文通过运用预防性战争模型和战略竞争理论，认为应该在权力转移过程中识别霸权战争在既定大国的代理中引发的问题，以及在核武器时代的霸权对抗。 ，仅限于大国争夺世界相对战略影响力的外交领域。该论点随后被应用于重新审视中美关系，因为这为检验其解释力提供了新的基础。根据我们的发现，