Will we sustain an open global economy while also managing tensions between a rising autocracy and democracies in relative economic decline? That was the question posed by the arrival of imperial Germany as Europe’s leading economic and military power in the late 19th century. It is the question posed today by the rise of communist China. Now, as then, mistrust is high and rising. Now, as then, actions of the rising power raise risks of conflict. We know how this story ended in 1914. How will the new one end, a century later?

China’s decision to create an “East China Sea air defence identification zone” that covers uninhabited islands currently under the control of Japan (called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China) is evidently provocative: the two countries’ air defence zones now overlap. Neither Japan nor South Korea recognises the new zone, which China seems prepared to defend. The US does not recognise the zone either, and is bound by treaty to support Japan in a conflict. Yet the State department has also indicated that it “expects” US commercial aircraft to comply with Chinese demands, in order to avoid the danger to innocent lives.

The signals, then, are mixed, as usual in such situations. But, as William Fallon, a former head of US Pacific Command, has noted, the Chinese zone raises the potential for an accidental conflict. What would happen if Chinese and Japanese military aircraft were to fire on one another? What would happen if Chinese military jets were to fire on a civilian aircraft or force it down? The mixed signals from the US may even increase the risks of conflict.