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1NC Appeasement DA
The United States is successfully employing a strategy of
containment in the status quo to limit Chinese expansionism
Etzioni 16 (Amitai, professor of international affairs at George Washington
University, The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: A Case Study of Multifaceted
Containment, Asian Perspective, 40(2), p. 187-188)
US officials often state that the United States does not seek to contain China (Carpenter 2011). In April 2014, for
example, President Obama stated, Our goal is not to counter China. Our goal is not to contain China (Manesca
2014). Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the sentiment a month later, stating that the U.S. does not seek to
contain China (BBC News 2014a). However, there are often great discrepancies between the statements made by
top officials and the conduct of the states they speak for.
All these moves draw a red line that, if crossed by China, could lead to
war. The so-called Asia pivot thus appears to be a thinly veiled China containment
strategy (Roach et al. 2015). John Mearsheimer has pointed out that involving regional states in various military
Asia Pacific region.
alliances raises the risk that the United States and China will engage in war due to reckless actions taken by one of
the allies (Mearsheimer 2014). Barry Posen concurs and points out that an alliance with the United States gives
allies a false sense of security and encourages them to challenge more powerful states, confident that Washington
will save them in the end (Posen 2013). (This point also applies to China in its relations with North Korea.) At the
same time, one may argue that the most basic foundation of the international order, supported even by many who
do not necessarily accept the liberal elements of that order, is that states may not use force to change the status
quo and must not invade other states. Thus, one might argue that for the United States to position its military
forces or allied forces in places into which China might expand would help stabilize the international order.
However, the same cannot be said of other elements of US policy toward China, as highlighted by the US response
to the AIIBs launch, which itself was of limited import. To proceed, I must introduce a distinction between a strategy
of all-encompassing containment and a strategy that combines some forms of containment (especially military)
with competition (especially economic and ideational) and integration (especially the governance of international
institutions). To distinguish between these two kinds of containment, I refer to the first kind as multifaceted
containment and the second as aggression-limiting containment. Multifaceted containment seeks to block
practically any and all gains by another power, whether territorial, economic, or status (such as voting rights). By
contrast, aggression-limiting containment seeks to block only those advances that are made through the use of
force, while granting room for competition and cooperation. It is useful to think about aggression-limiting
containment as a flashing red light in some lanes and a green one in others, as opposed to a barrier that blocks all
lanes. In a previous book I examined the ways the United States sought to contain the USSR during the Cold War
and showed that the United States practiced multifaceted containment (Etzioni 1964). Thus, if the USSR sought
landing rights for its civilian aviation in Bolivia, the United States sought to block it. If the USSR granted foreign aid
to Ghana, the United States pressured Ghana to reject it. The United States sought to suppress USSR ideological
and cultural outreach. The USSR treated the United States the same, and the result was high levels of tension that
led several times to the brink of nuclear war. When President John F. Kennedy unveiled his Strategy of Peace, he
scaled back these nonmilitary forms of containment, which resulted in considerably diminished tensionsa dtente
cautioned regional states against depending too strongly on China for humanitarian aid, and pledged $187 million
to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam in an effort to decrease Chinas influence over those states (Var 2015).
mechanisms could be at work here. One mechanism depends on China seeing a similarity across one or more
features of the potentially connected interests, including their geography, the nature and extent of the U.S.
The broad change that is currently most relevant is the shifting balance of power, specifically, increasing Chinese
prominent arguments against accommodation of Beijing on Taiwan. For example, Nancy Tucker and Bonnie Glaser
argue that China
believe that its growing power will enable its leadership to convince the United States to fully exit East Asia. In
addition, Chinas view of the shifting balance of power could reinforce these conclusions: many Chinese officials
believe that the shifting balance of power partly reflects the failings of the U.S. domestic political system and the
superiority of the Chinas model of governance and development; the result is a new international system in which
Chinas growing power should generate greater influence and the major powers should acknowledge its rising
China's claims for sovereignty in these areas have no historical basis and its
constructing of "islands" on submerged reefs only demonstrates China's
expansionism. Similarly, in the East China Sea, China's claims to the Senkaku Islands (which China calls the
Diaoyutai) have no historical foundation. The People's Daily of January 8, 1953, stated that the "Senkaku" Islands
belonged to the Ryukyu Archipelago, and a World Atlas published in China in 1958 showed that these islands belong
to Japan. China's claims that Taiwan belongs to it also have no historical basis. Mao Zedong, in his famous 1936
interview with Edgar Snow, stated that Taiwan should be independent. Only in 1942 did the Chinese Nationalist
Party (the Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party separately claim that Taiwan was Chinese. In Taiwan's
history, a Han Chinese regime based in China has only controlled Taiwan for four years, from 1945 to 1949. These
four years were perhaps the saddest in all of Taiwan's history because Chiang Kai-shek's government killed tens of
thousands of Taiwanese in the infamous 2.28 (February 28, 1947) massacres. The dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek
and his son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo, ruled Taiwan from 1945 until the latter's death in early 1988. Their
rule was a Chinese colonial project that privileged Chinese who had come with Chiang Kai-shek and systematically
discriminated against native Taiwanese. Only with the accession of Lee Teng-hui to the presidency after the death of
Chiang Ching-kuo in 1988 could Taiwan begin its democratisation process. Now Taiwan, a country with a population
the size of Australia, has become a democratic middle power. The so-called "one China" policy of many countries
including the United States and Australia is a relic of the old Chiang Kai-shek/Chiang Ching-kuo dictatorship, which
pushed a "one China" policy without consulting Taiwan's population. All the major Western democracies, as well as
Japan and India, now have substantial if unofficial diplomatic offices in Taiwan. And, although these nations do not
publicise the point, all have de facto "One China, one Taiwan" policies. The arguments of people such as Age
columnist Hugh White are dangerous. They ignore the cause of tension in Asia and say we have to be careful about
president and legislature can lead to war is false. Both main candidates, Tsai Ing-wen and Eric Chu, want to
maintain the status quo that Taiwan is de facto an independent state but that it will not announce this. Australians
would be appalled if we were told by a foreign power that voting for either Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten would
the US, Japan, India and Australia demonstrate that Asia's democratic countries have become aware of the risks.
the pivot to Asia has begun. By 2020, the navy and the air force
plan to base 60 percent of their forces in the Asia-Pacific region . The Pentagon,
meanwhile, is investing a growing share of its shrinking resources in new long-range bombers and
nuclear-powered submarines designed to operate in high-threat environments. These changes are clearly
meant to check an increasingly assertive China. And with good reason: Beijings expanding territorial
claims threaten virtually every country along what is commonly known as the first island chain, encompassing
parts of Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwanall of which Washington is obligated to protect . But to reliably
In the U.S. military, at least,
deter Chinese aggression, the Pentagon will have to go even further. Emerging Chinese capabilities are intended to blunt
Washingtons ability to provide military support to its allies and partners. Although deterrence through the prospect of punishment,
Washingtons goal,
should be to achieve deterrence through denialto convince
Beijing that it simply cannot achieve its objectives with force.
in the form of air strikes and naval blockades, has a role to play in discouraging Chinese adventurism,
and that of its allies and partners,
comprehensive competition: commercial, ideological, political, diplomatic, technological, even in the academic world where China
has banned a number of American scholars and is beginning to bring pressure to bear on university joint ventures in China.
Mutual distrust is pervasive in both governments, and is also evident at the popular
level. The last Pew global attitudes data on this, in 2013, found distrust rising in both countries. Roughly two-thirds of
both publics view US-China relations as "competitive" and "untrustworthy" - a significant
change since 2010 when a majority of people in both nations still had positive views of the other. One senses that the sands are
basis for an enduring partnership between the world's two leading powers.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the United States has five mutual defense
treaties and two security cooperation agreements with Asian countries neighboring China: Table
security alliances in the area.
Philippines: 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty Australia and New Zealand: 1951 Security Defense Treaty of ANZU
Thailand: 1954 Manila Security Pact South Korea: 1954 Mutual Security Agreement Japan: 1960 Mutual Defense
Treaty Taiwan(ROC): 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (security cooperation) Singapore: 2005 Strategic Framework Agreement
(security cooperation) In addition, the United States is improving ties with Vietnam, India, Pakistan,
Myanmar, and central Asian countries on the western border of China. In
2012, Australia strengthened its military ties with the United States by allowing
2500 U.S. Marines to be stationed in Northern Australia. China is
uncomfortable with the situation 10 and criticizes U.S. intentions to contain
China through alliances with its Asian neighbors. While China is ascending as a regional power,
1:
U.S. strategy for the region is creating a potential conflict. On the other hand, China does not have any official security alliance or
treaty with any nation because of its non-alliance principle and its policy of Chinas peaceful rise. 20 Nevertheless, Chinas
assertiveness in its foreign policy has actually driven its Asian neighbors closer to the United States to improve their security.
Chinas rise has created an economic and political shift in the region that creates anxiety to its Asian neighbors. The U.S. leadership
role in the region and the engagement with China thus becomes more important than ever.
government, military, Congress and think tanks; in particular, the immense strategic dividend the Cold War brought
the United States causes some to feel a special attachment to a policy of containment through the formation of
alliances.
its own destiny for itself, the tone from Washington has become increasingly curt
and direct. US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carters remarks during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore were all
but a proclamation of US hegemony over Asia a region of the planet quite literally an ocean away from
decades to come and there should be no doubt about that. The US, besides implied exceptionalism, never fully
explains why it believes underwriting security for an entire region of the planet beyond its own borders is somehow
justified. Reuters would also report (emphasis added): Any action by China to reclaim land in the Scarborough
Shoal, an outcrop in the disputed sea, would have consequences, Carter said .
Link TPP
TPP exclusion key to containment
Khong 14 (Yuen, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, Primacy or
World Order? The United States and Chinas Rise,
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_a_00147, mitpressjournals, p.166-167)
KR
Link - SCS
The plans SCS concession will be seen as appeasement
Joyner 98 (Christopher C., Professor of Government and Foreign Service at
Georgetown University, 12/24, The Spratly Islands Dispute in the South China Sea:
Problems, Policies, and Prospects for Diplomatic Accommodation, The Stimson
Center, p. 77) MLJ
Sovereignty connotes both legal and political dimensions. For China and Vietnam especially, notions of political
leadership could point to foreign intervention, the Soviet threat and irredentism to bolster its nationalist legitimacy.
Today, such appeals to nationalism by the leadership hold less political sway for challenges to Chinese claims in
the South China Sea.84 The importance of the region is viewed more in terms of geopolitical
attributes, particularly its fisheries resources, hydrocarbon potential, and
commercial sea lanes. Thus, SinoVietnamese contention over the Spratlys turns
less on ideology and more on access to resources, both for food and
development. In Chinas view, then, control over the Spratlys can not be
handed over to any adversary, especially to its principal antagonist, Vietnam.
Despite U.S. assurances, in Beijings view, a number of signs indicate that the U.S. policy
toward China intends to contain rather than engage. The U.S. supports the
Philippines on the South China Sea dispute, reiterates Washingtons security
commitment to Japan on the East China Sea dispute, and has also agreed to sell more
advanced arms to Taiwan. In almost every dispute that involves China, the U.S. seems
to automatically support any party that has trouble with China, either directly or
indirectly. Meanwhile, the U.S. labels Chinas overseas economic activities as neo-colonialism and calls Chinas
territorial disputes with its neighbors evidence of expansionism. The U.S. has also called China one of the biggest
sources for cyber espionage activities (although Mr. Edward Snowden told the world another story).
According to
Thomas F. Holt Jr. who teaches international intellectual property law at Tufts
University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, this case underscores the importance for companies
investing in China of protecting their intellectual property. He notes: Chinese companies, once they
acquire the needed technology, will often abandon their Western partners on the
pretext the technology or product failed to meet Chinese govern- mental
regulations. This is yet another example of a Chinese industrial policy aimed at procuring. by virtually any means. technology in order to provide Chinese domestic
industries with a competitive advantage.
appear to plague Chinese manufacturers rather than the products of their foreign counterparts.
A nations investments in research and development (R&D) are vital to its ability to
develop the next generation technologies, products, and services that keep a country and its firms
competitive in global markets. Until recently, corporate R&D was generally not very mobile, certainly not in
comparison to manufacturing. But in a flat world companies can increasingly locate R&D activities anywhere
skilled researchers are located. Moreover, as I argue in Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage1 , in
the last decade many other nations have put in place a range of policies, including expanding government R&D
funding, training scientists and engineers, and expanding R&D tax incentives, to make them more attractive for
R&D dollars invested, on a per-capita basis it is falling behind. The United States now ranks just eighth among
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in the percentage of GDP devoted to
R&D expenditures (2.8 percent), behind Israel (4.3 percent), Finland (4.0 percent), Sweden (3.6 percent), Korea (3.4
percent), Japan (3.3 percent), Denmark (3.0 percent), and Switzerland (3.0 percent), with Germany and Austria
close behind the United States. In 2008, for the first time, Asian nations as a group surpassed the United States in
R&D investment, investing $387 billion to the United States $384 billion.3 As another example, business R&D
expenditures by U.S. IT manufacturing and IT services industries as a share of GDP fell substantially compared to 21
other OECD peer countries between 1997 and 2005. While at first glance the United States appears to score fairly
well on these measuresfifth in business R&D expenditures in IT manufacturing and sixth in IT servicesthe data
reveal a striking decrease of almost 50 percent in the amount of U.S. IT manufacturing industry R&D as a
percentage of GDP from 1997 to 2005.4 Moreover, during this time, businesses in IT manufacturing and services
industries in countries such as Finland, Korea, Denmark, Ireland, and the Czech Republic substantially increased
their IT R&D investment.5 In the ITIF report Atlantic Century II: Benchmarking EU & U.S. Innovation and
Competitiveness, which assesses the innovation-based competitiveness of 44 nations or regions on 16 factors,
including corporate R&D, the United States ranks second to last, ahead of only Italy, in the rate of progress on these
factors.6 3
the least of which are failures of federal policy, such as an unwillingness to make permanent and expand the
R&D tax credit, limitations on high-skill immigration, and stagnant federal funding for R&D. But the decline is also
unfair practices by other nations that collectively ITIF has termed as innovation
mercantilism. Many other nations engage in a variety of practices related to unfairly
obtaining knowledge for competitive advantage. One way is through intellectual
property theft. This can take the form of cyber espionage where foreign actors, sometimes governments
related to
themselves, hack into the computer systems of U.S. companies or government to steal intellectual property. (In
fact, one German study found a 40 percent increase in industrial espionage cases between 2009 and 2010.) 7 In
other cases, nations maintain a weak and discriminatory patent or broader IP system that allows their firms to
reverse engineer U.S. technology products, even though they are under patent protection. For example, some
nations have weak protections for data related to biopharmaceutical firms (e.g., data exclusivity) in order to more
easily transfer critical data to their domestic firms. Increasingly, state-owned or state-supported enterprises buy
U.S. technology companies and then transfer the intellectual property, including trade secrets, back to the home
country and its companies. Nations also rely on forced joint ventures, where U.S. multinationals are forced to
partner with a domestic firm to gain the right to produce in that country, with the domestic firm then using this
relationship to steal the firms IP. In addition, many nations have turned to compulsory licensing as a way to
transfer knowhow and technology to their economies. This normally involves countries granting permission to
domestic companies to produce patented products from foreign companies without the permission of the patent
owner. This is done often in the case of medical drugs, where countries not only want to get drugs at a lower price
without paying for the costs of drug development, but also to support their own domestic pharmaceutical and
biotech industry. For example, earlier this year the Indian government issued a compulsory license to Natco, an
Indian pharmaceutical company, enabling it to produce a cancer drug made by Bayer. A decade ago, Brazil passed
its Generics Law, which allows companies to legally produce generic drugs that are perfect copies of patented
drugs. Finally,
Many nations seek to engage in forced technology transfer, but no nation does it
better or more than China. This is in part because China is not a market-oriented democracy
constrained by the rule of law, but also because the Chinese economy is so large and fast
growing that the country is able to get away with practices that if implemented by a smaller
nation would be rejected out of hand by multinational corporations. While the forced technology transfer practices
of a nation a like Argentina are onerous, it is small enough that many companies would rather give up on the
Argentinean market than succumb to the strong arm tactics. U.S. multinationals have much less room to maneuver
with China since it is the worlds second largest economy. This is why in a survey of U.S. executives doing business
in China by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, the majority of industry representatives interviewed for this
study clearly stated that technology transfers are required to do business in China.9 Foreign companies capitulate
because they have little choice; they either give up their technology or lose out to other competitors that are willing
to make the essentially Hobsons choice.28 Industrial organization economists refer to this type of market as
monopsonistic: having one buyer that can set largely whatever terms it wants against competitive sellers. A case in
point is related to a Chinese state-owned enterprise engaged in dumping the chemicals for a particular herbicide
that a U.S. company sold (that is, selling it below what it costs to make in order to gain market share). The company
told the Chinese agricultural minister that it was planning to bring a complaint before the WTO. The minister
responded that if the case were brought, the company would lose access to the Chinese market. Needless to say,
the U.S. firm did not bring the case, even as it continued to lose global market share and jobs in the United States.
Forced technology transfer is a cornerstone of Chinas economic plan. For example, in 2011, the Chinese
government committed to place the strengthening of indigenous innovative capability at the core of economic
restructuring, growth model change, and national competitiveness enhancement .Indigenous innovation refers to
enhancing original innovation, integrated innovation, and re-innovation based on assimilation and absorption of
imported technology, in order improve our national innovation capability.10 As Thomas Hout and Pankaj Ghemawat
describe in the Harvard Business Review, Chinas goal with these indigenous innovation policies is no less than
creating a tipping point in which multinational corporations will have to locate their most-sophisticated R&D
projects and facilities in China, enabling it to eventually catch up with the U.S. as the worlds most advanced
economy.55 Figure 1 provides a framework to identify the types of innovation mercantilist practices the Chinese
government engages in to directly benefit Chinese companies at the expense of foreign companies. As it shows,
forced technology transfer is just one of many tools in the intellectual property category that the nation employs to
gain unfair competitive advantage.
stupid. For example, the World Bank still classifies China as a developing nation so it provides billions of dollars in
low cost or free loans. Primarily the U.S finances these loans. This, of course, flies in the face of economic reality.
China currently runs the largest export deficit in history mainly due to its predatory currency policy of maintaining a
low priced Yuan. China also spends billions on advanced military hardware and is engaged in an expensive space
program. Until recently, Canada was providing billions in loans to the Chinese government based on the premise
that it was still an underdeveloped nation. The Canadians changed that because of the obvious current economic
power in Beijing. This brings the question of why should we be financing Chinese economic development when they
certainly can afford to do it themselves? The answer comes in the form of corporate interests who seek these U.S.
government backed loans to provide financing of their business activities in China.
In reality - We are
financing the growth of the Chinese military . The idea of funding nuclear tipped missiles pointed at
America is not a pleasant notion. I would prefer to not do it at all. In the end, engagement is
appeasement. It costs money, lives, and freedom. It has not helped but instead - hurt
development and in the long run - hurt the chances of peace . The only
sensible solution is to adopt a unified containment policy . This means that India, the US,
Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines are going to have to band together and agree on joint policy,
political - military - economic action toward Beijing.
damage a states credibility on all other issues everywhereseems implausible, a more conditional argument is
related to its understanding of that states interest in the specific issue. The connectedness logic requires that the
geography; the estimated magnitude of the interest; and, related but separable, the nature of the interest (security,
economic, identity, etc.). The opposing strand of the credibility debate holds that a states past actions do not
influence its credibility. According to this line of argument, credibility depends only on an opposing states power
and interests, both of which are known, not on its past behavior. This formulation, however, mischaracterizes the
issue of credibility by assuming that the adversary essentially knows the extent of the states interests.
Uncertainty about the states interests , however, lies at the core of the adversarys
uncertainty about the states credibility. This in turn creates a role for past actions
to influence current assessments of credibility. And, although the adversary may be
nearly certain that the state places an extremely high value on defending its
homeland, the adversary is likely to be more uncertain about the value that the
state places on defending its allies and lesser interests. Given this uncertainty, if the
adversary sees logical similarities between the two issues, one would expect that a
states policy toward a lesser (but possibly still important) interest would enable an
adversary to update its assessment of the states interests and, in turn, of the
credibility of its commitments. For example, ending an alliance could lead an adversary to reduce its
assessment of how likely the state would be to meet certain other alliance commitments. The magnitude of the
change would depend on the size of the accommodation, the extent of uncertainties about the states interests, and
the loss of the three littoral seas would likely issue in the loss of the
U.S. dominance in the waters that lie between the First and the Second Island
Chains. In the end, the United States could be reduced to being a secondary, or even
marginalized, power in the Western Pacific . Indeed, some Chinese military figures are beginning to
region. In other words,
raise the idea of a partitioning of the Pacific between China and the United States, along a line roughly
To be effective, a policy of
deterrence will require clarity and credibility, with the Iranian regime knowing just what
justified, feasible, and indeed crucial to protect vital U.S. interests.
acts will trigger retaliation and having good reason to believe that Washington will follow through on its threats.
During the Cold War, the United States was successful in deterring a Soviet attack
on its European allies but not in preventing a broader range of communist
initiatives. In 1954, for example, the Eisenhower administration announced a policy of
massive retaliation designed to deter communist provocations , including costly conventional
wars like the recent one in Korea, by promising an overpowering response. But the doctrine
lacked the credibility needed to be effective, and a decade later, the United States
found itself embroiled in another, similar war in Vietnam. In the case of Iran, the aim of
deterrence would be specific and limited: preventing Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons. Still, a policy of
deterrence would have to cope with two difficulties. One is the likelihood of Iranian salami tacticssmall
violations of the JCPOA that gradually bring the Islamic Republic closer to a bomb without any single infraction
seeming dangerous enough to trigger a severe response. The other is the potential difficulty of detecting such
violations. The Soviet Union could hardly have concealed a cross-border attack on Western Europe, but Iran is all too
likely to try to develop the technology needed for nuclear weapons clandestinely (the United States believes it has
an extensive history of doing so), and the loopholes in the agreements inspection provisions suggest that keeping
trigger U.S. involvement in any European conflict. In some ways, credibly threatening to carry out a strike against
Iran now would be easier. Iran may have duplicated, dispersed, and hidden the various parts of its nuclear program,
and Russia may sell Tehran advanced air defense systems, but the U.S. military has or can develop the tactics and
munitions necessary to cause enough damage to lengthen the time Iran would need to build a bomb by years, even
without the use of any ground troops. The Iranians might retaliate against Saudi Arabia or Israel (whether directly or
through their Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah), or attack American military forces, or sponsor acts of anti-American
The problems
with deterring Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons are not practical but rather political and
psychological. Having watched American leaders tolerate steady progress toward an Iranian bomb over the
terrorism. But such responses could do only limited damage and would risk further punishment.
years, and then observed the Obama administrations avid pursuit of a negotiated agreement on their nuclear
program, Irans ruling clerics may well doubt that Washington would actually follow through on a threat to punish
Iranian cheating. U.S. President Barack Obama initially embraced the long-standing American position that Iran
should not be permitted to have the capacity to enrich uranium on a large scale, then abandoned it. He backed
away from his promise that the Syrian regime would suffer serious consequences if it used chemical weapons. He
made it the core argument in favor of the JCPOA that the alternative to it is war, implying that American military
action against Iran is a dreadful prospect that must be avoided at all costs. Moreover, neither he nor his
predecessor responded to Irans meddling in Iraq over the past decade, even though Tehrans support for Shiite
militias there helped kill hundreds of U.S. troops. The mullahs in Tehran may well consider the United States,
particularly during this presidency, to be a serial bluffer DOUBT NOT All of this suggests that in order to keep Iran
from going nuclear, the JCPOA needs to be supplemented by an explicit, credible threat of military action. To be
credible, such a threat must be publicly articulated and resolutely communicated. The Obama administration should
declare such a policy itself, as should future administrations, and Congress should enshrine such a policy in formal
resolutions passed with robust bipartisan support. The administration should reinforce the credibility of its promise
by increasing the deployment of U.S. naval and air forces in the Persian Gulf region and stepping up the scope and
bound to fail. Not all adversaries are Hitler, and when they are not, accommodation can be an effective policy tool.
When an adversary has limited territorial goals, granting them can lead not to further demands but rather to
satisfaction with the new status quo and a reduction of tension. The key question, then, is whether China has
limited or unlimited goals. It is true that China has disagreements with several of its neighbors, but there is actually
little reason to believe that it has or will develop grand territorial ambitions in its region or beyond.
ignored President Aquino. Appeasement is still a dirty word. But in the 1930s, until the Nazis invaded Poland in September, 1939,
European and American elites considered appeasement to be a sophisticated, nuanced approach to dealing with increasingly
powerful authoritarian regimes. To these elites, appeasement was more than simply disarming and letting unpleasant people have
their way. Appeasement actually had a coherent logic. The elites believed that aggressive, authoritarian regimes act the way they
do out of fear, insecurity, and at least partly legitimate grievances such as German resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles.
Understand and address these issue, remove their fears, and the regimes will become less aggressive and transform into
responsible members of the international community and operate under international norms. Or so the elites argued. Challenging
these regimes could dangerously isolate them and even needlessly provoke them into miscalculations. The elites thought
engagement and transparency were beneficial in their own right, as only good things could come from familiarity with one
another. In the 1930s, the major Western powers all attended each others war games. The US Marine Corps even took the German
World War I fighter ace, Ernst Udet on a ride in a USMC dive bomber. This engagement and transparency did not make the Nazis
nicer, but perhaps gave them some ideas about dive bombing and Blitzkreig. Even the Soviets and Germans had close ties with
joint training, military technology development, and raw material shipments to Germany. There was also extensive political and
diplomatic interaction. Close economic ties were believed to be a further hedge against conflict breaking out, and companies such
as Ford, IBM, and many others did profitable business in Germany. The elites believed anything was better than war. Preserving
peace, even if sacrificing principles and certain small nations was considered wise and statesmanlike. People who criticized
appeasement policy in the 1930s, most notably Winston Churchill, were ridiculed as dolts and war mongers. We know how this
turned out. Curiously, appeasement (by another name) reappeared even before the end of the war in calls to address Stalins fears
and allow him to dominate Eastern Europe. And throughout the Cold War, in Western academic and government circles it was
argued that Soviet behavior was simply a reaction to fears of Western containment. The appeasers protested the peacetime draft as
threatening the Russians. They also pushed for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and opposed the Pershing missile deployment and
the neutron bomb well into the 1980s. Even President Jimmy Carter, once he overcame his inordinate fear of communism, tried
something akin to appeasement as national policy. It was not until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan that Carter learned his lesson. It
perhaps will take another case of an authoritarian regime rearranging its neighborhood to understand the cost of modern
The United
States does its best to understand the PRCs concerns and its resentments going
back to the Opium Wars and the century of humiliation, to accommodate these
resentments, and to ensure China does not feel threatened. Defense and State
Department officials enthusiastically seek greater transparency and openness
especially in the military realm as such openness is perceived as inherently good.
In return, the PRC is expected to change, to show more respect for human rights
and international law and to become a responsible stakeholder in the international
community. We now have several decades of empirical evidence to assess this concessionary approach. It has not
resulted in improved, less aggressive PRC behavior in the S outh China Sea or the
East China Sea, or even in outer space. Indeed, it seems to have encouraged
Chinese assertiveness as manifest in threatening language and behavior
towards its neighbors. Nor has the PRC regime shown more respect for human
rights, rule of law, consensual government or freedom of expression for its citizens .
appeasement. US policy towards China over the last 30 years, and particularly in recent times, seems familiar.
Serial intellectual property theft continues unabated, as does support for unsavory dictators. Nonetheless, we invite the PRC to
military exercises and repeat the engagement mantra expecting that one day things will magically improve. Some argue that
letting the PRC see US military power will dissuade it from challenging us. Perhaps, but we are just as likely to be seen as nave or
weak. From the Chinese perspective, there is no reason to change since they have done very well without transforming and the PRC
demoralizing our allies, who at some point may wonder if they should cut their own deals with the PRC. Some revisionist historians
argue that Neville Chamberlains 1930s era appeasement was in fact a wise stratagem to buy time to rearm. This overlooks that
even as late as 1939 when Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies still had the military advantage. One can
appease oneself into a corner. And the beneficiary of the appeasement usually strengthens to the point it is too hard to restrain
without great sacrifice. One worries that the Chinese seizure of Philippine territory at Scarborough Shoal in 2012 and the US
Governments unwillingness to even verbally challenge the PRC - might turn out to be this generations Rhineland. Had the West
resisted Hitler in 1936 when he made this first major demand, there would have been no World War II, no Holocaust, and no Cold
War. Our choice about how to deal with the PRC is not simply between either appeasement or treating China as an
enemy. Our policy must accommodate options ranging from engagement to forceful confrontation. Who would not
be delighted with a China that stopped threatening its neighbors and followed the civilized worlds rules? While
ensuring we and our allies have a resolute defense both in terms of military capability and the willingness to employ it it is
important to maintain ties and dialogue with the PRC and to provide encouragement and support when it shows clear signs of
appeasement (by whatever name) leads. And they also show that a strong defense and resolutely standing up for ones principles is
more likely to preserve peace.
It is not yet too late for the U.S. to switch from condoning
this to worrying about it. I think it would be extremely beneficial for Americans to
look back upon World War II and recall the valuable lesson of how appeasement
leads to war. In the early 1930s, after Hitler rose to power, he began a frenzied military
expansion in preparation for war. Under the pretext of taking so-called "living space," he brazenly
fanned the flames of racial purity, making Germany the epicenter of the war . The U.K., France and the
U.S. wished to avoid war with Hitler, adopting policies of appeasement . When German
and Italian forces interfered in Spain, Britain and France adopted policies of noninterference and the U.S. declared
its neutrality; when Germany annexed Austria, Britain and France said that the Anschluss was necessary; as
Czechoslovakia was divided piecemeal, Britain and France signed the infamous Munich Agreement, selling out their
ally. However, these policies of appeasement did not win them peace in return . On Sept. 1,
1939, Germany invaded Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. Japan's path to war was somewhat different
than that of Germany and Italy. At the time, the strength of Japanese militarism was fast developing and, in the end,
the Ministry of War seized power over the country. Japan was always dissatisfied with its share of the spoils from
which then encouraged Japan to invade and expand into other countries in Asia. This continued until Japan launched
its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the U.S. to finally come to its senses and join the war.
We should
not forget the past, but learn from it. Now let us follow the trajectory of history to gain a better view of
Shinzo Abe's current conduct: as soon as he was elected, he denied the history of Japanese invasions and crimes,
including widespread massacres; he challenged the post-World War II global order, howled about his desire to make
Japan a normal country and, with complete disregard for the terms of international treaties, made ludicrous
territorial demands of neighboring countries; he was agitated by the indeterminate "definition of what constitutes
an invasion" and the legitimacy of colonial rule; he encouraged many members of parliament and his cabinet to
visit the Yasukuni Shrine; he contrived every possible means to modify Japan's peaceful constitution, expand the
armed forces and change the Self-Defense Forces into an army; and Japan's latest white paper pointed to a desire to
develop its own military strength. Under the influence of Abe's antics, Japanese society is quickly moving to the
right.
the region.12 Similarly, in June, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on PBS Newshour: "The longstanding
dissuade China from using force in East Asia? How can we get China to actively contribute to stabilizing global
governance? These initiatives, Christensen noted, are based on the assumption that " whenever
a country
becomes a rising power, tensions with neighbors arise. 15 Christensen agrees with Bader that
the U.S.' "strategic goal" vis--vis China is to "shape Beijing's choices so as to channel China's nationalist ambitions
supporters and deterrence supporters agree that the U.S. should change China's strategic calculus in ways that
increase the benefits of cooperation and the costs of aggression; where they disagree is on how to achieve this.
under Deng Xiaoping more than three decades ago. This just isnt a pre-Party-Congress pose, in other words, but in
fact an important part of the new normal in 21st-Century China. Though adopted, in the first instance, for
domestic political reasons tied to the Partys desire to cling to power, these themes essentially demand
confrontational foreign postures and efforts to nudge East Asia, at the very least, into more Sinocentric forms of
happened. After Tiananmen, Deng is said to have articulated a pithy phrase about the importance of biding ones
time and hiding ones capabilities, which encapsulated important conclusions about Chinas interest in strategic
caution. This did not amount to any relinquishment of the dream of national rejuvenation and return that so
many Chinese have shared since the Qing Dynasty was first humbled by Western power in the 19th Century, but it
was a clear policy of tactical postponement of the kind of self-assertion implied by the countrys destined return.
China, it was said, needed breathing space in which to build up its strength, and to this end should carefully keep a
low profile and adopt a relatively non-provocative posture. This approach of Dengist time-biding, which some
scholars have referred to as Taoist Nationalism, became the foundation of Chinas foreign relations for many
years. As Chinas strength and confidence have grown in the international arena, however and as the CCP has
invested more and more political capital in Sino-nationalist legitimacy strategies that encourage both revanchiste
posturing against an outside world felt to have humiliated China and quasi-Confucian notions of the desirability of
a Sinocentric global order such time-biding has come increasingly under pressure. A dynamic that I think has
been particularly important recently, however and which is probably a major factor behind Chinas recent moves to
escalate tensions in the SCS and the ECS is Beijings perception that America is enfeebled, weary of foreign
commitments, and in a precipitous decline. Why is that? Taoist Nationalism based its strategic logic on two main
assumptions. First, it was felt that in order to gain the strength necessary to effect its return to glory, China
needed to learn modernity from the West, particularly from the iconic modern state and the most powerful of the
Western polities: the United States. This required congenial engagement in which China could engage in exportdriven growth, acquire technology and modern know-how from the West, and have the breathing space necessary
for its development. Second, it was recognized that the outside world and the Americans in particular were still
powerful enough to be able to impose huge costs on the PRC if sufficiently threatened or provoked. Accordingly,
great care should be taken not to provoke them, at least until China was strong enough to handle the
consequences. The strategic caution of Taoist Nationalism thus rested upon the presumed great benefits of
friendly engagement and high costs of confrontation. To my eye, however, this balance was destabilized by the U.S.
we no
longer appear an attractive teacher or model of modernity, which reduces
the benefits of friendly engagement side of the equation. Our continuing politico-economic
financial crisis and our present indebtedness and ineffective political leadership. In Chinese eyes, I think
woes have also encouraged Beijing to think we are on a steep downhill slope in what Chinese strategists call
comprehensive national power, thus also reducing the costs of confrontation element. As a result, it is
presumably harder than ever in Beijing to argue for a continuation of Taoist Nationalism, and more confrontational
sentiments are gradually coming to predominate. Even as the CCP regime has staked its political legitimacy on antiforeign nationalism and increasingly Sinocentric pretensions of global return, in other words, the confrontational
postures encouraged by such thinking have seemed more feasible than ever. To my eye, there is little chance in the
near term of conclusively resolving the disputes in question. One could argue all day about the relative legal merits
of the various competing claims and lots of people do but whatever their merits, I think it is unlikely that well see
the issues resolved any time soon. It is thus the challenge of diplomacy and statesmanship to defer the issue
peacefully and manage the situation so as to keep things from getting out of hand. Near-term crisis management
will be important in this work, as will trying to persuade all participants to avoid provocative actions, and doing
everything possible to reaffirm freedom-of-navigation rights in the region. In order to reduce the sting of resource
competition in the SCS, and indeed to give parties some incentive to cooperate with each other, some observers
have also suggested that a moratorium on oil and gas drilling should be imposed until all agree upon a formula for
resource-sharing. Much discussion in the SCS, at least, has referred to the importance of establishing a good code
managing these problems fail to address one of the key factors that I believe is contributing to these problems: the
destabilizing effect of Chinas growth combined with its increasing willingness to take confrontationally selfassertive positions vis--vis its neighbors. The problem with Chinese behavior goes beyond simply taking positions
playing to nationalist sentiments prior to the 18th Party Congress. The deeper difficulty is due to the Party-States
adoption of legitimacy narratives that encourage and to some extent require foreign affairs positions that are
increasingly confrontational. If what Ive suggested about the internal debate between low-profile strategic caution
and more self-assertively confrontation is true, however, it is possible that we can still influence Chinas decision-
strategic
caution is losing ground in Beijing because China feels it now has less to
gain from congenial engagement and less to lose from confrontation.
making for the better even if they do continue to perceive us as being in decline. As noted,
Impact Taiwan
Appeasement emboldens Chinese invasion of Taiwan
Navarro 1/20 (Peter, author of Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the
World, Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, Is It Time For America to Surrender
Taiwan?, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/is-it-time-foramerica-to-surrender-taiwan_b_9003450.html) KR
what should America do? Thats a good question not just for the White House and Congress but also for each of the
2016 presidential candidates. In thinking about the best answer ,
A crisis
over Taiwan could fairly easily escalate to nuclear war, because each step
along the way might well seem rational to the actors involved . Current U.S.
challenges for the U.S.-Chinese relationship, placing it in a different category than Japan or South Korea.
Friedbergs
preference is for America to maintain its predominance, primarily because for him, and
many others not just in the United States but also in Asia, it is U.S. hegemony that has
upheld regional peace and stability.25 Perhaps ceding power also smacks too
much of appeasement (pp. 254, 263); it may whet Chinas appetite for more, and
history suggests that is too perilous a path to take.
power (i.e., cede some of its predominant power), whereas Friedberg resists the suggestion.
The debate over what to do about Chinas rise and aspirations is not just about
military and economic power. For Friedberg, the identity of the potential challenger
matters greatly. In fact, it is decisive. He would be less worried if it were Japan or
Australia, but that fact that it is Chinaan illiberal and autocratic regimemakes it
worrisome. An unrepresentative government responsible for crushing the
Tiananmen Square protests, denying religious freedom, suppressing political
dissent, and oppressing minorities to use Hugh Whites words (p. 167) is, in the end, not a
government that the United States can treat as a political equal, accommodate, or
cooperate with (p. 167). The crux of the matter, for Friedberg, is the nature of Chinas
political regime: autocratic governance is anathema to the American political credo;
moreover, there is also a link between autocracies and their propensity to resort to
military force externally (pp. 4245, 159163). In a revealing passage, Friedberg stipulates the conditions
under which the United States may be willing to share or even cede power to China: In the long run, the United
States can learn to live with a democratic China as the preponderant power in East Asia, much as Great Britain
came to accept America as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere.... Having kept the peace, encouraged
the transition of all the major regional players from authoritarianism to democracy, and overseen the re-emergence
of Asia as a leading center of world wealth and peace, Washington will be free to call home its legions (pp. 251
252).
Chinas primary strategic goal in contemporary times has been the accumulation of
comprehensive national power. This pursuit of power in all its dimensionseconomic,
military, technological and diplomaticis driven by the conviction that China, a great
civilization undone by the hostility of others, could never attain its destiny unless it
amassed the power necessary to ward off the hostility of those opposed to this
quest. This vision of strengthening the Chinese state while recovering Chinas centrality in international
politicsboth objectives requiring the accumulation of comprehensive national power suggests that the
aims of Beijings grand strategy both implicate and transcend the United States and
Chinas other Asian rivals, to replace U.S. primacy in Asia writ large . For China, which
is simultaneously an ancient civilization and a modern polity, grand strategic objectives are not
simply about desirable rank orderings in international politics but rather about
fundamental conceptions of order.
It is unrealistic
to imagine that Chinas grand strategy toward the U nited States will evolve in a wayat
least in the next ten yearsthat accepts American power and influence as linchpins of Asian peace and
security, rather than seeks to systematically diminish them. Thus, the central question
concerning the future of Asia is whether the U nited States will have the political will; the
geoeconomic, military, and diplomatic capabilities ; and, crucially, the right grand strategy to deal with
China to protect vital U.S. national interests .(39)
The profound test that the rise of Chinese power represents for the United States is likely to last for decades.
and power in Asia are dimensions of an American attempt to contain China and therefore must be condemned and resisted; that
U.S. military power projection in the region is dangerous and should be reduced (even
as the PLA continues to build up its military capabilities with the clear objective of reducing U.S. military options in the context of a
Aff
White mischaracterizes the struggle between China and the U nited States. Firstly, he
perpetuates the unfortunate argument that US policy towards China is essentially
one of containment. Specifically, he alleges that this involves preventing China from getting a larger
leadership role or additional influence or authority (p. 118). This argument resonates with many Chinese but is
inaccurate. The Chinese understand the term containment to mean trying to keep their country from becoming
2003 and aim to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis. In 2012 the US Department of Defenses annual report on
Chinese military developments, which is routinely maligned by Beijing for making China look overly threatening,
noted that the PLA deployed assets to support non-combatant evacuation operations from Libya, extended its
presence in the Gulf of Aden for a third year of counter-piracy operations, took on leadership roles in United Nations
peace operations, and conducted medical exchanges and a service mission to Latin America and the Caribbean
respects, China is ambivalent about playing that role.15 Using Whites definition of undermining leadership and
influence, China is also trying to contain the United States. Beijings 1997 New Security Concept, aimed chiefly at
Southeast Asia, disparaged US alliances in the region as part of a mentality of Cold War.16 In negotiations over the
shaping of the East Asian Community at the East Asian Summit in 2005, Beijing manoeuvred to limit the
participation of US allies. In 2010 then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton diplomatically intervened in the South
China Sea territorial dispute in response to requests from several regional governments. The Chinese Foreign
Ministry described her call for a collaborative solution and adherence to international law as, in effect, an attack
argument that a Concert is needed to manage security affairs in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to the rise of China, a
pillar of post-war US grand strategy was to prevent a rival great power from challenging American pre-eminence in
an important region. As recently as 1992, a draft of the Pentagons Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years
1994 1999 held that post-Cold War US grand strategy requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power
from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global
power. This goal called for precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor and deterring
strengthening its hedging posture with the AirSea Battle concept and a rebalance towards Asia
depend heavily upon Chinas role as a responsible member of the international community.
distant blockade allows the adversary the use of his littoral waters, but denies him the use of the waters beyond. If the adversary is largely self-sufficient
(as was the Soviet Union and its alliance system in many respects) a capability to impose a distant blockade upon him will not be a major factor in his
strategic calculations. However, if the adversary relies a great deal upon seaborne commerce, its SLOCs (sea lanes of commerce or, in the conventional
notation, sea lines of communication) will be a major strategic factor. Traditional, imperial China was supremely self-sufficient. In this respect, it was
thoroughly Chinese. However, contemporary China is very dependent upon seaborne commerce, upon both its enormous exports of industrial products
and its enormous imports of the raw materials that are necessary for the continuing functioning of its economy (and the continuing stability of its social
system).
This vital
seaborne commerce passes, of course, through the three littoral seas. But much of it, including the necessary raw materials and especially the necessary
oil, also passes through the Indian Ocean. If China acquires a dominant positionand denial capabilityin the three littoral seas or even in the Western
Pacific, the United States can retain a dominant positionand denial capabilityin the Indian Ocean and in other seas beyond, through which passes
key alliance commitments, as is likely, it will need to extend its deterrent to Japan and South Korea while facing
conventional attack against Europe. They disagreed over whether NATO'S doctrine of flexible response--which
combined large conventional forces with an array of nuclear forces-- enabled the United States to make nuclear
threats credible enough to deter a Soviet conventional attack. Doubts about U.S. willingness to escalate reflected
the clear danger that U.S. escalation would be met by Soviet nuclear retaliation. Nevertheless, the stronger
conventional one with a state like Japan, tempers Chinas territorial ambitions. In that, China follows
other historically big powers, including the Soviet Union. Washingtons foreign policy elites have narcissistic take on
East Asias
stability remains robustinsensitive to the annual fights in Congressbecause war remains a
losing prospect for all major powers.
deterrence; they see it teetering with every foreign policy decision that troubles them. But
region is largely based on the expectation, which White shares, that present trends will continue and Chinas
strength, relative to that of the United States, will increase. This expectation is certainly defensible, as Chinas
faster rate of economic growth suggests it will overtake the United States in economic output in approximately a
premise is highly controversial, and the obstacles that could prevent China from achieving such regional dominance
are significant. Former US ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, one of the United States foremost China experts, is among
those who conclude that it is foolish to postulate that the twenty-first century will belong to China.22 Over the next
decade, China will face many internal obstacles to its rapid economic growth . The factors
that have driven its expansion in the post Mao era chiefly an abundant supply of cheap labour and capital,
alongside worldwide demand for Chinese exports are diminishing .
to impair the countrys productive capacity. Chinas fertility rate has dropped to 1.4 births per woman: below the
developed country rate of 1.7 and far below the population replacement level of 2.1. The majority of Chinese
factory workers are between the ages of 20 and 24, and the number of people in this age bracket will decrease by
42% in 201030. This reduction in factory workforce will be compounded by an increasing number of young adults
pursuing university studies. It is estimated that the number of people in this age bracket available for factory work
will therefore soon shrink by around 50%. Additionally, national savings will decline as the population ages, and the
number of Chinese over the age of 60 will double in 201030. During this period, the number of workers supporting
Outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao famously said Chinas growth is unbalanced, unsustainable and
uncoordinated.25 The Chinese Communist Party, however, is conservative and wary of social turmoil. The required
The
greater transparency and rule of law needed to boost entrepreneurship and
innovation are implicit political challenges to Beijings leadership . It is unclear whether
Chinas rulers will be bold enough to fully implement the necessary reforms. China is a major economic and
military power. It is not, however, strong enough to dominate the region. War with the U nited
States would be so devastating that the Chinese leadership could not contemplate it
unless a vital Chinese interest was under attack . Chinas continued ascension to a position of
changes would be opposed by powerful special interest groups and would roil much of Chinese society.
strength from which it could expect to prevail at acceptable cost in a regional conflict against US forces or against
two or more of its neighbours is uncertain. It would be unwise for the United States to make large concessions to
China to prevent a scenario that may not occur.
The United States and its allies therefore have little reason to replay the Cold War
by seeking to contain China. Instead, the West could readily tolerate some
expansion of Chinas regional influence by allowing it to secure access to vital resources as long as it
abides by international law.3 Accommodating such expansion is more likely to lead to a
peaceful, limited rebalancing of power than seeking to block China on all
fronts by establishing counter-alliances. Crucially, China does not pose an
immediate threat to US interests in the same way as Iran or Pakistan. It is still in the early stages of buildingup and modernising its military. Rather than rushing to preempt China as a military threat
with a more aggressive defence policy, the United States has time to help bring
about a peaceful coexistence.
Presenting his policy advice to Washington, he follows the classic bureaucratic method of offering three choices, two
of which are bad and one of which is good. If the United States continues on its present course of trying to maintain
its primacy, the likely result will be war because China will fight to gain great-power status. If the Americans
withdraw their strength and influence from the western Pacific Rim, war is also likely. White argues that China is not
strong enough to dominate Asia against the will of the regions middle powers because it has neither the hard nor
foresees Beijing dramatically departing from this pattern, and instead acting impetuously by entering into military
conflicts without the decisive superiority that would make a quick victory likely .
It is difficult to imagine
Beijing opting for a campaign of aggression against either formidable US forces in
the region or the determined opposition of its neighbours . A long or difficult war
would threaten Chinas continued economic development and, both directly and indirectly,
public support for Beijings leadership . In his preferred option, however, White predicts that the
Chinese will make a sensible calculation by settling for great-power status and equality with the United States.
intrinsic economic and cultural advantages America enjoys, and partly to limits on Chinas
ability to continue advancing. Those limits dont get much attention in Washington, so I thought I would
spend a little time describing the five most important factors constraining Chinas power potential. 1.
Geographical constraints. Unlike America, which spent much of its history expanding under doctrines such
as Manifest Destiny, Chinas potential for territorial growth is severely limited by
geography. To the west it faces the barren Tibetan plateau and Gobi Desert. To the south the Himalayan
mountains present an imposing barrier to the Indian Subcontinent. To the north vast and largely empty grasslands
known as the Steppes provide a buffer with Russia. And to the east stretches the worlds largest ocean (there are
over 6,000 miles of water between Shanghai and San Francisco). So aside from the hapless Vietnamese who share
the southern coastal plain and Chinas historical claim to Taiwan, there isnt much opportunity for wars of conquest
largest population of any country. However, that population is aging rapidly due to the one-child policy imposed in
1979. The current fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman is well below the level of 2.1 required to maintain a stable
population over the long run, and also far below the birthrates seen in other emerging Asian nations. What this
within
a few years, the working age population will reach a historical peak and then begin
a sharp decline. The vast pool of cheap labor that fueled Chinas economic miracle has already begun
disappearing, driving up wages and leading some labor-intensive industries to move out . In the years
ahead, a growing population of old people will undermine efforts to stimulate
internal demand while creating pressure for increased social-welfare spending. 3.
Economic dependency. China has followed the same playbook as its Asian neighbors in using trade as a
means in economic terms, to quote a paper recently published by the International Monetary Fund, is that
springboard to economic development. According to the CIAs 2014 World Factbook, exports of goods and services
comprise over a quarter of Chinas gross domestic product. But even if the low-cost labor that made this possible
wasnt drying up, the reliance of an export-driven economy on foreign markets makes Chinas prosperity per
capita GDP is below $10,000 much more vulnerable than Americas. China has sold over $100 billion more in
goods to the U.S. so far this year than it has bought, but that longstanding boost to the Chinese economy wont
persist if the labor cost differential between the two countries keeps narrowing or Washington decides Beijing is a
investigated during just the first three months of this year, suggesting a culture of corruption reminiscent of New
Yorks Tweed Ring. But Tweed was driven from power through democratic processes, whereas Chinas political
Military weakness. That brings me to the subject with which most defense
the
Pentagon is out with its latest ominous assessment of Chinas military buildup,
which is said to encompass everything from stealthy fighters to maneuvering antiship missiles to anti-satellite weapons. Those programs actually exist, but the threat
they pose to the U.S. at present is not so clea r. For instance, Beijing doesnt have the
reconnaissance network needed to track and target U.S. warships, and if it did the
weapons it launched would face the most formidable air defenses in the world. Much
culture offers no such solution. 5.
analysts would have begun this commentary Chinese military power. Military.com reports today that
has been written about Chinas supposedly growing investment in nuclear weapons, but the best public information
available suggests that China has about 250 warheads in its strategic arsenal, most of which cant reach America;
the U.S. has 4,600 nuclear warheads available for delivery by missile or plane, and an additional 2,700 in storage.
Beijings decision to sustain only a modest some would say minimal nuclear
deterrent seems incompatible with the notion that it seeks to rival U.S. power . Until
recently it has not possessed a credible sea-based deterrent force, it still does not have a single operational aircraft
carrier, and many of its submarines use diesel-electric propulsion rather than nuclear power. When these less-thanimposing features of the Chinese military posture are combined with widely reported deficiencies in airlift,
reconnaissance, logistics and other key capabilities, the picture that emerges is not ominous. China is an emerging
regional power that is unlikely to ever match America in the main measures of military power unless dysfunctional
political processes in Washington impair our nations economy and defenses. In fact, secular trends are already at
work within the Chinese economy, society and political culture that will tend to make the Middle Kingdom look less
threatening tomorrow, rather than like a global rival of America.
Former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, on Thursday stressed the importance of
U.S.-China cooperation and dismissed the assertion that China would be a military
threat to the U.S. I do not think China will be a military threat. It is not in their interest to be a
military threat to the U.S., Powell said in a lecture at the Library of Congress in Washington. He
encouraged the U.S. to work with China, saying that such cooperation would not
result in a military conflict. The former top diplomat said Chinas economic
development in recent decades was `astonishing, pointing out that China is making
efforts to invest in its future. The U.S. has to have a proper relationship with
China, Powell said. Another speaker of the lecture, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, shared Powells views on the importance of U.S.-China ties . Albright said that
there was never a time the two major powers had been so dependent on each other
and their economies so intertwined. The cooperation part of U.S.-China relations is
very important, said Albright, emphasising that it is the essential relationship. At the invitation of U.S.
President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping would pay a State visit to the U.S. in September.
Ambassador OSullivan also commented on the strategic role of China, arguing that the
only threat that should worry the transatlantic partners more than a successful
China, was a weak China. He also agreed with Congressman Meeks that, while China would
challenge the West in economic and political terms, it would not emerge as a
military threat. With regard to TTIP, Ambassador OSullivan, however, disagreed with the Transworld report
findings, which projected that diverging views on agricultural standards on both sides of the Atlantic would be a
great impediment to reaching a transatlantic trade agreement. Ambassador OSullivan contended that the only
significant sticking point was the issue of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), and even on this front the
negotiations were progressing steadily, according to his assessment. In an elegant closing argument ,
Ambassador Grossman resolved that ultimately, both the US and Europe would have
to get past non-issues like bananas and chlorinated chicken, which continued to define the
public TTIP debate, if the transatlantic partners are to strengthen the transatlantic partnership going forward.
Chinese
military power. Military.com reports today that the Pentagon is out with its latest ominous assessment of
That brings me to the subject with which most defense analysts would have begun this commentary
Chinas military buildup, which is said to encompass everything from stealthy fighters to maneuvering anti-ship
political culture that will tend to make the Middle Kingdom look less threatening tomorrow, rather than like a global
rival of America.
interpretation, on closer inspection neither of these arguments is persuasive. To take one notable example: Johnston
speculates that the initial decision to ratchet up tensions may have had something to do with the impending
anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and dismisses the demand for an apology as possibly
The South China Sea is one area where even a skeptic like Johnston believes that
Chinas diplomatic rhetoric and practice have shifted fairly sharply in a more hard-line
direction.8 As he and others have argued, however, these shifts may have come in response to
actions by others.9 It is true that during the period 20092011, the Chinese government published a series of
maps and documents that one could interpret as expanding and intensifying its claims in the region. But these were
arguably part of a larger diplomatic and legal game in which other states may have made the opening moves.1 0
The most recent rounds of escalation and heightened tensions in the East and South
China Seas can also plausibly be blamed on Tokyo and Manila rather than Beijing . When
the Japanese government bought three of the five disputed Senkaku Islands from a private landowner in September
2012, China stepped up air and naval activity and, in November 2013, unilaterally declared an Air Defense
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that would provide capital for development projects across the region.59 One month later, at
United States and many Southeast Asian nations that began as early as late 2010. Beijings apparent desire to cool the diplomatic
climate may reflect a concern that the risks of an unintended conflict were rising or a judgment that, at least for the moment, the
costs of further assertiveness would exceed the benefits. Whether the awkward handshake between Xi and Japanese Prime Minister
Abe will lead to a sustained easing of Chinese pressure on the Senkakus, and whether Beijing will back off in its ongoing
confrontations with the Philippines and Vietnam remains to be seen. If it does,
that began in 2009 may be at an end, and a more placid period in Chinas relations
with its neighbors, and with the United States, may be at hand.
But Asian leaders want the United States to offset China, not contain it.
China is a major
market for all countries in Asia, including key U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Their nightmare
scenario is a military conflict between the United States and China that forces countries to pick sides. Almost as bad
would be a division into pro-U.S. and pro-China blocs, threatening the regions prosperity and undoing decades of
Even if the United States decided to try and contain China, Asian
countries would be extremely reluctant to participate in U.S.-led efforts to isolate
China economically. There is no enthusiasm in the region for an "Asian NATO" or for
hosting U.S. military forces that are clearly aimed against China. Asian countries
would not support Chinese efforts to curtail U.S. involvement in the region, nor
would they sign up for U.S. efforts to encircle or contain China. And without the
assistance of allies such as Japan and South Korea, the U nited States would lack the
forward bases necessary to implement a military strategy of containment. The U.S.
economic integration.
access to South Pacific airfields that Reed discusses may provide flexibility in contingencies and marginally enhance
deterrence, but is a wholly insufficient basis for a regional strategy aimed against China.
leaders constantly lie about U.S.-China policy , writes Justin Logan, director
of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute on the China-US Focus website July 23. They consistently
protest when people claim the United States is encircling or containing China.
But, in fact, Washington is encircling and containing China. As apparent as the U.S.
encircling actions are, and as hollow as U.S. denials ring in the ears of Chinas leaders, Logan asks the obvious
question of who Washington is seeking to convince. He answers that the rhetoric is not so much directed at China
as at other countries in the region. If the United States forthrightly explained that it seeks to contain Chinas
military powercountries in the region from which Washington seeks cooperation would have a harder time
providing it. Logans point turns on Washingtons more genuine and demonstrable actionsnaturally promoted by
U.S. business intereststhat have supported Chinas economic development. That the U.S. supports China
economically makes it easier and less risky for countries with important economic ties with China to remain aligned
with the United States. If this picture seems confused, it reflects the conflicts and contradictions of American
policies toward Asia, not least, indeed, perhaps more importantly, in the realm of grand strategy. In an important
new book entitled Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, MIT director of strategic studies Barry R.
Posen explains how U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War, which he labels Liberal Hegemony. Posen
calls for the staged withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe and South Korea (which can easily shoulder is defense
Why?
Because the United States has a strategic interest in preventing a single state [read:
China] from dominating Eurasia. and to do so it must preserve its access to Eurasia. China
presently does, and will certainly continue to, dominate the continental
East Asia (but never before and not now Eurasia), and has done so for most of the past
millennium, to the great benefit and peace of the regions people. It would seem that very existence of a
needs), but hedges on substantially reducing overwhelming U.S. military power in Asia from bases in Japan.
China that is sovereign and not prostrate is a clear and present threat to Obamas Liberal Hegemony and a worry
for Posens Grand Strategy of Restraint.
For example, the popular belief that a rising China will severely threaten U.S. security could become a self-fulfilling
rest of Asia, with the exception of Japan, is already adjusting to a more influential China.28 For White, this
adjustment has much to do with Chinas economic clout and how the latter predisposes most in Asia to give
serious consideration to Chinas political and strategic interests. It follows that for White, this is a decisive constraint
on the options available to the United States: few Asian states will line up to check or contain Chinas growing
influence. A comparison with the Cold War calculations of the Asian states (except for Indochina) reveals why this is
so. Back then, all the relevant considerations ideology, economic opportunity, and military securitymoved
noncommunist Asia in the direction of aligning with the United States .
The rest of
Asia is less worried about China. The strategic orientations of these other countries
have been described as hedginga policy of engaging both the U nited States and
China in the hope of not having to choose between them .29 During the Cold War,
they were content to align themselves explicitly with the U nited States, in part because
of what China was (a communist state) and what it did (supporting local communist insurgencies). All
things considered, then, it will prove extremely difficult today for the U nited States to
corral a serious Asian coalition to check Chinas power. That is why, for White, the
United States, as the existing hegemon, has to share power . To be sure, for now and the
especially Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippinesall of which have serious maritime disputes with it.
foreseeable future, most countries in Asia would not want China to replace the United States as the hegemonthe
ideal would be a situation where neither is the hegemon (i.e., Whites power-sharing solution),
which White
Chinas
inevitable transition to democracy will effectively eliminate the possibility of a U.S.PRC war and smooth the way for a lasting accommodation between the two great
powers. All the forces that might seem to oppose this development will appear in
retrospect to have been weak and, in the grand sweep of history, insignificant.
soothing effects of institutional integration will be sufficient to forestall any prospect of direct conflict.
start of the cold war, containment meant economic isolation of the Soviets and regional alliances like NATO to deter
Moscows military expansion. Later, to the chagrin of George F. Kennan, the father of containment, the doctrine led
administration, we rejected the idea of containment for two reasons. If we treated China as an enemy, we were
guaranteeing a future enemy. If we treated China as a friend, we kept open the possibility of a more peaceful future.
We devised a strategy of integrate but hedge something like Ronald Reagans trust but verify. America
supported Chinas membership in the World Trade Organization and accepted Chinese goods and visitors. But a
1996 declaration reaffirmed that the postwar United States-Japan security treaty was the basis for a stable and
prosperous East Asia. President Clinton also began to improve relations with India to counterbalance Chinas rise.
This strategy has enjoyed bipartisan support. President George W. Bush continued to improve relations with India,
while deepening economic ties with China. His deputy secretary of state, Robert B. Zoellick, made clear that
America would accept the rise of China as a responsible stakeholder. Mr. Obamas rebalancing toward Asia
involves moving naval resources to the Pacific, but also trade, human rights and diplomatic initiatives. As his
national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, said in November, the American-Chinese relationship has elements
of both cooperation and competition. Asia is not a monolith, and its internal balance of power should be the key to
our strategy. Japan, India, Vietnam and other countries do not want to be dominated by China, and thus welcome an
American presence in the region. Unless China is able to attract allies by successfully developing its soft power,
the rise in its hard military and economic power is likely to frighten its neighbors, who will coalesce to balance its
power. A significant American military and economic presence helps to maintain the Asian balance of power and
shape an environment that provides incentives for China to cooperate. After the 2008-9 financial crisis, some
Chinese mistakenly believed that America was in permanent decline and that this presented new opportunities. A
result was that China worsened its relations with Japan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines a misstep
that confirmed that only China can contain China. But
should not be aggressive. We should heed Mr. Kennans warning against overmilitarization and
ensure that China doesnt feel encircled or endangered. The worlds two largest
economies have much to gain from cooperation on fighting climate change, pandemics, cyberterrorism and nuclear
proliferation.
in China's
eyes the American rebalance supports the moti-vation for China to assert
itself. Although U.S. leaders are careful at every juncture to remind China that the
rebalance is not about containment, which should be patently obvious to anyone familiar with the
difficulties of a declining maritime power containing a rising continental one," the Chinese don't buy it.
Cheng Li from the Brookings Institution recently reported being struck that a
number of Chinese analysts perceived that the United States was either
encouraging smaller countries to provoke China or attempting to capital-ize
on regional tensions to justify the rebalance." By contrast, two prominent U.S. foreign policy
that, however incoherent and aggressive China's strategy in the South China Sea might appear,
experts recently suggested in the prominent journal Foreign Affairs that the onus is on China, more than the United
States, to improve relations in maritime East Asia. This betrays a lack of appreciation about stated Chinese
anxieties about the role of Us. forces in the region and their relationship with some of China's neighbors."
China may not expect to push the United States out of Asia, but
surely it hopes to expand its regional clout by reducing U.S. influence. What
concessions to China).
China fails to see or wishes to ignore is that its increasing assertiveness is desta-bilizing the region and remains the
most likely source of military escalation in Asia outside the Korean peninsula. By falling back on its own historical
narrative, growing capability and wealth, and a growing appetite for control over its vast periphery, China is
U.S. national security policy in an even less flattering light, claiming that the United States suffered from erectile
dysfunction."' But while General Zhu seeks to defend Chinese coercion through punchy talking points, he glosses
over China's role In determining the fate of regional peace. As Joseph Nye Is fond of saying. only China can contain
China' because only its disregard for its neighbors can precipitate an arms race" Advancing strategic cooperation
while limiting competition with China is easier said Than done. Chinese leaders talk about a achieving a -new type
of major power relations: but they flinch from cooperation. whether on accepting regional norms on a binding code
of conduct. stanching North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. or desisting from cyber economic theft. to name
Just three areas of importance. Whereas the United States wishes to build an inclusive and open rules-based system
in the Asia-Pacific region. China is mostly focused on preserving internal stability and expand. lag its influence
around its periphery. Far instance. Its active buildup of conventional cruise missiles are aimed at bolstering its antiaccess and area-denial capability. and the People Liberation Army (PLA) navy has begun 'raining to prevent ... the
U.S. from interfering ... In a Taiwan. East China Sea or South China Sea conflict?'
term hedge seems to be much less hawkish or stinging than the term containment. At the same time accommodation has also
been more frequently used. Scholarship on the new development of accommodation in East Asia, such as Robert Rosss examination
of policy in South Korea and Mochizukis discussion of Japanese policy, are testament to its emergence. Manicom and ONeil also
The
process of accommodation is a multiple-level and mutual-influencing
process, starting from small power to middle power (or secondary state)
and moving eventually to influence great-power policy. Small powers in Asia
have taken a leading role in making necessary adjustments to accommodate
the rise of China. Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, and Australia have shifted towards an accommodation policy concerning China. Each nation comes to terms with China in its own manner combining the
show some evidence of it in the Australian context, although the Australian alignment with the US is still strong.
as a product of Cold War thinking.88 Chinese leaders also foresee a revival of Sino-U.S. rivalry that will increase friction and conflict
in the region.89 Cognizant of their countrys growing military power, they also take note of the current U.S. fiscal crisis which casts
doubts on the Obama administrations ability to finance larger forward-deployed forces in the Asia-Pacific region.90
A cocky China needs to watch its step, as does a rancorous America, before
resentments feed on each other in a Wilhelmine spiral. The Chinese have no recent history
of sweeping territorial expansion (except Tibet). The one-child policy has left a dearth of
young men, and implies a chronic aging crisis within a decade. This is not the
demographic profile of a fundamentally bellicose nation. The correct statecraft for
the West is to treat Beijing politely but firmly as a member of global club, gambling that
the Confucian ethic will over time incline China to a quest for global as well as national concord. Until we face
irrefutable evidence that this Confucian bet has failed, 'Boltonism must be crushed.
Appeasement, your
these regimes could dangerously isolate them and even needlessly provoke them
into miscalculations. The elites thought engagement and transparency were
beneficial in their own right, as only good things could come from familiarity with
one another. In the 1930s, the major Western powers all attended each others war games. The US Marine
Corps even took the German World War I fighter ace, Ernst Udet on a ride in a USMC dive bomber. This
engagement and transparency did not make the Nazis nicer, but perhaps gave them some ideas about dive
bombing and Blitzkreig. Even the Soviets and Germans had close ties with joint training, military technology
AT: Greentech/CCS
US and China are both highly motivated to cooperate
partnerships will succeed
CCF 14 (China Carbon Forum, Implications and Challenges of the US-China Joint
Announcement on Climate Change Cooperation, www.chinacarbon.info/wpcontent/uploads/2014/11/Implications-of-the-US-China-Joint-Announcement-onClimate-Change_.pdf
A basis of common interest and cooperation is found for building a new type of
major power relations between China and the US. Relative to other areas in which
they may have more differences, climate change action has emerged as an area in
which China and the US share a greater consensus , have a greater likelihood for
successful collaboration, and have greater incentives in terms of their partnership's
implications for the broader bilateral relationship. The two countries and humanity at
largeare faced with the challenge of climate change as well as the immense task
of economic rebalancing, low-carbon transition, post-crisis recovery, and the search
for new growth points to power future development. Climate change represents an
environmental challenge, but also challenges us to promote sustainable
development, emerge from recession, and work toward a new global
prosperity. The US and China have a bilateral trade volume of over 500 billion dollars, and their combined
emissions account for over 40% of the global total. Without cooperation between these two countries,
there can be little hope for the future of the global environment , for the world
economy, and indeed for the human race.
3)
long as we can] increase mutual understanding, build mutual trust and respect each others
core interests and major concerns, we can always find solutions to our differences, said
Xie. The climate deal negotiator dedicated a large part of his 30-minute briefing lauding how the two countries top leaders had
worked together on the issue. Their cooperation included three joint statements by Xi and Barack Obama since 2014 that laid some
of the foundations to secure a climate change deal in Paris last year. Ensuring that the Paris agreement goes into force as soon as
possible will be a major task for China and the US this year, said Xie. Cooperation
office three years ago he has repeatedly promoted the idea of a new type of major power relations to govern China-US ties based
on cooperation and mutual respect, receiving only a lukewarm response from Washington.