In a major speech last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all but declared China to be an enemy of the United States. America, he said, needed a new strategy for dealing with China that protects “our way of life” and that the “free world must triumph over this new tyranny.” A sober analysis, however, confirms that we are not under any such threat, and in fact remain in a dominant position–so long as we enact logical and responsible policies.
As I've argued in a recently released report for Defense Priorities, "Responsibly competing with China," Sino-American relations may demand competition, but conflict can—and should—be avoided.
That’s not to suggest China is benign or impotent. They have undergone a multi-decade economic and military modernization that has seen them rise to become the world’s second largest economy and a potent regional military power. No one should be surprised they are using that increased leverage to pursue their interests more assertively in Asia and beyond.
China has also taken increasingly controversial and in some cases provocative actions that have justly raised some alarm. Over the past few years they have militarized artificial islands in South China Sea, have imposed a restrictive new National Security Law in Hong Kong, and continue threatening force to reunify with Taiwan. Many analysts argue that these developments translate into global military threats that must be countered–and to them, that means tempering China by the threat of American military power.
But while China’s economic and diplomatic evolution has a global reach, its military development has been of a decidedly local and regional nature. China’s armed forces are primarily focused on two related objectives: 1) building the capacity to make good on their long-standing threat to reunify Taiwan by force, and 2) on deterring the U.S. from intervening militarily on behalf of Taiwan.
They are building assault ships, beach landing craft, and missile forces to make an invasion of Taiwan possible, and have engaged in constructing considerable anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD) defensive belts to prevent American attacks against the Chinese homeland. What they haven’t done up to this point, however, is create the physical ability to project sufficient power abroad for territorial conquest. This makes sense, because unlike the United States that is blessed by being bordering two vast oceans and two friendly countries, China is in a far more vulnerable position.
China shares a land border with 14 countries and littoral seas with several more. These include nuclear powers such as Russia, India, North Korea, and Pakistan, and potent regional powers like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Beijing is far more concerned with regional security than in launching into territorial conquest elsewhere.
Conquest and occupation are difficult and expensive, even in relatively weak states, as the U.S. learned to its harm in Iraq and continues to suffer in Afghanistan. The Chinese Communist Party leadership more than has its hands full trying to maintain local and regional security and remains far more interested in developing its economy than in any consideration of threatening to attack other countries around the world, much less the United States.
American policymakers should predicate all their economic and military objectives on the basis of doing what maximizes our strengths, takes advantage of our adversaries’ weaknesses, and ensures American prosperity and security at a prudent cost. Especially regarding China, that means recognizing our interests sometimes align, sometimes diverge, and sometimes don’t intersect—U.S. policy should reflect that reality. The U.S. should find ways to compete where necessary while preserving the ability to cooperate in areas of mutual concern.
What doesn’t help achieve our objectives, however, is taking the unnecessarily confrontational approach laid out last month by Pompeo. Taken with increasing U.S. Navy patrols in contested waters near China, sanctioning Chinese leaders, and issuing public demands to a nuclear power about how they must behave, we can expect more obstinate and retaliatory behavior from China, not less confrontational and benign.
The U.S. should be pressing China on the diplomatic and economic fronts to redress intellectual property rights issues, rely on our existing powerful military deterrent, and encourage our regional partners to bolster their own defenses via the same anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) strategies adopted by China.
Continued U.S. preeminence in world affairs depends on wise policy and the conservation of U.S. power, rather than expending it in an excessive and ultimately counterproductive competition with China. By needlessly confronting China everywhere, the U.S. will exhaust itself—diverting enormous sums attempting to contain Beijing in its own backyard and increase the risk of direct conflict with a nuclear-armed state.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. He is the author of Responsibly competing with China, a new report on U.S.-China relations. Follow him @DanielLDavis1. The views expressed are the author's own.
