A new report examines how to handle China
The U.S. faces a series of tough choices with respect to handling a rising China. For decades, American strategy has been predicated on the belief that no one power (besides itself) can be in a position to dominate a strategic region of the world. This principle is challenged by China, which has enjoyed booming economic growth and is slowly but steadily building a military that can defend a range of interests further from its territory. China's continued economic growth is not inevitable, but if it does continue to clip along at a healthy pace, it will be harder and harder for a strapped U.S. to sustain its dominance in Asia - especially if it is expected to maintain supremacy elsewhere in the world.
So what to do? One suggestion comes in the form of a new report from the American Enterprise Institute titled Security in the Indo-Pacific Commons. In it, author Michael Auslin argues for boosting America's forward deployment of military forces, followed by an effort to improve cooperation with China's neighbors.
It's a long report and well worth a read, and a blog isn't the best forum to grapple with it in its entirety, but I would like to raise a few questions: if we find China's military modernization troublesome and the impetus to enhance American forces in the region along with creating 'concentric triangles' of allies around the country, why wouldn't China view America's triangular, militarized containment as equally troubling, and equally worthy of response? Why would an aspiring great power trust a putative rival to keep open the 'commons' it traverses for its own trade, particularly when that rival embarks on a strategy to sustain overt dominance of said commons? The U.S. would not be similarly trusting.
I think we can all agree on the need to sustain a favorable balance of power in Asia. The question centers on how to best manage that. To that end there's less focus in the report on China's strategic aims and interests, outside of noting China's desire to build a military capable of offsetting America's strengths. It's important to monitor China's military, but isn't it equally important to understand what China's perceived interests are and whether or not the U.S. can live in a world where China takes on a greater role 'policing the commons'?
It may be impossible to strike an adequate balance between America's legitimate interest in sustaining an open Indo-Pacific region and China's legitimate interest not to be militarily hemmed in and reliant on an outside power to protect its own vital sea lanes, but it seems incumbent upon us to try and find one.