America’s increasingly hardline China policy is probably 80% right on its specific components, given Beijing’s assertiveness of recent years, but it is at risk of going too far in its tone and temperature. While staying focused on the challenges posed by China’s rise, it is crucial that we keep our strategic composure and sense of perspective on the nature of the problem. America is capable of groupthink, as we arguably saw for example in the Vietnam War and in the prelude to the Iraq invasion of 2003. We need to avoid the temptation to unify so strongly around the China threat paradigm that we unwittingly increase the risks of confrontation ourselves. That could happen if Washington inadvertently signaled support for Taiwan’s de jure independence and a willingness to fight China on its behalf upon such a declaration. It could also happen if the United States overreacted to a relatively minor and non-lethal incident in the South China Sea or East China Sea, or if the two countries demonized each other to the point that communications between them were largely cut off even when badly needed during a future crisis.
Whether it is China’s record on the use of force, its stated and revealed aspirations for expanded global influence in the future, or its ongoing military buildups, Beijing poses real challenges to American strategic interests. But the situation, while potentially dangerous, is not dire. It is not comparable to Adolf Hitler’s rise in the 1930s, or Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong’s ambitions of the 1940s and 1950s — and despite the injudicious use of this term by seasoned foreign policy experts in a recent influential article, China does not together with Russia and Iran constitute a “new axis of evil.” For example, while growing fast, China’s military budget totals one-third of America’s (roughly speaking) and only about half as high a fraction of the nation’s gross domestic product, and China has not fought a war since 1979. Vigilance is needed; resoluteness is required; pushback is essential. But so is calm, and a sense of proportionality.
GETTING CHINA RIGHT
The United States is doing a generally good job in standing up to a rising China. Strong bipartisan consensus for an $858-billion U.S. national defense budget in 2023, exceeding peak levels of Cold War resources in inflation-adjusted terms, bodes well. So do recent bipartisan decisions to strengthen America’s technological and industrial foundations in key sectors here at home through the CHIPS and Science Act, so-called Inflation Reduction Act, and Infrastructure Investment Act, as well as a generally more supportive approach to education in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in recent times. The United States and its allies are rightly using tools like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to limit China’s ability to acquire, and exploit, this and allied nations’ high-tech jewels. American and allied militaries continue to conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the Western Pacific region even where China wrongly claims they should not; the United States rightly seeks to improve Taiwan’s military capacities against possible Chinese attack, even if the pace of that effort often lags.
Source : Brookings
