These days it is fashionable for pundits to point out the supposedly disastrous consequences for the United States that will result from China’s efforts to modernize its military. The latest variant of this argument was presented by Aaron Friedberg in The New York Times on September 4 and in his new book, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia.
The basic facts about China’s military buildup have been well known for years and are hardly disputed: Beijing is gradually acquiring the capability to interdict and possibly destroy U.S. ships and bases operating near China’s coastline, primarily using missiles, submarines, cyber warfare and ground-based satellite blinders.
It’s also true that this development puts at risk Washington’s position as the predominant maritime power in that critical region. That is a legitimate issue that requires far more serious consideration than it has thus far received from most U.S. policy makers.
The question is: what does China intend to do with its growing capabilities and how should Washington respond? Self-proclaimed realists such as Friedberg offer a relatively simple solution: The White House must recognize China’s buildup as an intended effort to eject the United States from Asia, convince the American public (and its allies) of the dire threat to hearth and home that it presents and, with public support in hand, plow untold additional defense dollars into maintaining an unambiguously superior military posture in the Western Pacific. Only then will Beijing give up its determined plans for regional dominance.
In reality, there is little if any hard evidence to indicate that China’s strategic intent is to establish itself, in Friedberg’s words, as “Asia’s dominant power by eroding the credibility of America’s security guarantees, hollowing out its alliances, and eventually easing it out of the region.” If this is Beijing’s goal, the Pentagon has yet to discover it—and presumably not for lack of trying. The recently published annual Department of Defense report on the Chinese military asserts that Beijing’s ultimate military intentions in Asia and elsewhere are unknown. And privately, DoD analysts will acknowledge that the PLA is not currently acquiring the kinds of capabilities that would be required to project substantial power far from its shores and eject the United States from Asia.
When confronted with such information, proponents of the “China is out to displace us” theory counter that Beijing’s strategy is so stealthy as to avoid detection, and that in any event, it is the so-called realist “logic” of China’s situation that demands such a strategy. According to this logic, Beijing has no choice but to seek to eject the United States from Asia to ensure its own security. So much for free will and the growing imperative both countries face to work together to solve worsening global problems, such as climate change.
China’s strategic mindset is quintessentially defensive, largely reactive, and focused first and foremost on deterring Taiwan’s independence and defending the Chinese mainland, not on establishing itself as Asia’s next hegemon. Although it is not inconceivable that China might adopt more ambitious, far-flung military objectives in the future—perhaps including an attempt to become the preeminent Asian military power—such goals remain ill-defined, undetermined and subject to much debate in Beijing. This suggests that China’s future strategic orientation is susceptible to outside influence, not fixed in stone.
Moreover, the United States is entering a possibly lengthy period in which resolving China’s military buildup by throwing more money at it is likely to become increasingly untenable, given America’s deepening budget constraints and the obvious inability of a dysfunctional Congress to address the causes of our underlying economic malaise. Instead, both countries need to engage in a fundamental examination of their bilateral relationship.
Washington must consider alternatives to U.S. military predominance in maritime Asia as the supposed sine qua non of regional stability, while Beijing must reconsider any plans it might have to achieve sea control in the Western Pacific. Second, both sides must reexamine the long-term advisability of policies that obstruct efforts to reduce mutual strategic distrust, including Washington’s refusal to discuss any possible quid pro quos involving U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and China’s military threat to the island and Beijing’s refusal to define clearly the basis of its territorial claim to the South China Sea.
Instead of more tough talk and increased defense spending, the United States and its allies in Asia need to grasp the malleable nature of China’s strategic intentions and shape a “mixed” regional approach focused more on creating incentives to cooperate than on neutralizing every possible Chinese military capability of concern to U.S. defense analysts. In particular, there is a need for a more far-reaching U.S.-China strategic dialogue that focuses on long-term interests and intentions and on what steps each country could take to avert growing security competition.
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China’s strategic mindset is quintessentially defensive, largely reactive, and focused first and foremost on deterring Taiwan’s independence and defending the Chinese mainland, not on establishing itself as Asia’s next hegemon.You might have been able to sell this line even fifteen years ago. But reality has outrun it. Consider China's territorial claims. The previous wave of Chinese expansion brought it Tibet, East Turkestan, and Manchuria. The next one is aimed at the Senkakus (first claimed in the late 1960s), Taiwan (first claimed in the late 1930s), and eventually, Okinawa (upcoming claim) in the north, and the South China Sea on the south. On the Himal, there's Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims because its denizens are ethnic Tibetans. The military exists to underwrite this expansion, not merely to deter Taiwan independence and it is definitely not defensive (ask the Tibetans and the Uighurs about China's "defensive" miltiary). The evidence of China's intentions are all over, if only you will see it. For Arunachal Pradesh, China has been ramping up military infrastructure and troop positioning in the Himal for the last few years. That is not a defensive move; India does not threaten China. That move is aimed at annexing an entire Indian state, whose residents China routinely plays visa games with, and for which it has attempted to block loans from international financial institutions on the grounds that it is Chinese territory. Oppressing Taiwan is not a defensive move; Taiwan does not threaten China. China's desire to annex Taiwan is pre-eminently an act of expansion, since no ethnic Chinese emperor ever owned the island. What could be more "offensive" than pointing 1500 missiles at someone and announcing that you will kill and maim among their population unless they annex themselves to your nation? There's absolutely NOTHING defensive about that! The Senkakus are even more absurdly offensive. Japan seized them in 1895; they had never been part of any ethnic Chinese emperor's domain. For the next 70 years both Chinese governments recognized them uncontroversially as Japanese territory -- maps and texts proclaiming this are abundant. In 1968 Japan scientists announced the possibility of oil underneath them. Instantly, in fine Eastasia-has-always-been-at-war-with-Oceania style, both Taipei and Beijing announced that they had always been Chinese territory. It is hard to imagine anything more expansionist than suddenly deciding your neighbor's territory is yours after decades of saying it was his. The standard Chinese tactic in making such claims is to reconfigure them as "recovering territory" instead of annexing it. Since we exoticize China and treat it with double standards, nobody laughs when China does this -- imagine if Ankara was claiming Bulgaria, Jordan, and Egypt on the grounds that they had all been Ottoman. Everyone would laugh -- but that is exactly what China is doing. Moreover, in Chinese minds the Senkakus and Taiwan are intermingled with the claim to Okinawa, which many right-wingers are convinced is "stolen territory" -- though Beijing seldom permits that claim to surface publicly. I've heard it myself many times out here in Taiwan from mainlander right-wingers. You can be sure that once China gets its hands on Taiwan, the next act will be Okinawa. The issue is more than just who the hegemon will be or what possibilities for cooperation there are. In the north China's claims are to Japanese territory, a nation which the US has a mutual defense treaty with. If China presses on Japan the US will be pulled into the war. Even if China only attacks Taiwan, it is certain that Japanese air and sea space will be violated and possible that Okinawa and Japanese listening posts on Yonaguni and other nearby islands will be attacked. That will bring in the US even if it doesn't want to intervene in an operation to annex Taiwan. Similarly, in the South China Sea, China claims islands owned by the Philippines, a nation we have a mutual defense treaty with. The Philippines has no Navy to speak of. I'm sure China must feel very threatened by Manila's weakness. No doubt that is why they are engaging in their "defensive" military build up. Poor put-upon Beijing! It goes without saying that none of the South China Sea claims are "defensive." They date, like the claim to Taiwan, from the late 1930s and are inherently offensive and expansionist, not to mention new in history. As scholar Emma Teng wrote in Taiwan's imagined geography: "The deeply ingrained notion that the seas defined the natural limits of the Chinese realm underlay the reluctance to annex Taiwan. As the Kangxi emperor's advisors argued, 'Since antiquity, no oceanic islands have ever entered the imperial domain.'" Fundamentally, the position you've taken is one of apologetics for Beijing. I cannot express how completely disgusting it is for a commentator from a western democracy to apologize for a nation that routinely murders its own citizens, suppresses the growth of democracy at home, and threatens all the nations around it with fire and blood if they don't hand over their territory. The real issue is not "how can the US and China cooperate on major issues". That ship has sailed. It is "what is the US prepared to do about this growing threat to regional peace and stability?" Michael Turton The View from Taiwan
Your comment display system is completely screwed up.
You're only deluding yourself.Read following short piece from Global Times (a CCP organ) and wake up.
Abstract: The potential for war in South China Sea is rising. Time is not on China's side. China should be a leader in regional cooperation and development in order to better compete against Western oil companies. At the same time, we should not hesitate to militarily deter those who violate our territorial sovereignty. Don't worry about small scale wars, that's the best way to avoid large wars.
Washington Times has a summary of the article, allister: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/28/china-demands-war/ I think it is pretty clear where we're headed in Asia. Michael Turton