Justin Logan：China，America, and the Pivot to Asia

7/29/2019 Justin Logan China America, and the Pivot to Asia

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Executive Summary

Despite the United States focus on the Mid-dle East and the Islamic world for the past de-cade, the most important international politi-cal developments in the coming years are likelyto happen in Asia. The Obama administrationhas promoted a pivot to Asia, away from theMiddle East and toward the Asia-Pacific.

The main factor driving Washingtons inter-est in the region is the growing economic and

military power of the Peoples Republic of Chi-na. Accordingly, this analysis focuses heavily onthe implications of Chinas growing power andinfluence.

This paper has three sections. First, it sketch-es the two main schools of thought aboutChinas rise and examines the way in whichWashingtons China policy combines elementsof those two theories. The second section cri-tiques both theories of Chinas rise and arguesthat U.S. policy combines them in a way thatputs a dangerous contradiction at the heart ofAmericas China policy. The final section rec-

ommends offloading responsibility for hedgingagainst potential Chinese aggression to like-minded countries in the region and shows thatthose countries are capable of doing so.

China, America, and the Pivot to Asiaby Justin Logan

No. 717 January 8, 2013

Justin Logan is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute


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Getting Sino-American

relations rightis the most

importantchallenge for

U.S. foreignpolicymakers.

Introduction

The U.S.-China relationship is the mostimportant relationship in international pol-itics. Looking into the 21st century, it seems

possible that America could be eclipsed ineconomicand possibly militaryterms byChina. According to The Economistmagazine,China is likely to overtake the United Statesin GDP at market exchange rates in 2018.To give a sense of Chinas staggering relativegrowth, its GDP was one eighth Americas in2000 at market exchange rates, and by 2010it was one half.1

This growth is particularly relevant con-sidering that Washington participated in anenormously costly and dangerous Cold War

with the Soviet Union, which at the heightof its relative power possessed roughly 44percent of U.S. GDP.2 That conflict helpedcomplete the transformation of the UnitedStates from a federalist republic into a cen-tralized, Bismarckian nation-state.3 Giventhe potential impact of U.S.-China competi-tion on U.S. security and American domes-tic politics, getting Sino-American relationsright is the most important challenge forU.S. foreign policymakers.

In addition to China, India is undergoing

rapid economic development, possesses a fa-vorable demographic profile, and is likely toplay an increasingly prominent role in regionaland global politics. Japan, despite demograph-ic and fiscal problems, remains an importantworld power. A number of Southeast Asiancountries are growing rapidly. In short, noother region on earth is likely to see its share ofglobal power grow as much as the Asia-Pacificregion in the decades ahead. To the extent thatthe concentration of power in the internation-al system shifts toward East Asia, American

strategists should focus on that region.Since the terrorist attacks on Septem-

ber 11, 2001, the Beltway foreign policyestablishment has been focused primarilyon the Islamic world and terrorism. Before9/11, though, important parts of the es-tablishment were looking at competitionwith China as the big potential problem.

Vice President Dick Cheney had read JohnMearsheimers pessimistic view of the futureof U.S.-China relations, disliking only thepassages he deemed softheaded: the partswhere Mearsheimer hoped security compe-

tition between the two countries could bemoderated.4

At the beginning of the George W. Bushadministration, it looked like the two stateswere headed for rough waters. In April 2001a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinesefighter near Chinese territory, and the American pilot and crew were held by the Chineseuntil American diplomats negotiated theirrelease. But the incident stirred nationalismin both countries. In Washington, RobertKagan and William Kristol complained that

the exact circumstances under which thetwo planes had collided didnt matter. In-stead, they howled that Bush the Youngerhad brought on the nation a profound na-tional humiliation by expressing regret forthe death of the Chinese pilot and reiteratedtheir prior calls for a policy of active con-tainment of China.5 But after the terroristattacks in September 2001, the Bush admin-istration turned its attention to the MiddleEast.

Slowly, Washington policy elites have

come back around to the position that themost consequential international-politicalchanges are taking place in Asia. On an Oc-tober 2011 trip to Asia, Defense SecretaryLeon Panetta remarked that Washingtonwas at a turning point away from the Mid-dle East and toward the Asia-Pacific and thatthis shift will entail a strategic rebalanc-ing.6 Similarly, a recent article by Secretaryof State Hillary Clinton remarked that thefuture of geopolitics will be decided in Asianot in Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United

States should be right at the center of the ac-tion.7 Assistant Secretary of State for EastAsia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell says thatone of the most important challenges forU.S. foreign policy is to effect a transitionfrom the immediate and vexing challengesof the Middle East to the long-term anddeeply consequential issues in Asia.8


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For liberalinstitutionalistsit is hard tounderstandwhy Chinawould have anyproblems withthe status quo.

The most important of those long-term,deeply consequential issues in Asia is theU.S.-China relationship. China lies at thecenter of U.S. strategy in Asia. This paperdoes not provide a net assessment of the

current military balance between the UnitedStates and China, much less a projection ofthe future military balance. Similarly, it isnot a recap of the past few decades or evenyears of U.S.-China diplomacy. Rather, itevaluates American strategy toward China,showing that the strategy rests on a contra-diction that threatens to push Washingtonand Beijing toward security competition onterms increasingly favorable to China.

A Panda or a Dragon? TwoTheories of Chinas Rise

There are two main ways of thinkingabout the future of U.S.-China relations, anda basic policy orientation follows from eachschool of thought. One view, mostly pessi-mistic, is influenced by the realist school ofinternational relations, whose adherents aresometimes referred to as dragon slayers.The other view, mostly optimistic, is influ-enced by the liberal school of international

relations, whose advocates are known col-loquially as panda huggers.9 The generalsplit between the two groups is over whetherChinas growing military power necessarilythreatens American security interests. Giventhe obvious importance of answering thatquestion correctly, the theories that informanalysts and policymakers views on thetopic deserve scrutiny.10

The Comprehensively Positive-SumWorld of the Panda Huggers

Two logics underpin the theory of theoptimists, both borrowed from the liberalschool of international relations.11 First isliberal institutionalist logic, which holdsthat Chinas political and military behaviorcan be constrained in a web of internationalinstitutions. These would allow it to riseinto the existing international orderwhich

was shaped by the institutions created un-der American leadership after World WarIIand prevent China from transformingthe rules that govern the order.12

For liberal institutionalists, it is hard

to understand why China would have anyproblems with the status quo. They won-der why, given that China has made hugestrides forward in terms of prosperity andeven influence under the existing order, itwould bother to try changing it.13 Liberalinstitutionalists see international politics astightly constrained by international institu-tions and laws, and argue, as Princetons G.John Ikenberry does, that while the UnitedStates cannot thwart Chinas rise,

it can help ensure that Chinas poweris exercised within the rules and insti-tutions that the United States and itspartners have crafted over the last cen-tury, rules and institutions that canprotect the interests of all states in themore crowded world of the future.14

Optimists argue that China can be con-strained because the expansive and cross-cutting network of international institu-tions promotes positive-sum outcomes

and renders the American-dominated or-der hard to overturn and easy to join.15 IfWashington plays its cards correctly, Iken-berry writes, it can make the liberal order soexpansive and institutionalized that Chinawill have no choice but to join and operatewithin it.16

The second liberal logic holds that statesinternational behavior is induced by the do-mestic political structures within them.17In this view, to the extent that China hasforeign policy objectives that conflict with

American interests, these exist because ofChinas undemocratic domestic politics.Accordingly, the argument goes, if Chinademocratized, China could continue to risewhile resigning itself to U.S. preponderance.

Advocates of this view place less emphasison international institutions. For them, thequestion is whether Chinas domestic politi-


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Pessimistssee security

competitionand zero-sum

conflict betweenWashington and

China as morelikely.

cal system can be transformed from one-partyrule toward democracy. If it can, there is lessreason to fear that Chinas international am-bitions will grow dangerously expansive. Thistheory is popular in Washington, where policy

is based in part on the belief that continuedeconomic growth will help transform Chinaspolitical system in a democratic direction.

If all goes according to plan, economicgrowth in China will produce a growing mid-dle class, which should then demand greaterpolitical rights. These demands are expectedto generate more democratic politics.18 Then,these increasingly democratic politics are sup-posed to plug into a crude version of demo-cratic peace theory,19 in which the domesticinstitutions of democratic countries prevent

them from going to war (or presumably, inthis case, even engaging in serious securitycompetition) with other democracies.

What both schools of liberalism agreeon is that there is no iron law that growingChinese power will create a zero-sum secu-rity tradeoff between China and the UnitedStates and its allies. This represents the cen-tral disagreement between the optimists andpessimists.

The Tragic, Zero-Sum World of the

Dragon SlayersThe pessimists theory is informed by the

realist school of international relations, whichargues that countries tend to push the inter-national system toward a balance of power,regardless of their domestic politics or interna-tional institutions. This pushing can be doneby internal balancing, meaning the transla-tion of a nations own wealth and populationinto military power, or via external balanc-ing, meaning the creation of alliances thatpool military power against the most powerful

state in the system.20

Pessimists see security competition andzero-sum conflict between Washington andChina as more likely. They tend to answerthe question whether Chinas rise inherentlythreatens U.S. security with an emphaticyes. They reject liberals belief that a moreeconomically or politically liberal China

would lessen the chances of dangerous secu-rity competition with the United States.

John Mearsheimer, the most prominentand most eloquent of the pessimists, is worthquoting at length. According to Mearsheimer

were Chinas economic growth to continue,

for sound strategic reasons, [China]would surely pursue regional hegemo-ny, just as the United States did in theWestern Hemisphere during the nine-teenth century. So we would expectChina to attempt to dominate Japanand Korea, as well as other region-al actors, by building military forcesthat are so powerful that those otherstates would not dare challenge it. We

would also expect China to develop itsown version of the Monroe Doctrine,directed at the United States.

A wealthy China would not be a statusquo power but an aggressive state deter-mined to achieve regional hegemony.This is not because a rich China wouldhave wicked motives, but because thebest way for any state to maximizeits prospects for survival is to be thehegemon in its region of the world.

Although it is certainly in Chinas inter-est to be the hegemon in NortheastAsia, it is clearly not in Americas inter-est to have that happen.21

Mearsheimer writes that Chinas appetitefor increased control over its security envi-ronment and Washingtons desire to denyit the same makes it likely that the futurewill bring intense security competitionbetween China and the United States, withconsiderable potential for war.22 For this

reason, Mearsheimer suggests Washingtonshouldand willend the policy of eco-nomic engagement and begin working toslow Chinas economic growth.23

U.S. Foreign Policy in AsiaThis paper has presented the two main

schools of thought about China in stark


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Congagement,for all intentsand purposes,has been

Americas Chinapolicy since atleast the end ofthe Cold War.

terms in order to clarify the debate. MostChina analysts in Washington have morecomplicated takes on the rise of China andwhat it means for the United States, andWashingtons policy in Asia lacks the el-

egance and coherence of the academic theo-ries described above. Instead, the right andleft halves of the foreign policy establish-ment agree that U.S. policy toward Chinashould combine elements of both theories.

Drawing on liberal thinking, few po-litical elites in Washington support endingthe policy of economic engagement. Whilemany Democratic leaders support sanction-ing China for currency manipulation, level-ing antidumping charges against its tradepolicies, or doing unspecified things to

level the U.S.-China balance of trade, thereare precious few voices in the foreign policyestablishment calling for reversing the long-standing policy of economic engagementwith China.24 Beltway foreign policy elitestend to argue that making China richer willmake it more amenable to U.S. foreign pol-icy goalsor at least will not make it less so.

Moving to the element of U.S. China pol-icy drawn from realism, U.S. policymakerstend to doubt that the mechanism by whichtrade produces comity is foolproof. Accord-

ingly, they suggest that the United Stateshedge against the prospect that China mayeither grow very powerful without transi-tioning to democracy or the prospect thatChina may grow very powerful and demo-cratic but fail to resign itself to Americanmilitary predominance in Asia. The Wash-ington foreign policy community supportsa policy of congagementthat is, militarycontainment combined with economic en-gagement.25 Congagement, for all intentsand purposes, has been Americas China

policy since at least the end of the Cold War.While there are critics of congagement in

the foreign policy establishment, they rarelyoffer clear alternatives. For example, Princ-etons Aaron Friedberg, who ran the Asiapolicy shop in the office of Vice PresidentCheney, denounces the logic of congage-ment but fails to propose an alternative.

What Friedberg suggests as an alternativewhat he terms better balancingis in factlittle more than different marketing of con-gagement. To be sure, Friedberg offers vaguesuggestions for encourag[ing] political re-

form in China, fund[ing] the research ofserious analysts who take a range of under-represented (and often unpopular) alterna-tive views of China, and an admonitionthat Americans should consume less andsave more in an effort to close the trade def-icit. But Friedberg does not advocate endingeither economic engagement or the effortsat military containment.26

Friedbergs work argues that both realistbalance of power concerns and Chinas illib-eral politics will cause security competition

between Beijing and Washington. Of course,if both logics are correct, even a more liberalChina would constitute a strategic challengeto Washington, making democratizationmostly beside the point. Curiously, however,Friedberg writes that Washington could andshould allow a democratic China to becomethe dominant military power in East Asia.27

The other component of Washingtons bi-partisan China policy is reassuring Americasalliesthe states on the other side of the spokesin Washingtons hub and spokes system of

alliances in the regionabout Washingtonscommitment to provide their security. Insteadof forcing states like Japan, South Korea, Viet-nam, and India to carry the bulk of the burdenof balancing against China while adopting await-and-see approach toward Chinas rise,the Beltway establishment favors reassuringthese allies that Washingtons commitment isunshakeable. In a recent address to Australianparliament, President Obama referred respec-tively to an unbreakable alliance with Aus-tralia, a commitment to the security of the

Republic of Korea that will never waver, anda larger and long-term role in the region forthe United States, which he described as a Pa-cific power, and we are here to stay.28 Duringthe recent skirmish between the Philippinesand China over Scarborough Shoal, SecretaryClinton reiterated the U.S. commitment to de-fend the Philippines, which the foreign secre-


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The Beltwayforeign policyestablishmentfavors a China

policy withthree major

components:economic

engagement,

militarycontainment, and

preventing U.S.allies from taking

more controlover their defense

policies.

tary of the Philippines swiftly interpreted as acommitment to defend the disputed waters inquestion.29

Beyond the treaties with Australia, SouthKorea, and the Philippines, Washington

has formal treaty commitments to Japan,Thailand, and New Zealand, and a murkyand ambiguous commitment to Taiwan.30By posing itself as the hub of this hub-and-spokes system of bilateral alliances through-out Asia, Washington has taken the burdenof containing China onto its own shouldersand ignored the prospect that countries inthe region would do more if Washington didless. Georgetowns Victor Cha, who workedon Asia in the National Security Council ofGeorge W. Bush, points out that the hub-

and-spokes system of alliances in Asia wasdesigned on the basis of what he calls a pow-erplay rationale, in which the United Statescreated a number of asymmetric, bilateral al-liances in order, in each case, to exert maxi-mum control over [its] smaller allys actions.Further, Cha writes, Washington sought toamplify U.S. control and minimize any collu-sion among its alliance partners.31

To summarize, the majority of the Belt-way foreign policy establishment favors aChina policy with three major components:

economic engagement; military contain-ment; and using U.S. deployments, diplo-matic reassurance about American securityguarantees, and Washingtons own militaryspending to prevent U.S. allies from takingmore control over their defense policies.

The Problems with theTwo Views (and with How

U.S. Policy Combines Them)

This section critiques each school ofthought about China as well as U.S. policy to-ward the country. Optimists tend to assumeaway the sorts of zero-sum tradeoffs inherentin military questions. Pessimists lack a storydescribing how, exactly, Washington couldsmother Beijing economically.

U.S. foreign policy in Asia is plagued bythree problems: First, Washingtons policycenters on a contradiction: making Chinamore powerful while seeking to make it actas though it is weak. The containment and

engagement aspects of the policy counter-vail one another. Second, the policy of reas-suring our allies forces the United States tocarry a disproportionate share of the growingburden of containing China. Finally, althoughWashington agrees with the pessimists thatChinas growing military power is a problem,no one has specified precisely how even avery militarily powerful China would directlythreaten U.S. national security.

Whats Wrong with the Optimists

Optimists place too much faith in inter-national institutions, too much faith in theidea that economic growth in China willnecessarily lead to democratization thereand too much faith in the idea that a demo-cratic China necessarily would be at peacewith American military domination of Asia.

As a general proposition, optimists tendto elide the zero-sum tradeoffs inherent tomilitary issues, ignoring for the most part thequestion of U.S. military policy in Asia. Thisleaves one of the most important questions

about the future of American foreign policyin Asia outside their analysis. As ColumbiasRichard Betts writes in a stinging critique,

John Ikenberry . . . says nothing aboutwhat U.S. military policy should bein [East Asia], dismisses the wholedimension of analysis with the fac-ile assumption that mutual nucleardeterrence precludes major war, andasserts with breathtaking confidencethat war-driven change has been

abolished as a historical process.32

Powerful states tend not to rely on otherstates or international institutions to pro-vide security for them. Even states with be-nign motives today may pose threats tomor-row, and international institutions matteronly in so far as they can enforce the rules


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Should Chinacontinue to growmore powerful,internationalinstitutions are

likely to have asimilar effect onBeijing as theyhave had onWashington: nomuch.

they write. The United States regularly defiesinternational institutions when it believesthey do not serve U.S. interests, whether thetopic is attacking Kosovo or Iraq, avoidingactions to try to prevent climate change, re-

solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, or anynumber of other issues. Should China con-tinue to grow more powerful, internationalinstitutions are likely to have a similar effecton Beijing as they have had on Washington:not much. States prefer to rely on their owncapabilities and to exert control over theirsecurity environment. Also, as their powergrows, states tend to expand their definitionof their interests and use their power to pur-sue them.

American policymakers ignore or down-

play these realities, implying instead that Chi-na is a free rider on U.S. promotion of global-ization and international trade. Secretary ofState Clinton almost made it sound as thoughthe Chinese should send Washington a thankyou note: Like so many other countries beforeit, China has prospered as part of the openand rules-based system that the United Stateshelped to build and works to sustain.33 Butjust as the United States today chooses to sus-tain the open and rules-based system, so toocan it exclude China from that system or vio-

late its own rules if it so chooses. What Ameri-can analysts see as Chinese free riding, manyChinese view as dangerous vulnerability to thewhims of U.S. policymakers. Recent monthshave indicated that growing Chinese powerhas generated hardening Chinese territorialdemands, and a greater desire to pursue them.

During that time, China has reiterated itsclaims to nearly all of the South China Sea, inat least partial contravention of both the sta-tus quo and maritime law. It has establisheda new military garrison on Yongxing, one of

the islands there, it has engaged in a navalstandoff with the Philippines at ScarboroughShoal, and Chinas efforts to fend off criticismprecluded even a joint statement at the Asso-ciation of Southeast Asian Nations RegionalForum, the first time in the organizations his-tory it has failed to do so.34

The security problems China faces in-

clude the safety of its shipping lanes, usedboth for Chinas imports, including energysupplies, and its exports, which fuel muchof its economic growth. Currently, Chinassea lanes are subject to interdiction by the

United States. The Chinese governmenthas continually expressed anxiety aboutthe vulnerability of Chinas seaborne com-merce and its seaborne supplies of energyin particular. Chinas reliance on seaborneoil is growing, and there appears to be littleChina can do about that fact. Roughly 40percent of Chinas oil comes by sea, andChina at present does not control the routesthrough which that oil passes.35 This is therationale accepted by most China analysts inexplaining Chinas naval buildup: it wishes

to gain greater control over its sea lines ofcommunication in order to help secure thetransit of its commerce, including energysupplies.36 But the optimists have a hardtime explaining why China and the UnitedStates are pushing and shoving over controlof Chinas near seas and offer little policyadvice on this issue.

The lesson of Japans experience under theU.S.-led oil embargo of 1941 has not been loston the Chinese, who do not wish to leave thesecurity of their energy supplies at the whim of

a foreign power. Even beyond energy, the val-ue of Chinas imports and exports constitutemore than half its GDP, and the vast majorityof those enter and leave the country by sea.37Americans may think it farfetched that Chi-nese are anxious about being at the mercy of apotential American blockade, but they wouldnot think it so farfetched if the situation werereversed. Indeed, even Washington, despite itsuncontested naval dominance, has continual-ly expressed anxiety about its own energy secu-rity.38 Ensuring access to energy supplies has

been an obsession of the worlds major powersfor decades.

Recently, a debate has begun amongChina watchers in the United States aboutwhether Chinas military modernizationprogram is fueled by plausible military objec-tives or rather by naval nationalismthatis, the desire to wield a powerful navy for do-


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Pessimists failto discuss how

the United Statescould go about

smotheringChinas economic

growth.

mestic and international prestige.39 RobertRoss argues that as a continental power Chi-na should be focused on its ground forces,and its effort to develop a blue-water navyis a strategically irrational product of na-

tionalism. In this debate, though, even thosearguing that nationalism is fueling Beijingsnaval modernization program seem only toapply the prestige argument to a prospectivepower-projection navy centered on an aircraftcarrier, not to other naval advances.40

But given the substantial top line growthin Chinese military outlays, China can af-ford substantial naval modernization with-out leaving dangerous vulnerabilities by land.Also, if China wishes to prepare itself for ablue-water navy even decades down the road,

it must start somewhere. Chinas enormousreliance on the global economyand its ex-pectations that that reliance will continuehave likely played the most important role inpushing China out to sea.41

Liberals also hope that economic growthwill produce a more politically liberal China,which would make its peace with U.S. navaldominance in East Asia. But many countriesundergoing rapid political liberalization be-come virulently nationalistic during that tran-sition, and become increasingly war prone as

a consequence.42 There is considerable evi-dence that nationalism is affecting both massand elite politics in China, including amongotherwise liberal intellectuals.43 The UnitedStates is a liberal country, yet American na-tionalism has powerfully influenced its for-eign policy.44 There is little reason to believethat even a powerful, liberal China would befree from similar influence.

The past decade of diplomacy betweenBeijing and Washington has highlighted thefact that the pessimists are onto something

when it comes to China. Although Washing-ton regularly declares that it is not contain-ing China and that it favors Chinese eco-nomic growth, its actions make clear that itdoes not welcome Chinas growing militarypower. The chief of staff of the Air Force andthe chief of naval operations justified thehighly touted new U.S. operational concept

Air-Sea Battle by stating that

some rising powers that appear to beseeking regional hegemony hope toemploy access denial strategies to isolate

other regional actors from Americanmilitary intervention, enabling them tomore effectively intimidate and coerceneighboring states.45

The least implausible candidate for mountingthis sort of access denial strategy is China.

For their part, the Chinese, until recently,have been soft-pedaling their growing powerChinas leaders, who are given to using slogansto describe policy orientations, rolled out theterm peaceful rise in the early 2000s to refer

to Chinas aims, only to quickly reverse courseand replace it with peaceful development,in part because even the use of the word risewas deemed too provocative to the UnitedStates.46 Anecdotal evidence also indicatesthat Chinese pessimists are growing in politi-cal influence and speaking out frequently.47

In short, there is little indication that Chinais willing to put its trust in either the UnitedStates or prevailing international institutionsIt is unclear whether a liberal China wouldprevent security competition. And as Chinese

power has grown, so have its ambitions andcapabilities with which it can pursue thoseambitions.

Whats Wrong with the PessimistsThe main problem with pessimism is that

pessimists fail to discuss how, exactly, theUnited States could go about smotheringChinas economic growth. They do not tell apersuasive story that explains how the politicalobstacles to doing so could be surmounted,nor do they convince that the extraordinary

economic damage to the United States wouldbe worth the potential benefits.

While it is theoretically soundindeed,logically necessaryfor pessimists to sup-port trying to throttle China economically, itis strikingly difficult to envision how Wash-ington would do this in practice. NeitherMearsheimer nor anyone else, to the authors


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Recent researchconcludesthat Chineseexpansionism isunlikely becausethe expectedbenefits arelimited, the costare high, and

the prospectof success isuncertain.

knowledge, has described in detail what sortsof policies the United States would pur-sue to this end at a reasonable cost. In 2001Mearsheimer left it at proposing that Wash-ington do what it can to slow the rise of

China, and by 2010 this became a proposal/prediction that Washington should/wouldact toward China similar to the way it be-haved toward the Soviet Union during theCold War.48

But Washington and Moscow did notmove abruptly from tight economic interde-pendence to efforts at mutual strangulation.For a variety of reasons, Moscow sought So-viet autarky and Washington indulged it.Moreover, even if the United States some-how ceased the policy of economic engage-

ment, it seems unlikely that the rest of theworld would follow suit, resulting in sig-nificant economic dislocation in the UnitedStates and to a lesser extent in China butultimately producing trade diversion ratherthan trade cessation.

Beyond the question how America couldand would move toward a straightforwardcontainment policy, there is a larger ques-tion: What sort of danger would even a pow-erful China pose that would make it worth-while to forego such a substantial amount

of economic benefit? Even if China became,say, twice as wealthy as the United Statesand militarily more powerful than America,it is still separated from the United States bythousands of miles of water.

There is a free to roam logic embeddedin the pessimists case, but rarely is it spelledout to make the case for containment. TheUnited States has been free to roam for de-cades, and rarely during that time has itstarted a war that profited it politically oreconomically.49 Recent research evaluating

in detail the prospects for Chinese territo-rial expansion concludes that Chinese ex-pansionism is unlikely because the expectedbenefits are limited, the costs are high, andthe prospect of success is uncertain.50 If thepessimists disagree with this argument, theyshould spell out in detail precisely what theyfear and how to stop it at an acceptable cost.

As yet, no detailed case has been offered tothis effect.

Whats Wrong with

U.S. China PolicyThe first problem with American strategy

is that its congagement approach is builton contradictory policies. Congagement isfrequently defended with puzzling formula-tions such as Washington must engage Chi-na in order to balance against it, and balanceagainst it in order to engage it,51 but this isincoherent. The two aspects of congagementdo not complement each otherthey work atcross purposes.

Washington policy analysts and punditslike to market congagement as a hedgingstrategy,52 but this analogy is unfounded.Hedging refers to a decision to make a conser-vative investment with low but likely returnsin order to help cover potential losses from arisky investment with high but less likely re-turns. In the analogy with China policy, thelarge, risky bet would be trading with China,which narrows the relative power gap betweenthe two countries, in the hopes that China willbe transformed and will not compete with the

United States militarily.53 The hedging anal-ogy falls apart because the longer the risky betgoes on, the more Washington will need topour ever-increasing resources into the conser-vative betthe military instruments neededfor containmentin order to cover the poten-tial losses should engagement fail to pay off.Congagement is not a hedging strategy.

The Truth about U.S. Military Strategyin Asia

Although American political leaders regu-

larly deny it, the U.S. military is working tocontain China in the Asia-Pacific region.American military planners have developed aposture in Asia that is designed with the obvi-ous purpose of putting Chinas seaborne com-merce at risk. As long-time Asia correspondentRichard Halloran wrote in the official journalof the U.S. Air Force Association, Washington


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AlthoughAmerican

political leaders

regularly deny it,the U.S. military

is working tocontain China in

the Asia-Pacificregion.

has begun positioning forces whichcould threaten Chinas supply linesthrough the South China Sea. Theoil and raw materials transportedthrough those shipping lanes are cru-

cial to a surging Chinese economyaneconomy paying for Beijings swiftlyexpanding military power.54

Halloran then cites the work of an ac-tive-duty Air Force major explicitly likeningChinas predicament to that of Japan in the1930s and 40s, arguing that Washingtonshould exploit a critical vulnerabilityChinas dependence on sea lines of com-munication.55 Former Pacific Commandcommander Dennis Blair and China analyst

Kenneth Lieberthal write that the UnitedStates has employed and will likely in the fu-ture continue to use naval blockades whennecessary, including specific reference toChina, but then wave off the idea that othernations should be concerned: U.S. navalhegemony, however, need not be unsettlingto other countries.56 The slightest effortto look at things from Beijings perspectiveshows that Washingtons military posturein the Asia-Pacific is likely to amplify Chi-nas fears about U.S. intentions.

Despite these easy-to-see realities, Ameri-can political elites deny that their decision toconcentrate the U.S. Navy in Chinas back-yard has anything to do with China. En routeto Singapore in June, Defense Secretary Pa-netta stated that Washingtons deploymentof the majority of U.S. naval assets to the Asia-Pacific region is not about containment ofChina. Rather, according to Panetta,

This is about bringing China into thatrelationship to try to deal with some

common challenges that we all face: thechallenge of humanitarian assistanceand needs; the challenge of dealingwith weapons of mass destruction thatare proliferating throughout the world;and dealing with narco-trafficking, anddealing with piracy; and dealing withissues that relate to trade and how

do we improve trade and how do weimprove lines of communication.57

Dealing with humanitarian assistance andneeds, stifling nuclear proliferation, sup-

pressing narco-traffickers, and dispatchingpirates do not require more than half theU.S. Navy. If China made this sort of argu-ment to defend deploying more than halfits naval assets to the Western hemisphereAmerican leaders would not give the argument a moments consideration. If the suc-cess of Americas Asia policy relies on Chi-nese elites believing this story, the policy isin trouble.58

The balance of power in the Western Pacif-ic is still tipped decidedly in Americas favor,

but less so than it was 30 years ago. In recentyears, Chinas military spending has increasedsignificantly relative to the increases in theUnited States. Even though Washingtonssmaller percent increases of a much largerbudget have been larger than Chinas largerpercent increases of the smaller budget, thetrends indicate that China is beginning tonarrow the relative power gap.

Although some protest that Washingtonsmilitary spending is still growing in relativeterms compared to Chinas, this argument is

incorrect.59 In order to draw that conclusionone would have to use market exchange ratesinstead of purchasing power parity conver-sions for the portions of the Chinese defensebudget that are procured indigenously, likelabor, which produces erroneous estimates(Defense economics requires use of a combi-nation of purchasing power parity and mar-ket exchange rates to draw apples-to-applescomparisons with Chinese military spendingbecause of differing currency valuations.)60 Inshort, if anything resembling present trends

continues, China will continue to close thegap in both relative economic power and rela-tive military power.

Moreover, a dollar per dollar comparisondoes not say everything about the militarybalance between the two countries. As Re-publican presidential candidate Mitt Romneypointed out in a speech to the Heritage Foun-


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ContinuallyreassuringAmericasallies has

ensured that adisproportionatshare of thecost of hedgingagainst Chinaultimately willneed to be borneby the Americantaxpayer.

dation in 2009, the U.S.-China military bal-ance looks more unfavorable when one stopsto consider that

our military is required to maintain

a global presence; theirs is not. It isa far more demanding task to keepworldwide commitments than simplyto build a force that can accomplishregional objectives.61

Of course, one inference that could be drawnfrom this analysis is that the United Stateshas put itself at a disadvantage vis--vis Chi-na by tasking its military with all the thingsRomney wants to do: respond to humani-tarian crises, protect world shipping and en-

ergy lanes, deter terrorism, prevent genocide,and lead peace-keeping missions. WhileChina does spend military dollars on mis-sions other than deterring or defeating theUnited States in its near seas, in comparisonwith Washington, Beijing has restrained itsmilitary objectives, which has allowed it tonarrow the gap in the Western Pacific whileWashington pursues an unfocused militarystrategy across the entire globe.

Nothing is stopping Washington fromcopying the conservative strategy Beijing has

pursued and winning for itself the same ad-vantages that the strategy wins China. Insteadof suggesting missions America could prof-itably shed, Romney suggests an additional$2 trillion in defense spending over the nextdecade, much of it financed by debt held byChina.62 This approach amounts to trying tobalance against China with funds borrowed,in part, from China. This is hardly a model ofstrategic coherence.

Moreover, at the same time Washingtonis trying to contain Chinese power, its policy

of economic engagement is helping China tonarrow the relative power gap. Unless one as-sumes that China is a historical and theoreti-cal aberrationthat it is entirely at peace withforeign military domination of its regionChina is going to seek a larger politico-mili-tary role as it grows wealthier, and that grow-ing wealth will make it harder to contain. It

becomes even more difficult to imagine thatChina would passively accept U.S. militarydominance in Asia when former high-rankingU.S. officials admit that

stripped of diplomatic niceties, the ulti-mate aim of American strategy is tohasten a revolution, albeit a peacefulone, that will sweep away Chinas one-party authoritarian state.63

It would be bizarre if the people at the helmof Chinas one-party authoritarian state feltcomfortable leaving Chinas security in Wash-ingtons hands.

At bottom, congagement relies on eitheran extraordinary faith in the idea that eco-

nomic engagement and pleas for reform willtransform Chinas political system or a beliefthat even as China narrows the gap in pow-er we can outspend it by enough to deter itfrom developing larger ambitions.

In the first case, congagement advocatesshould explain why they believe both thata) economic growth will necessarily lead todemocratization and b) democratization willnecessarily lead either to a China that is atpeace with American military hegemony inAsia or a China whose security interests will

become compatible with Washingtons. Inthe second scenario, they need to come upwith an account of U.S. political and eco-nomic realities that provide for a foreign pol-icy of global hegemony paid for by massivecuts to other federal outlays.

Infantilizing Americas Allies andPartners

The other problem with American strategyis that the policy of continually reassuringAmericas allies has ensured that a dispropor-

tionate share of the cost of hedging againstChina ultimately will need to be borne by theAmerican taxpayer. Instead of urging states inChinas region to defend themselves, Wash-ington constantly reassures these states thatAmerica is committed to act as the balancerof first resort. This generates free riding,where states underprovide their own security,


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Sixty years afterthe Korean

War, the UnitedStates should

not prop up analliance system

that was designedto minimize

collusion among

its alliancepartners.

because they believe Washington will do itfor them, thereby increasing the costs to theUnited States.64 As Mearsheimer points out,geography and distribution of power are cru-cial factors that determine when states should

balance against a potential threat themselvesor pass the buck to other states.65 East Asiasgeography and distribution of power shouldallow Washington to pass the buck for bal-ancing against China to states in the regionwith far more to lose.

Existing U.S. policy creates a de facto agree-ment between Washington and its Asian alliesin which we agree to defend them and theyagree to let us.66 As one report supportive ofthis arrangement describes it, the deal is thatallies provide bases and ports for the U.S.

military and contribute generously to sup-porting their presence, and in return, Amer-ica provides deterrence and defense.67 Butthe combination of Chinas growing wealth,our allies feeble defense expenditures, and thethreat of continued slow growth in the UnitedStates threatens to turn U.S. foreign policy to-ward insolvency over time.68

Americas Asian allies do not carry a shareof the burden of constraining Chinas am-bition proportional to the relative stakesfor them. While repeatedly stating their

concerns about Chinas power and behav-ior, Americas allies military spending as ashare of alliance spending has continuallydropped. Japan spends only 1 percent of itsGDP on defense and recently announced itwould be decreasing defense spending by al-most 2 percent.69 Taiwan and South Koreaspend less than 3 percent, despite their muchcloser proximity to both China and NorthKorea. While it is true that Japan, with a largeeconomy, gets a lot out of that 1 percent, in-cluding a powerful navy, absent a formal U.S.

security commitment, Japan would likely bedoing more.70

Acting as the Asian balancer-of-first-resortwas dubious during the Cold War, and itmakes even less sense today. When Washing-ton volunteers for a disproportionate shareof the heavy lifting, it is understandable thatother states would be willing to have America

bear their burden. But 60 years after the Ko-rean War, the United States should not propup an alliance system that was designed, asCha notes, to minimize collusion among itsalliance partners. Collusion among our allies

would be a welcome development today, andit would become more likely if Washingtonwere more standoffish.

It is important to point out that Americanpolicymakers encouraging their partners andallies to free ride is not new. Free riding is al-ways a danger in alliances, particularly whenthe stronger partner has for decades soughtto infantilize and control its weaker allies. Intheir 1966 article An Economic Theory of Al-liances, Mancur Olson Jr. and Richard Zeck-hauser explained the disproportionate contri-

butions of non-U.S. NATO members with amodel showing that in the provision of collec-tive goods (like security) in organizations (likealliances), large, wealthy nations will tend tobear a disproportionately large share of thecommon burden.71

The implication of the Olson-Zeckhausermodel, which has held up well over time, isthat the way to force Americas allies to spendmore would be to make clear that the UnitedStates views Asian states security as a privatenot a collective, good, and that consequently

its provision was rightly the responsibility ofthose states. Instead, by constantly rushing toreassure U.S. allies of the firmness of Amer-icas military commitment every time thereis a diplomatic or security flare-up in AsiaWashington risks creating a dynamic similarto the one it created in NATO: demilitarizingU.S. allies to the point where they appear un-able or unwilling to defend themselves with-out help from America. When senior officialslike Secretary Clinton state that Americas al-liances need to be embedded in the DNA of

American foreign policy, they encourage thistendency to free-ride.72

American foreign policymakers seem unaware that this behavior counteracts their reg-ular admonition of their alliesboth in Asiaand NATOthat they should do more fortheir own defense. The choice for a countryof Americas exceptional size and power is not


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It is likely thatat least some

U.S. allies andpartners areputting too mucfaith in the U.S.commitment totheir security.

between pliant allies who contribute more orless. The choice is between allies who contrib-ute more and desire more influence, or allieswho contribute less and are content with lessinfluence. Historically, Washingtons desire to

maximize its influence has outweighed its de-sire that allies contribute more.73

At times, it appears that the free riding is afeature, rather than a bug, for U.S. policymak-ers. One rationale for preventing U.S. alliesfrom doing more was offered by PrincetonsAnne-Marie Slaughter, who was the directorof policy planning in the Hillary Clinton StateDepartment. Slaughter declared in 2008 thatthe reins of global domination should stayin American hands, because U.S. allies like theJapanese are neither psychologically ready nor

suitable for historical reasons to play largerroles in providing for their own security.74

Moral Hazard in U.S. CommitmentsMuch of official Washington supports

the hub-and-spokes alliance system, but theyrarely consider the conditions under whichthey would actually consider fighting a warwith China. If recent history is any indication,U.S. analysts outside the Pentagon have givenfew considerations to actually fighting Chi-na.75 Accordingly, U.S. allies should probably

think long and hard about the validity of U.S.commitments.

It is likely that at least some U.S. allies andpartners are putting too much faith in theU.S. commitment to their security. History islittered with alliances that, as historian Geof-frey Blainey has written, on the outbreak ofwar, had no more force than a flapping sheetof paper.76 Analyses of alliance failures haveproduced evidence that anywhere from 13 toover 30 percent of alliances collapsed at theoutbreak of war.77

To take one example, Taiwans militaryspending is entirely inadequate to the po-tential military task it faces, suggesting thatit either believes it has some commitment ofU.S. support in the event of Chinese bully-ing or coercion, or that it is pointless to resistChinese advances.78 When confronted witharguments that Americas commitment to

Taiwan is a wasting asset, Taiwanese foreignpolicy thinkers protest that if Taiwan were tofall, the United States would suffer a geostra-tegic disaster, possibly including a Chinesenuclear attack on the U.S. homeland.79 In-

stead of inculcating a sense of threat amongthe Taiwanese population that could allow forgreater exertions in terms of defense, Taiwan-ese intellectuals focus instead on pleading forAmericans to interpret the 1979 Taiwan Rela-tions Act broadly enough to include an Ameri-can commitment to defend Taiwan.80

The Taiwanese appear to believe either thatthe U.S. commitment is ironclad or that theyhave no hope of fending off Chinas advancesforever. One recent survey revealed that a sig-nificant plurality of 1217 year olds stated

that they would not be willing to fight or havea family member fight to defend Taiwan fromChina. A former Taiwanese defense ministerremarked at the finding by admitting that itgoes without saying that the number of Tai-wanese willing to fight has come down sig-nificantly in recent years. Im even surprisedthat the number of pro-defense people [in thesurvey] is so high81

Meanwhile, there have been quiet indica-tions that Washington may not fight Chinaover Taiwan. For example, in a video posted

on the website ofForeign Policy magazine in2007, an American scholar mentioned a con-versation he had had with Hillary Clinton,then a presidential candidate and now U.S.secretary of state. In that conversation, Clin-ton remarked that it is absurd to think thatthe American people would support a warwith China over Taiwan. Although the videowas quickly edited to remove the discussion ofthis remark, it calls into question the strengthof the U.S. commitment to Taiwan.82 Evenformal treaty allies like Japan and South Ko-

rea ought to reevaluate exactly which circum-stances they believe would cause Washingtonto fight a war with China on their behalf.

There is a moral hazard problem here. Part-ners who believe in Americas commitmentare both shirking their own defense responsi-bilities and behaving more provocatively andless accommodatingly than they would be if


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In the modernera, Washingtons

alliances existprimarily to

defend theallies and thecredibility of

other alliances,not the United

States.

they were more uncertain of Americas com-mitmentor certain that they did not have acommitment from Washington. China ana-lysts like Lyle Goldstein of the U.S. Naval WarCollege even worry about a Georgia scenario

in the South China Sea, where a state in theregion takes too seriously Washingtons assur-ances and takes on a bigger fight than it canhandle itself, only to find out that Washingtonhad no intention of going to war in its defenseover that particular issue.83 Weak but bold al-lies and clients make this problem more likely.

And What Would a Much More PowerfulChina Do?

The broader problem with U.S. Chinapolicy is that it takes as a given that a more

powerful and activist China would be badfor U.S. national security, but no one hasdetailed precisely how. The American En-terprise Institutes Dan Blumenthal and hiscoauthors write that China is a threat to theUnited States because its ambitions threatenAmericas Asian allies, raise questions aboutthe credibility of U.S. alliance pledges, and im-peril the U.S. military strategy that underpinsits global primacy.84 It is telling how promi-nently alliances figure in this formulation, butBlumenthals logic is backward. The United

States should form alliances with countrieswhen it needs to fight a common enemy. Itshouldnt litter the globe with alliance com-mitments during peacetime, and then threat-en war for the sake of those alliances. In themodern era, Washingtons alliances exist pri-marily to defend the allies and the credibilityof other alliances, not the United States.

At the bottom of realist theories of inter-national relations, such as Mearsheimers, isthe prospect of being conquered or otherwiselosing political sovereignty. Just as it is ter-

rifically difficult to envision the United Statesconquering China today, it is similarly diffi-cult to imagine China conquering the UnitedStates, given the Pacific Ocean and the mas-sive American nuclear arsenal. Even Chinesenaval dominance over a good chunk of thePacific seems like a fantasy for the foresee-able future. Currently the PLA is struggling to

acquire the ability to control its near seas. Itshighly touted first aircraft carrier is, in the aptphrasing of one analyst, a piece of junk,85

and China is decades from having a bona fideblue-water navy, let alone one that could chal-

lenge the United States.Of course, a number of smaller problemsare more likely. A much more powerful Chinacould attempt to use its navy to exclude theUnited States from engaging in commercewith states in Asia. If it could overwhelmneighboring states, China could hold hostagethe sea lanes in Asia to extract concessionsfrom other states in the region. But it bearsasking how likely those scenarios are, especial-ly considering the sizable costs China wouldincur to achieve such results.

Problematically, U.S. officials seem to thinkthat Chinese policymakers should entrusttheir security to Washington. For exampleformer deputy assistant secretary of defenseMichael Schiffer has stated that Washingtonwelcomes a strong, responsible, and prosper-ous China that will take on a constructiverole in regional and global institutions.86 Inthis formulation, however, responsible andconstructive are doing a lot of work. Basedon its defense allocations, diplomacy, andforce posture, Washington would like to see, at

most, Beijing stepping up as a junior partnerto help America pursue its policy goals. Thereis little evidence that Washington includesChinese prerogatives in its definition of re-sponsible policies or constructive roles. Asdiscussed above, the United States has soughtto control the policy even of its allies.

Pessimists like Mearsheimer tell a con-vincing story about why China would seeka larger military to increase its securityitdoes not feel that it can rely indefinitely onthe beneficence of U.S. policymakers. In con-

trast with Mearsheimer, hawkish Washingtonpolicymakers act mystified by the idea thatChina would seek a more capable military. Asformer secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeldfamously mused, Since no nation threatensChina, one must wonder: Why this grow-ing investment [in its military]? Why thesecontinuing large and expanding arms pur-


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Washingtonshould sowdoubts aboutexactly wherethe Americanmilitary would bcommitted.

chases? Why these continuing robust deploy-ments?87 A moments consideration oughtto make it perfectly clear.

Changes to U.S. China PolicyA prudent American policy would urge

Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, thePhilippines, Vietnam, Australia, and othernations in Asia with concerns about Chinasambition to provide for their own defense.American policymakers should adopt an off-shore balancing strategy, but the operativeword here is offshore.88 A more standoffishU.S. policy would not mean that Washingtonwould simply wash its hands of developments

in Asia. Should China engage in open aggres-sion, such as territorial conquest, this policymay need to change. But this sort of Chinesemachtpolitik is very unlikely, even in the eventof Washington scaling down its presence inplaces like Japan and South Korea.

China is increasing its capability to coerceTaiwan and its ability to secure its sea linesof communication, and is in general sowingfears that it may develop the ability to executeanti-access/area denial campaigns to preventthe U.S. Navy from being able to dominate

East Asian waters.89 Importantly, though,geography and technology mean that othercountries in Asia would not necessarily needto spend a dollar for a dollar to ensure theirsecurity in the face of Chinese economic andmilitary growth. To the contrary, the fact thatChinas potential challengers are divided be-tween maritime powers like Japan and Tai-wan and land powers like India, South (andpotentially North)90 Korea, and Vietnammeans that China would need to field power-ful ground forces in numerous areas as well as

a powerful navy in order to establish anythinglike a Monroe Doctrine in Asia.91

Moreover, Asian states would not neces-sarily need to field militaries that could de-feat China outright. Instead, they could focusmerely on raising the potential costs to Chi-na such that Beijing would be deterred fromaggression. While mainstream discourse on

the subject would lead observers to believethat China is poised to run the table in Asia,even hawkish scholars like James Holmesof the U.S. Naval War College concede thatthere is a reasonable chance that Japan could

defeat China in a naval conflict todayevenif fighting all by itself. With greater effort onJapans part, this could remain true.92 Noth-ing about the current military balance makesit impossible to push greater responsibilityfor preventing Chinese expansionism ontostates in Asia.

To that end, Washington should stop re-assuring its Asian allies and partners at everydiplomatic flare-up in Asia. It should not seekto cultivate anti-China paranoia, but it shouldsow doubts about exactly where the American

military would be committed. Such mea-sures should include private conversationswith longtime allies like Japan and SouthKorea as well as countries that have grownclose to Washington more recently, like Indiaand Vietnam. Washington should encouragecloser coordination between these countrieswithout the United States even being present,let alone leading the discussions. Such mea-sures would raise questions about Americascommitment to the region, which would helpminimize free riding.

The biggest challenge would be forcingU.S. allies to take a larger share of the burdenwithout conveying to China that Washingtonhad grown indifferent to the future of Asia.One way to finesse this would be if Wash-ington made clear to China that while Wash-ington is not encouraging South Korean orJapanese nuclear proliferation, a more distantUnited States coupled with Chinese provoca-tions toward Taiwan or other neighbors couldconceivably produce such proliferation, anoutcome the China strongly wants to avoid.

Relatedly, Washington should undertakea review of its basing arrangements in the re-gion. In particular, it should put the bases inSouth Korea at the top of the list for potentialclosure. It also should use the endless protestsfrom various Japanese political factions asjustification for beginning to remove the Ma-rines stationed in Japan.93


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Some scholarsargue that

Americas Asianallies are too

weak to balanceagainst China

effectively.

Potential Objections to theAlternative Strategy

There are three main objections to theapproach described above. One argument

says that while U.S. allies in the regionwould try to balance Chinese power them-selves, they simply could not keep up; thegrowth in Chinese economic and militarypower is too much for them to match. An-other argument is that if the United Stateswere to create distance between itself and itsallies, they would not balance against Chi-nese power but would instead bandwagonwith China.94 The third argument admitsthat Asian countries can and would balanceagainst Chinese power, but that in doing so

they would create dangerous arms races thatthreaten to result in war. I deal with theseobjections below, showing that Asian coun-tries could place significant obstacles in theway of Chinese hegemony in the region, thatthey likely would do so, and that the risk ofwar under that scenario is not grave.

Objection One: Other Countries CannotEffectively Balance against China

Some scholars argue that Americas Asianallies are too weak to balance against Chinaeffectively. For example, Mearsheimer claims

that even a balancing coalition including JapanRussia, India, South Korea, and Vietnam wouldbe unable to contain Chinese military power.95

Since military power ultimately rests on eco-nomic power and demographics, dealing withthis argument involves examining the econom-ic, demographic, and military realities in Asia.

Economic IndicatorsWhile accurately predicting economic out-

put is notoriously difficult, basic assumptionsabout future economic trends are required to

formulate policy. Economic forecasts for Asiavary wildly, but there is general agreementthat Asiaand particularly China and Indiawill continue to grow in economic clout inthe coming decades. Table 1 shows the pro-jections of one recent report from GoldmanSachs:

Table 1GDP Estimates (constant $2010 billions)

2010 2030 % Growth

China 5,633 31,731 563

United States 14,614 22,920 157

India 1,594 7,972 500

Japan 4,773 5,852 123

Russia 1,689 4,730 280

Indonesia 692 2,446 353

South Korea 1,014 2,112 208

Australia 1,191 1,802 151

Thailand 302 904 299

Malaysia 235 889 378

Philippines 186 793 426

Source: Timothy Moe, Caesar Maasry, and Richard Tang, EM Equity in Two Decades: A Changing Landscape,Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper no. 204, September 8, 2010, p. 13.


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By 2040 Chinasworking-agepopulation willshrink by over110 million.

These estimates indicate that althoughChina is likely to make up approximately23 percent of world GDP in 2030, the othercountries in Asia will constitute 22 percentof world GDP, with the United States com-

prising 17 percent. This should allow a sig-nificant amount of burden shifting, giventhe geography of Asia and Chinas own de-mographic, economic, and domestic politi-cal problems.

Economic growth in the countries ofAsia will provide merely the foundationson which these nations can build nationalpower. But economic growth is determinedby gains in productivity (which are extraor-dinarily difficult to predict) as well as demo-graphics (much easier to predict). In order

for states to use that growth to play a largerrole in international security, they are likelyto develop more powerful militaries. The fol-lowing sections evaluate demographics andmilitary power.

Demographic TrendsDemographics play an important role

in international politics in two main ways.First, countries need significant numbers ofyoung people to serve in militaries. Old mendo not win wars. Secondly, the shape of the

age distribution affects how much money isavailable for military spending. If, for exam-ple, a country is overwhelmingly young andproductive, that means the state will have aneasier time paying the nations pensioners,as well as offering large numbers of youngpeople to fight the nations wars.

Today, most developed countries have seenadvances in medical technology combine withshifting cultural mores to produce increasedlife expectancy and fewer babiesthe produc-tive workers of tomorrow.96 This combina-

tion of aging and lower birth rates has posedimportant problems for fiscal programs in-stituted under earlier, different demographicdistributions. Additionally, military-aged menare shrinking as a proportion of overall popu-lation in several countries in Asia, which bearson those states ability to generate militarypower without enervating their economies.

Countries have dealt with these problems indifferent ways. Some have attempted to pro-vide financial incentives for families to havechildren, and others have allowed for increasedimmigration to import workers in order to

prop up welfare states.Individual nations in Asia face differ-ent demographic challenges. Russia, forexample, confronts remarkably low life ex-pectancy, net decrease in population, and agenerally bleak demographic picture overall.As Nicholas Eberstadt points out, Russiaspopulation has shrunk by more than 7 mil-lion people since 1992, and the life expectan-cy of a Russian boy born today is lower thanit was in the 1950s.97 This creates potentialproblems both in terms of future economic

growth as well as military readiness.In contrast, countries like Japan and

South Korea have populations that are livingexceptionally long by world standards, withsmaller percentages of their overall popula-tions comprised of working-age citizens.98Japan, particularly, faces a challenging com-bination of aging and depopulation. By2040, 14 percent of the Japanese populationis projected to be 80 years of age or older,with every 5-year (i.e., 1014, 1519, etc.) agecohort under 65 shrinking dramatically as

compared with the same age group in 2010.Japan is likely to have 40 percent fewer citi-zens under 15 and almost a 30 percent dropin working age population by 2040, plac-ing significant stress on its economy and itspension and health systems.99 South Koreafaces the similar prospect of depopulationalthough less rapid than Japanscombinedwith aging. By 2050, the entire working agepopulation of South Korea will barely belarger than its over-60 population.100

Even China and India, which at present ap-

pear fairly similar to each other demographi-cally, will change positions in profound waysover the coming decades. These countries infact face very different projections in terms ofwhere their bulges lie on the age distribution.Figure 1 indicates the shifting percentagesand numbers of working age populationsfrom 2010 through 2040:


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In China, the net effect of Beijings one-child policy, combined with increasing lifeexpectancy in the country, has been the cre-ation of a population bubble that is current-ly middle-aged but by 2040 will decrease the

working age population by over 110 million,or 11 percent of its overall population.101Chinas aging has produced, among otherthings, a ballooning elder-care industry thatappears likely to consume increasing sharesof Chinese economic output in the comingdecades.102 Further, many Chinese fami-lies preference to have its one child be aboy has created significant potential for so-cial strife in that there are tens of millionsof young men with little prospect of mar-riage.103 This phenomenon has led Beijing

to allow significant immigration of youngwomen from states like Vietnam, the Philip-pines, and North Korea.104

Chinas age bubble and the problemsthat have resulted from the one-child policycould pose significant constraints on Chi-nese economic and foreign policies in thedecades ahead. A growing elderly population

that is living continually longer will strainboth the elderlys savings and potentiallygovernment funds to pay their pensions andhealth care. Small cohorts at the bottomof the age distribution foretell a shortage

of workers to pay into those programs andthreaten future economic growth, as wellas a sharper tradeoff between the marginalChinese citizens employment in the econo-my or in the Peoples Liberation Army. Thegender imbalance among children todaycould threaten social instability in the fu-ture. These are only a few of the demograph-ic problems that could appear in China inthe coming decades.

India has its highest concentration ofpopulation in a younger cohort, which

should allow it more room for maneuver inits policy choices. It is also more balancedby gender. In 2040 roughly 68 percent ofIndias population will be made up of work-ing-age men and women, an increase of over300 million when compared to today.105

This means that the gap between India andChina in terms of working-age populations

-150

-100

-50

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Aus China DPRK India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Phil ROK Rus USA Vietnam

% change # change

Figure 1Working Age Population Change, 20102040

Source: UN Population Division, World Population Prospects, 2010 Revision (medium variant).

ChangeinPercentageofPopulation

of

WorkingAge

ChangeinNumberofPopulation

of

WorkingAge(millions)


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States tend to

balance againstpotential rivals,although notalways efficientlenough toprevent wars.

will be roughly 400 million in Indias fa-vor by 2040. By 2030 there will be roughly100 million young men with at least a highschool education in India, compared to only75 million such people in China.106 These

demographic realities should allow Indiato play a greater role in the Asia-Pacific interms of security.

Scholars have begun to wonder aboutthe implications of aging for the future ofworld politics. Mark Haas, for example, hasdrawn on the literature discussing a demo-cratic peace, wondering whether global de-mographic trends do not hold the prospectof a geriatric peace. In short, his argument isthat aging among the great powers will cre-ate a number of constraints. It will depress

overall economic output (absent significantproductivity growth) and put severe pressureon national budgets to pay for the swellingnumbers of elderly at the expense of militarybudgets, and within military budgets forcestates to allocate a greater share of expendi-tures to personnel as opposed to weaponsdevelopment and procurement. The impli-cation of this argument is that for statesthat are aging, war becomes less feasible.107

Obviously, having a larger population isbetter for military power, holding all other

factors equal. All other factors are rarelyequal, however. Japans, Chinas, and SouthKoreas increasing proportion of elderlypopulation and shrinking youth shares cre-ate economic tradeoffs (pensions vs. arms)as well as fewer young people to work andserve in militaries. As a RAND Corporationreport recently noted, demographic reali-ties make clear that if America seeks to keepits alliance system intact in the coming de-cades, it will need to become an even moredominant partner in the alliances than it

is today. When viewed in light of Chinasgrowing power, this implies both a largeroverall cost, and a larger share of that largercost accruing to Washington.108

This outcome is not inevitable. Americasallies and clients could and likely would be-gin making different decisions about theirdefense postures, intra-Asian alliance rela-

tionships, and government spending pri-orities if the United States made clear to-day that it did not intend to subsidize theirdefense indefinitely. Conversely, the longerWashington persists in infantilizing its

Asian allies and clients, the more likely theRAND scenario above becomes.Countries like Japan, India, Indonesia, the

Philippines, and Vietnam all can and shouldbe expected to play a larger role. While Japanfaces significant economic and demograph-ic challenges over the coming decades, theypossess advanced military technology; fa-vorable geography; and, in extremis, the op-tion of pursuing a porcupine strategy witha nuclear deterrent at its core.109 Japans lackof land warfare capability and severe fiscal

and demographic constraints should lessenfears that Japan would use such a postureas a shield for an offensive strategy. In addi-tion, Japan may wish to work in concert withother, more demographically vital states inorder to marry Japanese technology withmanpower from these other states.

Objection Two: Other Countries WillNot Effectively Balance against China

The second potential objection to a morestandoffish U.S. policy on Asian security is

that regardless of their capabilities, currentU.S. allies would not increase their own ef-forts to balance against Chinese power, butinstead would appease China, leaving theirsecurity at the mercy of the Chinese lead-ership. This is one side of a longstandingdebate in the academy over whether statestend to balance against or bandwagon withpower.110

States tend to balance against poten-tial rivals, although not always efficientlyenough to prevent wars. The reason they

do so is to ensure their control over theirown destinies, or, in extreme cases, theirsurvival as political units. While these viewsare sometimes hard for Americans to un-derstandAmericas survival as an autono-mous political unit has not been threatenedin at least 200 yearsthey are easier to un-derstand abroad.


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When geographyand military

technologyfavor defense,

balancingbecomes

relatively cheaperand more doable.

Were the United States to create distancebetween itself and its Asian allies and clients,several things would likely happen. First,those states would probably increase their ownefforts to balance against Chinas growing

power. Indeed, in the 1970s when the SovietUnion was increasing its military buildup inEast Asia and Japan worried that the UnitedStates was not keeping pace, Tokyo beganboosting its own military efforts.111

In recent months, news reports have in-dicated growing anxiety about Chinese be-havior, and those countries diplomacy hasreflected that concern. Examples include therecent joint statement issued by the Philip-pines and Japan marking a new strategicpartnership and expressing common stra-

tegic interests such as ensuring the safetyof sea lines of communication.112 More re-cently, Japanese Prime Minister YoshihikoNoda declared that Japans security environ-ment had grown increasingly murky due toChinas stepped-up activities in local watersand its rapid military expansion.113 A recentreview of Australias defense posture soundedsimilarly wary notes.114

The head of the Indian navy remarkedthat in the face of Chinese provocations there,the South China Sea is an area of significant

concern for India.115 India, the Philippines,Vietnam, and Japan have all expressed theirintentions to step up military efforts, withthinly veiled references to China as the jus-tification.116 These are only the most recentindications that other countries in the regionwould hardly shrug at Chinese power in theabsence of U.S. security guarantees. They seeChina as potentially threatening. Instead,Washingtons constant repetition of its com-mitment to its allies security allows thesecountries to avoid the necessary domestic de-

bates about their security environments andwhat to do about them.117

In particular, states like Japan and Indiashould be expected to play central roles. No-tably, even China hawks like Aaron Friedbergadmit that it is unclear how greater distancebetween Washington and Tokyo, for exam-ple, would produce anything other than a

more assertive Japan and possibly a Japan-led Asian coalition to constrain China.118

As Lyle Goldstein notes, China is rising in athicket of strong-willed and suspicious com-petitors in Asia.119

For wealthy and technologically advancedAsian states with ballooning retired popula-tions and shrinking workforces, such as Japan,a reduced American commitment would createpowerful pressures to pursue nuclear weaponsprograms. To be sure, the recent Fukushimanuclear disaster would make the politics of anuclear deterrent even touchier in Japan. Butthe powerful logic of substituting capital forlabor and securing its territory with the ulti-mate deterrent would likely weigh heavily onthe minds of Japaneseand possibly South

Korean and Taiwanesepolicymakers.Importantly, however, the time it would

take Japan, for example, to go nuclear, is al-most certainly longer than the conventionalwisdom, which has generally hovered aroundsix months.120 There is little indication that Ja-pan has prepared for such a rapid timeframeNot only would Japan need to produce weap-ons-grade fissile material, but a significantamount more work would need to be done indeveloping delivery systems. A number of size-able technical hurdles would put Japans time-

frame in the realm of years, not months, to be-come a bona fide nuclear-weapons state.121 IfWashington were to insist that Japan carry aheavier share of the burden for providing forits own defense, Tokyo may look into how itwould overcome these hurdles.122

The relative costs of balancing and aggres-sion affect states decisions to do either. Whengeography and military technology favor of-fense, aggression becomes more appealingWhen those factors favor defense, balancingbecomes relatively cheaper and more do-

able.123 In this case, the mostly maritime ge-ography of Asia and the military technologyin question means that balancing would berelatively cheap and aggression would be rela-tively difficult.124 Hitler won easy victories onthe European continent at the beginning ofthe Second World War, but just as geography,technology, and doctrine that produced those


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To sum up:in todaysglobalizedmarketplace,the costs tocombatants aredramaticallyhigher than theyare to neutral

states.

victories, those same factors spelled disasterfor Hitler on the eastern front. In the Asia-Pa-cific, large bodies of water separating many ofthe potential antagonists (and mountains inthe case of India), combined with the difficul-

ty of projecting power across those obstacles,favor defense.

Objection Three: Other Countries Canand Would Balance against China, butThat Would be More Costly to Americathan the Current Approach

A final objection to restraint in the Asia-Pacific allows that Americas Asian alliescould and likely would choose to balanceagainst China, but argues that their doingso would cause dangerous arms racing in the

region and a greater chance of war, neitherof which would happen if America continuesto shelter its allies. Such naval conflict coulddisrupt trade in East Asia and with it theglobal economy, and therefore it is better tohave America pay a disproportionate shareof the cost but control the response to grow-ing Chinese power and keep a lid on securitycompetition.

It is certainly conceivable that some sortof naval skirmish could happen, but with orwithout forward-deployed U.S. forces, the

costs of escalation would be very high for theprospective combatants. More importantly,this argument gets the relationship betweentrade and war backward. Trade and globaliza-tion have made it easier to avoid problematicreliance on any single country. As the mostcomprehensive recent study of the economiceffects of war on neutral countries concluded,it is much easier than usually assumed forneutral parties to avoid high costs from wars.Because scholars and policymakers frequentlyconfuse interdependence for vulnerability,

they fail to see that in todays globalized mar-ketplace, the costs to combatants are dramati-cally higher than they are to neutral states.125What this means for U.S. China policy is that awar between China and a neighbor, absent theUnited States, would be very costly for Chinaand not nearly so costly for America.

In addition to the arms racing/instabil-

ity argument, supporters of the status quoclaim that maintaining Americas forwardpresence and commitments to its allies andclients is important for Americas credibility.Brandeiss Robert Art states that the U.S.Ja-

pan alliance must be maintained because itis the most important alliance in Asia, andif the alliance began to dissolve it would callinto question Washingtons commitmentto other allies in the region.126 But if theU.S.-Japan alliance is the most important ofthem all, the concern with its potential disso-lution cannot be the implications for other,lesser alliances.

The final worry about countries defend-ing themselves is that the allure of a nucleardeterrent would be extremely powerful for a

country like Japan, and proliferation in Asiawould damage the global nonproliferation re-gime.127 However, the impact of proliferationon a country like Japan or South Korea wouldlikely be more limited than is commonly as-serted. Proliferation to countries like Pakistanand North Korea has been more limited thanpredicted, so those predicting the end of thenuclear nonproliferation treaty should Japanacquire a deterrent ought to explain why Ja-pan is different from North Korea. Analystshave predicted nuclear cascades, waves, domi-

noes, and tipping points for decades, butthose things have yet to materialize.128

And any prospective Japanese nuclear de-terrent could serve only as a deterrent, sinceJapan lacks any meaningful ground warfarecapability and faces severe demographic pres-sures that would make even a nuclear-armedJapan terrifically unlikely to attempt to replaythe 1930s.129 Nuclear weapons would nothelp Japan attempt to conquer Manchuria oreven a chunk of Korea. Japan cannot invadeits neighbors today, and a nuclear deterrent

would not help it do so tomorrow.Naval arms races themselves do not cause

wars, and security competition or even lim-ited skirmishes in Chinas near seas do notpromise economic catastrophe for the UnitedStates. Preparing to fight China in order toprotect American alliances, or the credibilityof our alliances, is foolish. If Washington poli-


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Washingtonshould stop

infantilizingits allies and

instead demandthat they defend

themselves.America ought to

pivot home.

cymakers decide that the survival of this orthat ally is absolutely vital to Americas ownsecurity, they should make that case clearlyand openly. Finally, there is some prospect ofnuclear proliferation to Americas friends in

Asia, but this does not pose as great a threatof instability or war as is commonly assumed.Adversaries like North Korea went nuclearwithout catastrophic consequences. This isbecause nuclear weapons are very useful toensure a states survival, but do little to aid inpower projection or force favorable resolutionof maritime disputes. The fact that the statesfrequently mentioned as possible prolifera-tors have little ability to project power abroadmakes the prospect of a given state attempt-ing to use its nuclear arsenal to enable aggres-

sion even more unlikely.

Conclusion

Optimists, pessimists, and the Beltwayforeign policy establishment all have flawedviews on the rise of China and U.S. Chinapolicy. Optimists elide the zero-sum natureof military questions, hang too much on faiththat political liberalization will happen, andwill resign China to American military domi-

nance, and similarly place too much faith inthe power of international institutions. Pes-simists have not shown how Washingtoncould squash Chinese economic growth at anacceptable cost, and do not demonstrate di-rectly how even a much more powerful Chinawould threaten the national security of theUnited States. The Beltway policy establish-ment supports an inherently contradictoryapproach, congagement, that borrows prob-lems from both schools of thought and cre-ates a new problem: free riding.

Acting as the balancer of first resort in Asiais costly, and it threatens to become morecostly as economic engagement makes Chinarelatively wealthier. Washington should stopinfantilizing its allies and instead demandthat they defend themselves. Japan, South Ko-rea, India, Vietnam, the Philippines and othernations can cooperate to prevent the worst

potential forms of Chinese aggression with-out America doing it for them. The longerWashington takes to initiate this policy shiftthe harder it will become.

America ought to pivot home. The new

U.S. administration should revisit formaland informal U.S. security commitments inAsia with a clear eye trained on what it wouldactually be willing to fight a war with Chinaover, and just how likely those scenarios are.American policymakers should work to lessenand ultimately remove the forward-deployedU.S. military presence in the region, helpingestablish more powerful national militaries inlike-minded states. The new administrationshould encourage Asian nations to work to-gether on security issues without the United

States leading the way.If the United States persists in its policy

of congagement, it likely will see its allies un-able to play a larger role, and a larger share ofAmericas national income dedicated to containing China on their behalf. The time to putthe offshore back into offshore balancing isnow. The alternative is persisting in a danger-ous Sino-U.S. security competition, on termsincreasingly favorable to Beijing.

NotesThe author thanks Benjamin Friedman, GeneHealy, Chris Preble, and John Schuessler for criti-cism of earlier drafts. Remaining deficiencies arethe authors responsibility alone.

1. How to Get a Date, Economist, December31, 2011, p. 61.

2. Angus Maddison, Statistics on World Popu-lation, GDP, and GDP per Capita, 1-2008 AD,University of Groningen, http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_02-2010.xls. According to Maddison, the height of

Soviet relative economic power was 1975, when itpossessed approximately 44.4 percent of U.S. GDP

3. Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State(New York: Free Press, 1994), pp. 286291.

4. Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil andAmerican Power(New York: Penguin Press, 2012)p. 245.

5. Kagan and Kristol, A National Humiliation,


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Weekly Standard, April 1623, 2001, pp. 1116.

6. Quoted in Adam Entous, U.S. Wont CutForces in Asia, Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2011.

7. Hillary Clinton, Americas Pacific Century,Foreign Policy (November 2011): 5663.

8. Quoted in Greg Sheridan, U.S. Keeps an Ea-gle Eye on Asia, The Australian, August 15, 2011.

9. In 2005, Deputy Secretary of State RobertZoellick was photographed in Chengdu literallyhugging a baby panda, which caused a stir amongChina-watchers in Washington. See EdwardCody, U.S. Envoy Engages in Panda Diplomacy,Washington Post, January 26, 2006.

10. To some readers, the idea of examininginternational-relations theory in an article onU.S. foreign policy may seem odd or misplaced.However, although the word and the idea of the-

ory have fallen into disrepute in Washington,theory is unavoidable. It is not possible to makeforward-looking policy choices without theory.While policymakers opinions on various issuesare no doubt influenced by many factors, amongthose factors are their theories about how theworld

Justin Logan：China，America, and the Pivot to Asia

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