The reelection of U.S. President Barack Obama, which will bring a new Secretary of State and other senior U.S. officials, combined with the political leadership transition in China raises interesting questions about the future of this vital bilateral relationship.
The Obama administration has accepted China’s rise as, if not inevitable, then at least as beyond the ability of the United States to prevent. Administration officials believe that any effort to contain the PRC would fail and prove counterproductive. Indeed, they see the United States as having an interest in China’s becoming a peaceful and prosperous country, giving Beijing more resources to strengthen international security and the global economy in partnership with Washington.
In light of these constraints, the Obama administration’s strategy has been to induce Beijing to accept U.S. security and economic goals for the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. U.S. officials describe their objective as to “reinforce the system of rules, responsibilities, and norms that underlies regional peace, stability, and prosperity.” The vision is of mutually shared peace, stability, and prosperity, which can be achieved if China becomes a global stakeholder and accepts international law, multilateral responsibilities, and international norms such as ensuring “a fair and level playing field for foreign investors, protecting intellectual property, and maintaining maritime security.
Although such lofty results might not be possible, administration officials deny that a Sino-American conflict is inevitable or that the two parties are engaged in a zero-sum game in which an advantage for one party invariably harms the other. U.S. officials have however tried to discourage China from pursuing certain disruptive paths by laying down a series of military and diplomatic markers affirming U.S. support for the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes, freedom of maritime navigation, military transparency, fair commercial practices, and other rules of behavior. Chinese officials have formally declined to endorse these rules for good behavior but also thus far have refrained from overtly challenging them.
Administration officials have adopted a high-profile interventions in China’s other sovereignty disputes in the East and South China Seas. They have termed Beijing’s approach to these sovereignty disputes an important test of China’s rise, of whether Beijing will employ its growing capabilities in peaceful or disruptive ways.
The administration’s new approach was evident at the July 2010 meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum. At that session, while reaffirming that the United States takes no side on the substance of China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors, Secretary Clinton broke with diplomatic precedent and offered to help launch multilateral talks on disputed South China Sea territories within the ASEAN framework. She insisted that all these disputes must be resolved through peaceful means that take into account the interests of all parties, including the United States.
The intent of these interventions is to discourage assertive stances toward these sovereignty issues by underscoring U.S. concern. U.S. officials have their own reasons to contest Beijing’s maritime claims. According to one calculation, one-third of all the world’s commercial shipping traverses these contested waters near China.
In terms of tactics, the Obama administration has relied heavily on making declarations of benign intent, taking actions to strengthen international norms and institutions, raising the U.S. profile in Asia through enhanced diplomacy and military engagement efforts, and increasing engagement with PRC civilian and military agencies.
U.S. officials have sought to employ alliances, partnerships, and international institutions as key tools to help manage China’s rise. Perhaps the most original Obama administration tactic is attempting to build a more dense and comprehensive multilateral regional economic and security architecture, consisting of diverse bilateral alignments, international organizations, formal rules, and informal norms that constrain Chinese behavior according to U.S. preferences.
U.S. officials note that, if successful, this constraining architecture could potentially reduce the need for active U.S. management and compensate for the anticipated further decline of U.S. resources relative to those of China in coming years.
It would be simplistic to describe these recent U.S. initiatives as aimed exclusively to contain China. While some State and Defense Department officials have such intent, President Obama and his White House national security staff believe that increasing Chinese regional strength and influence is inevitable given the PRC’s continued preeminent economic growth. U.S. officials also recognize that few Asian countries would join an overtly anti-Beijing coalition given that China is the main economic partner, and that the United States lacks the means to counter China’s rise unilaterally.
Most importantly, the Obama administration sees the U.S. and Chinese economies so interdependent that any effort to hurt China’s economy would invariably adversely affect the United States. In this sense, the two countries are in a “mutual assured depression” relationship. Unlike with our Cold War-era “mutual assured destruction” relationship with the Soviet Union, Americans cannot treat China as if it were another USSR since we need China’s help to deal with global challenges.
Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia as well as U.S. foreign, defense, homeland security, and WMD nonproliferation policies.
