When Xi Jinping visits the U.S. this autumn, one of the items on his agenda is bound to be what he has called a “new type of major power relations.” The term remains ambiguous and some Americans fear that it is a device for disrupting American alliances. Chinese scholars reply that it is a genuine effort to avoid the dangerous dynamics between a rising and an established power that helped precipitate the Peloponnesian War and World War I.
Looking ahead, pessimists predict an impending clash as China grows stronger and seeks to expel the U.S. from the Western Pacific. Some argue that this can be forestalled by the acceptance of spheres of influence in which the U.S. restricts its activities primarily to the Eastern Pacific. But such a response to China’s rise would destroy American credibility and lead regional states into bandwagoning rather than balancing China. Instead, a continued U.S. presence in the Western Pacific can reinforce the natural balancing reactions of regional states and help to shape the environment in a way that encourages responsible Chinese behavior.
An appropriate policy response to the rise of China must balance realism and integration. When the Clinton Administration first considered how to respond to the rise of China in the 1990s, some critics urged a policy of containment before China became too strong. We rejected such advice for two reasons. First, it would have been impossible to forge an anti-China alliance since most countries in the region wanted (and still want) good relations with both the U.S. and China. Even more important, such a policy would have unnecessarily guaranteed future enmity with China. As I used to say in my speeches when I was responsible for East Asia in the Pentagon, if you treat China as an enemy, you are certain to have an enemy.
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