No sentient observer of foreign affairs can deny that the
People’s Republic of China
seeks to displace the United States as not only a regional power but a global hegemonic power. Indeed, we are now amid a new “cold war” not unlike its predecessor pitting the United States against the Soviet Union. In the service of its goals, Beijing has pursued a coherent grand strategy.
The centerpiece of this grand strategy is the necessity to secure its geographic heartland. It is clear that Chinese strategists have read their Mackinder and Mahan. Accordingly, China has worked assiduously to undermine the U.S.-led alliance system along the Asian Rimland and invested heavily in naval, missile, and other military capabilities. Recent decades have seen the PRC pursue a massive military buildup, including an ambitious maritime modernization program. Today, the size of its navy rivals that of the U.S. Navy. Although still qualitatively inferior to its American counterpart, the PRC Navy boasts more hulls, and its shipyards are churning out modern ships at breakneck rates that far outstrip U.S. naval output.
Aided by the “tyranny of distance,” the PRC seeks to deny the United States unfettered access to the Western Pacific by means of an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy that features the deployment of a layered cruise and ballistic missile system. The ultimate goal of the PRC is to deny the ability of the U.S. to operate west of the “second island chain,” the series of islands running from Japan’s Bonin Islands and Volcano Islands, through the Mariana Islands and western Caroline Islands to western New Guinea and the eastern maritime boundary of the Philippine Sea.
In particular, Beijing, defying international norms, has attempted to establish “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea and has continued to threaten the independence of Taiwan. In addition to embarking on a major buildup of its naval forces, Beijing also has carried out numerous maritime provocations against its neighbors as well as the U.S. in the
South China Sea
, which Robert Kaplan has called “Asia’s cauldron,” a “nervous region, crowded with warships and commercial vessels.” Such a region is particularly vulnerable to miscalculation or miscommunication.
WHAT IS MISSING FROM AMERICA’S CHINA POLICY?
To supplement its A2/AD strategy in the Western Pacific, Beijing has employed maritime “gray zone” operations: provocative actions short of war that seek to assert and expand Chinese control over a large area of disputed and artificial islands and reefs in the South China Sea. The main instrument for executing its gray zone operations is the PRC’s irregular “maritime militia,” comprising numerous ostensibly civilian vessels, which operate from Chinese-held islands in the South China Sea, harassing the vessels of countries with rival territorial claims. They also interfere with freedom of navigation, which undermines U.S. security commitments in the region. Although occurring below the threshold of direct military confrontation, such operations employ coercive elements that undermine existing rules and norms.
Economically, China pursues a grand strategy of predatory capitalism. The PRC refuses to adhere to the norms of liberal internationalism by employing massive government support for Chinese firms and ignoring environmental and labor standards, thereby upending global markets. Accordingly, it has pulled one key U.S. industry and supply chain after another into its orbit, eliminating millions of U.S. jobs along the way.
Beijing also has employed its Belt and Road Initiative to advance its geopolitical situation by seeking a strategic foothold in Southeast Asia. For instance, China has invested in lucrative railway and pipeline projects in Malaysia and has attempted to establish a naval base in Cambodia. But for those countries that have been ensnared in Beijing’s infrastructure ambitions, the initiative, a neocolonial approach focused on resource extraction and debt as a means of control, has proven to be a debt trap.
Technologically, China seeks to exploit the “fourth industrial revolution,” based on
artificial intelligence
, quantum computing, and the leveraging of 5G networks. Psychologically, China has sought to exploit divisions in American society. Beijing may very well have engaged in biological warfare by unleashing, intentionally or not, the coronavirus that recently ravaged the economies of the liberal states.
Two factors have contributed to China’s success in implementing its grand strategy. The first has been the conceit that the fall of the Soviet Union heralded the triumph of a liberal world order of free trade and interdependence. Seduced by this conceit, the U.S. and other liberal countries opened their markets to China, believing that Beijing would happily accept the tenets of a liberal economic order and “play by the rules” of that order. But despite the fatuous optimism of market fundamentalists, China remains unwaveringly committed to authoritarianism and exploiting the system to improve its position at the expense of liberal states.
The second has been the post-9/11 wars that have diverted attention and resources away from China’s rise. Indeed, for a period, U.S. policy experts contended that the threat of great power conflict was a thing of the past. The Trump administration belatedly corrected this focus by issuing a national strategy document that refocused attention and resources on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The Biden administration has at least paid lip service to the Indo-Pacific region but has been distracted by events in Ukraine. We can’t afford to be distracted since, in the scheme of things, U.S. interests in this region are more important long-term than Ukraine.
A successful grand strategy must pit U.S. strengths against China’s weaknesses, which include its reliance on imports for foodstuffs, oil, and gas and its demographics. Although China possesses vast coal reserves, it lacks oil and natural gas. In addition, China’s population is aging, and thanks to the one-child policy from the Mao era, there is a serious imbalance between the sexes, with men outnumbering women by a substantial margin.
A key to countering China’s grand strategy is to revitalize a U.S.-led Asia-Pacific alliance system that includes not only Japan, Australia, and the Republic of Korea but also those countries that have claims to the South China Sea. Since China’s regional tactics are most effective when it can take advantage of the highly asymmetrical power differential between Beijing and each of its neighbors, the U.S. can effectively counter this strategy by creating and strengthening a network of capable allies that are unified in their opposition to the PRC’s aggression. In other words, Washington should seek to make the competition multilateral wherever possible.
The U.S. needs to make its commitment to the defense of
Taiwan
clear. Deterrence works only if the power to be deterred takes the commitment seriously. The problem with ambiguity is that it can lead to miscalculation. Of course, effective deterrence requires prudence. The U.S. must recognize the relative “value of the objective” and avoid provocation. But it must also understand that Beijing only responds to power.
A little remarked but critical Chinese weakness is that, like France during its centurieslong struggle with Britain, China has a continental frontier that can be exploited strategically. France had the power and resources to challenge Britain at sea, but by means of adroit diplomacy and finance, Great Britain was able to divert France’s attention away from the maritime realm by creating evolving continental coalitions funded by British money and supported by limited military resources. The foremost examples of British strategy against France are the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) and the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763).
China faces unrest on its western frontier as well as a hostile India to the south. A little-appreciated diplomatic triumph of the Bush administration was increased cooperation with India that can be leveraged against Beijing. If China is strong in the Western Pacific, it is weak in the Indian Ocean. This weakness can be used to the advantage of the U.S. and its allies.
Although the U.S. should continue to counter the Chinese A2/AD strategy in the Western Pacific, it should make it clear to China that the U.S. and its allies will respond preemptively to its aggression not only by threatening its ability to operate beyond the “first island chain,” the series of islands running parallel to the Chinese coast, but also to deny China’s access to the wider Pacific and the Indian Ocean by threatening the vital sea lanes that run through the Strait of Malacca and other chokepoints. This “distant blockade” could choke off Beijing’s access to the Middle Eastern oil upon which it desperately depends.
In the technological arena, the U.S. should make maintaining an edge over China in the development of artificial intelligence and 5G a priority. The U.S. cannot cede leadership in the fourth industrial revolution to China. In military terms, the Pentagon must prioritize developing technologies and systems that will be pivotal to U.S. and allied military supremacy in the Western Pacific. These include hypersonic weapons, stealth bombers, ground-mobile missile delivery systems, long-range anti-ship missiles, improved ballistic missile defenses, and underwater unmanned vehicles. These systems will depend on cutting-edge AI-enabled software and innovative warfighting doctrines.
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In economic terms, the U.S. can use financial leverage to counter Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative by stressing that it seeks independent and prosperous partners while China seeks dependent and indebted vassals for exploitation. Washington should act to undercut Beijing’s ability to utilize debt to coerce, control, or intimidate other countries in the region.
Finally, the U.S. and its allies should exploit domestic unrest in China. Recent demonstrations against the PRC in response to new COVID-19-related lockdowns are the sort of opportunities that countering Chinese grand strategy require. Although China seems to be effectively executing its grand strategy, its success is not foreordained. But countering it must be the strategic priority of the United States.
Mackubin Owens is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a national security fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas, Austin.
