Our Positions & Policy Papers
Committee Positions and Policy Papers
When deemed appropriate, the Committee will issue statements articulating its position on a current issue. We will also write or commission policy papers on practical, mutually-beneficial solutions to divisive issues in U.S.-China relations. These are posted below, with the most recent papers appearing first.
Comments to our policy papers are welcome and can be sent to SaneChinaPolicy@gmail.com.
Chinese Balloon Incident a Cause for Intensified Diplomacy, Not Bellicosity
Statement of the Committee for a Sane-U.S. China Policy Statement on Chinese Balloon Incident of Jan. 31-Feb. 5, 2023
China’s dispatch of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the Continental United States was a reckless provocation and should never have been approved by senior Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping. Even if the surveillance was of a low-technology character and posed no serious threat to U.S. national security – as affirmed by senior U.S. military officials – it represented a violation of U.S. sovereignty and a brazen affront to U.S.-China relations. China’s response that the balloon was intended largely for meteorological purposes and was blown off course by strong winds is wholly unacceptable. President Xi should take personal responsibility for the blunder, apologize to President Biden, and pledge to disallow any further such intrusions.
That said, the balloon incident should not be allowed to derail diplomacy between the U.S. and China aimed at reducing bilateral tensions and establishing “guardrails” against the escalation of future crises. Presidents Biden and Xi had agreed at their Bali summit on Nov. 14 to seek such measures, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to travel to Beijing on Feb. 5-6 to meet with Chinese officials – including Xi – to carry this process further.
Blinken’s Feb. 3 decision to call off the trip, saying China’s decision “to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” is understandable given the extraordinary furor in Washington caused by the balloon’s intrusion into U.S. airspace, but must not be permitted to impede the diplomatic process altogether. After a suitable cooling off period – and, hopefully, expressions of regret from Beijing – Blinken should set a new date for his trip and resume the process initiated by Presidents Biden and Xi in Bali.
Dispatching a surveillance balloon over the United States was an unfriendly act, and should never have occurred. It is true, however, that both China and the United States conduct surveillance operations on each other’s military capabilities all the time by other means. Both sides, for example, deploy spy satellites capable of examining air and missile bases located on the other’s territory. Accordingly, whatever data might have been collected by the spy balloon would not have contributed much of substance to the data already possessed by China’s military.
What all this does tell us, however, is that both the U.S. and China are treating each other as potential adversaries and view such surveillance as a necessary prelude to actual combat, should that occur. It is this dynamic that should worry us the most, as history suggests that mutual distrust and bellicosity of this sort often leads to the dangerous escalation of even minor crises and incidents.
Given this danger, and the likelihood that any war between the U.S. and China would cause immeasurable damage to both countries, even if nuclear weapons were not used (and there’s no assurance that this would prove to be the case). Under these circumstances, robust U.S.-China diplomacy is in the best interest of both countries, and the two sides should do whatever they can to repair the damage caused by China’s reprehensible balloon intrusion and allow for Secretary Blinken to set a new date for his visit to Beijing.
(Written by Michael Klare on behalf of the Committee for a Sane-U.S. China Policy, a non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to reducing the risk of a U.S.-China conflict through enhanced diplomacy and cooperation on issues of mutual interest, especially climate change)
Statement Calling on Presidents Biden and Xi to Adopt Tension-Reduction Measures
At Their Meeting in Bali, Indonesia on November 14, 2022
[Released November 11, 2022]
The Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy, a non-partisan advocacy group, today called on Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Xi Jinping of China to adopt tension-reduction measures at their meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday, November 14. The two are to meet on the sidelines of a G-20 gathering and are expected to discuss divisive issues in the U.S.-China relationship, including Taiwan, China’s ties with Moscow, human rights, and technology competition. Tensions over these issues have ratcheted up in recent months, bringing the two countries closer to outright conflict than they have been in many years. Given the catastrophic consequences of a U.S.-China war, it is essential that the two presidents agree on measures to reduce tensions and open the door to talks aimed at resolving these disputes.
At present, the most significant source of tension between the U.S. and China is the status of Taiwan. The Chinese government, led by President Xi, insists that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and must eventually be reunited with the mainland – by peaceful means if possible, by military means if necessary. The U.S. government, led by President Biden, contends that the Taiwanese people are entitled to choose their own future independent of Chinese pressure, and so are entitled to defend themselves against a possible Chinese invasion, with U.S. assistance as required. Both sides have managed these differences for many years without provoking a conflict, but recently the risk of a violent confrontation has risen due to what Beijing perceives as growing U.S. support for Taiwanese independence (as reflected in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2nd visit to the island) and what Washington perceives as greater Chinese military pressure on Taiwan (as reflected in increased Chinese air and sea maneuvers near the island). With both the U.S. and China increasing their military presence in the region and regularly deploying them in provocative maneuvers, the risk of a direct and escalating clash between the two has increased markedly.
To lower tensions over Taiwan and reduce the risk of a U.S.-China conflict, the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy calls on Presidents Biden and Xi to adopt tension-reduction measures at their meeting in Bali and to open the door for future talks leading to the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan dispute. Such measures should be reciprocal in nature and be aimed at the “hot button” issues that are most likely to provoke a violent outcome. They could, for example, include a pledge by China to cease its air and naval maneuvers across the median line between China and Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait and a pledge by the U.S. to suspend its “freedom of navigation” voyages through the Strait. China could also agree to cease its threats of using military force to prevent Taiwanese independence and the U.S. could agree to preclude any diplomatic visits to Taiwan that give the appearance of U.S. recognition of Taipei as an independent nation. The two presidents could also consider steps that might be taken in the future to resolve the Taiwan issue in a peaceful manner.
While at their meeting, the two presidents could also agree to adopt measures leading to the resolution of other divisive issues. For example, they could agree to hold bilateral (or four-way, with Japan and South Korea) talks aimed at reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Likewise, they could agree to multilateral negotiations, also involving Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, aimed at negotiating a code of conduct to reduce military tensions in the South China Sea. The resumption of bilateral negotiations over climate change would be another helpful step.
“If the tensions between the U.S. and China are not reduced as a result of the Biden-Xi meeting in Bali, it is likely that they will continue to rise, bringing us ever closer to an armed confrontation and full-scale war, possibly nuclear war,” said Michael Klare, Committee Co-Chair. “The two presidents must, therefore, agree on measures to lower tensions and reduce the risk of a U.S.-China conflict,” Klare added.
Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy Calls on U.S., Chinese Leaders to Discontinue or Scale Back Dangerous Air and Naval Maneuvers in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait Area
In a letter dated Sept. 25, 2022, the Co-Chairs of the Committee, Joseph Gerson and Michael Klare, called on President Biden of the United States and Xi Jinping of China to discontinue or scale back their air and naval maneuvers in the western Pacific, especially those that pose a risk of accidental or unintended escalation. The text of the letter is attached below
Your Excellencies,
We are confident that you and your colleagues all wish for peace and prosperity to prevail in the Asia-Pacific region and do not seek to provoke a war with one another. But we believe that both sides are engaging in dangerous and provocative military maneuvers in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait area that could result in the outbreak of accidental or unintended conflict, with unforeseeable and possibly catastrophic consequences. We therefore call upon you and your colleagues to discontinue or scale back these activities and to pursue conflict-avoidance measures acceptable to all parties.
To indicate the source of our anxieties: Our organization, the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy, keeps a daily inventory of combative air and naval maneuvers by the U.S. and PRC militaries, and our tally has shown a steady increase in the frequency and scale of these activities. Since January 1, 2022, our tally of “provocative maneuvers” by U.S. and PRC air and naval forces in the western Pacific has identified 115 such incidents, with the largest concentration occurring in August and September. (Go to https://www.saneuschinapolicy.org/provocative-maneuvers)
These incidents range from modest actions by one or two ships or planes, such as the U.S. “freedom of navigation operations” (FRONOPs) conducted by U.S. warships in waters abutting PRC-claimed islets in the South China Sea, as well as large-scale maneuvers, such as an exercise conducted by the PRC air force on August 31 involving the deployment of some 62 warplanes along the median between the two countries in the Taiwan Strait.
Whenever these maneuvers occur, it is common for the opposing side to mobilize its own air and naval forces to guard its territory (or those of its allies) and ward off any intruders. This has resulted, on some occasions, in close encounters between the ships and planes of the opposing sides – with only the skillful action of pilots and helmsmen preventing a potentially deadly collision. This good fortune, however, is not likely to last forever, and – with the frequency and scale of these maneuvers increasing by the week – the likelihood of a mishap is growing exponentially.
Once U.S. and PRC forces engage in a direct military clash – however occasioned – no one can be certain of a peaceful outcome. Given the current environment of mistrust and rivalry between the two sides, it is possible – even likely – that such a clash could lead to the involvement on both sides of other ships and planes, resulting in a spiral of escalation with unforeseeable consequences.
Given this danger, we call on you to immediately take unilateral and bilateral steps to reduce the risk of an accidental or unintended clash between U.S. and PRC air and naval forces in the western Pacific by: (1) discontinuing or scaling back military exercises that could be deemed threatening by others, such as U.S. FRONOPs in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait and PRC air and naval maneuvers across the median line in the Taiwan Strait; (2) undertaking talks between military officials of the two sides (plus those of other interested parties, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines) to devise “rules of the road” for safe, non-threatening air and naval maneuvers in the western Pacific.
We believe that it is possible for both U.S. and PRC forces to undertake all necessary training operations without risking a possible military clash with the other side. Avoiding an accidental or unintended military clash is in the best interests of both countries, and the world at large.
Yours respectfully,
Joseph Gerson and Michael Klare
Co-Chairs, Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy
PELOSI'S APPEARANCE IN TAIWAN COULD HEIGHTEN CHINESE FEARS OF U.S. MEDDLING IN CHINA-TAIWAN AFFAIRS
[Posted July 28, 2022]
The Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy calls on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Pelosi to help prevent a U.S.-China military crisis by postponing her proposed trip to Taiwan until after the upcoming Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gathering at the coastal resort of Beidaihe.
Chinese officials have indicated that by signifying enhanced U.S. ties with Taiwan, a visit by Pelosi to the island at this time would represent a significant affront to U.S.-China relations and so would invite an unspecified Chinese military response. The Chinese leadership and a large segment of the population view Taiwan as a breakaway province of China and consider high-profile visits to the island by U.S. leaders as interference in the country’s internal affairs.
This is a sensitive moment for the Chinese leadership, as President Xi Jinping is expected to seek leadership support for an unprecedented third five-year term as national president and party secretary in advance of the CCP Congress this fall. A provocative U.S. move at this time – such as a visit to Taiwan by Pelosi – could be viewed by party leaders as an insult to Xi and so force him to undertake a strong countermove.
Some analysts have suggested that this could involve overflights of Taiwan by Chinese military aircraft, forcing Taiwan to scramble its own jets and thereby risking a midair collision or armed encounter between the two sides. This, in turn, has led U.S. military officials to warn Speaker Pelosi of the potential for a military crisis arising from her visit, and have encouraged her to cancel or delay her proposed visit.
“We acknowledge that Speaker Pelosi has the right to travel to Taiwan and express her personal views about U.S.-Taiwan relations, but we also believe that she has a responsibility to help maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait area,” said Michael Klare, Co-Chair of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.
“Her appearance in Taiwan could heighten Chinese fears of U.S. meddling in China-Taiwan affairs and so invite a greater Chinese inclination to resolve the dispute through military rather than peaceful means,” Klare continued. “Accordingly, we urge her to reconsider the wisdom of visiting Taiwan altogether or to postpone her trip until tensions in the region have diminished and U.S. military officials can assure her – and the rest of us – that such a visit will not precipitate a military crisis.”
The Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy was established in 2020 to help reduce the risk of a U.S.-China conflict by seeking peaceful, mutually-beneficial solutions to conflictive issues in U.S.-China relations.
Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy Joins 47 Other Organizations in Calling on President Biden to Prioritize Climate Cooperation, not Military Confrontation with China
On July 7, 2021, 48 environmental and other organizations — including Friends of the Earth US, the Sunrise Movement, ActionAid, and the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy — sent an open letter to President Biden and members of Congress calling to end the Cold War approach to confrontation with China and instead to prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation to confront the climate crisis.
"The escalating, bipartisan anti-China rhetoric in both Congress and the White House damages the diplomatic and political relationships needed to move forward boldly and cooperatively..." reads the letter. "Like the pandemic and so many of our most urgent crises, climate change has no nationalistic solutions. To combat the climate crisis and build a global economy that works for everyday working people — in the U.S. and China alike — we must shift from competition to cooperation."
Read the letter in full here
Below are statements from some of the signatories:
"Rather than the current nationalistic, xenophobic castigation of China by the United States, the climate crisis calls for mutual recognition of humanity, cooperation, and solidarity across the globe. This requires the U.S. to stop blaming China for its own failures to tackle the climate emergency and instead do its fair share of global climate action, including deep greenhouse gas reductions at home and massively scaling up finance for developing countries," said Karen Orenstein, Director of the Climate & Energy Program at Friends of the Earth U.S.
"The climate emergency is a global problem that requires a global solution. Escalating U.S. aggression against China, in both rhetoric and policy, will do nothing to lead us towards climate justice for all people in all countries. At this moment, when we are seeing devastating climate impacts affecting every country in the world, including right here at home, we need global solidarity more than ever. Nationalist posturing, thinly veiled xenophobia, and building walls – both real and rhetorical – will only make it harder for frontline communities, and the world, to cope with and eventually resolve the climate crisis," said Brandon Wu, Director of Policy and Campaigns at ActionAid USA.
"Leaders in both parties in the U.S. have prioritized competition with China over who will 'win the 21st century.' But if we fail to work together to address the climate crisis, future generations will have nothing left to 'win.' Escalating U.S.-China tensions will feed defense budgets and dangerous nationalist politics, at the expense of urgently needed climate investments. But another world is possible: if the world's top two economies collaborate on climate, we can rapidly transition to a clean energy global economy and create millions of green jobs around the world," said Tobita Chow, Director of Justice is Global (and a member of the Sane Committee’s Steering Committee).
The 48 organizational signers of the letter are:
198 methods ● 350 Action ● 350PDX ● ActionAid USA ● Anthropocene Alliance ● Businesses for a Livable Climate ● CA Businesses for a Livable Climate ● Call to Action Colorado ● Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security ● CatholicNetwork US ● Climate Law & Policy Project ● CO Businesses for a Livable Climate ● CODEPINK ● Colorado Small Business Coalition ● Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy ● Earthworks ● EcoEquity ● Florida Student Power Network ● Friends of the Earth US ● Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space ● Global Witness ● Grassroots Global Justice Alliance ● Haiti Cholera Research Funding Foundation Inc USA ● Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy ● Institute for Policy Studies Climate Policy Program ● International Student Environmental Coalition ● Just Foreign Policy ● Justice Is Global ● MADRE ● Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns ● MoveOn ● National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies ● Newark Water Coalition ● North Range Concerned Citizens ● Pacific Environment ● People's Action ● Power Shift Network ● Rapid Shift Network ● Spirit of the Sun ● Sunrise Movement ● The Freedom BLOC ● The Green House Connection Center ● Union of Concerned Scientists ● Unite North Metro Denver ● Upper Valley Affinity Group (Vermont) ● Wall of Women ● Win Without War ● Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy Condemns Suppression of Press Freedom in Hong Kong
June 29, 2021
The Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy joins with the Hong Kong Journalists Association and other Hong Kong civic organizations in protesting the closure of Apple Daily and the arrest of seven of its top executives and journalists. We call for these decisions to be reversed.
Apple Daily has long been a leading defender of Hong Kong’s freedoms. It has criticized the Chinese and Hong Kong governments for failing to respect and honor freedoms guaranteed to the citizens of the former British Colony when it reverted to China in 1997.
Evidently fearing that the existence of a democratic and outspoken Hong Kong would serve as an inspiration and model for others in China - thereby weakening the authority of the Chinese Communist Party - the Chinese government moved to consolidate its control over Hong Kong in June 2020 via the imposition of a new National Security Law, overriding Hong Kong’s common law legal system inherited from the British. Since then, the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong government has used the law to crack down on pro-democracy activists and politicians.
Freedom of speech, the press, and assembly are vital to any society’s social, economic, and scientific vitality. These differ entirely from violent acts of subversion, such as the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
We urge the Hong Kong government to reverse its suppression of Apple Daily and the arrest of its executive and journalists. Doing so would demonstrate China’s commitment to internationally recognized rights and allow for a vital, unfettered civic discourse in Hong Kong.
SANE Signs Open Letter: The Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy was among 65-plus non-governmental organizations that signed an open letter to U.S. lawmakers urging them to disapprove the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021 (S.1169), introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D.-N.J.), a.k.a. the “New Cold War with China Act.” The Committee agrees with the basic thrust of the letter that the bill will inflame tensions with China — thereby diverting funds from crucial domestic concerns like education, poverty reduction, and infrastructure repair while at the same time precluding cooperation with China in areas beneficial to the U.S. We are pleased to be co-signers of this letter with such esteemed organizations as the American Friends Service Committee, Council for a Livable World, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Union for Concerned Scientists, among many others.
PRESS RELEASE:
65+ Orgs: Cold War with China is a Dangerous and Self-Defeating Strategy
WASHINGTON — In response to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s recent vote to advance the Strategic Competition Act of 2021 (SCA), and reports that it will receive a Senate floor vote this week, 66 organizations said:
We, the undersigned organizations that represent millions of people across the United States, are deeply concerned about the growing Cold War mentality driving the U.S. approach to China. Although our organizations may have different mandates or ideological persuasions, we know that the new Cold War with China currently being pushed in Washington does not serve the millions of people demanding change across this country nor the billions of people affected by U.S. foreign policy abroad, and will instead lead to further insecurity and division.
Worryingly, both political parties are increasingly latching onto a dangerously short-sighted worldview that presents China as the pivotal existential threat to U.S. prosperity and security and counsels zero-sum competition as the primary response. This narrative is not only growing in our foreign policy discourse, but also is increasingly being used to justify widely popular domestic policies, like those in the Endless Frontier Act, that provide broad social and industrial investments. Anti-China framing for such initiatives is not only politically unnecessary; it is harmful, as it inevitably feeds racism, violence, xenophobia, and white nationalism.
The true global security challenges of today — like economic inequality and lack of opportunity, climate change, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, financial crises and supply chain disruption, and ethno-nationalism — will require joint, non-military solutions with China and other countries. While the administration and many in Congress acknowledge the need for cooperation on issues of global concern such as climate change, presenting the U.S.-China relationship as a zero-sum economic and military struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, as the Strategic Competition Act does, creates a political environment that leaves little room for such cooperation.
Instead, the level of demonization and outdated Cold War thinking driving such efforts threatens to fuel destabilizing arms-racing and risks escalation towards a predictably devastating conflict. It also undermines the human rights agenda, providing ammunition for the Chinese government's claim that criticism of abuses — including from rights advocates within China — is aimed at weakening China. Moreover, such approaches pave the way for U.S. policy to undermine human rights and good governance in pursuit of short-sighted security partnerships with rights-abusing, authoritarian governments simply to compete with Beijing.
President Biden and Congress should focus on innovation, cooperation, and multilateral approaches, not hostility and confrontation, to address shared challenges and areas of concern. What everyday Americans need to secure their futures is not the suppression of the Chinese economy — one that is intimately intertwined with our own — but a fundamental restructuring of our own economy through investments in innovation and green jobs; strengthening labor and raising wages; rooting out systemic racism, sexism and inequality; and ensuring affordable health care, housing, education, and a livable planet. More broadly, the prosperity of working people in the United States and China alike demands building a more equitable global economy that maximizes human wellbeing overall rather than corporate profits. Wasting more money on the Pentagon and inflaming ethno-nationalism and racism will not serve these goals.
This moment presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to fundamentally change how the U.S. government builds the security of its people — and more militarization and demonization of China is a distracting and self-defeating strategy toward this goal. If the U.S. government doesn’t change course quickly, this dangerous bipartisan push for a new Cold War with China risks empowering hardliners in both countries, fueling more violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and failing to confront the truly existential shared threats we face this century.
[Signed by]
ActionAid USA ● American Friends Service Committee ● Asia-Pacific Working Group ● Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) ● Beyond the Bomb ● Brooklyn For Peace ● Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security ● Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) ● Center for International Policy ● Center on Conscience & War ● Church of the Brethren, Office of Peacebuilding and Policy ● CODEPINK ● Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach ● Common Defense ● Concerned Families of Westchester ● Council for a Livable World ● DC Dorothy Day Catholic Worker ● Demand Progress ● Democracy For America ● Detroit Action ● Friends Committee on National Legislation ● Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action ● Indivisible ● Just Foreign Policy ● Justice Democrats ● Justice is Global ● Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives ● MADRE ● Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns ● Massachusetts Peace Action ● MoveOn ● National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC) ● National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights ● National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies ● Organized Uplifting Resources & Strategies ● Peace Action ● Peace Action New York State ● Peace Direct ● Peace Education Center ● People's Action ● Physicians for Social Responsibility ● Project Blueprint ● Proposition One Campaign ● Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft ● Rachel Carson Council ● Rising Voices ● RootsAction.org ● San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility ● Sunrise Movement ● Support and Education for Radiation Victims (SERV) ● Syracuse Peace Council ● The Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy ● The Freedom BLOC ● The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society ● Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) ● U.S. Campaign for Burma ● Union of Concerned Scientists ● United for Peace and Justice ● Veterans For Peace ● Western States Legal Foundation ● Whatcom Peace & Justice Center ● Win Without War ● Women Cross DMZ ● Women's Action for New Directions ● Working Families Party ● World BEYOND War ●
Statement by Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy on Anti-Asian Violence
March 20, 2021
The Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy condemns all acts of Anti-Asian violence and discrimination, as it does all manifestations of racism. We are horrified by the March 16, 2021 killing of eight people in Georgia, six of whom were Asian-American women. This is but the latest in the long and unacceptable history of racist and misogynist violence inflicted against Asian-Americans and other minorities.
Over the past year, the group Stop AAPI Hate has logged 4,000 incidents of hate incidents directed against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. A recent University of California study confirms what we read in the media: During the past year, hate crimes directed against Asian-American have increased by 150%.
We believe that this rise in Anti-Asian violence and hate incidents is the predictable consequence of the new, unnecessary, and dangerous U.S.-China Cold War. In an environment in which top officials regularly denounce China and our former president regularly spoke of the “China flu” and the “Wuhan virus” to deflect responsibility for his shortcomings in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, it is not surprising that those with racist instincts have felt empowered to victimize Chinese-Americans (or those they assume to be Chinese-Americans).
Unfortunately, anti-Asian racism is not a new phenomenon. Chinese-Americans were driven from their homes and massacred in large numbers during the Gold Rush and the building of the railroads. Some 120,000 Japanese Americans with no direct relationship to the U.S. war with Japan had their property seized and were interned in concentration camps during World War II. Asian-Americans again suffered violence in the 1980s when the growing vigor of Japan’s automotive industry cost jobs in Detroit.
Now, with China’s economy threatening to surpass that of the United States and the two heavily-armed powers contending for military and geopolitical dominance in the Western Pacific, irrational Cold War rhetoric and policies threaten catastrophic war abroad while generating racial attacks, scapegoating, and even the murder of our fellow citizens at home.
We call on those responsible to better ensure the safety of our Asian-American friends, neighbors, colleagues, and co-citizens. But we also call on policymakers to pull back from a dangerous Cold War with China, thereby diminishing the risk of war and tempering the environment in which anti-Asian hate crimes occur.
Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy Statement on March 18/19 Anchorage Meeting Between Top U.S. and Chinese Leaders
The Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy (“Sane”) welcomes the announcement that top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, will meet with their Chinese counterparts, Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi and State Councilor Wang Yi, on March 18 and 19 in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss issues of concern to both countries.
There could not be a better moment for such a meeting: During the final months of the Trump administration, relations between the United States and China had become increasingly fractious, which both sides trading hostile accusations at the other over trade, human rights, Taiwan, and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The Biden Administration has further aggravated relations by repeatedly sending U.S. warships on show-of-force missions through the Taiwan Strait and expressing support for Taiwan’s pro-independence leaders. If relations continue down this belligerent path, both countries will become locked in a punishing Cold War with a very real potential for becoming a hot one.
“We recognize that there are many divisive issues in U.S.-China relations and that overcoming them will not be easy,” said Sane Co-Founder Michael Klare. “But we implore Messrs. Blinken and Sullivan, and their Chinese counterparts, Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, to address these issues in a constructive, non-hostile manner, and to set the stage for future negotiations leading to mutually beneficial outcomes.”
In particular, said Klare, “We hope this interchange will lead to high-level talks in the not-too distant future – ultimately involving the two country’s presidents – on proposals for reducing tensions over trade, Taiwan, and the South China Sea and for jump-starting cooperation over climate change, global pandemics, and nuclear proliferation.”
Sane Co-Founder Joseph Gerson added, “Significant progress is possible in building cooperation between the U.S. and China on these critical issues. However, none of this will occur if Messrs. Blinken and Sullivan use this encounter simply to lambast Chinese leaders. An expression of Washington’s concerns over China’s human rights behavior certainly belongs on the agenda, but should not preclude a serious, businesslike discussion of areas where cooperation is possible and strategies for resolving more contentious issues.
The Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy is a non-partisan advocacy and education organization formed in the fall of 2020 to resist the slide towards war between the U.S. and China and to seek practical, non-military, mutually beneficial solutions to divisive issues in U.S.-China relations.
OUR POLICY PAPERS
Policy Paper #3 RESPONDING TO CHINESE VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
By Richard Falk
Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University
Introduction:
There is no doubt that Chinese government encroachments on the fundamental human rights of its population have become more pervasive and serious in several respects during the leadership of President Xi Jinping. This unfortunate development has been increasingly highlighted, often with inflammatory intent, by Western leaders and media outlets – a pattern that is contributing to increasing tensions between China and the West, especially the United States. This emphasis on Chinese violations of human rights is reinforced by complaints that China acted irresponsibly and oppressively in its early responses to the COVID-19 challenge, is defying international law in the South China Sea, and has not participated in the world economy in a fair and proper manner, hence justifying such American responses as blocking exports of high-technology items to China, persuading European governments to avoid tying their internet network to Chinese 5G technology, placing burdens on Chinese investment in the United States, and above all in mounting a global propaganda offensive against China.
President Biden in his speech to the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2021 highlighted what he called ‘competition’ with China as well as with Russia, blaming each for bad behavior, while saying that the U.S. seeks to avoid a new cold war and looks forward to cooperation with China in areas of shared concern, most notably in relation to health and climate change.[1] At the same time the, central thesis of the Munich speech was disturbing, a confusing call for solidarity among democratic countries, highlighting NATO’s mission in ‘prevailing’ over the challenges mounted by the rise of autocratic nationalism all over the world. For those able to recall the bellicose rhetoric of prior decades, this call is highly resonant with Cold War slogans about the ‘free world’ resisting the totalitarian Soviet bloc. It was also confusing by combining alliance solidarity with Biden’s call for the formation of a united front of democratic states, forgetting that many U.S. allies are far from achieving democratic credentials – consider the Philippines, India, Brazil, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia.
There are also unacknowledged worries in the West about competitiveness arising not from Chinese improper behavior, but from its growing technological creativity and military muscle. The so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ has historically prompted nervous dominant states seek to turn back a challenge to their preeminence by initiating a war while still enjoying military superiority, which is feared will soon be overtaken.[2] The dangers of confrontation with China are especially great given the flashpoints in the South and East China Seas, and especially in relation to Taiwan. China seems intent on establishing its regional supremacy while the United States seeks to reassert its long-dominant regional role by displaying its formidable naval presence as a sign of readiness to meet political threats with shows of force, a recipe for dangerous forms of unintended escalation.
It is against this background of mixed messages that U.S. policy toward human rights in China should be shaped, especially if the goal is to avoid war and establish an overall atmosphere that encourages cooperative engagements. This critical goal would best be served by reducing tensions that could give rise to hazardous and hostile confrontations, and even outright conflict. This paper seeks to thread the needle so as to separate genuine concerns about human rights from the overriding priority of not stumbling into a cold war – let alone a hot war – with China. In that spirit it sets forth a profile of China’s human rights record, including taking account of its considerable positive sides, and expresses a skeptical view as to whether overt hostile criticisms, policies, or actions are justified or effective, adopting the view that such a pushback is certain to be resented by Chinese leaders and dismissed as hostile propaganda. It is certain to be ineffective in changing China’s controversial domestic policies.
Declaring this, however, does not dispose of the problem. As with the Cold War and regime-changing interventions, the denunciation of human rights violations by an adversary of the United States, usually in exaggerated form, has proven extremely useful in mobilizing Congressional, media, and citizen support for coercive diplomacy, taking a variety of forms, including military buildups, sanctions, interventions, threats, and covert destabilizing operations. When John Bolton, a relentless right-wing geopolitical hawk when it comes to opposing Muslim political aspirations in the Middle East and elsewhere, expressed fury over Donald Trump’s unwillingness to do anything substantial about the plight of the approximately 12 million Turkic speaking Muslim Uyghurs and Kazakhs living in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, we should realize that his concern is not about human rights or the plight of the Uyghurs.
Some Perspective on China’s Human Rights Record
It is difficult to disentangle Western anti-Chinese propaganda from an objective appraisal of China’s record on human rights. This difficulty is compounded by certain Asian values and traditions that help explain government behavior, which when given a special Chinese twist, diverge in approach from Western liberal approaches that give priority to individual freedoms.
There is no doubt that China’s policy toward Tibetan, Eastern Mongolian, and Uyghur minorities raise serious human rights issues that have been reliably reported by respected human rights organizations. The allegations include involuntary detention and abusive treatment in so-called ‘reeducation camps,’ forced sterilization, denials of freedoms of expression, religion, and cultural identity, family separation, and discrimination in paid work.[3]
Yet the underlying issues are complex, and can be interpreted from contradictory perspectives. Concerns about human rights, especially when associated with discontented ethnic and religious minorities, are inevitably interrelated with questions about the interplay of territorial sovereignty and specifying the acceptable nature of national identity. This includes grappling with the indistinct relationship between duties to uphold the internationally protected human rights of minorities and responses to social movements based on claims of autonomy and separation. In such cases, human rights issues need to be balanced against measures undertaken to maintain the unity of the state. There are legal ambiguities and factual complexities about who has the authority to strike a balance between collective human rights and governmental responsibility to uphold the unity of the state. What constitutes a reasonable balance? Who decides? There are no firm answers.
International law has long wrestled with this complexity. On the one side exists a strong affirmation of the right of self-determination that inheres in every ‘people’ and it set forth in Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. On the other side is the common understanding in international law, as confirmed by an influential 1970 UN resolution, as prohibiting claims of self-determination that seek to fragment or threaten the unity of existing sovereign states. The language of the preamble to the UN resolution is clear and uncontested: “…any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a State or country or at its political independence is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the [UN] Charter.[4] This conceptual confusion is accentuated to the extent that international law confers the right of self-determination on a ‘people’ while endowing ‘states’ with ‘sovereignty,’ which often encompasses more than one people. Governments are legally empowered to exercise virtually unrestricted authority within recognized territorial boundaries to curb movements that exhibit separatist tendencies. Yet when national policy is being challenged by ethno-political movements seeking greater degrees of cultural and political autonomy, including language rights and questions bearing on the freedom of religion, issues of human rights and sovereign authority are inevitably intertwined. In these contexts, independence demands, nationalist claims, and secessionism tendencies are often disguised beneath assertions of human rights grievances, partly to arouse a sympathetic international response. Not only is a careful balancing of facts, law, and rights called for, but account must be taken of how and why some human claims are ignored while others are strongly confirmed. International alignments often explain these glaring differences of response. The human rights wrongdoing of geopolitical adversaries are exaggerated, while comparable wrongs of friends are overlooked or handled discreetly. Perhaps, this unequal response is to some extent understandable given the way the world is politically organized, but when, as here, there is present a dangerous tendency to use human rights issues to stoke the fires of geopolitical contestation, caution and prudence are called for. We observe a toxic correlation of recommended toughness in relating to China in the context of trade and the South China Sea disputes with inflammatory complaints about Chinese violations of human rights. Such behavior threatens confrontation, serious crises, even war, and so has very different implications than justifiable efforts to counteract abusive exercises of state power by the recent military takeover of the government in Myanmar.
Some of China’s policies toward the Uyghurs seem to be clearly in violation of international human rights standards. Such behavior is unacceptable, but even here the facts are not as clear in its character as China’s most fervent critics contend. China has long adopted controversial measures to curb population growth and was widely criticized for its one-family policies, but also widely praised for avoiding demographic pressures that might have intensifies expansionist policies, causing conflict.
There is doubt that China also exhibits intolerance toward political dissent and opposition politics that would be viewed in many national settings as violating civil and political rights. More than elsewhere, China has established intrusive surveillance mechanisms to monitor the behavior of its citizenry that encroach upon the privacy of its citizens. But China is hardly the only country in the world where this is occurring. In general, the drift throughout the world is toward authoritarianism with respect to state/society relations, and however regrettable, this trend often discloses the political will of the nation as expressed through periodic elections, and although noted with concern by Washington, is not allowed to influence U.S. foreign policy, especially if authoritarianism prevails in an ally or friendly country. As a result, this focus on China’s authoritarian policies and practices seems less concerned with the rights of the Chinese people and better understood as a means of ramping up geopolitical pressures.
Again, police brutality in response to public demonstrations in Hong Kong seem unacceptable from the perspective of a truly free society; note, however, that the Chinese government response is far less harsh than the far bloodier Egyptian response to peaceful demonstrations in recent years, and yet no media or State Department scrutiny has been forthcoming in that case. In contrast, the Hong Kong confrontational demonstrations are given intensive, one-sided, and totally sympathetic media coverage.
Fairly considered, the human rights picture in China looks quite different if economic and social rights are taken into account. China, perhaps more rapidly and impressively than any country throughout all of history, has overcome the extreme poverty of as many as 300 million of its citizens, providing for health, education, housing, food security, and infrastructure development in ways that many affluent countries of the West fail to do, despite centuries of effort. China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative,’ the largest public works project ever undertaken – while controversial in some respects – has produced many beneficial outcomes in Asia and Africa that have enabled developing countries to better meet the needs of their peoples, and indirectly contribute to the realization of economic and social rights.
China’s Human Rights Record and U.S. Foreign Policy
When attempting to devise an appropriate U.S. foreign policy response to China’s human rights record, there are several issues that need to be distinguished:
· What is the overall Chinese record on human rights if fairly appraised, given some uncertainties as to evidence and behavior reflective of cultural divergencies?
· Should U.S. foreign policy highlight Chinese violations of human rights?
· Would highlighting be effective in improving the protection of human rights in China?
· Would such highlighting increase the likelihood of heightened geopolitical tensions, reduced global cooperation, and greater conflict in the South China Seas?
Assessing the Record
China’s record on human rights is definitely mixed. If judged by Western liberal standards it can be faulted for serious violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. If appraised by non-Western and Global South standards, its achievements with respect to economic and social rights stand out, and compares favorably with many Western countries. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains many provisions confirming economic and social rights, and is considered expressive of customary international law, despite being originally set forth as ‘declaratory’ and ‘non-binding.’ In the public discourse about China, even the most respected Western human rights NGOs accord China zero credit for this amazing record of poverty alleviation, and thus its overall reputation is denied a proper appraisal.
The most serious internationally actionable allegations with respect to China involve the treatment of the Uyghur minority. As mentioned earlier, there is no doubt that allegations involving serious human rights violations by China in Xinjiang involving the Uyghurs seem based on extensive evidence. In the words of the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2020, China’s “‘Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Extremism’ has entailed mass arbitrary detention, surveillance, indoctrination, and destruction of the region’s cultural and religious heritage.”[5] But whether pressure from outside China will help or hurt the Uyghurs is problematic. It should be kept in mind that many some of these charges against China are difficult to evaluate, and rest on rationalizations relied on by many governments under the heading of anti-separatism and counter-terrorism. As such, they are subject to controversy and much of the evidence relied upon is clouded by partisan political interpretations relating to legally ambiguous issues such as the discretion of the territorial sovereign with respect to the treatment of minority nationalities that exhibit violent separatist tendencies.[6]
The most serious charges of ‘genocide’ seem certainly exaggerated and unfounded by reference to international standards, which impose exacting standard of intentionality.[7] In this instance, to allege genocide, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did on the basis of discredited assessments by Andrew Zenz, seems outrageous considering verified population increases among Uyghurs in recent years.[8] Such extreme charges are politically motivated, highly provocative, legally unsupportable, and hence, diplomatically irresponsible.
Would Highlighting be Effective in Improving China’s Human Rights Record?
Overall, when dealing with major countries, including the United States, improving compliance with human rights comes about as a result of developments from within territorial borders. Criticism from outside, even from the UN or other international institutions, tends to be ignored or discounted as hostile propaganda. Such a pattern not only reflects the statist nature of world order, but is also a reaction to the cynical use of human rights discourse to justify hostile attitudes toward foreign adversaries or geopolitical rivals. Such patterns of behavior were very characteristic of the selective emphasis on human rights throughout the Cold War: a country with a left or Marxist outlook was condemned for human rights violations while countries that were aligned with the West were not criticized, much less sanctioned, no matter how serious their violations of fundamental human rights.
Against this background it would be a mistake for the U.S. Government to emphasize allegations of Chinese human rights violations when seeking to work out relations with China that accord with the national, regional, and global priorities that should serve as the foundation of American foreign policy, including cooperation on climate change and monetary stabilization. It would seem that mainstream human rights NGOs in the West should be sensitive to similar cross-cutting considerations bearing on current policy priorities in international relations, although to a lesser extent than the U.S. government, as their undertaking is to report on human rights as objectively, reliably, and persuasively as possible. At the same time, civil society actors should be cautious about accepting insufficiently evidenced allegations of human rights violations that seem to intrude upon China’s territorial sovereignty, especially given the inflammatory character of the present diplomatic setting in which those advocating an aggressive approach toward China seek to play the human rights card.
The most effective way to engage China on human rights would be to rely on discreet methods of communication through private and peace-oriented channels that do not seek to exert public pressures and are diplomatically linked to an underlying commitment to encourage global cooperation with respect to shared issues such as climate change and conflict resolution. A genuine concern with human rights in China must acknowledge that any improvement in the situation depends on internal Chinese developments that cannot be exploited to generate hostile propaganda and are not funded or encouraged by covert destabilizing operations.
Foreign Policy Imperatives in the Present Era
Unlike the Cold War in which the focus was placed on the containment of Soviet military expansion, especially in Europe, and on contesting the ideological embrace of Marxist ideas of political economy within the Global South, the challenges posed by the rise of China are entirely different, and call for different types of response. For one thing, China poses no threat to core U.S. security interests, especially in this post-Trump period when the United States seeks to revive a Eurocentric alliance in the course of reviving its global leadership role. Unlike the Soviet Union, China has largely pursued its geopolitical ambitions by non-military, economic means, except in maritime areas close to its shores and in border disputes with neighboring countries. This difference in geopolitical profile strengthens the incentives to avoid tensions that could lead to risky military confrontations in the South and East China Seas; from this perspective, avoiding excessive criticism of China’s violations of human rights would seem helpful from a war prevention perspective. There is no reason to laud China’s domestic political environment, but high-profile complaints about Xinjiang and Hong Kong will be met with counter-allegations about American shortcomings with respect to human rights and would likely intensify the confrontational atmosphere.
Also different is the nature of the global agenda. Although it would have been a welcome contribution to world peace if the United States and the Soviet Union had more vigorously cooperated to produce a monitored and comprehensive nuclear disarmament treaty, the need for cooperation in responding to climate change is unprecedented. If the dangers posed by global warming are not addressed cooperatively it will produce a worldwide disaster, and China – as the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions – is an indispensable partner in managing a positive response.
It is worth remembering that if overcoming the threats posed by Hitler’s Germany had not involved cooperation with the ideologically alien Soviet Union during World War II, which included suspension of most Western criticisms of the excesses of Stalinism, the outcome of war might not have resulted in victory for the Western democracies. The Soviet Union posed no economic threat to American global economic primacy. China does pose such a threat, and so could lead the United States to make irrational responses that would weaken the global role of the dollar as reserve currency and produce a downward spiral of trade and investment that would hurt all countries, and quite possibly inducing a new world depression of even greater gravity than the Great Depression of the 1930s. Here, as with climate change, the interests of the West favor a geopolitics of accommodation, compromise, and a search for win/win outcomes. In this regard, accentuating the human rights failures of China is imprudent, ineffective, and dangerous under present conditions.
Copyright 2021 Richard Falk
ENDNOTES:
2. Graham Allison, “The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?” The Atlantic, Sept. 24, 20154, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/.
3. See, for example, Austin Ramzy, “China’s Oppression of Muslims in Xinjiang, Explained,” New York Times, Jan. 20, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/world/asia/china-genocide-uighurs-explained.html.
4. Declaration of Principles concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States, Commentary on Principle (e), UN General Assembly Res. 2625, Oct. 24, 1970, https://www.un.org/rule of law/files/3dda1f104.pdf.
5. Human Rights Watch (HRW), Human Rights Watch World Report, 2020 (HRW, 2020), p. 1.
6.. See, for example, James Millward, Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center, 2014).
7. On the high legal bar with respect to genocide, see: Judgment, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, ICJ Reports, 1996).
8. On Pompeo’s claims, see Edward Wong and Chris Buckley, “U.S. Says China’s Repression of Uighurs Is ‘Genocide,’” New York Times, Jan. 19, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/trump-china-xinjiang.html. For a well-reasoned and documented rebuttal of the data relied upon in making those allegations, see Gareth Porter and Michael Blumenthal, “U.S. State Department accusation of ‘genocide’ relied on data and baseless claims by far-right ideologues,” The Greyzone, Feb. 18, 2021, https://mronline.org/2021/03/01/u-s-state-department-accusation-of-china-genocide-relied-on-data-abuse-and-baseless-claims-by-far-right-ideologue/.
Policy Paper #2: AN ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL SURVIVAL: BIDEN, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND CHINA
Author: Michael T. Klare
Last Updated: March 6, 2021
Slowing the pace of climate change and getting “tough” on China, especially over its human-rights abuses and unfair trade practices, are among the top priorities President Biden has announced for his new administration. Evidently, he believes that he can tame a rising China with harsh pressure tactics, while still gaining its cooperation in areas of concern to Washington. As he wrote in Foreign Affairs during the presidential election campaign, “The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change.”[1] If, however, our Biden truly believes that he can build an international coalition to gang up on China and secure Beijing’s cooperation on climate change, he is seriously deluded. Indeed, though he could succeed in provoking a new cold war, he won’t prevent the planet from heating up unbearably in the process.
President Biden is certainly aware of the dangers of global warming. In that same Foreign Affairs article, he labeled it nothing short of an “existential threat,” one that imperils the survival of human civilization. Acknowledging the importance of relying on scientific expertise (unlike our previous president, who repeatedly invented his own version of scientific reality), Biden affirmed the conclusion of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that warming must be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels or the planet will experience calamitous, irreversible consequences. He then pledged to “rejoin the Paris climate agreement on day one of a Biden administration” (which he indeed did on his first day in office) and to “make massive, urgent investments at home that put the United States on track to have a clean energy economy with net-zero [greenhouse gas] emissions by 2050” – the target set by the IPCC.
Even such dramatic actions, he indicated, will not be sufficient. Other countries will have to join America in moving toward a global “net-zero” state in which any carbon emissions would be compensated for by equivalent carbon removals. “Because the United States creates only 15 percent of global emissions,” he wrote, “I will leverage our economic and moral authority to push the world to determined action, rallying nations to raise their ambitions and push progress further and faster.”[2]
China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases right now (although the U.S. remains number one historically[3]), would obviously be Washington’s natural partner in this effort. Here, though, Biden’s antagonistic stance toward that country is likely to prove a significant impediment. Rather than prioritize cooperation with China on climate action, he chose to castigate Beijing for its continued reliance on coal and support for coal projects in other countries. The Biden climate plan, he wrote in Foreign Affairs, “includes insisting that China… stop subsidizing coal exports and outsourcing pollution to other countries by financing billions of dollars’ worth of dirty fossil-fuel energy projects through its Belt and Road Initiative.” Then he went further, by portraying the global effort to achieve a green economy as a potentially competitive, not collaborative, struggle with China, saying, “I will make investment in research and development a cornerstone of my presidency, so that the United States is leading the charge in innovation. There is no reason we should be falling behind China or anyone else when it comes to clean energy.”
Certainly, it might be useful to highlight the areas in which China has taken the lead in clean energy – for example, in its drive to master the technology of electric cars – to spur catch-up efforts in this country. But if climate change is an existential threat requiring maximum international effort to overcome, depicting this vital endeavor as a competitive race with winners and losers and picking fights with China over its energy behavior is a self-defeating way to start.
Whatever obstacles China does pose, its cooperation in achieving that 1.5-degree limit is critical. “If we don’t get this right, nothing else will matter,” Biden said of global efforts to deal with climate change.[4] Sadly, his insistence on pummeling China on so many fronts will ensure that he gets it wrong. The only way to avert catastrophic climate change is for the United States to avoid a new cold war with China by devising a cooperative set of plans with Beijing to speed the global transition to a green economy.
Why Cooperation Is Essential
With such cooperation in mind, let’s review the basics on how those two countries affect world energy consumption and global carbon emissions: The United States and China are the world’s two leading consumers of energy and its two main emitters of carbon dioxide, or CO2, the leading greenhouse gas. As a result, they exert an outsized influence on the global climate equation. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China accounted for approximately 22% of world energy consumption in 2018; the U.S., 16%. And because both countries rely so heavily on fossil fuels for energy generation – China largely on coal, the U.S. more on oil and natural gas – their carbon-dioxide emissions account for an even larger share of the global total: China alone, nearly 29% in 2018; the U.S., 18%; and combined, an astonishing 46%.[5]
It’s what will happen in the future, though, that really matters. If the world is to keep global temperatures from rising above that 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, every major economy should soon be on a downward-trending trajectory in terms of both fossil-fuel consumption and CO2 emissions (along with a compensating increase in renewable energy output). Horrifyingly enough, however, on their current trajectories, over the next two decades the combined fossil-fuel consumption and carbon emissions of China and the United States are still expected to rise, not fall, before stabilizing in the 2040s at a level far above net zero. According to the IEA, if the two countries remain on their current energy-use trajectories, their combined fossil-fuel consumption would be approximately 17% higher in 2040 than in 2018, even if their CO2 emissions would rise by only 3% (reflecting a greater reliance on natural gas as opposed to coal).[6] Any increase of that kind over the next two decades would spell one simple word for humanity: doom.
True, both countries are expected to substantially increase their investment in renewable energy during the next 20 years, even as places like India are expected to account for an ever-increasing share of global energy use and CO2 emissions. Still, as long as Beijing and Washington continue to lead the world in both categories, any effort to achieve net-zero and avert an almost unimaginable climate cataclysm will have to fall largely on their shoulders. This would, however, require a colossal reduction in fossil-fuel consumption and the ramping up of renewables on a scale unlike any engineering project this planet has ever seen.
The Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University, an influential Chinese think tank, has calculated what might be involved in reshaping China’s coal-dependent electrical power system to reach the goal of a 1.5-degree limit on global warming. Its researchers believe that, over the next three decades, this would require adding the equivalent of three times current global wind power capacity and four times that of solar power at the cost of approximately $20 trillion.[7]
A similar transformation will be required in the United States, although with some differences: while this country relies far less on coal than China to generate electricity, it relies more on natural gas (a less potent emitter of CO2, but a fossil fuel nonetheless) and its electrical grid – as that catastrophic February 2021 storm demonstrated – is woefully unprepared for climate change and will have to be substantially rebuilt at enormous cost.[8]
And that represents only part of what needs to be done to avert planetary catastrophe. To eliminate carbon emissions from oil-powered vehicles, both countries will have to replace their entire fleets of cars, vans, trucks, and buses with electric-powered ones and develop alternative fuels for their trains, planes, and ships – an undertaking of equal magnitude and expense.
There are two ways all of this can be done: separately or together. Each country could devise its own blueprint for such a transition, developing its own green technologies and seeking financing wherever it could be found. As in the fight over fifth generation (5G) telecommunications, each could deny scientific knowledge and technical know-how to its rival and insist that allies buy only its equipment, whether or not it best suits their purposes — a stance taken by the Trump administration with respect to the Chinese company Huawei’s 5G wireless technology.[9]
Alternatively, the U.S. and China could cooperate in developing green technologies, share information and know-how, and work together in disseminating them around the world. On the question of which approach is more likely to achieve success, the answer is too obvious to belabor. Only those prepared to risk civilization’s survival would choose the former – and yet that’s the choice that both sides may indeed make.
Why a New Cold War Precludes Climate Salvation
Those in Washington who favor a tougher approach toward China and the bolstering of U.S. military forces in the Pacific claim that, under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist regime has become more authoritarian at home and more aggressive abroad, endangering key U.S. allies in the Pacific and threatening our vital interests.[10] Certainly, when it comes to the increasing repression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang Province or pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, there can be little doubt of Beijing’s perfidy, though on other issues, there’s room for debate. On another subject, though, there really should be no room for debate at all: the impact of a new cold war between the planet’s two great powers on the chances for a successful global response to a rapidly warming planet.
There are several obvious reasons for this. First, increased hostility will ensure a competitive rather than collaborative search for vital solutions, resulting in wasted resources, inadequate financing, duplicative research, and the stalled international dissemination of advanced green technologies. A hint of such a future lies in the competitive rather than collaborative development of vaccines for Covid-19 and their distressingly chaotic distribution to Africa and the rest of the developing world, ensuring that the pandemic will have a life into 2022 or 2023 with an ever-rising death toll.[11]
Second, a new cold war will make international diplomacy more difficult when it comes to ensuring worldwide compliance with the Paris climate agreement. Consider it a key lesson for the future that cooperation between President Barack Obama and Xi Jinping made the agreement possible in the first place, creating pressure on reluctant but vital powers like India and Russia to join as well.[12] Once President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement, that space evaporated and global adherence withered. Only by recreating such a U.S.-China climate alliance will it be possible to corral other key players into full compliance. As suggested recently by Todd Stern, the lead American negotiator at the 2015 Paris climate summit, “There is simply no way to contain climate change worldwide without full-throttle engagement by both countries.”[13] A cold war environment would make such cooperation a fantasy.
Third, such an atmosphere would ensure a massive increase in military expenditures on both sides, sopping up funds needed for the transition to a green-energy economy. In addition, as the pace of militarization accelerated, fossil-fuel use would undoubtedly increase, as the governments of both countries favored the mass production of gas-guzzling tanks, bombers, and warships.
Finally, there is no reason to assume a cold war will always remain cold. The current standoff between the U.S. and China in the Pacific is different from the one that existed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Europe during the historic Cold War. There is no longer anything like an “Iron Curtain” to define the boundaries between the two sides or keep their military forces from colliding with each another. While the risk of war in Europe was ever-present back then, each side knew that such a boundary-crossing assault might trigger a nuclear exchange and so prove suicidal.
Today, however, the air and naval forces of China and the U.S. are constantly intermingling in the East and South China Seas, making a clash or collision possible at any time.[14] So far, cooler heads have prevailed, preventing such encounters from sparking armed violence, but as tensions mount, a hot war between the U.S. and China cannot be ruled out. And because American forces are poised to strike at vital targets on the Chinese mainland, it’s impossible to preclude China’s use of nuclear weapons or, if preparations for such use are detected, a preemptive U.S. nuclear strike.[15]
Any full-scale thermonuclear conflagration resulting from that would probably cause a nuclear winter and the death of billions of people, making the climate-change peril moot.[16] But even if nuclear weapons are not employed, a war between the two powers could result in immense destruction in China’s industrial heartland and to such key U.S. allies as Japan and South Korea. Fires ignited in the course of battle would, of course, add additional carbon to the atmosphere, while the subsequent breakdown in global economic activity would postpone by years any transition to a green economy.
An Alliance for Global Survival
If Joe Biden genuinely believes that climate change is an “existential threat” and that the United States “must lead the world,” it’s crucial that he stop the slide toward a new cold war with China and start working with Beijing to speed the transition to a green-energy economy focused on ensuring global compliance with the Paris climate agreement. This would not necessarily mean abandoning all efforts to pressure China on human rights and other contentious issues. It’s possible to pursue human rights, trade equity, and planetary survival at the same time. Indeed, as both countries come to share the urgency of addressing the climate crisis, progress on other issues could become easier.
Assuming Biden truly means what he says about overcoming the climate threat and “getting it right,” here are some of the steps he could take to achieve meaningful progress:
* Schedule a “climate summit” with Xi Jinping as soon as possible to discuss joint efforts to overcome global warming, including the initiation of bilateral programs to speed advances in areas like the spread of electric vehicles, the improvement of battery-storage capabilities, the creation of enhanced methods of carbon sequestration, and the development of alternative aviation fuels.
* At the conclusion of the summit, joint working groups on these and other matters should be established, made up of senior figures from both sides. Research centers and universities in each country should be designated as lead actors in key areas, with arrangements made for cooperative partnerships and the sharing of climate-related technical data.
* At the same time, presidents Biden and Xi should announce the establishment of an “Alliance for Global Survival,” intended to mobilize international support for the Paris climate agreement and strict adherence to its tenets. As part of this effort, the two leaders should plan joint meetings with other world leaders to persuade them to replicate the measures that Biden and Xi have agreed to work on cooperatively. As needed, they could offer to provide financial aid and technical assistance to poorer states to launch the necessary energy transition.
* Presidents Biden and Xi should agree to reconvene annually to review progress in all these areas and designate surrogates to meet on a more regular basis. Both countries should publish an online “dashboard” exhibiting progress in every key area of climate mitigation.
So, Mr. Biden, if you really meant what you said about overcoming climate change, these are some of the things you should focus on to get it right. Choose this path and guarantee us all a fighting chance to avert civilizational collapse. Choose the path of confrontation instead – the one your administration already appears headed down – and that hope is likely to disappear into an unbearable world of burning, flooding, famine, and extreme storms until the end of time.
Copyright 2021 Michael T. Klare
References:
1. Joseph R. Biden Jr., “Why America Must Lead Again: Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again.
2. Ibid.
3. Justin Gillis and Nadja Popovich, “The U.S. Is the Biggest Carbon Polluter in History. It Just Walked Away from the Paris Climate Deal.,” New York Times, June 1, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/01/climate/us-biggest-carbon-polluter-in-history-will-it-walk-away-from-the-paris-climate-deal.html.
4. Biden, “Why America Must Lead Again.”
5. International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2019 (Paris: IEA, 2019), Table 1.2, p. 40, and Table A.3, pp. 688, 732.
6. Ibid, Table A.3, pp. 687, 731.
7. See Christian Shepherd, Emma Zhou, and Katrina Manson, “Climate change: China’s coal addiction clashes with Xi’s bold promise,” Financial Times, Nov. 3, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/9656e36c-ba59-43e9-bf1c-c0f105813436.
8. Brad Plumer, “A Glimpse of America’s Future: Climate Change Means Trouble for Power Grids,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/climate/texas-power-grid-failures.html.
9. See David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes, Raymond Zhong, and Marc Santora, “In 5G Race With China, U.S. Pushes Allies to Fight Huawei,” New York Times, Jan. 26, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/huawei-china-us-5g-technology.html.
10. See Matthew Lee, “At Nixon library, Pompeo declares China engagement a failure,” July 23, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/at-nixon-library-pompeo-declares-china-engagement-a-failure/2020/07/23/c4b073f2-cd29-11ea-99b0-8426e26d203b_story.html.
11. Danil Bochkov, “Great Power Competition and the COVID-19 Vaccine Race,” The Diplomat, Jan. 29, 2021, https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/great-power-competition-and-the-covid-19-vaccine-race/.
12. Tom Phillips, Fiona Harvey, and Alan Yuhas, “Breakthrough as US and China agree to ratify Paris climate deal,” The Guardian, Sept. 3, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/03/breakthrough-us-china-agree-ratify-paris-climate-change-deal.
13. Todd Stern, “Can the United States and China reboot their climate cooperation?” Brookings Institution, Sept. 14, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-the-united-states-and-china-reboot-their-climate-cooperation/.
14. Zhou Bo, “The risk of China-US military conflict is worryingly high,” Financial Times, Aug. 25, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/0f423616-d9f2-4ca6-8d3b-a04d467ed6f8.
15. See Michael T. Klare, “An ‘Arms Race in Speed’: Hypersonic Weapons and the Changing Calculus of Battle,” Arms Control Today, June 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-06/features/arms-race-speed-hypersonic-weapons-changing-calculus-battle.
16. Sarah Derouin, “Nuclear Winter May Bring a Decade of Destruction,” Eos, Sept. 27, 2019, https://eos.org/articles/nuclear-winter-may-bring-a-decade-of-destruction.
Policy Paper #1: THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: CONFLICT OR COMMON SECURITY IN THE EPICENTER OF GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS
Author: Joseph Gerson
Last Updated: January 23, 2021
In an era defined by the inevitable tensions between rising and declining powers, the South China Sea has become the epicenter of 21st century’s struggle for world power. After nearly a century of U.S. hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, China’s “reform and opening” has created an economy that is soon expected to overshadow that of the United States and to provide the wherewithal for the establishment of a modernized military. Today, China’s air, naval, and missile defense forces are increasingly calling into question the Pentagon’s long-term ability to dominate the South China Sea and the western Pacific, prompting the U.S. military to undertake a massive expansion of its own Pacific-oriented forces. Meanwhile, the air and naval forces of both countries regularly engage in “show-of-force” operations in the South China Sea, posing a constant risk of accidental and unintended military clashes that could easily spiral out of control, sparking a major regional confrontation – even a nuclear war.
Historical Background
The South China Sea, located in the Western Pacific, functions as the jugular vein of the world’s most dynamic capitalist economies. Bounded by China to the north, the Philippines to the east, Indonesia to the south, and Vietnam to the west, the sea extends across 1.3 million square miles of the western Pacific. Its seabed contains massive amounts of petroleum, natural gas, and other minerals, and the sea also encompasses the maritime trade routes traversed by 40% of the world’s commerce, including the fossil fuels that power the Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean economies. Its waves lap along China’s potentially vulnerable southeast coast, where its industrial and financial strength is concentrated. If the Malacca Strait on the sea’s southwestern perimeter or its other sea lines of communication were to be blockaded, the region’s economies would face disaster.[1]
On several occasions, President Obama described the United States as a “Pacific nation.” In doing so he was referring to more than the Pacific coastal states of California, Oregon, and Washington. As early as the 1850s, William Seward, later the Secretary of State, maintained that if the United States was to become the world’s dominant power, it must first control Asia. In 1853, Admiral Perry’s warships called in Korea and “opened” Japan. The publication in 1890 of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History fueled Theodore Roosevelt’s and Henry Cabot Lodge’s drive to create a navy capable of rivaling imperial Britain’s on the high seas. Then, with the acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, and Samoa as U.S. colonies following the Spanish-American War, along with the Annexation of Hawaii in 1898, the United States secured the steppingstones to Asia. These provided the coaling and supply bases for that era’s steam-powered warships and trading vessels necessary for carving out a U.S. share of the holy grail of world capitalism: access to the vast potential of the China Market.[2]
China’s concern about the vulnerability of it southeastern flank grows from the country’s historical experience. In the mid-19th century, during the two “Opium Wars,” British naval and land forces invaded China from its Pacific coast, defeating the Middle Kingdom and precipitating the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. Later, beginning in 1895, Japan’s invasions and colonization of China again came from the sea, as did the armies of the colonial powers when they intervened to defeat the 1899-1901 Boxer Rebellion.
As reflected in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1928, dominance of the Pacific Ocean during the first half of the 20th century was shared by U.S., Britain, and Japan. The Asia-Pacific War that followed in the 1930s and 1940s was a contest between competing imperial powers, with the United States emerging as the hegemonic power. What became known as the “American Lake” has since been enforced by the U.S. 7th Fleet and the hundreds of U.S. military bases that encircle China’s periphery.[3]
Scattered within the South China Sea are numerous reefs, atolls, and small islands, loosely grouped into two island clusters: the Paracels to the north and west, and the Spratlys to the east and south. Current disputes over sovereignty of these features date from Japan’s defeat in its Asia-Pacific War. In 1938, the Japanese military seized the Spratly Islands and then China’s Hainan Island as part of the southern flank of its invasion of China. Claims to the sea were not addressed in the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 which formerly ended the Pacific war, thus opening the way for competing territorial claims. In 1949, both China and Taiwan had declared their dominion over virtually the entire region (and all the island features within in it) by publishing a map showing a U-shaped “eleven dash line” encompassing roughly 80% of the entire South China Sea. That assertion of sovereignty included the Parcel and Spratly Islands and the Macclesfield Bank. In 1953, China’s Communist government revoked China’s claim to the Gulf of Tonkin, reducing its sovereignty claim to a “nine-dash” line that nevertheless still encompasses most of the South China Sea.
Competing Claims and Interests
Competing maritime territorial claims – with their accompanying connections to undersea oil and gas reserves – constitute the ostensible core of South China Sea tensions. The oil-rich waters around the Parcel Islands, claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, are in the northern reaches of the South China Sea, just south of China’s Hainan Island, where massive new air and naval bases are located. To the south and east lie the Spratly Islands, claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. And, close to the Philippines, in waters recently officially renamed the West Philippine Sea by the government in Manila, lies the Scarborough Shoal, the site of significant Chinese naval deployments which Manila’s antiquated navy cannot begin to match.[4]
South China Sea’s hydrocarbon resources play a significant role in competing sovereignty claims and have fueled diplomatic and military confrontations. The U.S. Energy Information Agency reports that as much as 190 trillion cubic feet of gas and 11 billion barrels of oil lie beneath the seabed, primarily “along the margins of the South China Sea rather than under disputed islets and reefs.” The U.S. Geological Survey has also stated that “another 160 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 12 billion barrels oil” may yet to be discovered beneath these waters.[5]
In May 2014, when China positioned a massive drilling rig in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Taiwan and within sight of the Vietnamese coast, that country was rocked with violent anti-Chinese protests that led China to evacuate its nationals from Vietnam.[6] Subsequently, in 2017, Chinese threats and pressure led to the abandonment of a Spanish-Vietnamese drilling project in the same general area. And, in 2019, China pressed Russian foreign minister Lavrov to cease Russian-Vietnamese offshore exploration in parts of the South China Sea claimed by both China and Vietnam, a request denied by Lavrov. China has also harassed drilling efforts in waters claimed by Malaysia.[7]
After remaining relatively silent about competing resource claims, in July 2020, as the Trump Administration ratcheted up tensions with China, the U.S. State Department released a statement that China was “blocking the development of $2.5 trillion worth of oil and gas resources in the South China Sea.” Secretary of State Pompeo followed up quickly, warning that “Any [Chinese] action to harass other states’ fishing or hydrocarbon development in these waters, or to carry out such activities unilaterally, is unlawful.” This was followed by Washington’s sanctioning of CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, China’s major offshore oil producer, in the final days of Trump’s rule. While this is not expected to halt CNOOC’s drilling in contested waters, it carries the potential of reducing its activities by limiting the company’s access to equipment and technology.[8]
As China has moved to exploit the oil and gas reserves of the South China Sea in the vast area it claims as its national maritime territory – the area within that U-shaped “nine-dash line” – it has also constructed military facilities on many of the reefs and islands that occupy this space. Various maritime features – islets, rocks, and sandbars, often located in contested waters – have served as important resources for Chinese base construction. As early as 1974, following the Paris Peace Accords that were believed to have ended the Indochina War (and while attention was focused on the tacit U.S.-Chinese alliance targeted against the Soviet Union), China seized a Vietnamese garrison on one of the Parcel Islands, where it created its military base in the South China Sea. This was followed in 1988 when it built a small fortress on Fiery Cross Island in the Spratly Islands, and then by base construction on Subi and Mischief Reefs. China also seized the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines, enforcing its control with a constant presence of its militarized Coast Guard.[9]
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Many of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea hinge on interpretation of provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which came into force in 1982. It addresses nearly all uses of the seas and has served as the primary legal foundation for maritime and sovereignty claims and disputes. Among its key provisions:
· Coastal states have sovereignty up to 22 nautical miles from their coasts, but ships of other nations are permitted “innocent passage” through those waters for peaceful purposes.
· Archipelagic states, like the Philippines, have “sovereignty over a sea area enclosed by straight lines drawn between the outermost points of the islands” and the ships of other nations can pass through designated sea lanes.
· Littoral states may claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to their offshore waters extending up to 200 nautical miles from their shores, granting them the exclusive right to exploit to natural resources from these waters and the seabed beneath them. Other nations enjoy freedom of navigation in these zones.
· Continental states may also lay claim to an EEZ stretching beyond 200 n.m. and up to 350 n.m. if they can demonstrate that their outer continental shelf extends that far.
· Rocks that are unable to sustain human and economic life cannot be claimed as a basis for claiming EEZs or outer continental shelves.
· When the EEZs of neighboring countries overlap, as they do in semi-enclosed bodies of water like the South China Sea, the parties involved are enjoined to solve their differences through negotiations. If these talks fail, they may bring disputes to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Self for resolution.[10]
A decade after UNCLOS went into force, in 1992, and ignoring the Convention, China adopted its own Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone. Citing 4,000 years of Chinese maritime activities in the South China Sea, it asserted sovereignty over the entire South China Sea. This was not accepted by the sea’s other claimants, leading to increased diplomatic wrangling and disputation. Since then, with its growing economic and military power, China has sought to leverage its clout in negotiations by pressing for bilateral negotiations, while the competing claimants have sought to compensate for their relative weakness by seeking negotiations in multinational forums and institutions.
In 2002, after six years of negotiations, ASEAN nations reached a nonbinding agreement with China on a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea which was designed to reduce tensions and created guidelines for future conflict resolution. While it serves as a foundation for future negotiations, it does not address the root causes of the territorial disputes and has failed to prevent subsequent military incidents.
In 2009, Vietnam and Malaysia filed a joint submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Self to extend their continental shelves beyond 200 nautical miles. China objected, claiming that the submission “seriously infringed” on its “indisputable” South China Sea sovereignty.
The following year, while restating U.S. neutrality over the competing claims of South China Sea sovereignty, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the U.S. vital interest in “open access to Asia’s maritime commons.” This signaled a deepening of U.S. involvement in the diplomatic and military competition for control of the South China Sea. Among the steps taken were increasing Washington’s support for Vietnam’s territorial claims, endorsing Manila’s rechristening of the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea, and encouragement of the Philippines in taking its dispute with China over possession of islands in the Spratly chain and China’s military harassment of Filipino vessels to the U.N. Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.
In its arguments before the Court of Arbitration, the Philippines demanded that China’s nine-dash line be declared invalid under UNCLOS’ provisions and that the bases China had established on islets in the Philippine Sea be declared illegal.[11] Perhaps anticipating the Court’s ruling, and confident that in time the competing South China Sea EEZ claimants will become so economically dependent on Beijing that they will have to bow to its demands, China refused to participate in the hearings. Its former senior diplomat Dai Binggual remarked that the ruling would be “nothing more than a piece of paper.”[12]
The Arbitral Court’s ruling, announced in July 2016, reportedly sent “geopolitical shockwaves” across Asia and the Pacific. The Court declared that there is no legal basis to China’s nine-dash line, that the reefs and rocks claimed by China in the Spratly Islands are not entitled to 200 n.m. EEZs, that China had illegally interfered with Philippine oil exploration and fishing operations, and that China had caused “severe harm to the coral reef environment.”[13] Despite being legally bound by the Court ruling, the Chinese Foreign Ministry declared the ruling “null and void” with “no binding force.” It reaffirmed Chinese “territorial sovereignty and maritime rights” in the South China Sea and vowed its intention to “resolve the relevant disputes peacefully.”[14]
Military Clashes in the South China Sea
Military tensions began to build in 1974, even before the conclusion of UNCLOS negotiations, when Chinese forces seized a Vietnamese garrison in western Parcel Islands. Once seized, Chinese air and naval bases were established on Woody Island, the largest of the Parcel Islands. In response, Vietnam occupied several islands in the Spratly chain.
Relative calm prevailed until 1988, six years after UNCLOS went into effect. In a skirmish over which nation would annex the Johnson South Reef in the Spratly Islands, three Vietnamese transport ships were sunk by People’s Liberation Army Navy forces. Seventy-four Vietnamese lives were lost, and the reef – and further Chinese domination of the Spratlys – was thus secured.
A similar incident occurred in 1996, when Chinese naval forces overwhelmed a Philippine naval gunboat and seized Mischief Reef, another small constituent of the Spratly chain, that had long served as a rich fishing cove for Philippine fishermen. China then expanded the reef by dredging sand from the nearby seabed and erected a small military installation there. Coming just five years after popular Philippine pressure resulted in the withdrawal of all U.S. bases from the islands, the crisis led to the revival of Philippine-U.S. military cooperation, including joint military exercises. Subsequent incursions by Chinese naval and fishing vessels into waters claimed by the Philippines surrounding the Scarborough Shoal led to protests by the Philippines and an extended standoff over control of the area.
Disputes between China and Vietnam over seismic surveys or drilling for oil and gas carry the potential of triggering an armed clash that could involve the United States. For example, the U.S. could be drawn into a China-Philippines conflict due to its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines. That treaty states, “Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific Area on either of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes.”[15] An incident between Filipino and Chinese warships in the vicinity of Mischief Reef could be the trigger for making this commitment operational. Similarly, were the Biden Administration to honor former Secretary of State Pompeo’s pledge to “oppose any attempt to use coercion or force” in the South China Sea [see more on this below], the U.S. could find itself joining Malaysia or even Vietnam to resist Chinese interference in those countries’ oil drilling.[16]
The United States could also stumble into a military confrontation independently from an incident between China and a neighboring ASEAN state. In 2001, a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane collided with a Chinese F-8 fighter jet near Hainan Island, triggering a severe U.S.-Chinese confrontation. The Chinese pilot was killed, while the crew of the U.S. surveillance plane (which made a forced landing on Hainan) was captured, interrogated, and held for more than a week before confrontational threats and diplomacy led to their release following an exchange of face-saving letters. The EP-3’s high-tech equipment was similarly captured, and months passed before China returned the plane – in pieces – to the United States.
A comparable maritime incident that fortunately didn’t escalate into a major crisis occurred in the 2009, when a Chinese submarine collided with and destroyed a U.S. destroyer’s towed sonar array. And, in the spring of 2020, a near catastrophe occurred when the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning was engaged in training exercises and was followed by U.S. warships and warplanes. An anonymous PLA Navy officer revealed that the confrontation was so intense that one U.S. warship came within 100 meters of the Chinese carrier.[17]
Military tensions between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea were already escalating prior to the Arbitral Court’s 2016 ruling. In the fall of 2015, Admiral Swift, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, testified that in response to Chinese construction of three air bases on disputed South China Sea islets, “America should challenge China’s claims…by patrolling close to artificial islands built by Beijing.” Soon thereafter, Washington began advising its Asian and Pacific allies that the U.S. would begin “freedom of navigation operations” (FRONOPs) patrols within 12 nautical miles of China’s militarized South China Sea islets to contest China’s rights to the features. Such patrols were necessary, it was stated, to ensure “freedom of navigation...for commercial and military vessels, and that territorial claims are consistent with customary international law.”[18] The Chinese military responded that it was “extremely concerned” about these threats and that it would oppose “any country challenging China’s sovereignty and security in the name of protecting freedom of navigation.”[19]
In the months preceding the International Arbitration Court’s 2016 ruling, the U.S. Navy first dispatched a guided-missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence, near the Chinese occupied Yongshu Reef in the Spratly Islands. In response, Beijing countered by dispatching jet fighters, early warning aircraft, and its own warships to the region to “keep navigation and over-flight free in the South China Sea for a long time.” A month later, the U.S. deployed two carrier battle groups, 140 warplanes, and12,000 sailors in a massive show of force in the Philippine Sea, adjacent to the South China Sea.[20]
The Trump administration accelerated the pace of provocative U.S. “freedom of navigation” deployments, and China has continued to reinforce its military bases on islands in disputed waters. In 2019, the U.S. Navy conducted nine FRONOP missions in the South China Sea and exceeded that number in 2020. The new aggressiveness was signaled in a July 2020 statement by Secretary of State Pompeo declaring, “We are making clear: Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them. In the South China Sea, we seek to preserve peace and stability, uphold freedom of the seas in a manner consistent with international law, maintain the unimpeded flow of commerce, and oppose any attempt to use coercion or force to settle disputes.”[21]
In a further escalation, likely tied to Trump’s flagging reelection campaign, the U.S. again dispatched two carrier battle groups to the South China Sea, to which China responded by dispatching naval and air forces to conduct “live-fire maritime target attack drills.” China warned that “If U.S. military provocations in the South China Sea persist, China could be left with no choice but to conduct more drills and deploy more warships and warplanes in the South China Sea,” and that it might declare aerial defense zones in its South China Sea air space.[22] Resolute in his commitment to confrontation, Trump dispatched the destroyer USS John S. McCain to conduct yet another provocative freedom of navigation exercise near Chinese occupied islands in the South China Sea. It was reported as having been “expelled” by Chinese aircraft and warships.[23]
A recent U.S. State Department report questions the “limited strategic usefulness” of U.S. freedom of navigation operations. It notes that they have “not proven effective in convincing states making excessive claims or infringing upon freedom of navigation to act in accordance with international law. The program does nothing to reduce the complexity of freedom of navigation issues in the South China Sea and may decrease the likelihood of a resolution consistent with global norms.”[24] While uncertain that they will make any difference, the report recommended involving other nations’ navies in such operations. The hope is that by increasing media attention to these operations, international opposition to the Chinese bases can be mobilized. Facing its post-Brexit isolation, the British Navy was among the first to rally to the call for such multilateralization with its dispatch of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to the South China Sea in January 2021.[25]
Undeterred by U.S. military pressure, China’s South China Sea military buildup has continued apace. It now has bases on seven reefs and atolls. Those on the largest reefs, Mischief, Subi, and Fiery Cross have anti-aircraft installations, helipads, extended runways, and hangars capable of holding up to 24 jet fighters and larger aircraft. Woody Island, in the Parcels, possesses the largest of these bases, housing up to 1,400 military personnel.[26] In U.S. strategic policy circles there are those who believe that neutralizing China’s islet bases could be easily achieved, a misconception that could too easily lead to a wider war.[27]
Summary:
The contest for control of the South China Sea is a classic manifestation of what Harvard scholar Graham Allison has called the Thucydides Trap, the inevitable tensions that arise between rising and declining in powers – which, over the centuries, have all too frequently led to catastrophic wars.[28] In addition to affirming what it understands as its history in the South China Sea, Chinese leaders believe control of the region is essential to their national security – a worldview that parallels the Monroe Doctrine. The elite consensus in Washington sees China’s militarized claim to nearly all of the South China Sea as a challenge to the United States’ nearly century-old Asia-Pacific hegemony that has ensured U.S. access to the markets and resources of Asia while perpetuating neo-colonial control over the peoples and governments that occupy much of the region.
In the contest for control over strategically important territories and resources, U.S. and Chinese naval and air “exercises” are playing with fire. Their provocative military exercises increase the dangers that an unintended incident – a collision between warships or warplanes or the launch of a missile by a trigger-happy warrior – could spark an unintended crisis. These, in turn, could unleash militarist and nationalist forces in either or both countries beyond the control of political leaders. There is also the danger that the United States could be drawn into clashes between Chinese naval forces and those of Vietnam or the Philippines protecting oil drilling or fishing rights. It was following the 1996 and 2012 Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal incidents that the Philippines and the United States revitalized their military alliance and renewed joint military exercises.
Great power national pride, histories of grievances, and competing strategic ambitions complicate efforts to demilitarize and resolve competing territorial claims and the establishment of a Common Security framework ensuring peace and prosperity across the South China Sea and a diminished risk of war between China and the United States.
Recommendations:
Neither the Biden Administration nor Xi Jinping’s China desires a war. However, if diplomatic, military, and institutional policy changes are not made soon, an unintended incident could lead to an escalating military conflict.
Even before a Biden equivalent of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue begun by President Obama can be put in place, several steps can be immediately taken to prevent an unintended crisis. An agreement specifying a minimum distance between U.S. and Chinese warships and warplanes while on patrol in the South China Sea and elsewhere can be adopted and implemented. Similarly, mutual trust and a foundation for future negotiations could be established by means of an informal agreement under which the United States would halt its freedom of navigation operations in exchange for Beijing freezing the militarization of its island bases in the South China Sea at their current levels.
With Chinese leaders having signaled their desire to reset relations with the Biden Administration after the calamities of the Trump era, President Biden’s new national security team should pursue:
· Restoration of U.S.-Chinese military-to-military consultations, including deepening of crisis management provisions.
· Renewal of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue suspended by the Trump Administration.
· Reengagement with the ASEAN Regional Forum as a means of renewing U.S.-Chinese-ASEAN multilateral negotiations, including encouragement for reaching agreement on a binding Southeast Asian Code of Conduct regarding military operations in the South China Sea and for pursuing joint development of the sea’s mineral resources by nations with overlapping territorial claims.
· Exploration of a face-saving agreement whereby the United States would permanently cease its freedom of navigation operations in exchange for Chinese demilitarization of its island bases.
Another approach has been proposed by Lyle J. Goldstein of the U.S. Naval War College, suggesting that the U.S. meet China “halfway.” He envisions the possibility of diplomacy leading to a cooperation spiral that would include complementary sequential steps. The US. would welcome China to observe its naval exercises, propose creation of a Southeast Asia Coast Guard Forum, reduce surveillance missions in the northern part of the South China Sea, endorse China as a claimant to the South China Sea, support bilateral negotiations, and end U.S. military cooperation with Vietnam. In exchange, China would propose joint counterpiracy patrols in the Malacca Strait region, open its bases in the Spratly Islands to annual visits by ASEAN nations, “clarify” its nine-dash line to make it consistent with UNCLOS, initiate joint development under the principle of equality, and end its military cooperation with the Philippines (which is already in decline) and Indonesia.[29]
Copyright 2021 by Joseph Gerson
References:
[1] For background on the economic significance of the South China Sea, see U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “South China Sea,” Updated Feb. 7, 2013, https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/regions_of_interest/South_China_Sea/south_china_sea.pdf.
[2] See Warren Zimmerman, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002).
[3] See Peter Hayes, Lyuba Zarsky, and Walden Bello, American Lake: Nuclear Peril in the Pacific (Penguin Books, 1987).
[4] For background on competing claims to offshore territories in the South China Sea, see EIA, “South China Sea.”
[5] For background on the oil and gas reserves of the South China Sea, see EIA, “South China Sea.”
[6] “Vietnam anti-China protest: Factories burnt,” BBC News, May 14, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27403851.
[7] https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/oil-and-gas-fueling-south-china-sea-tensions/
[8] https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/1/15/us-blacklists-cnooc-for-bullying-in-the-south-china-sea
[9] For details of China’s bases building in the South China Sea, see Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, “Occupation and Island Building,” https://amti.csis.org/island-tracker/.
[10] https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/United-Nations/Law-of-the-Sea-Provisions-of-UNCLOS.html#:~:text=Law%20of%20the%20Sea%20%2D%20Provisions%20of%20unclos&text=Coastal%20states%20would%20exercise%20sovereignty,Straits%20Used%20for%20International%20Navigation.
[11] https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/international-court-issues-unanimous-award-in-philippines-v-china-case-on-south-china-sea/
[12] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China. Speech by Dai Bingguo a China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US Think Tanks, July 5,
2016.
[13] Ishaan Tharoor. “South China Sea ruling rebukes Beijing. The Guardian Weekly, July 22, 2016
[14] https://roilo1.rssing.com/chan-15675458/all_p159.html
[15] https://www.cfr.org/report/armed-clash-south-china-sea
[16] For background on U.S. military involvement in the South China Sea, see Congressional Research Service (CRS), U.S.-China Strategic Competition in South and East China Seas: Background and Issues for Congress, CRS Report R42784, Updated Dec. 29, 2020, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42784.pdf.
[17] https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/china-us-military-confrontation-in-the-south-china-sea-fact-and-fiction/
[18] Douglas Briller. “Reassessing the US. Freedom of Navigation Program in a Complex Competitive Environment”, U.S. Department of State, October 25, 2018, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1077869.pdf
[19] https://bostonglobalforum.org/wp-content/uploads/BGF-Report-16-10-2015-official.pdf
[20] Global Times, “China slams, chases away US warship patrol near Nansha Islands, Xinhua, May 11, 2016, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/982417.shtml; Jane Perlez, “U.S. Carriers Sail in Western Pacific, Hoping China Takes Notice,” New York Times, June18, 2016, Web, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/world/asia/us-carriers-sail-in-western-pacific-hoping-china-takes-notice.html.
[21] https://www.state.gov/u-s-position-on-maritime-claims-in-the-south-china-sea/
[22] Paul D. Shinkman, “China, U.S. Escalate Forces, Threats in South China Sea”, US News, July 20,2020
[23] https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/china-expels-us-navy-s-frontline-destroyer-from-south-china-sea/story-ZNC8ikeIcpD4fYjXZAVJlJ.html
[24] Ibid.
[25] https://www.9news.com.au/world/british-royal-navy-announce-aircraft-carrier-power-on-hms-queen-elizabeth/e19c94ea-d6d3-4c76-bdc0-f884e43c23fe
[26] https://geopoliticalfutures.com/chinese-military-installations-south-china-sea/
[27] Briller. Op.Cit.’ https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1077869.pdf
[28] Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017)
[29] Lyle J. Goldstein, Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 2015, p. 284.
Proposals From Other Organizations
Toward an Inclusive & Balanced Regional Order: A New U.S. Strategy in East Asia
By Michael D. Swaine, Jessica J. Lee and Rachel Esplin Odell
The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Jan. 11, 2021
Executive Summary
The world faces twin crises – a global pandemic and rising climate chaos – even as an epochal change in the balance of power unfolds in East Asia. In response to these trends, the United States has doubled down on efforts to contain a rising China and maintain its eroding military dominance in the region. Simultaneously, it has neglected economic engagement and diplomatic cooperation with East Asian nations, thereby undermining its ability to manage the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate change challenge. This failed approach is directly harming the interests of the American people.
The United States today is on a course in East Asia that threatens the peace and prosperity of a region that is vital to a wide range of American interests.
America needs a new strategy in East Asia – one that reflects the complexities of a region that desires stable relations with both Beijing and Washington, cannot be dominated by either power, and is moving toward higher levels of economic integration. The United States must foster an inclusive, stable order in East Asia that is designed to manage shared challenges such as climate change and pandemics, promote broad prosperity, and peacefully resolve disputes. It must rebalance U.S. engagement in East Asia toward deeper diplomatic and economic engagement and away from military dominance and political control.
This new U.S. strategy in East Asia entails 10 core components in three overarching areas:
Reprioritize Diplomatic Engagement and Economic Integration
Shift toward inclusive regional diplomacy and cooperative security
• The United States should welcome positive relations between China and other Asian countries and promote inclusive multilateralism to coordinate action on shared interests and resolve disputes. The United States, its allies, China, and other East Asian nations should jointly develop a cooperative agenda for addressing issues of mutual concern, such as climate change, pandemics, financial instability, maritime insecurity, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Deepen regional economic engagement and promote global technological standards
• Washington should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership and explore the possibility of joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, while increasing domestic investments in infrastructure, education, and clean energy to ensure a fairer distribution of the national wealth gained from participation in these agreements. The United States should promote reforms to the World Trade Organization that expedite dispute resolution and more explicitly cover technology and investment issues.
Reinvigorate cooperation with China on pandemics, climate change, and trade
• The United States should restore and expand public health ties with China to address the Covid-19 pandemic and future disease outbreaks. Washington and Beijing should look for creative ways to go beyond the Paris Agreement in reducing carbon emissions. The United States must also pursue a more balanced economic strategy toward China. This strategy should seek to foster a cooperative trade relationship with Beijing while protecting key U.S. national security interests and defending against unfair economic practices.
Pursue a More Stable Military Balance with China and Peace on the Korean Peninsula
Restructure U.S. alliances and force posture in East Asia around a defense strategy of denial rather than control
• America should not seek dominance or control in the waters and airspace of the western Pacific, and should instead work with allies to implement a smarter approach to balancing China’s growing power, one centered on denying Chinese control over those same spaces. This new denial strategy should be built on the enhanced defense capabilities of allies in the region, working in tighter coordination with more dispersed U.S. forces playing a more supporting role to allied efforts. This will entail a significant reduction in forward U.S. ground troops and greater reliance on smaller surface ships, submarines, and more agile air forces.
Improve U.S.–China crisis management and mitigate tension in the Taiwan Strait
• Washington must couple deterrence of China with far more active diplomatic efforts to strengthen crisis-management mechanisms and confidence-building measures with Beijing, especially in the Taiwan Strait. The United States must unambiguously reaffirm its One China policy and seek to reduce the militarization of the Taiwan Strait as part of a more balanced policy of reassurance and deterrence.
Reduce military tensions at sea and encourage compromise in maritime disputes
• The United States should work with China and other countries to enhance the security of sea lanes against piracy, shipping congestion, and natural disasters, while protecting the marine environment. Washington should pursue several diplomatic agreements to stabilize the interactions of military and coast guard vessels in maritime East Asia. It should also support mutually agreeable and realistic compromises among claimants in the East and South China Sea disputes.
• Undertake new, stabilizing initiatives on nuclear policy and bilateral arms control
Washington should abandon plans to field low-yield tactical weapons and open up a frank dialogue with Beijing on how to increase strategic stability and reduce incentives to engage in an offensive/defensive arms race. It should also acknowledge that China has a credible nuclear deterrent, paving the way for the United States to embrace a no-first-use nuclear policy and modify its military operations in the region accordingly.
Pursue peace and phased denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula
The United States must transition to a policy involving gradual, synchronized steps toward peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This must include security reassurances to North Korea as well as credible commitments to abide by agreements that are reached. Over the long term, Washington should support the emergence of a unified, nonnuclear Korean Peninsula free of foreign military forces.
Bolster U.S. Influence and Appeal through Reforms at Home and Abroad
Implement a targeted approach to human rights promotion
• The United States should separate human rights concerns from geopolitical disputes and bolster multilateral efforts to preserve norms. It should also provide targeted support to repressed peoples and cultures through immigration policy, third-party diplomacy, law enforcement, reform to sanctions regimes and military aid, and humanitarian aid and cultural funding. It should also enter direct dialogues with repressive governments on priority issues.
Strengthen U.S. influence and appeal by enacting domestic reforms
• The United States must enact domestic reforms that will make it more competitive and enhance its influence abroad. America must work to build a more sustainable and equitable form of globalization, strengthen U.S. economic health, and improve its own human and civil rights protections, including for Asian Americans and visitors and immigrants from East Asia.
To read the full report, click here
Implementing Restraint: Changes in U.S. Regional Security Policies to Operationalize a Realist Grand Strategy of Restraint
By Miranda Priebe, Bryan Rooney, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Jeffrey Martini, Stephanie Pezard
RAND Corporation, January 2021
From the RAND Corporation website:
The United States is facing several national security challenges at the same time that the federal budget is under pressure because of public health and infrastructure crises. In response to these challenges, there has been growing public interest in rethinking the U.S. role in the world. Under one option, a realist grand strategy of restraint, the United States would adopt a more cooperative approach toward other powers, reduce the size of its military and forward military presence, and end or renegotiate some of its security commitments. To help U.S. policymakers and the public understand this option, the authors of this report explain how U.S. security policies toward key regions would change under a grand strategy of restraint, identify key unanswered questions, and propose next steps for developing the policy implications of this option.
The authors find that regional policy under a grand strategy of restraint varies depending on the level of U.S. interests and the risk that a single powerful state could dominate the region. Because of China's significant military capabilities, advocates of restraint call for a greater U.S. military role in East Asia than in other regions. The authors recommend that advocates of a grand strategy of restraint should continue to develop their policy recommendations. In particular, they should identify what changes in great-power capabilities and behavior would imperil U.S. vital interests, maritime areas where the United States should retain superiority, priorities for peacetime military activities, and war scenarios that should guide U.S. Department of Defense planning.
Key Findings:
Advocates of restraint have threat assessments and assumptions that differ from those of policymakers who have shaped U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War.
Generally, advocates of restraint would rely more on diplomacy to settle conflicts of interest, encourage other states to lead, and preserve military power to defend vital U.S. interests.
If a grand strategy of restraint were used, the United States would have a smaller military, fewer security commitments and forces based abroad, and a higher bar for the use of military force compared with current policy.
The specific implications of this grand strategy vary by region depending on the level of U.S. interests and the risk that a single power could dominate the region.
Advocates of restraint seek a more cooperative approach with current U.S. adversaries, such as Russia and Iran.
The primary area of disagreement among advocates of restraint is U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific.
Advocates of restraint argue that the rise of single powerful state in East Asia, Europe, or the Persian Gulf would imperil vital U.S. interests but have not yet offered policymakers guidance on how to know that such a threat is emerging.
To generate more-specific policy implications for each region, advocates of restraint need to expand on their logic and conduct additional analysis.
Recommendations:
Evaluate the core claims underlying a grand strategy of restraint to validate and refine its policy prescriptions.
Develop risk mitigation strategies to hedge against the possibility that one of the core assumptions of a grand strategy of restraint is fully or partially incorrect.
Specify the conditions under which the United States would stop military retrenchment or even increase its military engagement within each region.
Clarify what changes in great-power capabilities and behavior would constitute a serious threat to vital U.S. interests.
Provide guidance on whether and how to respond to China's, Russia's, and Iran's gray zone activities.
Identify the maritime areas where the United States should retain superiority.
Offer prescriptions on how the United States should evaluate threats and operate in the space and cyber domains.
Identify scenarios to guide U.S. Department of Defense planning and U.S. force posture decisions.
Provide priorities for U.S. military peacetime activities, such as exercises.
Develop policies toward Africa, the Americas, and the Arctic.
Develop proposals on trade and other international economic issues.
Assess the cost savings associated with core policy prescriptions.
To read the entire report, Click Here
According to an article about the RAND report in the South China Morning Post, supporters of a scaled-back US military role believe China is unlikely to be “inalterably aggressive or impossible to deter” despite its growing power.
“Although advocates of restraint believe that China is more capable [than Russia], they remain more optimistic about the ability of local powers to limit China’s domination of East Asia.
“Moreover, advocates of restraint anticipate that China will be ambitious as it continues to rise, but not inalterably aggressive or impossible to deter.”