Re-Thinking China’s Future

U.S. defense policy has been appropriately preoccupied with terrorism since 9/11, and in fact since the end of the Cold War. During the same timespan, however, the impact China’s rise has been the most debated geostrategic issue in U.S. security circles. Most agree on the significance of China’s development and its desire to be considered a great power. But regarding the type and magnitude of that significance, consensus ends and debate begins.

In his new book, The Contest of the Century: A New Era of Competition with China, Financial Times Diplomatic Correspondent Geoff Dyer pushes back on several prevailing perspectives on China’s motives and future trajectory. What does China’s increased defense spending imply about its designs in Asia? How will Asia’s 20^th century history inform the behavior of both China and other Asian nations all seeking to “rise” at once? And will China project its influence in ways other than the military and economic? Dyer expands on prevailing groupthink regarding these questions. Moreover, at a recent presentation at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), he said he “went to China and came away believing in the U.S.” This is a heartening message at a time when belief in the capacity of either U.S. domestic politics or its foreign policy has been jaundiced, to say the least.

Dyer puts China’s rise in historical perspective. China today is comparable to where the U.S. was on the world stage in the 1890s: seeking to project global influence on a scale commensurate with its growing economic power. The consistent growth in China’s defense budget is a challenge to the U.S., Dyer says, but an indirect one. Placing special emphasis on its naval capability, China seeks to steadily chip away at American dominance of the Pacific. In doing so, short of challenging the U.S. militarily directly, it aims to erode the strength of long-standing U.S. alliance relationships in the region, principally Japan and South Korea, and reduce U.S. influence over them. In labeling the U.S.-China dynamic a “contest,” rather than a zero-sum struggle, Dyer deliberately casts the rivalry in different terms than the U.S-Soviet Cold War relationship. China is not aiming for a direct military confrontation with the U.S., but it does seek to challenge American dominance of the post-World War II structure of global governance and, over time, to infringe on its influence.

The history of China’s relations with its neighbors bears on its rise as well. Its economic growth has brought with it a resurgence in anti-Japan sentiment which, Dyer says, has been tolerated if not encouraged outright by the government. As Asian nations grow, the scars of their mutual history reemerge. China is not rising alone; several nations over which the U.S. bears varying degrees of influence – South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, India – all see themselves as rising powers with a larger role in the region. Economic competition stokes long-standing cultural tensions. Asian nations are nervous about what a more assertive China might mean for their own security – to the point, Dyer explains, that they are eager for continued U.S. engagement in Asia. The U.S. “pivoted” its foreign policy attentions towards Asia on its own, but the countries in the region welcomed it gladly. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s relentless travels – seen by some as pointless globe-hopping – were, in Asia’s case, much-needed and productive investments in U.S. engagement with the region and aimed to bolster the very alliance relationships China seeks to weaken.

Finally, for all the discussion of the “soft power” of the U.S. media presence throughout the world, Dyer suggests there is too little focus on China’s efforts to increase its media presence worldwide. Its companies, he asserts, are investing heavily in English-language newspapers, radio and TV (visitors to New York’s Times Square now see a large billboard for the Xinhua News Agency, he notes) in an effort to influence international debates. China’s human rights record weights on its clout in international area. But Dyer is convinced that its conscious entry into the global media market is as genuine an attempt to raise its status as any defense-related or economic activity.

Imposing a Cold War framework on the U.S.-China relationship is misguided. Dyer is among the voices arguing that China is not looking for a showdown with the U.S. A “showdown” mentality may be a simpler idea to digest, but it does not accurately reflect either China’s capabilities – which still don’t compare to the U.S., strategically –  or the timeline over which it plans. China is thinking long-term, aiming for a gradual growth of its influence in Asia to engender a gradual displacement of U.S. Consistent U.S. engagement in the region is, in Dyer’s view and others’, the best U.S. long-term response.