This week, the Pentagon released its annual report
on Chinese military and security developments over the past year. That
capped a busy season for the Government Printing Office: the National
Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review,
and Missile Defense Strategy all came out publicly last month.
All the documents, not just this most recent one, emphasize
China. Although it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who is raining
down death and destruction on Ukraine, issuing nuclear threats to the
West, and distorting energy as well as food markets worldwide, China
gets pride of place as security challenge number one — even though China
has not employed large-scale military force against an adversary since
its 1979 war with Vietnam. Given Beijing’s capacities, the Pentagon is
convincing when it describes
China as its “pacing challenge.” But we Americans have demonstrated
before the veracity of the slogan that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth
overdoing — and we are tending towards overhyping the China threat in a
way that could raise the risks of war.
To be sure, Beijing deserves most of the blame for today’s unsettled
Indo-Pacific region, with its big military buildups, threatening words
and actions towards Taiwan as well as other neighbors, menacing behavior
in the East China Sea and South China Sea, and increased repression at
home. Indefensibly, Chinese President Xi Jinping has also given succor
to Putin as the latter wages his heartless and unjustifiable war in
Europe. But on several key points, the recent U.S. government reports,
as well as American policy more broadly, go too far:
- The Pentagon report, like other documents, correctly criticizes Xi’s
support for Putin, including the joint statement released just before
Russia attacked Ukraine in February announcing
that the China-Russia relationship knows no bounds. However, the
relationship does in fact have bounds — and very important ones at
that. To date, China has not sent weaponry to Russia during the Ukraine
war, despite Putin’s requests that it do so, a point U.S. President Joe
Biden once acknowledged
in passing this fall. Yet the Pentagon’s 2022 Annual Report on China
and other official documents, in explaining the nature of the
Russia-China relationship, fail to acknowledge this crucial point.
- The Pentagon’s latest report, again accurately, complains that
China’s military budget has continued to grow at roughly a 7% annual
rate of late. China now spends an estimated $250 billion to $300 billion a year on its armed forces, second worldwide only to America’s nearly $800 billion. Yet Beijing’s military budget, while robust, remains at less than 2% of GDP — the level considered a minimal acceptable effort within the NATO alliance. America’s own level exceeds
3% of GDP. Of course, NATO is a defensive alliance. China’s recent
behavior – from the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, to its
missile launches near Taiwan, to the creation and militarization of
artificial islands in the South China Sea, to (limited but quite lethal)
aggression against Indian soldiers in the Himalayas – is not generally
defensive. Yet it is still important to note that China is hardly
engaged in blatant arms racing.
- The Pentagon report sounds the clarion call that China appears to have the capacity, and a plan, to expand
its nuclear forces from their current level of about 400 warheads to
somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 by 2035 or so. This is certainly not
good news for American strategy. However, an established superpower like
the United States with 5,000 nuclear warheads of its own should not be
surprised that a rising superpower like the PRC may desire to have 20%
to 30% of that total itself.
- The Pentagon also harps on the fact that, by ship count, China now
has the world’s largest navy — generally failing to note that, because
U.S. ships are typically much bigger, America’s naval tonnage exceeds
China’s by a ratio of about two to one. Neither of these metrics is
conclusive, and others are important too. But the frequency with which
Washington complains about the number of ships in China’s navy wrongly
implies that fleet size is the central standard of excellence for modern
maritime capability, and that China therefore has somehow malevolently
moved ahead of us in overall strength.
- Washington rightly objects to Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over
the South China Sea, and the Chinese military’s proclivity to harass
U.S. Navy ships there. China is indeed in the wrong with these expansive
claims and dangerous actions. However, U.S. views that free transit by
other nations’ navies within the economic zones of another country
should always be permitted are not universally accepted themselves. For
example, under its reading of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea,
even India believes that any country wishing to traverse the exclusive
economic zones of another nation (within 200 nautical miles of the
coastline, generally) should request permission for such a transit in
advance. Yet we accuse Beijing of fundamentally challenging the
rules-based order with its own behavior. We need to temper our anger,
even as we continue the freedom of navigation operations.
- The Biden administration’s National Security Strategy prioritizes
China as the “most consequential strategic competitor” of the United
States. This, like the National Defense Strategy’s framing of China as
the Pentagon’s “pacing challenge,” is reasonable. But in other ways, we
seek too often to stir the pot. Terms like pacing challenge stand in
stark contrast to the administration’s frequent and highly inflammatory
use of the term “genocide” to describe
China’s treatment of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang province.
Beijing does commit severe repression against the Uyghurs. A recent U.N.
Human Rights Council investigative report chose the correct language, determining
that China has been committing “…serious human rights violations…” in
its August 2022 report on the subject. Yet diluting a culture and even
curtailing some reproductive rights of a minority population, however
morally reprehensible, do not constitute genocide. That latter term has a
potent historical meaning that conjures up images of gas chambers and
mass butchery. Whatever State Department lawyers may argue, what China
does in Xinjiang is terrible, but it is not genocide, and the U.S.
government should stop using that term.
The China challenge is going to be with us for a long time. We need
to choose our words and our strategies with calm, balance, and
precision.