Washington’s ‘China Consensus’ Masks a Deeper Debate
The consensus view among the U.S. foreign policy establishment for the past several years has been that the U.S. and China are engaged in “great power competition,” often referred to as simply GPC in Washington discourse these days. That competition now seems to extend to anything and everything, from semiconductors, batteries and electric vehicles, to wielding influence in the Middle East and Africa, shaping the rules of the global order and even topping the Olympic medal count.
This prism of competition reflects concerns over China’s rise that are now rampant in Washington, Europe and Asia, even making their way into discussions at the G7 Summit. These concerns have in turn fueled a host of second-order debates, such as the actual size of China’s military budget, the state of its economy and the sustainability of its domestic system, which is a mix of autocratic control and selective free-market capitalism. There is even some question as to whether China is now actually in decline rather than still ascendant.
But what explains all the alarm over China’s rise? Is it actually a threat to the U.S., or are these concerns all in the heads of U.S. policymakers, a pernicious form of groupthink? One way to phrase the question is to ask, as a recent Foreign Affairs forum put it, “What does America Want from China?” An alternative, and perhaps clarifying phrasing, is to ask, What is Washington’s ultimate goal? Because without knowing that, it will be impossible for the U.S. to ever know if it has won its competition with China.
It would be tempting to frame the debate over China’s rise as one between those who are worried about China becoming a global power and those who are not. But the current debate in policy circles seems more accurately to consist of four views, or even camps.
The first camp sees “victory” as not only possible, but necessary. This is the argument put forward by Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher. In their view, the U.S. must work not just to counter and check China’s ambitions but to cause the collapse of its Communist Party and system. The only acceptable outcome of this “new Cold War” between China and the U.S., according to this argument, is for it to conclude in a manner similar to the “old Cold War” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: in the complete capitulation of Washington’s adversary.
The second camp is less concerned with winning and more focused on deterring China from the worst outcomes, particularly an attempt to seize Taiwan by force. This view sees a strong military component of the competition as a necessary response to China’s rise. But its main goal is to use the military component to deter aggression by China, without necessarily seeking to induce its collapse. It’s a strategy of denial, to borrow from one of this approach’s key advocates, Elbridge Colby. Victory may not be possible according to this camp. But neither is defeat inevitable. Instead, the best outcome is a type of negative peace, with both adversaries armed but war never taking place.
A fully benign view of China’s rise appears naïve. But there’s nothing unique about China’s desire for greater say over how the current order operates. It’s the hallmark of a major power, which seeks one thing: influence.
The third camp emphasizes dissuading Beijing rather than deterring it. It sees China as playing, to borrow from Rush Doshi, “the long game,” expanding into regions long neglected by the United States. That can range from providing loans for infrastructure development to countries that could not acquire funds through the U.S.-dominated World Bank, to providing governments with assistance for internal security.
While this camp sees avenues for cooperation between the U.S. and China, it is still concerned that China’s pursuit of its ambitions will work against U.S. interests and, therefore, must be countered. But for the advocates of this approach, avoiding the worst outcome of the U.S.-China rivalry requires more focus on the pen than on the sword. This means giving diplomacy not only a chance, but the lead. Policymakers need to refrain from adopting a confrontational posture for the sake of being confrontational, and instead focus on the main goal of winning the competition. A militarized approach, as advocated by the first two camps, will only heighten the possibility of a major war from which neither side will emerge the winner.
Finally, there is the accommodationists camp, which is calling for everyone to just “calm down.” This camp holds that while China’s and Washington’s interests diverge, there is no real need to compete with China and thereby increase the possibility of unwanted and unnecessary conflict. Advocates of this approach hold a more benign view of China’s ambitions. Rather than seeking maximalist aims of overthrowing and supplanting the U.S. in the global order, China wants to become at most a regional leader. The U.S. needs to neither manage nor confront China, which analysts such as Jessica Chen Weiss warn could become a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to conflict.
What to think of this debate? A fully benign view of China’s rise appears naïve. Chinese President Xi Jinping may claim that hegemony is simply not in China’s DNA, particularly a China led by the Communist Party. But those living in Hong Kong—and Taiwan—would beg to differ. China may or may not be seeking global hegemony, but regional hegemony definitely seems on the table. Indeed, China does appear interested in becoming the dominant power in its region, which includes having its way in the various territorial disputes it is involved in with its neighbors.
Globally, Beijing also appears dissatisfied with the current Western-led political and economic order. It doesn’t seem to want a complete decoupling from that order. But it does want greater influence and say over how the current order operates, and understandably so.
Indeed, there’s nothing unique to China about that. It’s the hallmark of a major power, which seeks one thing: influence. Any major power wants the system to operate in a manner that serves its interests. Even if a power benefits from the current rules, it wants to be in a position to change those rules—and even ignore them at times—if and when that is no longer the case. Not so long ago, the U.S. wanted the same thing. When it had the opportunity to do so, it seized it, even though that put it at loggerheads with the former Soviet Union, which wanted to do the same.
It is true that the pursuit of influence and the freedom to set the rules of the global order can lead to competition and, with it, the possibility of war. But as the current debate in Washington makes clear, there are multiple means for a major power to accomplish those goals, just as there are multiple means for a rival major power to counter them. Unfortunately, there is no way to know in advance which will most effectively achieve one’s goals while avoiding the worst, meaning that the debate over how to respond to China’s rise will continue for the foreseeable future.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.