How the US Could Undermine Its Biggest Advantage Over China
Antonio José Pagán Sánchez
Postdoctoral Researcher at the Universidad del Pacifico's Center for China and Asia-Pacific Studies
2025
began with unexpected news for the balance of power between Washington
and Beijing in the technological field. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company,
went public with a model similar to ChatGPT-4, casting doubt on the
United States’ international leadership in this field. And technology
isn’t the only area where the U.S. has seen its relative advantage over
China shrink. Economically, China has been the world’s largest economy
by purchasing power parity (PPP) since 2017, and even militarily, the
certainty of a U.S. victory in any potential conflict over the Taiwan
Strait has diminished.
Despite these shifts, the United States still holds a key advantage
that’s often overlooked: its system of alliances. After World War II,
the U.S. became an “
empire by invitation,”
as historian Geir Lundestad described it, forging an alliance network
in Europe that eventually was also applied – mostly on a bilateral basis
– in the Asia-Pacific region. In this regard, allies like South Korea
and Japan have bilateral defense treaties with the United States, while
countries such as the Philippines and Thailand are designated as Major
Non-NATO Allies. Nowadays, the U.S.-led system of alliances includes 46
allies across all five continents, and combined they account for more
than half of the world’s GDP. Thirteen of the 20 largest economies in
the world are part of this network.
China, on the other hand, has struggled to build and maintain a
comparable alliance system. Its alliance with the Soviet Union collapsed
in the 1960s, and today its only formal ally is North Korea. Chinese
leaders have rejected the idea of forming alliances with other nations,
fearing that such commitments might restrict their international
maneuverability or embroil them in external conflicts.
Of course, having an alliance network doesn’t guarantee that all members
will always align with U.S. strategy toward China. There have been
several instances of discord. For example, in 2005 Robert Zoellick, then
deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush, criticized
the European Union’s proposal to lift its arms embargo on China,
saying it was like
“painting bull’s-eyes on the backs of U.S. troops.” Similarly, in 2015
the Obama administration tried – and failed – to prevent its allies from
joining the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which was seen
as a tool for increasing China’s influence in multilateral development
in Asia. Still, one of the strengths of the U.S.-led alliance system is
its flexibility: Allies agreed to disagree on certain points without
breaking the overall alliance, making it a more durable model than the
rigid Warsaw Pact.
There are also notable successes in mobilizing this alliance system
against China. In 2022, for instance, the United States persuaded NATO
to label China as a “security challenge” for the first time. The
previous year, the AUKUS pact – linking Australia, the United Kingdom,
and the United States – was announced to bolster military positioning in
the Asia-Pacific. Washington has also managed to get countries like the
Netherlands and Japan to limit their chip exports to China,
strengthened its alliance with Tokyo, and formed a military
intelligence-sharing agreement with the Philippines, enabling the nation
– entangled in the South China Sea dispute with Beijing – to access
more advanced weaponry. Furthermore, most U.S. allies have vetoed the
deployment in their territory of Huawei’s 5G networks, which is seen by
Washington as a national security risk. This has significantly hampered
Huawei’s global reach.
The importance of U.S. alliances in countering Beijing was underscored
by former U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. In his final days in
office, Burns
pointed out
that the key difference between the two powers is that the United
States has allies while China does not. He even singled out the loyalty
of nations like Canada and Denmark.
The specific mentions of Canada and Denmark were far from accidental.
Even before taking office, new U.S. President Donald Trump made
headlines by threatening to seize Greenland from Denmark and floated the
idea of Canada shedding its sovereignty to become part of the United
States. Such statements challenge the principle of territorial integrity
that has underpinned the international liberal order – an order the
U.S. has championed since the end of World War II. Moreover, once in
power, Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on Canadian products (later
suspended after discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau)
and threatened a similar 10 percent tariff on the European Union.
This spiral of protectionism could eventually hurt U.S. allies in the
Asia-Pacific as well. For example, the Daiwa Institute of Research
estimated that Japan’s GDP might drop by 1.4 percent over the next three
years due to tariffs imposed by Trump early in his term. There’s also a
risk that future tariffs could target these countries directly –
Trump’s previous tariffs on Japanese steel and aluminum and threats
against South Korea during his first term are stark reminders of that
possibility.
Since President Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia – and especially as
tensions between the United States and China have escalated since the
mid-2010s – the rise of China has become the primary international
concern for the United States. Today, China is a far more formidable
rival than the Soviet Union was during its heyday in the 1960s and
1970s, and it is the only power that could potentially displace the U.S.
economically and diplomatically in third countries.
However, the United States can hardly count on its allies if it treats
them worse than the way it treats its systemic rival. After all, these
allies are the nations that the new U.S. administration has threatened
with 25 percent tariffs (while China has only faced 10 percent) or whose
territorial integrity has been openly questioned. Such behavior is
already yielding results: a recent YouGov poll found that
46 percent of Danish citizens
view the United States as a threat – higher than the percentage that
sees North Korea (44 percent) or Iran (40 percent) as such.
The next four years will serve as a crucial test for the U.S. alliance
system. Will the Trump administration limit itself to voicing reasonable
criticisms – such as urging allies to boost their defense spending or
to pursue a more balanced economic relationship? Or will it escalate
tensions by launching a new trade war or even disengage from these
alliances that over the past decades have underpinned Washington’s
international position?
If the latter happens, it could amount to self-sabotage of U.S.
interests and a significant blow to its soft power among long-time
allies. Not only might these allies be less inclined to unite against
China in the future, but they could also be pushed toward a hedging
strategy, deepening their ties with Beijing and viewing the Asian
country as a more predictable partner. Maintaining its current major
advantage over its systemic rival is ultimately a choice the United
States must make. The ball is now in the White House’s court.
Dr. Antonio José Pagán Sánchez
Investigador Postdoctoral en el Centro de Estudios sobre China y Asia-Pacífico
Universidad del Pacífico (Lima, Perú)