The paradox at the heart of U.S.-China relations

There’s a paradox at the heart of U.S.-China relations—one the Washington foreign policy consensus doesn’t seem to rightly comprehend.

On the one hand, Beijing stands with Moscow as one of just two plausible rivals to U.S. power on a global scale. China’s nuclear arsenal is smaller than Russia’s, but it’s backed by a markedly larger defense budget and GDP. A U.S.-China war would be catastrophic for the world even without going nuclear.

But on the other hand, Beijing looks less and less the economic and military juggernaut it’s often made out to be. Open conflict with China is horrifying to contemplate; peaceful rivalry is not.

Chinese power
“By virtue of its large population and high level of economic growth, China is soon to replace the Soviet Union,” as a rising pole, the first since the fall of the USSR.

“If we must dabble in the absurd horror of ranking great-power conflicts, war with China is the deeper nightmare.” In a 2022 wargame, “the U.S. prevailed over Beijing, but only at a terrible cost.”

“Even if war over Taiwan led to the collapse of the PRC regime—an unlikely outcome […] —it would create serious economic and security problems” for the U.S. and our allies.

Chinese weakness
A number of recent reports indicate ill economic health …

“The economic model that took [China] from poverty to great-power status seems broken, and everywhere are signs of distress.”

“As a real estate meltdown ripples through the [Chinese] economy, small businesses and workers are owed hundreds of billions of dollars, and new projects have dried up.”

“China’s long-term demographic problems don’t fully explain its current financial difficulties, but they do tend to make those short-term problems worse.”

“China is facing a series of dramatic economic ailments, not least of which is growing resistance from its trade partners to its mercantilist economic policies.”

… and unrealized strategic ambitions:

China “developed an ambitious vision of itself as a ‘near-Arctic’ power, perhaps even a ‘polar great power,’ over the past decade or so.” That vision has not come to pass.

Look closely at Chinese maritime capabilities, and “the picture that emerges is less an unstoppable colossus and more a powerful, but uneven force, with important capability gaps.”

“China hoped Fiji would be a template for the Pacific. Its plan backfired.” Matthew Abbott]

Regionally, “mountains and oceans with capable militaries across them, and nuclear neighbors Russia and India, hem” China in. [DEFP / Benjamin H. Friedman]

Policy in the paradox
Washington’s default response to this paradox of Chinese strength and weakness is strategically confused and there dangerous:

overhyping the imminence and supposed inevitability of U.S.-China conflict

recklessly escalating the very tensions that make such a conflict more likely

The right response, even if China’s growth and ambitions advance, is the reverse:

prioritizing avoidance of U.S.-China war, which is not inevitable and risks global catastrophe

maintaining deterrence and regional balance, fostering prudent diplomatic relations, and deescalating wherever possible