In the last few years, rhetoric has sharpened on both sides of the Pacific as the China-U.S. relationship grows increasingly adversarial. While part of this clash results from changes in Beijing’s behavior, much has also been motivated by exaggerated fears of Chinese hegemony. This creates a black-and-white lens through which many have unfortunately come to view the relationship, a zero-sum game where one country’s gain comes at loss for the other. In reality, a successful American foreign policy requires a balance of both competition and cooperation, a multifaceted approach to the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.
For decades, relations with China were guided by the principle of “engagement.” By inviting Beijing into the international community, Washington hoped to integrate it and bring about political liberalization in China.
Those dreams now appear naive. Instead of embracing democratic reforms, Chinese leaders have pioneered a new kind of hybrid model for governance: openly benefiting from the features of capitalism while maintaining tight control over civil society. While other authoritarian regimes struggle, China has enjoyed decades of continuous economic growth. Most impressively, the system has succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions from extreme poverty. In turn, the Communist Party continues to enjoy support from solid majorities of the Chinese people. Nonetheless, Washington’s original hope of a democratic China that embraced a multi-party Western-style system has failed to materialize.
Amidst these developments, Americans’ views of China have soured. In 2021, a plurality of Americans (45%) viewed China as the greatest threat to the security of the United States, up from 12% in 2016. In 2016, the situation was flipped: the same survey showed that Americans then regarded North Korea, Russia, and Iran as bigger threats than China. Despite the recent focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, new polling has shown a continuation of these same trends.
The Trump White House was the first administration to openly discard engagement as a viable China strategy, with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remarking in 2020 that “we must induce China to change in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijing’s actions threaten our people and our prosperity.”
And while Democrats had many quarrels with former President Trump, taking a tougher stance on China was not one of them. In 2019, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer openly rooted for Mr. Trump’s tough approach to Beijing, telling the President to “hang tough on China.”
The Biden administration has continued that approach, albeit with more consistency and consultation with allies. In a widely broadcasted speech, President Biden called China the “most serious competitor” to the United States.
This tension is unlikely to subside because China is growing in power. After the United States, it is the second largest economy on Earth. No other country is even close. In 2021, China’s GDP was more than three-quarters the size of its American counterpart. By comparison, Japan’s economy — the world’s third largest — was less than a quarter the size of America.
All this portends a difficult international landscape in the years ahead. Current threats like climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, and pandemics warrant a united front of the world’s great powers. To hold the international community together, America will have to cooperate with China on issues of mutual concern. Washington needs to further integrate Beijing into international institutions rather than attempting to exclude or isolate it. If America fails to do this, China will be incentivized to create its own set of parallel institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, immune from Western pressure.
Most importantly, this view of cooperation should be undergirded by the understanding that China is not an authoritarian monolith. It has changed before and can again. Fareed Zakaria notes the following:
“In the early 1970s, before Nixon’s opening to China, Beijing was the world’s greatest rogue regime. Mao Zedong was obsessed with the idea that he was at the helm of a revolutionary movement that would destroy the Western capitalist world. [...]
Beijing is now the second largest funder of the United Nations and the UN peacekeeping program. It has deployed 2,500 peacekeepers, more than all the other permanent members of the Security Council combined. Between 2000 and 2018, it supported 182 of 190 Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on nations deemed to have violated international rules or norms. Granted, the principles anchoring Beijing’s foreign policy today—‘respect for sovereignty,’ ‘territorial integrity,’ and ‘nonintervention’—are animated in large part by a desire to fend off Western interference. Yet they highlight a remarkable shift from a radical agenda of revolution to a conservative concern for stability. Had someone predicted in 1972 that China would become a guardian of the international status quo, few would have believed it possible.”
In short, while populations on both sides of the Pacific should embrace healthy competition, they cannot afford to reduce the other to a black-and-white caricature. Such a misreading belies the important changes that China, in particular, has made to achieve its current state of development. Furthermore, although some clashes are inevitable, cooperation must be embraced when possible. A predictable and balanced China-U.S relationship will grant the international community a much stronger foundation to confront the challenges of the 21st century.
We should also deflate the myth of inevitable Chinese ascendancy. As much as anything, American hostility towards China is couched in the fear that Beijing will replace Washington at the head of the global pecking order. Those fears are exaggerated. In the 1980s, Japan was widely viewed as on track to overtake the American economy. A decade later, its growth stagnated, never to recover. Although China is economically larger than Japan ever was, it too has significant structural barriers — like an aging population — which will constrain development.
The United States also remains the preeminent economic and military power on Earth. Although it has just 4% of the world’s population, America generates 25% of its economic output, the largest share of any nation on Earth. Furthermore, America’s 25% share of the world economy has gone essentially unchanged for decades. Although China has risen within the international system, it has not been at the expense of America.
In the military realm, the gap is even larger. The U.S. spends more on its armed forces than the next ten countries combined. While China has dramatically increased the size of its own military budget and pursued a greater international presence in recent years, the gulf is still enormous.
Policymakers should keep these facts in mind as they approach China. The United States has sufficient economic, military, and diplomatic strength that it need not solely compete with China. Washington can afford cooperation as well, especially because that cooperation benefits America’s interests in confronting the challenges of the 21st century.
A balance of cooperation and competition with China is not a radical break from the past either. In truth, our relationship with China has always maintained some degree of both. Engagement, as often stereotyped, was never about opening our arms to Beijing with no pushback from Washington. It was constantly couched in the framework of American security priorities and objectives for the region at large.
During the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis, then-President Clinton ordered a carrier strike group led by the USS Nimitz to sail through the Taiwan Strait in the biggest show of American military force since the Vietnam War. This was hardly passive. On the contrary, President Clinton actively engaged China throughout his tenure. For instance, the Clinton administration pushed for Beijing’s admission into the WTO. But it did so while clashing in other areas.
Two and a half decades later, the world has changed. China has risen. But maintaining a carefully crafted China policy that balances competition and cooperation — a renewed iteration of the old engagement strategy — is still feasible. It recognizes China’s history of reform, the vast challenges that remain today, and the potential for progress in the future.