East Asia and the Pacific

overview

China’s resurgence as a great power is a defining feature of geopolitical evolution since the end of the Cold War. Employing its status as the world’s second most populous nation and second largest economy, China has enhanced its People’s Liberation Army to become the sole Pentagon-classified “peer competitor” to the United States military. The United States and her allies are also reliant on trade with China for goods and services in many critical sectors of their economies, and substantial Chinese investments in high-tech industries are already transforming battlefields and boardrooms alike. Beijing is increasingly impatient to leverage this economic clout to gain greater political power on the world stage.

China’s growing political ambitions are inseparable from the character of its regime: a one-party authoritarian government firmly centralized under its strongman president Xi Jinping, who has cemented power for life and who openly seeks to regain the trappings of power and prestige China lost during its ‘Century of Humiliation’ (1840s-1940s). In practice, this means total political control over once self-ruled Hong Kong, which Beijing established despite widespread protests in 2019-2020; persecution and genocide of Xinjiang’s native Uyghur Muslim minority; and ‘reunification’ with Taiwan, an island democracy long aligned with and protected by the United States.

Taiwan is but one flashpoint between Washington and Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party continues to press extralegal claims on vast stretches of the South China Sea, and its treatment of racial and religious minorities have persistently rankled Westerners since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. President Xi Jinping’s declaration of friendship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which was publicized as Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, also casts China as a friend of authoritarian aggression worldwide. The Belt and Road Initiative, a sweeping plan for infrastructure investments across Eurasia, is another illustrative and oft-cited example of China’s global ambitions and potential to displace Washington as the cynosure of the international order. The issues of concern and competition grow increasingly acute.

The new consensus in Washington is that competition with China must be the central task and organizing principle of American grand strategy. Many experts fear that China is an aggressive expansionist power that intends to conquer Taiwan, browbeat its neighbors, dominate markets through both direct and underhanded means, and export high-tech authoritarianism to governments faltering as a result of corruption or poor stewardship.

What this means for the tactics of American strategy, however, is contested. Some argue for a “new Cold War” approach, believing that only maximal competition with China—for political influence, market access, and military capacity—can deter Beijing from risking conflict with the United States. Others doubt that such single-minded planning is necessary and instead favor negotiating with China from positions of strength made possible through cooperation with allies and partners. Still others wish to prioritize areas of collaboration rather than confrontation, such as climate change. 

What few debate is the need for partners and allies in the region. The most significant multilateral partnership in this respect is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad. This grouping of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia is primarily based upon fostering maritime security in the Indo-Pacific through such means as joint military exercises. However, cooperation also extends to economic concerns such as supply chain resilience and combating global issues like climate change and pandemic diseases. Additionally, the United States maintains mutual defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as so-called ‘strategic ambiguity’ around American commitment to the defense of Taiwan.

The island nations scattered across the expanse of the Pacific also hold strategic significance to the United States. In recent years, China has tried to court many of these countries with economic assistance as part of their Belt and Road Initiative. China also offers, such as in the case of its deal with the Solomon Islands, security assistance in exchange for maritime logistical support. Many in the United States fear that these kinds of deals could eventually morph into the establishment of Chinese military bases in the region, putting U.S. allies like Australia and U.S. territories like Guam at greater risk in the event of a war. Thus, the United States has recently begun to offer its own aid packages to these countries in an attempt to prevent the growth of Chinese influence.

East Asia and the Pacific is home to half of the United States’ top trading partners and is the destination for $900 billion in foreign direct investment and a third of American exports annually. Considering the importance of the region and the growing Chinese presence throughout, it comes as no surprise that U.S. policymakers devote more attention to East Asia and the Pacific than ever before. While the exact approach the United States is taking to dealing with China and engaging with friendlier nations in the region is not entirely defined, one fact is of ironclad certainty: East Asia and the Pacific will be a critical region for United States foreign policy for decades to come.

For Speaker Events

  • What is the best strategic approach for managing the rise of China?

  • How will the U.S.-China military rivalry evolve?

  • Should the United States defend Taiwan?

  • Should promoting democracy in China be an objective of U.S. foreign policy?

  • How should the United States address economic dependencies on China, particularly on rare earth metals?

  • What are the geopolitical implications of China's Belt and Road Initiative?

  • Can negotiations in which China is included lead to North Korea's denuclearization?

  • Are the United States and China long-term enemies?

  • Would East Asia fare better with a more robust American military?

  • What should be the role of alliances in countering China’s aggression abroad?

For Roundtable Discussions

For Book Clubs

  • Blumenthal, Dan. The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Dying State.

  • Cohen, Warren I. East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World.

  • Colby, Elbridge A. The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict.

  • Doshi, Rush. The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.

  • Friedberg, Aaron. Getting China Wrong.

  • Green, Michael J. By More than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Pacific Since 1783.

  • Jansen, Marius. The Making of Modern Japan.

  • McGregor, Richard. Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century.

  • Pillsbury, Michael. The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.

Interested in starting a reading group for your chapter? If so, the books above are all excellent selections. Find a link to our reading group application below.

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