Volume 4, Issue 1, Summer 2014
Infinity Journal
Page 5
Balanced Deterrence for the Asia-Pacific Region
Chad M. Pillai
be able to maintain access to markets, raw materials and
energy to support economic growth and social development.
[x] However, China also wishes to restore its honor through
recapturing its historical preeminence in the Asia-Pacific and
undo the impact of the last century’s “unequal treaties”.[xi]
These motivators are driven by the political imperative of
China’s leadership to maintain their regime and “mandate
of heaven” to hold together its vast territory.
In comparison, the key motivators of the U.S. are fear and
interest. The U.S. fears that the currently unstable political
and security environment will adversely affect the favorable
international order it has enjoyed for over half a century. As
such, the U.S. has great interest in maintaining its military and
political power globally to ensure access to global markets
and its economic prosperity, as well as national security.
These motivators are largely driven by the need of the U.S.
to maintain the current liberal international order it built and
from which it continues to prosper.
While this is a broad look at the generally enduring interests
of China and the U.S., it does provide a starting point to
determine similar and competing interests of the two states.
It also, however, fails to illustrate obvious friction points, but
instead to a “convergence of shared interests that is driving
the U.S.and China apart.”[xii] In simple terms,what is creating
the friction is the fear of unknown intentions towards one
another as they seek to achieve convergent goals. China
fears its ability to maintain its current regime and that the
international community will deny the honor it seeks in re-
establishing its historical preeminence in the international
landscape. The U.S. fears the loss of its leverage over the
international order,as well as its status if its global superpower
status is challenged and superseded.[xiii] China’s apparent
abandonment of its “Peaceful Rise” strategy for a more
forceful behavior depicted in the recent friction over the
South China Sea and its establishment of an Air Defense
Identification Zone raises the prospect of increased hostile
feelings and intentions for all participants in the region. The
central political question now for the U.S. will be how, as an
established global power, it manages the aspirations of
China, a rising regional power, while not sacrificing its core
national security interests and not “ameliorating the growing
U.S.-China security dilemma.”
China fears its ability to maintain
its current regime and that the
international community will deny
the honor it seeks in re-establishing
its historical preeminence in the
international landscape.
The Political Objective: Responsible Regional and Global
Partner
The political objective for the U.S. is ensuring that China
becomes a responsible regional and global partner that
works within the established international order and respects
the interests of the allies of the U.S. The challenge will be
convincing the Chinese of the benign intentions of the U.S.
while not allowing our interests to be compromised. Fareed
Zakaria best articulates the political challenge regarding
U.S.-China relations:
How to strike this balance - deterring China, on the one
hand, accommodating its legitimate growth, on the
other - is the central strategic challenge for American
diplomacy. The United States can and should draw lines
with China. But it should also recognize that it cannot
draw lines everywhere. Unfortunately, the most significant
hurdle for the United States faces in shaping such a policy
is a domestic political climate that tends to view any
concessions and accommodations as appeasement.[xv]
The challenge will be convincing
the Chinese of the benign intentions
of the U.S. while not allowing our
interests to be compromised.
Richard K. Betts recently posited that the U.S. will have to
choose whether it wants to contain China as a threat or
accommodate it as a rising super power. He further stated
that it is wrong for policymakers to want both, unless China
acts with sustained humility compared to previous rising
powers.[xvi] Alternatively, Aaron L. Friedberg offered that the
U.S. can and should attempt a “Balance and Engagement”
strategy towards China that seeks to “gradually mellow”
Chinese power while preserving our interests.[xvii] Such
an approach aligns itself with the former Nixon Doctrine.
President Nixon understood that China could play a pivotal
role in the international scene and that it was better to
engage instead of continuing to isolate a nation of a billion
people. Nixon also understood that in order to ensure peace
and stability, the world not only needed a strong U.S, but a
strong Soviet Union, China, Japan, and Europe “balancing
the other, not playing one against the other, an even
balance.”[xviii] According to Andrew Nathan and Andrew
Scobell, the diplomatic opening with China created by the
Nixon Administration, and the subsequent economic reforms
China instituted to join the global community, required
sacrifices to China’s security and its engagement with the
world made it vulnerable to pressures from the rest of the
world. They eloquently described China’s predicament, “By
moving from Autarky to interdependence, China increased
not only its power over the destinies of others, but also the
power of others over its own destiny.”They further emphasized
the impact of China’s engagement:
In this sense, the engagement policy pursued by the
United States since 1972 achieved its strategic goal of tying
China’s interests to the interest of the U.S.-created global
order. Although China is in many respects dissatisfied with
its level of economic, political, and military security and
seeks to improve them, it has acquired too large a stake
in the stability of the world order and the prosperity of the
West to believe it can serve its own interests by frontally
challenging the existing world order.[xix]
Based on the competing interests of the U.S.andChina,as well
as the strategic history detailed above, the U.S. should pursue
