A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace advocates several policy recommendations which aim to rectify the “threat” that a rising China poses to “the foundations of the U.S.-backed global order.” Traditional strategies of “containment,” as used against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, won’t work, the report argues, so Washington needs to “balance” China instead.
The report offers four broad strategies for the U.S. approach to China, all of which are awful and all of which take for granted that U.S. foreign policy ought to be about world domination.
Bolster Regional Actors. By increasing the national power of China’s neighbors, the United States can constrain Beijing’s behavior and limit its capacity for aggressiveness. This investment is in Washington’s best interest irrespective of whether it is repaid in kind because it will diminish China’s ability to misuse its growing strength and increase American geopolitical maneuverability in the Indo-Pacific. But the United States must be wary of Chinese tactics to subvert these efforts.
This is already causing problems. The U.S.’s bolstering of all of China’s neighboring rivals has helped exacerbate regional tensions, prompting Japan and the Philippines to take a much more aggressive posture in confronting China. The naval jockeying in the East and South China Seas could be extremely dangerous: “My biggest fear is that a small mishap is going to blow up into something much bigger,” says Elizabeth C. Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Even if this policy did tend to stabilize things instead of make them more dangerous, the bias underlying this recommendation is that these weaker states are better off under U.S. hegemony than under Chinese hegemony. While some will argue the U.S. has promoted democracy and free markets (contrasted with whatever China would encourage), there’s really very little evidence for that, given the U.S.’s history of backing dictatorships, ethnic cleansing, and corrupt/closed markets.
The report, again, takes for granted the legitimacy of U.S. meddling. Suppose we reverse the recommendations for China, instead of the U.S. Is it legitimate for China to begin to “bolster” all of America’s neighboring rivals in, say, Latin America? Would Washington accept that? No. So, why is it ok for us to do the same?
Selectively Deepen Globalization. The United States should make trade liberalization a top priority. Since comprehensive global liberalization remains a distant goal, Washington should work to quickly conclude key regional trade pacts, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which promise increased relative gains to the United States and its allies vis-à-vis China.
The contradictions inherent in this recommendation are almost laughable. We should impose so-called “free trade deals” that exclude or at least marginalize China vis-à-vis the U.S. and its allies? If it’s “selective” how can we honestly call it “free trade”? More like subtle economic warfare. Not only is this categorically anti-free market, but it represents the interests of Washington’s own global power, not the interests of consumers in the market.
Bolster U.S. Military Capabilities. To preserve its military superiority in the face of growing Chinese power, Washington should invest in improving U.S. power projection capabilities that will allow it to defeat challenges posed by China’s new strategic denial systems and regain U.S. freedom of action in the Indo-Pacific.
Yeah, because that’s exactly what the U.S. needs. After more than a decade of steadily rising defense budgets that have grown some 80 percent in real dollars since 9/11, we need to increase our military capabilities? Defense is eating up more than 60 percent of the discretionary budget, helping to feed a $17 trillion debt that will only become more burdensome as time goes on. We spend approximately as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. We need to do less of it, a lot less. Not more.
Reinvigorate the U.S. Economy. Revitalizing the domestic economy is imperative to sustaining American hegemony. To maintain its global economic dominance, the United States must emphasize labor force renewal, promote disruptive technological innovations, increase efficiency in production, and resolve the political squabbles that prevent Washington from fixing the country’s public finances.
It’s hard to argue with reinvigorating the U.S. economy, but notice again the bias here. The purpose of a healthy, growing economy is so that the government can take more resources from productive people and fortify its own grip on world power. Really? If that’s the real rationale, I’d love to see the president put that in one of his stump speeches. See how it goes over.
A very informative article, thank you Mr. Glaser. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace promotes strategies that very obviously have nothing to do with peace, and everything to do with creating the conditions for endless conflicts both domestically and internationally. Welcome to the New World Order.
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The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , or The Carnegie Endowment for Enforcing Puppet States of USA Around the World?
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"the foundations of the U.S.-backed global order".
Make that the foundations of the U.S.-controlled and dominated global hegemonic order"
What an ugly country it has become. An old perverted Soviet Union with even more cruelty on display: kill, torture, maim, rape, burn, bomb; kill,torture maim, rape, bomb, burm cut to pieces, kick some asses.
What a dumb, ugly country. I won't set a foot there for the forseable fiture. Betwen the massive killings, the fascist politicians and the crazy police forces, it is simply too dangerous.
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>>>.This is already causing problems. The U.S.’s bolstering of all of China’s neighboring rivals has helped exacerbate regional tensions, prompting Japan and the Philippines to take a much more aggressive posture in confronting China.>>>>
I think you have this backwards and incomplete. First the US is not bolstering all of China's "neighboring rivals", Key weapons sales are not being made to Taiwan and we are not "bolstering" other areas of China's expansion, such as India, Laos, and Burma. Nor have we "bolstered" any of the South China Sea nations that China threatens, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. We have treaties with Japan and Phils which compel us to defend them in time of war. That's about it.
Nor did the US make Phils or Japan more aggressive. Sadly that was all on China. There was a brief period around 2007-9 when Japanese people were very receptive and positive about China — then a long string of provocations, aggressive actions, and heightened territorial claims changed that.
It would also be well to point out that China's territorial claims are recent inventions. The South China Sea claim was invented in 1947, no previous ruler of China ever claimed it. Similarly the claim to the Senkakus was invented in 1971 after the announcement of oil there in the late 1960s. Prior to that, no government of China ever claimed them. These (and other) claims are pure territorial aggression, nothing less, which Chinese rightists attempt to locate in their own history. The South China Sea claims are occasionally expanded, mostly recently a couple of years ago when China rolled the border up another 80 kms closer to Palawan island.
It would also be well to note that the US did not back Manila but rather told it to pipe down and China went on to occupy longtime Philippines areas. US elites are making money like crazy off China and despite the Cold War fantasies of lefties, aren't interested in war with China. In the Obama-r Administration alone four key players, including his Asia guy Jeff Bader, came out of the consulting firm Stoneridge, which does a booming business with China. Little is written on this, but see Silverstein's 2008 article in Harpers, "The Mandarins." Carsten Frenz has also written on this. The Chinese basically own a large swath of the US foreign policy establishment. That there is still massive tension in Asia is a tribute to Beijing's ability to piss off people when it doesn't need to.
The fact of the matter is simple: all of Asia is rearming, and it is not because of US hegemony and war-mongering. It is because everyone realizes that war is coming because Beijing wants their territories. This may be a revolutionary thought, but not all tension and war in the world is due to the nefarious activities of Washington.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan
You missed the point. He's worrying about his own country, and advocating that it not make things worse.
Despite your "revolutionary thought" at the end, you might have to admit that the USA tends to stick its thumb into affairs around the world once in a while. Not very often. But every now and then. And yeah, it does make things worse – for people, not for the butchers and empty opportunists who profit.
I think I am on point. I can well understand why people might not want the US to get involved. But fundamentally the problems he points to are caused by Chinese expansion, not US hegemony, and his claim that the US is "bolstering" China's "rivals" is rank nonsense.
Glad you can understand why people don't want the USA to go in and "help", as it has selflessly done for peoples from Native North Americans to Latin Americans to Afghans, etc., etc., only accidentally impoverishing by fascist dictatorship and extracting cheap resources and labor from millions.
The USA absolutely is bolstering China's rivals and has been for decades. That's openly stated US policy and practice (and not just for China). Obama has put that into overdrive:
"The Obama regime’s “Pivot to Asia” announced Washington’s plan to surround China with naval and air bases and to interject Washington into every dispute that China has with Asian neighbors. China has responded to Washington’s provocation by expanding its air space, an action that Washington calls destabilizing when in fact it is Washington that is destabilizing the region." http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/12/04/19038/
"To make clear that the claim to the South China Sea was not rhetorical, the Obama regime announced its “Pivot to Asia,” which calls for the redeployment of 60% of the US fleet to China’s zone of influence. Washington is busy at work securing naval and air bases from the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, and Thailand [and already has them in Japan, S. Korea…] Washington has increased the provocation by aligning itself with China’s neighbors who are disputing China’s claims to various islands and an expanded air space.
China has not been intimidated. China has called for “de-americanizing the world.” Last month the Chinese government announced that it now possesses sufficient nuclear weapons and delivery systems to wipe the US off of the face of the earth." http://www.globalresearch.ca/washington-drives-th…
Empire, the US sucks, we can both agree on that. But Washington is not the problem.
It is not Washington that is destabilizing Asia. It is China's territorial claims and military build up. That's not hard to figure out, unless you are still looking at Asia through outdated Cold War lenses. Many of the world's most urgent war flashpoints — Arunachal Pradesh, the Senkakus, Taiwan, the South China Sea — involve recently invented territorial claims of Beijing. Asia's governments are re-arming because they fear China, not because they fear US hegemony. They want the US to come in and defend them, because they are all small powers. During the Bush Administration Asia was screaming that the US was neglecting Asia, now we are not.
The "pivot", despite Paul Craig Roberts' fantasies, exists only as a set of strategy declarations and a few redeployments of ships. There has been no great rush of hardware over here, much to the chagrin of Asians who watch China's military grow at an alarming rate. John Feffer recently had a good piece on the phantom pivot at the progressive website Foreign Policy in Focus. The fact is the pivot is mostly words, like almost all Obama claims, to cover a lack of meaningful policy change. The promised bases and investments in infrastructure have not really materialized.
Michael
"Asia's governments are re-arming because they fear China, not because they fear US hegemony."
Who said Asia's governments were re-arming because they fear US hegemony? Everyone here is pointing out something really obvious, which is that the USA is fueling militarism and inflaming China and also Russia. This is not a radical idea, to say the least. The US has a biiit of a rap sheet on this subject. You see the quote about China responding to US aggressive posturing by saying we should de-americanize the world. Imagine what Washington would say if China were surrounding the US with lethal weaponry and bases? If you look at the articles above, you also see Putin's quote where he says he will never allow the USA to overtake Russia, and says he knows what Russia has to do in response to US provocations.
What people are saying here is exactly what's happening: the US is bolstering China's "rivals", as well as increasing overall tension. That's because the USA's ultimate goal is to eliminate all rivals, and China is viewed as one (even though in reality it doesn't have to and shouldn't be viewed this way). That's not even close to a secret.
Above you quoted Glaser saying the US has "helped exacerbate regional tensions". That's precisely accurate. The USA is not doing everything, it's just making things worse, to advantage US elites who profit from this kind of thing.
The USA's post WW2 record of aggression and lawlessness makes China look like Switzerland.
Just look at the sheer numbers of invasions or overthrows: the US dwarfs China. Look at the numbers of UNSC vetoes: the US is at about 100, China about 12.
China knows what the US is up to, and that Washington's goal is not to make the world better; it's to set things up to benefit themselves to the greatest degree possible. China and Russia are currently obstacles to worldwide profits flowing to the greatest possible extent into US elite hands.
As the quite experienced imperialists of Britain said, countries doing what the USA is doing are seeking none other than "world domination". Russia and China are bad enough, but they don't compare on grounds of imperialism and militarism. They are playing catch-up. Another example: look at how the US is trying to militarize and nuclearize space. China, for one, has tried to prevent that.
Oh, and the ad-hominem against Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is unnecessary. That guy is a multiple award winning doctor of economics who served in the Reagan administration.
If, instead of just sticking to arguments and evidence, you're going to insult him as part of your case, it's only fair that you should give us your own qualifications, isn't it?
What are they?
Empire,
Roberts is wrong. That simple. The Pivot is mostly words. You can easily do the research and find that out. Both the neocons — heritage had a piece on it last year — and progressives have pointed that out. Again, see the Feffer piece. I dont know why you imagine being Treasury Secretary means anything when analyzing East Asian policy.
>>>Everyone here is pointing out something really obvious, which is that the USA is fueling militarism and inflaming China and also Russia. >>>
The US is not inflaming China. The US did not cause China to claim the entire South China Sea, invade and occupy Tibet and East Turkestan, seize 24 vietnamese islands, attack Vietnam, fight border wars with India and Russa, invent claims to an entire Indian state, invent a claim to the Senkakus, and constantly attempt to expand its South China Sea claims. The "militarism" you refer to is caused by Chinese expansion that dates back to the end of the Qing dynasty. Japan is re-arming in response to the threat, not because the US is "inflaming" something.
This is not difficult to understand, unless you willfully misunderstand it. We both agree that the US is an imperialist, hegemonic power, there is no need to keep pointing that out, I already told you we are in perfect agreement. The issue is why you only see that when the US does it, and why you shut your eyes when China does it. Being progressive, in my view, means being opposed to all forms of imperialism and colonialism, not just those that emanate from Washington.
Here is my recent piece in the The Diplomat on the Senkakus. http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/constructing-china…
Michael
"I dont know why you imagine being Treasury Secretary means anything when analyzing East Asian policy."
That part shows overall credibility, and the doctorate in economics (a related field to political science, history, etc.) I also mentioned shows qualification for analyzing world affairs. But I wasn't relying on that; he presented the facts and evidence quite clearly in those articles.
But you have me curious now, what are your personal qualifications? I only ask because you said Roberts had "fantasies". If you don't want to tell me, just say so so I won't think you just forgot to say and so I keep asking.
"The US is not inflaming China."
What were China and Russia responding to in the above quotes, then?
To be logically consistent, you would have to also say that China flying bombers through US-claimed airspace, moving battleships around the US, and bolstering US regional rivals would not be an inflammation, or viewed by Washington as such. That's impossible.
"The issue is why you only see that when the US does it, and why you shut your eyes when China does it."
I guess… In my last comment I said Russia and China are "bad enough", then empirically compared the two to the US, which has a worse record of external aggression and lawlessness since 1776. But if you think I support China against Tibet or anything else like that, you obviously haven't seen my Free Tibet bracelet ;)
I'm just mainly concerned about my own country following international law and working to improve that system, which is the exact opposite of what it has done so far.
Btw, I also have Taiwanese family, have spent time in Taiwan, mainly Tainan, and totally support Taiwanese independence :)
In-laws, not blood.
*This is not difficult to understand, unless you willfully misunderstand it. We both agree that the US is an imperialist, hegemonic power, there is no need to keep pointing that out, I already told you we are in perfect agreement. The issue is why you only see that when the US does it, and why you shut your eyes when China does it.* [sic]
u r a sorry excuse for a *progressive*.
when was the last time u call out the evil empire's rampant aggressions world wide , when ?
China has 4000 years of history. Much of that time it has been the richest, most powerful nation in the world. What you have written strongly suggest almost complete unfamiliarity with Chinese history, and the historically sharp limits to military/political expansion. It hives off commercial/social communities in desirable locations that become part of the host society, as can be readily found from Singapore to San Francisco. It has done this for thousands of years. Vast territorial expansionism has never been part of the Chinese program, there's no reason to believe suddenly in the face of all the failed territorial empires of the last couple centuries they will suddenly overrule their own history and pursue the fool's errand. That's just not very Chinese.
@ Michael Turton
“I think you have this backwards and incomplete. First the US is not bolstering all of China's "neighboring rivals", Key weapons sales are not being made to Taiwan and we are not "bolstering" other areas of China's expansion, such as India, Laos, and Burma. Nor have we "bolstered" any of the South China Sea nations that China threatens, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. We have treaties with Japan and Phils which compel us to defend them in time of war. That's about it.”
Please detail how China is expanding into each of India, Laos, and Burma. If you are referring to the border disputes with India, maybe you will increase a few IQ points by reading this article written by an Indian journalist: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-dna-special-…
It relates a little reported detail that China’s recent incursions over the LAC were in response to the Indian military’s attempts to build bunkers on the Chinese side of the LAC. You don’t hear much about that in the West because they like to spoonfeed willing and receptive mouths like yours exactly what you want to hear, that China is the boogeyman and it could not possibly be anyone else’s fault.
“It would also be well to point out that China's territorial claims are recent inventions. The South China Sea claim was invented in 1947, no previous ruler of China ever claimed it. Similarly the claim to the Senkakus was invented in 1971 after the announcement of oil there in the late 1960s. Prior to that, no government of China ever claimed them. These (and other) claims are pure territorial aggression, nothing less, which Chinese rightists attempt to locate in their own history. The South China Sea claims are occasionally expanded, mostly recently a couple of years ago when China rolled the border up another 80 kms closer to Palawan island.”
The SCS claim was first DELINEATED on map in 1947 but has been claimed by China since the Qing Dynasty. Chinese fishermen had been plying the waters of the SCS for hundreds of years before there most of the nations in the area could even claim official statehood, to speak nothing of making EEZ claims. That UNCLOS doesn’t recognize historical claims is hypocritically used by both the US and the Phillipines to claim that China cannot use history to make its claim. At the exact same time, they claim that since China did not object to US claiming sovereignty over SCS areas (the UNITED STATES, A COUNTRY SEVERAL THOUSAND MILES AWAY) and that it subsequently transferred sovereignty of certain SCS claims to the Phillipines also without protest, with a total period of control of over a hundred years, that sovereignty must then rightfully lie with the Phillipines. If this is not a historical argument I don’t know what is. How convenient for the US, the Phillipines and for your argument, that at the time all this was happening China was so weak it could not even keep its land borders intact, and suffered semi-colonialization at the hands of the US, Japan, Russia, and Europe. An injustice unvoiced does not somehow become just later on, unless we are all living in the same delusion that you are living in, Michael.
Similarly, the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku) had been a part of the Qing Dynasty which Japan illegally annexed from China in 1895 and never returned after WWII though the return of seized lands prior to WWII was part of its surrender terms. The US is complicit in this particular injustice as well, as it administered the islands until 1971 when it transferred control of the islands to Japan instead of China. China had been too weak to protest and was willing to let this argument lie idle, but the discovery of potential resources in the area as well as the transfer of the islands to Japan instead of China roused the Chinese government to finally voice its anger at the situation.
“The fact of the matter is simple: all of Asia is rearming, and it is not because of US hegemony and war-mongering. It is because everyone realizes that war is coming because Beijing wants their territories.”
The level of biased ridiculousness in this sentence would be laughable if it were not so sad.
""'he SCS claim was first DELINEATED on map in 1947 but has been claimed by China since the Qing Dynasty. ""
ROFL. The fifty centers have arrived.
The South China Sea was never claimed by the Qing. But never mind that, the Qing were manchus and foreign conquerors of China, and were opposed by the Chinese for 300 years until suddenly, after their empire fell, the Chinese decided the Manchus were actually Chinese so their empire was Chinese. Much as if India was claiming kenya because the British once ruled both. All these wholly modern invented claims of China are nonsense.
For the Senkakus, no Qing Maps show the Senkakus as QIng, they are not even mentioned in the Draft Official History of the Qing, and before that the Offical Ming history not only does not mention the Senkakus, but defines the sea borders of the Ming and does not include them. The claim that the Qing owned the Senkakus is a typical right-wing lie, the kind common to expansionists of every age and time. The Qing never owned the Senkakus, period.
Moreoever, on every map produced by every Chinese government since the fall of the Qing, the Senkakus are shown to be Japanese, the Japanese names are used, and no controversy is mentioned. All official documents and texts, including school textbooks, follow that pattern. No claim is ever mentioned and no claims were made to the Japanese government prior to the announcement of oil there in the late 1960s. Because no Chinese government ever believed it owned the Senkakus, since 1971 Beijing has recalled hundreds of thousands of maps, while the government in Taipei has altered its maps to reflect the new claim. For an academic work on how Taipei altered its maps, see The Diaoyutai Islands on Taiwan’s Official Maps: Pre- and Post-1971 (Asian Affairs: An American Review, 39:90–105, 2012)
>>.vChina had been too weak to protest and was willing to let this argument lie idle, >>>
This is more expansionist lying. China was so weak at that time that it… invaded and occupied Tibet and East Turkestan and fought wars with India and Russia. Poor weak China, needing to invade Tibet. I feel sorry for them.
>>The level of biased ridiculousness in this sentence would be laughable if it were not so sad.>>
What's sad is that you have no concrete response, because you know perfectly well that Asia is living in fear of Chinese expansionism.
Michael
As for Laos and Cambodia, they are slowly being turned into protectorates; Chinese firms are tearing down their forests and vacuuming up their resources. Burma was heading that way but is getting a wave of foreign investment, so perhaps it will take a tougher stance. Already if you travel in Laos in common tourist areas, the "lao" girls selling you stuff are all Chinese, mostly from the same set of townships in China, in fact, a classic diaspora set up. I had a lot of fun chatting with them in Mandarin when I was there last time.
Michael
China's territorial claims to the Daiyou Islands are not recent, they were mapped centuries ago. In contrast Japan's claim does not predate the 1st Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) when Japan seized them under the false pretext that they were unexplored and unmapped territory. The islands should have been returned to China after WWII. Instead, the U.S. retained them to exercise administrative authority. In 1971, the transfer was not the PRC radar- its focus was on detente- but the U.S. knew, when it turned over the islands to Japan that sovereignty was disputed- and there is evidence indicating that Kissinger recognized that potential problems could flow from it. The ROC raised it as a serious issue at the time, and very vocal demonstrations were held in Taipei opposing any transfer to Japan. That is why the U.S. was careful to back off on taking any position on the sovereignty of the islands. The U.S. should have known that Japan would leverage administrative control into an attempt to exercise of sovereignty, and then use the US-Japan Defense treaty to run interference for it. The U.S. bears ultimate responsibility for the mistake, and should correct it now by recognizing China's claims to sovereignty over the island, or at the very least pushing for Sino-Japanese joint development of the islands' oil and gas resources, something Japan has resisted up to now.
When Taiwan formally becomes a province of the PRC, this issue could become moot since, under the UNCLOS formula for determining the size and borders of the EEZs of neighboring nations, the islands, being approximately 75 miles from Taiwan and 160 from Okinawa, would fall fully within China's EEZ.
<>>>China's territorial claims to the Daiyou Islands are not recent, they were mapped centuries ago.>>>
They were marked on Chinese maps, but they were never claimed. The Chinese always thought of China's borders as ending at the water until the Qing, who taught them, however slowly, to think outside that box.
Hence Japan's claim is correct, they were terra nullius and could have been returned to China because China never owned them.
Kissinger was strongly pro-China and was rewarded, eventually, for his service to Beijing with the lucrative consulting and business interests he maintains there.
Michael
All I know is I wouldn't sacrifice one single American life for Taiwan, Michael Turton.
Is there truly someone named Elizabeth C. Economy?
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Let’s make one thing clear: these useless military exercises and demonstrations of force do absolutely nothing to alter the reality or Russia’s strategic calculations. They are essentially for domestic consumption, to satisfy political hardliners who are attacking the president for being too weak.
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