Nine Theses on U.S.-China Relations
from U.S. Foreign Policy Program

Nine Theses on U.S.-China Relations

Henry Kissinger observes that the current state of U.S.-China relations reminds him of the period before World War I when Europe’s leaders would not have made the decisions they did if they had known the horrible consequences—twenty million dead.

Originally published at National Interest

August 11, 2020 12:00 am (EST)

Article
Current political and economic issues succinctly explained.

My core views on U.S.-China relations can epigrammatically be summarized in nine single sentences:

More From Our Experts
  1. China seeks to replace the United States as the most important and influential nation in the Indo-Pacific region and to dominate that region.
  2. China’s tactics will change over time, its strategic purpose will not.
  3. The crucial variable regarding whether China is successful in its strategic purpose is U.S. domestic, economic, military and diplomatic strength and resolve, and not Chinese actions.
  4. The United States with its allies and partners can successfully compete with China, and there is no reason for intrinsic pessimism.
  5. The United States and China are well on their way to permanent confrontation, which could eventually lead to war.
  6. Taiwan is a loaded gun pointed at the head of both China and the United States, and some in both countries and in Taipei want to test Taiwan’s hair-trigger.
  7. Neither Beijing nor Washington currently seems interested in using diplomacy to arrest the potentially catastrophic decline in their relations.
  8. Regarding the United States and China, there will be no grand bargain on world order, no strategic modus vivendi, no accepted rules of the road, no staying in agreed lanes, because they are too far apart on their national interests and values.
  9. Instead, the two nations will be on the edge of crisis for decades, and only quality diplomacy on both sides will rescue them from likely tragedy.

More on:

China

United States

Diplomacy and International Institutions

As Ernest May taught us, history is the most common form of evidence and reasoning in forming public policy, filled with questions and insights for us, so let’s go to history.

Henry Kissinger observes that the current state of U.S.-China relations reminds him of the period before World War I when Europe’s leaders would not have made the decisions they did if they had known the horrible consequences—twenty million dead.

To remind, here briefly is what happened.

More From Our Experts

• 1894: The Franco-Russian Alliance is formed.

• 1904: The Entente Cordial is agreed between France and Britain.

More on:

China

United States

Diplomacy and International Institutions

• 1905–1906: The First Moroccan Crisis occurs over who controls Morocco: France or the Sultanate supported by the Kaiser.

• 1907: The Anglo-Russian Convention is signed.

• 1908: Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.

• 1911: The Second Moroccan (Agadir) Crisis takes place, in which the presence of French troops in Morocco leads Germany to demand territorial compensation.

• 1912: The First Balkan War erupts.

• 1913, The First Albanian Crisis pits Montenegro and Serbia against the Ottoman Empire.

• 1913 The Second Balkan War occurs.

• 1913, The Second Albanian Crisis ensues.

1914, The 'Great Powers' of Europe have already come close to war several times thanks to the Balkan, Moroccan and Albanian disputes. Each crisis makes it more difficult to manage the next one.

June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo.

July 28, 1914—World War I begins.

Friends, using this World War I Applied History approach, what year is it now regarding the present interaction between the United States and China?

1894?

1905?

1910?

1913?

How worried are you? Is Andrew Marvell’s Time’s Winged Chariot on our heels?

My answer is 1910. Beware. Worry.

With Ernest May still in mind, here is another pertinent date: July 8, 2021, is the fiftieth anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s visit to Beijing, and his talks with Zhou Enlai—twenty hours over three days.

These were the characteristics of those meetings:

They were led by high-level representatives clearly underwritten personally by the two leaders.

They were intense.

They were private, away from the glare of the press.

They were mutually respectful.

They did not challenge the forms of governance of the other side.

They did not dwell on human rights.

They were dedicated to strategic exchange, individual problem solving, and compromise.

As I think of Ernest May, the Guns of August and our species’ penchant for tomfoolery, majestic myopia and both spontaneous and studied miscalculation, the Kissinger/Zhou Enlai approach seems to me a reasonable formula for U.S.-China negotiations today.

But how much time do we have before those winged chariots crush us?

Creative Commons
Creative Commons: Some rights reserved.
Close
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License.
View License Detail
Close

Top Stories on CFR

United States

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This Week: Joe Biden doesn’t want one of America’s closest allies to buy a once iconic American company.

Immigration and Migration

Dara Lind, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the record surge in migrants and asylum seekers crossing the U.S. southern border.

Center for Preventive Action

Every January, CFR’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey analyzes the conflicts most likely to occur in the year ahead and measures their potential impact. For the first time, the survey anticipates that this year, 2024, the United States will contend not only with a slew of global threats, but also a high risk of upheaval within its own borders. Is the country prepared for the eruption of election-related instability at home while wars continue to rage abroad?