America-China Military-to-Military Relations
Can relations between China and the United States be best understood in military terms? Justify your answer.
The rivalry between the U.S. and China has become an archetype of international relations. This rivalry continues to shape strategic debates and real military, political, and economic dynamics. Many international scholars are concerned about Sino-American relations, for they want to understand whether China can hold a ‘hegemony’ globally, and if so, how (Lippert & Perthes, 2020). First, China gained attention due to its rapid economic growth. As applied by Gramsci-inspired scholars, sovereignty takes into account the cultural, economic power, ideological factors, technology, and security/military power. The extent of Sino-U.S. competition of power and status encompasses a growing threat for ideologies and an increasingly significant political war (Medeiros, 2019). Thus, expanding ‘bilateral competition’ roots, which is basically economic power, remains the leading cause of tension that influences U.S.-Chinese relations. The key sources of power rivalry between the U.S. and the Republic of China include economic power, issues governance/politics, security, ideological factors, and military power (Lippert & Perthes, 2020). This implies that U.S.-Chinese relations should be understood comprehensively, i.e., in economic, ideological, security, and military terms and not solely in military terms.
Economic power remains the leading factor that defines Sino-U.S. relations. China’s economy has been growing and challenging U.S. interests at a time that the Asian continent is rising in long-term significance to America and the world (Adebayo & Ovuakporaye, 2020). In Asia, America’s central goal has been to prevent a hostile hegemon by China from dominating the region. Another structural force influencing U.S.-Chinese relations is the expanding bilateral competition roots. In Sino-U.S. relations, bilateral competition covers economics, security, governance ideas, and technology. According to (Beeson & Li, 2015), the longstanding sources of Chinese-U.S. competition – economics and security – are expanding at a period that new competition drivers – such as governance and technology – are emerging. In U.S.-Chinese relations, security competition is ancient, but its nature and prevalence in today’s relationship have changed. For decades, the China-U.S. conflicts of interests have been explicit on a wide range of security concerns, including the U.S. alliances, maritime territorial disputes, Taiwan’s security and status, Chinese military modernization, episodic regional security affairs, and missile and nuclear non-proliferation (Podger, 2018). Most of these security concerns are enduring differences: U.S. security commitments and alliances are central to the country’s regional defense tactic, and Taiwan is core to the legitimacy of the Communist Party.
In modern-day times, the situation has evolved in the opposite direction. According to (Beeson & Li, 2015), the past differences between the U.S.-China relations have become acute. As a result, new ideologies continue to emerge, with a growing uncertainly in both countries about the other’s longstanding and irreducible intentions. Studies by (Podger, 2018) indicate that the U.S.-China security relationships have become more complex, with an expanding mix of diverging interests and the intensifying security dilemma. This is because of China’s expanding military capabilities and its advanced willingness to use its military force. As per (Rudolph, 2018), the resulting security competition remains a function of both the Chinese and the U.S. behaviors, ideologies, and perceptions towards economic power. The increasing security uncertainty spurs interests by both countries to impose more acute security measures, for example, military forces.
Various developments justify this diversification and intensification of security competition between the U.S. and China. Studies by (Rudolph, 2018) posit that China’s military modernization, directed towards constraining the U.S. power calculation in the Western Pacific, has registered impeccable strides since the 1990s. Contrary to the U.S., the overall gap in relative military capabilities has narrowed. In particular, the Republic of China has effortlessly shown commitments towards eroding the historical U.S. military merits in Asia. As the former Deputy Defence Secretary Greg Grant and Robert O. Work alarms, the cost incurred by the American military force in fighting the war with the Republic of China has proliferated to the extent that the U.S. Joint Force might be defeated by the Chinese military in plausible cases (Medeiros, 2019). Further, China’s high investment in commercial techs and emerging defense techs, such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, and autonomous military vehicles, accentuates its military power and intensifies the security dilemma on the U.S. military.
Also, in both China and the U.S., policymakers consider themselves as locked in a long-term competition to dominate the foundational techs vital to future innovation, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics, super-computers, autonomous cars, 5G internet, quantum computing, and biotech and genetics (Beeson & Li, 2015). Policymakers in both China and America posit that these techs are critical to productivity, innovation, and national security and, thus, will exercise power over the world economy in the 21st Century. This implies that the power for economic supremacist between the two nations continues to spur and affect their international relations. For the U.S., the Chinese-U.S. technology competition is associated with profound national security concerns as well. For example, the 2017 NSS implemented the National Security Innovation Base idea, which included firms engaged in the R&D operations. The argument by NSS was the American firms operating in R&D and foundational tech industries are America’s asset and deserve protection from the Chinese rivals. Thus, China remains a concern to the U.S. technology industry because it employs a number of illegal and illicit methods to acquire U.S. technology (Rudolph, 2018). Today, Xi, the Chinese President, is focused on making China a global technology leader. This technology superpower rivalry’s primary cause is to control the world’s tech industry and achieve an economic advantage over one another. For both China and the U.S., technology competition is mainly for economic dominance in these critical high-tech industries.
According to (Lippert & Perthes, 2020), the problem at hand is their global power status and power equilibrium within the international system. Military-wise, the Chinese’s unstoppable military expansion, and a relative U.S. power loss leave China as the only genuine economy with the potential to overtake the global power status of America. Power shifts between the U.S. and China continue to endanger their international relations stability, as the predominant of advancing power continue to prove incapable of striking a comprehension over leadership and governance in the world system (Adebayo & Ovuakporaye, 2020). China’s perspective is that the U.S. will never voluntarily yield significant global influence on China. On the other hand, the U.S. considers China a revisionist power whose long-run objective is to become a global supremacist. This conflict explains the complex China-U.S. relations where military dominance is crucial in ceding such global influence.
Given that the U.S. and China remain potential military adversaries and merely not systematic rivals fighting over status – their relationship must be acknowledged as a complicated global strategic antagonism (Beeson & Li, 2015). For example, China’s maritime periphery in which the rivalry is impacted by military influence and the American ideologies that the Republic of China is working to create an “exclusive sphere” for military threat across East Asia. Studies by (Adebayo & Ovuakporaye, 2020) explains the South China Sea Washington’s irreducible minimum emphasis on free access and navigation liberty mismatches with China’s commitment to establish a security bloc and curb America’s ability. Moreover, the geopolitical conflict towards the South China Sea is associated with nuclear ideologies (Lippert & Perthes, 2020). This geopolitical conflict and the unending military threats explain the growing complexities in the China-U.S. relations. Nonetheless, China seems to be converting the South China Sea into a secured zone for nuclear-armed submarines to secure its 2nd-strike capability “vis-a-vis” America.
Moreover, in military terms, both China and the U.S. have acted to frustrate each other. For instance, in the past, China showed a willingness to tolerate U.S. alliance operations (Beeson & Li, 2015). In contrast, China is today increasing the costs for U.S. allies whose actions are seen to be undermining China’s interests. For example, China continues to exert pressure on U.S. allies such as Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea in the course of diplomatic disputes, by imposing diplomatic and economic costs. Also, the U.S. believes that China is interfering with their allies’ domestic politics as a tactic of pressuring them to change their policies. As a result, this motivates the China-U.S. security rivalry (Adebayo & Ovuakporaye, 2020). From 2016, China has been reducing Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, adding its military operations in Taiwan both on-air and sea, and interfering with Taiwan’s politics by utilizing incentives for voter blocs’ influence at the domestic level. To counter China’s efforts, the U.S. has increased its military coordination and sale of military arms to Taiwan, frustrating China (Podger, 2018). Also, there exist military perceptions – albeit less significant – in the global competition for influence. The American Administration believes that China’s rising economic and political influence thrives at the expense of the U.S. To respond, the U.S. is imposing incentives and pressure on military power to disrupt other states from growing their economic relations with China.
In the international relations field, most researchers are interested in understanding the Chinese-U.S relations because they want to explore whether the Republic of China can hold a “hegemony” globally and if so, by using what tactics. China attracted attention from the U.S. first due to its rapid economic growth and second because of its military power. Given the paramount importance of peace and stability in East Asia, and given the comprehensive sovereignty concept, the Sino-U.S. relations should not be solely understood in military terms. As justified in the paper, the expanding Sino-U.S. rivalry should be understood comprehensively in economic, political ideologies, and military power terms.
References
- Adebayo, T. S., & Ovuakporaye, V. A. (2020). Foreign Policy Analysis: A Theoretical Assessment of U.S.-China Military Relations. Asian Research Journal of Arts & Social Sciences, 11(3), 12-24.
- Beeson, M., & Li, F. (2015). What consensus? Geopolitics and policy paradigms in China and the United States. International Affairs, 91(1), 93-109. doi:10.1111/1468-2346.12188
- Lippert, B., & Perthes, V. (2020). Strategic Rivalry between the United States and China: Causes, Trajectories, and Implications for Europe. International and Security Affairs, 1(1), 12-53. doi:10.18449/2020RP04
- Medeiros, E. S. (2019). The Changing Fundamentals of US-China Relations. The Washington Quarterly, 42(3), 93-119. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2019.1666355
- Podger, A. (2018). Engaging with China and the United States: An Increasingly Complex Challenge, Including for Public Administration Scholars and Practitioners. Public Administration Review, 79(2), 277-280. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13013
- Rudolph, R. M. (2018). Framing Sino‐American military relations: The power and problem of perception in preventing geostrategic security cooperation between China and the United States. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 5(2), 182-195. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.236