The US is going about its competition with China all wrong

As long as the US misreads the strategic landscape and assumes ideological superiority, policy recommendations made on this basis will miss the mark
Reductionist thinking that is a relic of the post-World War II era will only create a dangerous environment for American interests and the world

Mallie Prytherch

Published: 9:30am, 13 Apr 2024

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Next week, US Congressman Mike Gallagher, chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, will resign. From the committee’s first session early last year, his chairmanship has been characterised by one overarching philosophy: the US must win against China.

This idea was exemplified in his recent Foreign Affairs article with Matt Pottinger titled “No substitute for victory: America’s competition with China must be won, not managed” – but it is by no means a fresh perspective.

Putting aside the more philosophical question of whether America should try to “win” the competition with China, presupposing that the competition can result in a definitive victory is unsophisticated and archaic. The premise is based on a misreading of the strategic landscape and an overreliance on assuming ideological superiority, ensuring that any policy recommendations based on this notion continue to miss the mark.

If we were to rewind time by 10 or 20 years, perhaps these ideas would have more merit. But it is far too late now for the US to significantly slow China’s rise. The common analogy that likens China to the Soviet Union during the Cold War is misleading. The Soviet Union was solely a military competitor to the US while 21st century China is a competitor on every level: diplomatically, economically, militarily, politically and technologically.

Moreover, the idea, put forth in Gallagher’s piece, that the US can engage in “intensive diplomacy with Beijing only from a position of American strength, as perceived by both Washington and Beijing” is unrealistic. China no longer cares to, or has to, conduct bilateral diplomacy on these terms – if it doesn’t feel as if the US is willing to make concessions, it will simply cease communication, as was the case with military-to-military dialogue in 2022.

Political leaders’ beliefs in the effectiveness of their strategy to “win” the competition with China stem from a common but flawed assumption: that if the US can create the right economic and social environment, Chinese citizens will demand democracy from their leaders.

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This erroneous presumption, that the American system is both universally desirable and achievable through external influence, overestimates the US ability to catalyse democratic transformations.

This is the same mistaken assumption that led many in the US to support China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization in 2001. It is the same mistaken assumption that has allowed the Chinese political system to gain proponents in the developing world. It is the same mistaken assumption that has allowed democratic backsliding in America itself. Assuming that democracy is the given endpoint for societies leads to a failure to defend and live up to crucial democratic norms.

Additionally, the Chinese people do not think as a monolith. Some citizens indeed yearn for a society more akin to that of the US, advocating for greater freedoms in areas such as internet access or free speech. Conversely, others view the trade-offs between personal freedoms and the economic stability provided by the government as acceptable, or even desirable.

Unexamined, inconsistent assertions that everybody in China is waiting for the US to grant them the gift of democracy serve little purpose except to provide fodder for Chinese propaganda and diminish the reputation of the US on the international stage.

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The policy recommendations that arise from insistence on the intrinsic ideological and practical supremacy of the US are thus inherently flawed.

For example, the US economic “de-risking” strategy temporarily hobbled China’s ability to manufacture semiconductor chips, but it also gave China the motivation to independently pursue semiconductor technology.

By underestimating China’s technological ability, the US significantly reduced its economic leverage in the medium term. China is now taking proactive steps to reduce its reliance on the US in areas as general as food security – and it has been relatively successful in doing so.

Military strategies regarding Taiwan that are based on an overestimation of American power are similarly problematic. They use the same incorrect logic – that the Chinese government will be deterred by an overwhelming show of US hard power, and that if the US provides Taiwan with enough military aid, Beijing will not take action against Taiwan.

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However, regardless of its military capabilities, Taiwan’s extreme dependence on imported energy – at 97.8 per cent of its total consumption – and limited natural gas reserves are glaring vulnerabilities. American confidence in its military might cannot create a Taiwan that can repel a determined assault from mainland China.

There are valid critiques that the US can and should make of China and the Chinese system. But resorting to apocalyptic theories about the US becoming a “Xinjiang-lite” society – as Gallagher did in an interview last year – makes the US seem paranoid and delusional. Furthermore, suggesting that winning the competition with China would mean regime change is to invite war.

Those who assume, on either side of the Pacific, that there can be a “winner” in the competition between the US and China are mired in overconfidence and lack a practical view of the geopolitical landscape.

Oversimplification of the US-China competition into a game that can be won or lost highlights a pattern of reductionist, binary thinking that is a relic of the post-World War II era. This not only hinders the development of a more realistic and effective foreign policy but creates a dangerous environment for both American interests and the world.

Mallie Prytherch is a researcher at the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong