On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Nixon's visit to China, the US "Foreign Affairs" magazine once again published an article on Sino-US relations, especially the discussion of the "engagement" strategy - "China is an opponent created by the United States itself?" The Great Debate on U.S. Policy Toward China. Four scholars, John Ikenbury, Anyou Lai, Yunsheng Dong, and Sun Zhe, criticized Millsheimer's article "The Inevitable Competition Between China and the United States," published in Foreign Affairs last November, and Millsheimer responded one by one. This article is the first part.
[Text/ John Ickenberg, Translated by John Millsheimer/ Observer Network Changyi]
The real bet of liberals
John Ikenberry
Most observers agree with John Mearsheimer that liberals lost their bets on China ("Inevitable Competition", November/December 2021). Millsheimer went a step further and noted that the U.S. strategy of engagement with China was one of its worst foreign policy disasters, and that the other strategy— the containment strategy— could at least prevent or at least delay China from becoming a threat.
What Millsheimer did not expect was that the United States adopted a very broad approach after the Cold War in order to strengthen the foundations of the liberal international order headed by it, and that the U.S. policy toward China was only part of it, and the benefits of this strategy far outweighed its costs.
Building on the establishment of a long and traditional order, the United States has pushed the international system toward broad alignment with its interests and values, promoted the establishment of liberal and democratic rules and institutions, expanded security cooperation with European and East Asian allies, and built international coalitions to address the most serious threats facing humanity.
Once China begins to rise, abandoning this strategy will put the United States in an extremely bad position not only globally, but also in terms of confronting China. In Millsheimer's world, America's allies and partners will become fewer. In a less stable and prosperous global order, it will face a hostile and disgruntled China – and therefore even less able to build the partnerships needed to deal with the problems of the 21st century.
The triumph of the liberal order
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the last great power with the potential to replace the U.S.-led liberal order suddenly disappeared, and countries clamored to join the free world. The share of democracies has more than doubled, from less than 30 percent in the early 1980s to nearly 60 percent in the first decade of the 21st century. Nato and the MEMBERSHIP OF the European Union have been expanded. Regional free trade agreements proliferated, and in 1995, the World Trade Organization was established.
The United States leads an ever-expanding global system that is creating more wealth, security, and the dawn of social justice than ever before. This is the biggest bet of liberals and a historic victory for the world. U.S. officials clearly want China to be a stakeholder in this expanding order, but that has never been the main purpose. The more important goal is to build a liberal international order dominated by the United States and its allies.
The realist guide that Millsheimer provided to counter China did not see, explain, or endorse the achievement at all. When the Cold War ended, Mearsheimer and other major realists argued that the U.S.-led coalition system was about to collapse.
"The Soviet threat provides the glue that keeps NATO together," Mearsheimer commented in the Atlantic in 1990, "without this offensive threat, the United States is likely to abandon the Continent; the defensive alliance it led for forty years is likely to disintegrate, ending the bipolar order that has maintained 45 years of peace in Europe." "But in Europe and East Asia, the opposite is true. The Soviet threat disappeared, the U.S. system of alliances remained, and unity among liberal democracies deepened.
Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, many realists, including Mearsheimer, have once again questioned the U.S. alliance and advocated reducing the security guarantees that the United States has established around the world under the banner of "offshore checks and balances." In their view, Washington should focus on defending the Western Hemisphere while playing a more limited, reserved role in protecting its European and East Asian allies.
But how familiar and tragic is the logic that U.S. austerity policies will certainly prompt China and Russia to expand their spheres of influence, heralding a return to the real world. As China becomes stronger, everyone should be thankful that the United States did not follow Millsheimer's realist playbook.
"The Triumph of Liberalism", the "democratic state" is defined as a "democratic polity" of liberalism + elections, picture source: see watermark
Containment + engagement strategy
Nor did Millsheimer realize that the U.S. strategy toward China is more than just engagement. In successive administrations since the end of the Cold War, the United States has indeed sought to draw China into the global order. After all, China is already inside — a member of the UN Security Council and one of many other regional and global institutions, including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which began in 1992. However, there are two more components to this U.S. strategy.
First, Washington counterbalances China's power by building an active and deepening system of alliances in East Asia. The Clinton administration's restoration of the U.S.-Japan alliance and its repositioning of the security treaty as a stabilizing force were undoubtedly one of the great achievements of U.S. foreign policy after the Cold War.
In a 1995 article, Joseph Nye, a political scientist who was serving at the Pentagon at the time and reflected the ideas of the Clinton administration, noted the "rise of Chinese power" and proposed a U.S. strategy for "deep engagement" in East Asia. It is not very clear whether the United States will remain in the region after the end of the Cold War, or continue to provide security in the region through the forward deployment of its forces. But it turns out that the deep engagement policy remains at the heart of U.S. strategy to this day.
The second part of the U.S. strategy is to strengthen regional institutions in the broader Asia-Pacific region. Washington has transcended the traditional borders of East Asia and worked with Australia, India, and the Americas to strengthen the security and economic architecture of the Asia-Pacific region. The idea is that expanding the regional scope will enhance its openness and reduce the possibility of Chinese domination.
Given this series of measures, it is not surprising that many observers of the 1990s — including many Chinese — referred to U.S. China policy as a hybrid of "containment and engagement."
The main failure of the U.S. strategy toward China is that the conditions for China's integration into the liberal capitalist system have not been proposed. During the Cold War, the liberal order was like a club, a mutual-aid society in which members followed liberal democratic principles in exchange for access to a Western-oriented system of trade and security.
After the end of the Cold War, the logic of this condition collapsed. The liberal order has become more like a shopping mall, where countries can pick and choose what they want to buy. China has joined and benefited from parts of the order, such as obtaining favorable terms of trade, but ignoring commitments from others.
"U.S. leaders should enact a new bilateral trade agreement that imposes tougher terms on China," Millsheimer wrote. "But the premise for achieving this condition requires a strong and unified liberal order – not the division and competition that states maintain, as they are now.
The MillsHeimer tacitly assumed that, in addition to asking more of China on trade, the United States should have a more radical pursuit: a post-Cold War grand strategy aimed at systematically limiting China's economic growth and power. In a history that he conceived of as completely contrary to reality, the United States has sought to keep China weak, poor, and marginalized. However, we remain in doubt as to whether such an option is desirable or even possible.
First, the American public is unlikely to support such a strategy of pressure on China. Most Americans would find this policy politically offensive and immoral. Many will also wonder what kind of threat China poses to the extent that this unfree realpolitik is practised.
Even the realists of the time did not believe that China would become a future competitor. For example, in 1992, a typical realist report written by advisers to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and leaked to the media argued that america's mission in the new era was to ensure that no competing superpowers emerged in Europe or Asia, but it identified Germany and Japan, not China, as potential challengers to future U.S. leadership.
The Americans smashed the Japanese car that year, image source: News4 report video screenshot
Millsheimer's disregard for facts is much more than that. To contain China at full speed, it will require allies and partners who are willing to cooperate. However, other countries are likely to correctly estimate that China will not pose the same threat to them as it does to the United States.
At the same time, the U.S. government itself will find it unrealistic to sustain a decades-long containment strategy. Continuing on this path will require the unity of political classes, business, and foreign policy elites — all of which are at best whimsical.
Millsheimer has long expressed deep skepticism about the sober pursuit of their long-term national interests by liberal democracies. To think that the United States will do that to prevent a transition of power now or decades from now, and that that such a transition may not even happen, is a bit out of touch with reality. However, Millsheimer argues in his article that such a cautious and coherent grand strategy is not only possible, but also likely to last for generations.
If the United States somehow pursues Millsheimer's strategy, it will be an act of self-harm. Containment of China would further divide the United States and its partners and make the liberal international order more chaotic. The U.S. economy will lose to other competitors because they can benefit from trade with China. America's reputation as a global leader will also be weakened, perhaps irreparably. Ultimately, Millsheimer's strategy will not be able to stop China's rise.
Worse still, China will suffer more from this failed U.S. containment operation, while also becoming stronger and more disconnected from the principles and norms of liberal internationalism. In Mearsheimer's counterfactual remarks, the United States and China will cooperate less than they do now, and the current series of global threats such as global warming, virus pandemics, cyberwarfare, and nuclear proliferation require more cooperation between countries.
For the United States, China is a formidable challenge adversary, and In this regard, Millsheimer is right. The two countries are rivals to opposing views of the global order.
The United States believes — and it has been so for more than two centuries — that it is safer in a world dominated by liberal democracies. China is increasingly dissenting from such a world order, which is a grand strategic issue. But in the face of this challenge, the United States would do well to work with its allies to strengthen a global system of liberal democracy and its security, while looking for opportunities to work with key adversaries.
G. John Ickenberg, Princeton University, Albert M. Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Albert G. Milbank Institute and Global Scholar at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.
Ikenberg and Millsheimer, the latter of whom did not respond positively to the erroneous prediction that NATO would "possibly disintegrate" and overestimated the unity and execution of the United States
Millsheimer's response:
It's great to see John Ikenberry admit that the U.S. strategy of engagement with China has failed utterly: in his words, China and the United States are now "rivals to hegemony with opposing views of the global order." No longer able to defend the engagement strategy, he turned to the broader liberal hegemonic policies pursued by U.S. policymakers in the so-called era of U.S. hegemony. Curiously, he insisted that the hegemonic policies of that time were "successes in the sense of world history."
However, the facts do not support this claim. Let's consider what America's position is in today's world compared to 1990. In 1990, the United States was the only superpower on the planet. Today, it faces two hostile and dangerous powers, China and Russia, and the liberal international order that Ikenberg has advocated for decades is in tatters. U.S. policy in the Greater Middle East has failed almost every time, causing countless casualties and enormous destruction.
Post-Cold War democracy seems to have continued to evolve and progress, but now democracy is gradually decaying. Worse still, American democracy is now the target of public criticism, thanks in part to the proliferation and failure of liberal hegemony. Ikenberg tells us that the United States is "safer in a world dominated by liberal democracies," but that the policies he has long supported undermine democracy at home and abroad, a policy that, by his logic, makes the country less secure.
Ikemberry distorted my view of containment strategies, saying that I would rather the United States "leave China weak, poor, and marginalized." But actually, I never said that because it was an unrealistic goal. In any case, China's economy will grow.
In fact, I think the U.S. government should try to slow China's growth rate, not only to slow down the process of its rise to power, but also to ensure that China will never become a competitor to the United States.
Ikenberg is right to say that a containment strategy is not feasible because it is opposed by U.S. allies and partners and U.S. insiders, including foreign policy elites. That's exactly my point: U.S. foreign policy agencies are so obsessed with engagement strategy that they don't have time to argue about it down-to-earth.
However, I believe that if American leaders had committed to a policy of realism, they could have developed an effective policy of containment that would have received tremendous and substantial support at home and abroad. Contrary to Ikemberry's view, a strong China poses a greater threat to its Asian neighbors than to the United States.
Before Ikenberg viewed the containment strategy as unfeasible and said it would "be an act of self-harm," he also claimed that the foreign policy that the United States was actually pursuing was a "hybrid strategy of containment and engagement" for China.
This mixture is reflected in Joseph Nye's 1995 article on the U.S. strategy of "deep engagement" in East Asia, which Ikemberry has synonymous with deep containment, he wrote. Problems with this argument abound.
First, it is logical that Ikenberg cannot argue that containment is both politically impossible and a central element of U.S. policy.
Second, engagement and containment are not complementary strategies. The engagement strategy accepts that the global balance of power will shift in China's favor as China develops, but this position is directly contrary to the containment strategy.
Third, U.S. policymakers have always rejected containment strategies — as Nye himself made clear in an article cited by Ikemberry: "It is wrong to portray China as an enemy, a containment strategy is difficult to reverse, and hostility will become a self-fulfilling prophecy." The Clinton administration's policy of engagement is a better way to deal with China, an emerging power. ”
Ikenberg claimed that since I advocate "offshore checks and balances," the United States will not help its allies in my opinion, and he also feels that I think "Washington should focus on defending the Western Hemisphere while playing a more limited, reserved role in protecting allies in Europe and East Asia." But in fact, I have never made this view of East Asia. Instead, I have always believed that the only option for the United States is to confront China directly, and that it must work closely with allies to contain China's rise, and that this can be achieved by defending the Taiwan region, among other things.
Finally, Ikenberg's advice on how to deal with a powerful China shows that he has learned little from recent events. In his response, he begins by acknowledging the failure of the U.S. engagement strategy, but ends by suggesting that the United States is committed to "finding opportunities to work with its main competitors." I need not say much about such a thing, and the results are self-evident.
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