Why has the US failed to prevent China’s rise?

A popular American narrative today about China is that “it is no more rising; it has already risen”. But what is stranger and more important is the US behaviour during the entire process of China’s rise. This is because the US made no deliberate effort to prevent or even slow down this rise. In fact, it facilitated the same. It is unnatural in world politics for one great power to allow space for another rising power as all great powers, when they become economically strong, seek military means to safeguard and protect their economic empire. Great powers always convert their economic power into military power and when they do that, they jump the fence of competition to land in the arena of confrontation and conflict. Is the late American realisation of seeing China no more as a competitor but as a rival a deliberate attempt on its part and a well thought-out public policy? Is this the brainchild of those that run and benefit from the military-industrial complex (MIC) — the Lockheed Martins and the Northrop Grummans and their likes? There exists a mutual interest between the US military and the defence industry that supplies it, and together both make a great force to influence the US public policy. So, has a threat been deliberately created?

Joe Biden continues what Donald Trump started — a trade war against China and giving up on the US policy of engagement to replace it with the realist approach of containing China. The previous administrations have been facilitating China and giving it access to not only their domestic markets but also the world markets through the WTO membership and the MFN status conferred on the country. The real question that the world needs to ask is: why has the US woken up so late? Has it deliberately allowed a threat to grow? Is this done in a military-industrial complex scenario in which the need for war-fighting weapons is deliberately created by this great trinity of alliance i.e. the defence contractors, the Pentagon and the politicians? There is already a precedence which tells you that either the US deliberately allowed China’s rise or, less possibly, it was ignorant and didn’t learn the right lessons from history.

In 1946, George Kennan, a US diplomat and historian, advised the US policymakers on what they should do about their World War II ally and partner Soviet Union. Serving in the US Embassy in Moscow in 1946, he sent his now famous ‘Long Telegram’ to the US in which he questioned the nature of Soviet politics and suggested that the US look at the Soviet Union not as an ally but as a rival and be prepared for their expansionist tendencies. It was through his political insight that the US initiated the vigilant containment of Russia. Why wasn’t a similar strategy adopted against China? Why was China not contained when the US had the opportunity to do so?

John Joseph Mearsheimer, a political scientist and international relations scholar who is considered by many as the greatest influential realist of this generation, believes that the US should not have engaged with China and instead given it the opportunity and strategic space to rise. He considers that China’s greater flexibility to cause trouble abroad was gifted by the US. If this is a correct realist assumption then the military-industrial complex theory of the US providing a deliberate space for China to rise and become a threat makes sense.

The geopolitical setting of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was built around the Iron Curtain in Europe. But even with armies armed to the teeth and equipped with thousands of nuclear weapons, the Cold War never turned hot because the Soviet Union was contained. However, the geopolitical setting of this new Cold War 2.0 between the US and China is not built around any such symbolic barrier. It is oceanic, more specifically built around the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. China has already risen and its economic as well as military potential continues to gather steam. An important question being asked is: will this new Cold War turn hot and, if yes, why?

One of the indicators to determine sea power is merchant shipping and China, together with Greece, leads the world in this area. US military theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, in his book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1660-1783) published in 1890, had argued that a state’s power to protect its fleets has been a determining factor in world history. The power that China now projects in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific is its strategic necessity. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted above the poverty line and are now enjoying middle-class lifestyles. President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party know that political stability in China is related to two vital essentialities: i) maintenance and sustenance of China’s economic rise; and ii) preventing the reversal in people’s fortune. To do this, China must protect the vital sea lines of communications (SLOCS) around the southern Eurasian Rimland and ensure that 85% of oil and gas from the Indian Ocean safely reaches China’s Pacific Ocean ports through the Malacca Strait. The US sees China’s presence in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean as a threat, whereas China sees it as its great strategic necessity.

Political geography argues that a state’s politics emanates from its geography. In the previous Cold War, the effect of geography on politics was not as significant as today. The USSR was being contained and its communist presence in Eastern Europe was being blunted through the Marshall plan. The close geographic proximity of the nation states at both sides of the Iron Curtain divide meant any start of war would engulf the entire region.

In the current Cold War between the US and China, there is no Iron Curtain and possible conflict flashpoints are considerable since they spread out on the wide seascape of the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Geography of this Cold War 2.0 is more war-prone and thus needs a careful assessment by all stakeholders. The world cannot afford another Cold War under the current geographical setting. It is dangerous.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2021.

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