1nc & Glossary

Glossary

Appeasement – a diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an enemy power in order to avoid conflict. In simpler terms, to give an enemy something they want to encourage them to behave in a way you want them to behave.

Containment – a military strategy to stop the expansion of an enemy by surrounding them and/or scaring them into stopping any behavior. Originally in reference to the Cold War, the United States decided to develop relationships that would surround the Soviet Union.

Engagement – the phrase in the topic. This disad wants to say that the aff gives China something they want.

Hegemony – U.S. leadership. When one country dominates the global order. The disad argues that the U.S. should continue to dominate and provide ‘security guarantees’ to our allies.

Proliferation – The spread of something. Most commonly, nuclear weapons. IN this instance, allies/friends who don’t have nuclear weapons decide to develop them.

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U.S. is shifting away from engagement – the Pivot shows we are containingMearsheimer 16 – PhD., Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago [John R. Mearsheimer, interviewed by Peter Navarro, March 10, 2016, Mearsheimer on Strangling China & the Inevitability of War, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html]

As for whether the Hillary Clinton “pivot to Asia” is simply an old-style containment in a new rhetorical bottle, there is this bit of history:

Now, in the 1990s, the Clinton administration did pursue engagement. There was little evidence of containment: and you could do that in the 1990s because China was then weak enough that it didn’t matter.So I believe in the 1990s that the Clinton administration really did believe in engagement and thought that containment was a bad idea and pursued this policy of engagement. But we’re now reaching the point where China is growing economically to the point where its going to have a lot of military capability, and people are getting increasingly nervous. So what you see is we’re beginning to transition from engagement to containment; and this, of course, is what the pivot to Asia is all about.Hilary Clinton, who is married to Bill Clinton and pursued engagement in the 1990s, is now the principle proponent of the pivot to Asia; and she fully understands that it is all about containment. Of course, what’s going to happen here given that we live in the United States is that we’re going to use liberal rhetoric to disguise our realist behavior. So we will go to great lengths not to talk in terms of containment even though we’re engaged in containment and even though the Chinese know full well that we’re trying to contain them. But for our own sake and for our public we will talk in much more liberal terms. So it’s liberal ideology disguising realist behavior.

Plan is appeasement – giving China things unilaterally encourages aggression and scares allies.Newsham 14 - Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies [Grant Newsham, China, America and the "Appeasement" Question, September 8, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/china-america-the-appeasement-question-11226]

To these elites, appeasement was more than simply disarming and letting unpleasant people have their way. Appeasement actually had a coherent logic.The elites believed that aggressive, authoritarian regimes act the way they do out of fear, insecurity, and at least partly legitimate grievances – such as German resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles. Understand and address these issue, remove their fears, and the regimes will become less aggressive and transform into responsible members of the international community and operate under international norms.Or so the elites argued.Challenging these regimes could dangerously isolate them and even needlessly provoke them into “miscalculations.”The elites thought “engagement” and “transparency” were beneficial in their own right, as only good things could come from familiarity with one another. In the 1930’s, the major Western powers all attended each other’s war games. The US Marine Corps even took the German World War I fighter ace, Ernst Udet on a ride in a USMC dive bomber. This “engagement” and “transparency” did not make the Nazis nicer, but perhaps gave them some ideas about dive bombing and “Blitzkreig.” Even the Soviets and Germans had close ties with joint training, military technology development, and raw material shipments to Germany.There was also extensive political and diplomatic interaction. Close economic ties were believed to be a further hedge against conflict breaking out, and companies such as Ford, IBM, and many others did profitable business in Germany.The elites believed anything was better than war. Preserving peace, even if sacrificing principles – and certain small nations – was considered wise and statesmanlike. People who criticized appeasement policy in the 1930’s, most notably Winston Churchill, were ridiculed as dolts and war mongers.We know how this turned out.

Curiously, appeasement (by another name) reappeared even before the end of the war in calls to address Stalin’s ‘fears’ and allow him to dominate Eastern Europe. And throughout the Cold War, in Western academic and government circles it was argued that Soviet behavior was simply a reaction to fears of Western containment. The appeasers protested the peacetime draft as threatening the Russians. They also pushed for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and opposed the Pershing missile deployment and the neutron bomb well into the 1980’s.Even President Jimmy Carter, once he overcame his “inordinate fear of communism,” tried something akin to appeasement as national policy. It was not until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan that Carter learned his lesson.It perhaps will take another case of an authoritarian regime rearranging its neighborhood to understand the cost of modern appeasement.US policy towards China over the last 30 years, and particularly in recent times, seems familiar. The United States does its best to understand the PRC’s concerns and its resentments going back to the Opium Wars and the ‘century of humiliation’, to accommodate these resentments, and to ensure China does not feel threatened. Defense and State Department officials enthusiastically seek greater transparency and openness – especially in the military realm – as such openness is perceived as inherently good.In return, the PRC is expected to change, to show more respect for human rights and international law and to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community.We now have several decades of empirical evidence to assess this concessionary approach. It has not resulted in improved, less aggressive PRC behavior in the South China Sea or the East China Sea, or even in outer

space. Indeed, it seems to have encouraged Chinese assertiveness as manifest in threatening language and behavior towards its neighbors.Nor has the PRC regime shown more respect for human rights, rule of law, consensual government or freedom of expression for its citizens. Serial intellectual property theft continues unabated, as does support for unsavory dictators.Nonetheless, we invite the PRC to military exercises and repeat the “engagement” mantra – expecting that one day things will magically improve. Some argue that letting the PRC see US military power will dissuade it from challenging us. Perhaps, but we are just as likely to be seen as naïve or weak. From the Chinese perspective, there is no reason to change since they have done very well without transforming and the PRC has never been stronger. Indeed, the PRC frequently claims that human rights, democracy, and the like are outmoded Western values having nothing to do with China.This is also demoralizing our allies, who at some point may wonder if they should cut their own deals with the PRC.Some revisionist historians argue that Neville Chamberlain’s 1930’s era appeasement was in fact a wise stratagem to buy time to rearm. This overlooks that even as late as 1939 when Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies still had the military advantage. One can appease oneself into a corner. And the beneficiary of the appeasement usually strengthens to the point it is too hard to restrain without great sacrifice.One worries that the Chinese seizure of Philippine territory at Scarborough Shoal in 2012 – and the US Government’s unwillingness to even verbally challenge the PRC - might turn out to be this generation’s “Rhineland”. Had the West resisted Hitler in 1936 when he made this first major demand, there would have been no World War II, no Holocaust, and no Cold War.Our choice about how to deal with the PRC is not simply between either appeasement or treating China as an enemy. Our policy must accommodate options ranging from engagement to forceful confrontation.Who would not be delighted with a China that stopped threatening its neighbors and followed the civilized world’s rules? While ensuring we and our allies have a resolute defense – both in terms of military capability and the willingness to employ it – it is important to maintain ties and dialogue with the PRC and to provide encouragement and support when it shows clear signs of transforming to a freer, less repressive society.We should constantly stress that China is welcome as a key player in the international order – but only under certain conditions. The US and other democratic nations have not done enough to require China to adhere to established standards of behavior in exchange for the benefits of joining the global system that has allowed the PRC to prosper.Human nature and history are a useful guide to where appeasement (by whatever name) leads. And they also show that a strong defense and resolutely standing up for one’s principles is more likely to preserve peace.

Freaked out Japan would develop nuclear weaponsCurtis 13 - Burgess Professor of Political Science @ Columbia [Gerald Curtis, “Japan’s Cautious Hawks,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136063/gerald-l-curtis/japans-cautious-hawks]

Furthermore, the Japanese public and Japan's political leaders are keenly aware that the country's security still hinges on the United States' dominant military position in East Asia. Some on the far right would like to see Japan develop the full range of armaments, including nuclear weapons, in a push to regain its autonomy and return the country to the ranks

of the world's great powers. But the conservative mainstream still believes that a strong alliance with the United States is the best guarantor of Japan's security.ISLANDS IN THE SUNGiven Japan's pragmatic approach to foreign policy, it should come as no surprise that the country has reacted cautiously to a changing international environment defined by China's rise. Tokyo has doubled down on its strategy of deepening its alliance with the United States; sought to strengthen its relations with countries on China's periphery; and pursued closer economic, political, and cultural ties with China itself. The one development that could unhinge this strategy would be a loss of confidence in the U.S. commitment to Japan's defense. It is not difficult to imagine scenarios that would test the U.S.-Japanese alliance; what is difficult to imagine are realistic ones. The exception is the very real danger that the dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China), in the East China Sea, might get out of hand, leading to nationalist outbursts in both countries. Beijing and Tokyo would find this tension difficult to contain, and political leaders on both sides could seek to exploit it to shore up their own popularity. Depending on how events unfolded, the United States could well become caught in the middle, torn between its obligation to defend Japan and its opposition to actions, both Chinese and Japanese, that could increase the dangers of a military clash.The Japanese government, which took control of the uninhabited islands in 1895, maintains that its sovereignty over them is incontestable; as a matter of policy, it has refused to acknowledge that there is even a dispute about the matter. The United States, for its part, recognizes the islands to be under Japanese administrative control but regards the issue of sovereignty as a matter to be resolved through bilateral negotiations between China and Japan. Article 5 of the U.S.-Japanese security treaty, however, commits the United States to "act to meet the common danger" in the event of "an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan." Washington, in other words, would be obligated to support Tokyo in a conflict over the islands -- even though it does not recognize Japanese sovereignty there.The distinction between sovereignty and administrative control would matter little so long as a conflict over the islands were the result of aggression on the part of China. But the most recent flare-up was precipitated not by Chinese but by Japanese actions. In April 2012, Tokyo's nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara (who resigned six months later to form a new political party), announced plans to purchase three of the Senkaku Islands that were privately owned and on lease to the central government. He promised to build a harbor and place personnel on the islands, moves he knew would provoke China. Well known for his right-wing views and anti-China rhetoric, Ishihara hoped to shake the Japanese out of what he saw as their dangerous lethargy regarding the threat from China and challenge their lackadaisical attitude about developing the necessary military power to contain it. Ishihara never got the islands, but the ploy did work to the extent that it triggered a crisis with China, at great cost to Japan's national interests. Well aware of the dangers that Ishihara's purchase would have caused, then Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda decided to have the central government buy the islands itself. Since the government already had full control over the islands, ownership represented no substantive change in Tokyo's authority over their use. Purchasing them was the way to sustain the status quo, or so Noda hoped to convince China. But Beijing responded furiously, denouncing Japan's action as the "nationalization of sacred Chinese land." Across China, citizens called for the boycott of Japanese goods and took to the streets in often-violent demonstrations. Chinese-Japanese relations hit their lowest point since they were normalized 40 years ago. Noda, to his credit, looked for ways to defuse the crisis and restore calm between the two countries, but the Chinese would have none of it. Instead, China has ratcheted up its pressure on Japan, sending patrol ships into the waters around the islands almost every day since the crisis erupted.The United States needs to do two things with regard to this controversy. First, it must stand firm with its Japanese ally. Any indication that Washington might hesitate to support Japan in a conflict would cause enormous consternation in Tokyo. The Japanese right would have a field day, exclaiming that the country's reliance on the United States for its security had left it unable to defend its interests. The Obama administration has wisely reiterated Washington's position that the islands fall within the territory administered by Tokyo and has reassured the Japanese -- and warned the Chinese -- of its obligation to support Japan under the security treaty.

Asian prolif causes nuclear warStephen J. Cimbala 15, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University Brandywine, The New Nuclear Disorder: Challenges to Deterrence and Strategy, 2015, pp. 59-63

Although the construct or policy option of a preventive nuclear war became institutionally unthinkable in Washington and in Moscow, the possibility of inadvertent nuclear war or escalation to nuclear from conventional war was very real during the Cold War. This legacy has carried forward into the post-Cold War and twenty-first century world. The term “inadvertent”

means something other than “accidental” war, such as the possibility of a test misfire or other technology failure that leads to a war. Inadvertent nuclear war is the result of an unforeseen combination of human and technical factors , pulling both sides in a nuclear crisis over the brink despite their shared interest in avoiding war.¶ The likelihood of inadvertent nuclear war between two states is based on their political intentions, military capabilities, approaches to crisis management, the personalities of leaders, standard operating procedures for the management of nuclear forces during peacetime and in crisis, and other variables.16 A decision for nuclear preemption is so irrevocable that leaders will want as much intelligence as possible relative to the plans and

actions of their opponent. Unfortunately, inside dope on the opponent’s political thinking and military planning may be hard to come by, under the exigent pressures of crisis. Therefore, states may infer the other side’s intentions from the disposition of its forces, from the behavior of its command, control, communications and intelligence systems, or from guesswork based on past experience.¶ For example: during Able Archer 83, a NATO command and communications exercise testing procedures for the release of alliance nuclear weapons in November 1983, there was an apparent mind set among some Soviet

intelligence officials that led them to conclude (temporarily) that the exercise might be the “real thing”: an actual set of preparatory moves for NATO nuclear release and a possible first strike against Soviet forces and installations in Europe.17 The pessimistic Soviet interpretations of Able Archer were not universally shared among their intelligence officers, but some of the alarmism arose from Soviet military doctrine that foresaw the conversion of an exercise simulating an attack into a real attack as one possible path to war.18¶ Another example of the difficulty of reading the other side’s intentions during a crisis occurred during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. A second letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy on October 27, more demanding in its terms for settlement compared to an earlier letter the previous day, caused some ExComm deliberators to wonder whether Khrushchev had been overruled by a hostile faction of the Soviet Presidium. Robert Kennedy noted that “The change in the language and tenor of the letters from Khrushchev indicated confusion within the Soviet Union, but there was confusion among us as well.”19 Fortunately, in both the NATO “Able Archer” exercise and in the Cuban crisis, the most pessimistic assumptions were proved incorrect before leaders could act on them.¶ A post-Cold War example of a scenario for inadvertent nuclear war occurred in January 1995 during the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket for the purpose of studying the Aurora borealis. The initial phase of the rocket’s trajectory resembled that of a ballistic missile launched from a nuclear submarine and possibly headed for Russian territory. Russian early warning systems detected the launch and passed the information to military headquarters. Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the defense minister and the chief of the Russian general staff were connected via their emergency communication network, and the Russian President for the first time opened his secure briefcase or “football” with nuclear codes for launch authorization. The crisis passed when the rocket trajectory eventually veered away from any possible threat to Russia. The operational misinterpretation of the Norwegian rocket launch was made possible by an earlier bureaucratic mistake. Norwegian officials had notified the Russian foreign ministry well in advance of the launch date that the rocket test was scheduled and of its mission. For unknown reasons, the Russian foreign ministry failed to pass that information to the defense ministry or other military headquarters in time to avoid confusion.¶ The Future:

Issues of Concern¶ If the possibility existed of a mistaken preemption during and immediately after the Cold War, between the experienced nuclear forces and command systems of America and Russia, then it may be a matter of even more concern with regard to states with newer and more opaque forces and command systems. In addition, the Americans and Soviets (and then Russians) had a great deal of experience getting to know one another’s military operational proclivities and doctrinal idiosyncrasies: including those that might influence the decision for or against war.¶ Another consideration, relative to nuclear stability in the present century, is that the Americans and their NATO allies shared with the Soviets and

Russians a commonality of culture and historical experience. Future threats to American or Russian security from weapons of mass destruction may be presented by states or non-state actors motivated by cultural and social predispositions not easily understood by those in the West nor subject to favorable manipulation during a crisis.¶ The spread of nuclear weapons in Asia (including those parts of the Middle East with geostrategic proximity or reach into Asia) presents a complicated mosaic of possibilities in this regard. States with nuclear forces of variable force structure, operational experience, and command-control systems will be thrown into a matrix of complex political, social and cultural cross-currents contributory to the possibility of war. In addition to the existing nuclear powers in Asia, others may seek nuclear weapons if they feel threatened by regional rivals or hostile alliances. Containment of nuclear proliferation in Asia is a

desirable political objective for all of the obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the present century is unlikely to see the nuclear hesitancy or risk aversion that marked the Cold War: in part, because the military and political discipline imposed by the Cold War superpowers no

longer exists, but also because states in Asia have new aspirations for regional or global respect.20¶ The spread of ballistic

missiles and other nuclear capable delivery systems in Asia, or in the Middle East with reach into Asia, is especially dangerous because plausible adversaries live close together and are already engaged in ongoing disputes about territory or other issues . The Cold War Americans and Soviets required missiles and airborne delivery systems of intercontinental range to strike at one another’s vitals. But short range ballistic missiles or fighter-bombers suffice for India and Pakistan to launch attacks at one another with potentially “strategic” effects. China shares borders with

Russia, North Korea, India and Pakistan; Russia, with China and North Korea; India, with Pakistan and China; Pakistan, with India and China; and so on.¶ The short flight times of ballistic missiles between the cities or military forces of contiguous states means that very little time will be available for warning and attack assessment by the defender. Conventionally armed missiles could easily

be mistaken for a tactical nuclear first use. Fighter-bombers appearing over the horizon could just as easily be carrying nuclear weapons as

conventional ordnance. In addition to the challenges posed by shorter flight times and uncertain weapons loads, potential victims of nuclear attack in Asia may also have first strike vulnerable forces and command-control systems that increase decision pressures for rapid, and possibly mistaken, retaliation.¶ This potpourri of possibilities challenges conventional wisdom about nuclear deterrence and proliferation on the part of policy makers and academic theorists. For policy

makers in the United States and NATO, spreading nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in Asia could profoundly shift the geopolitics of mass destruction from a European center of gravity (in the twentieth century) to an Asian and/or Middle Eastern center of gravity (in

the present century).21 This would profoundly shake up prognostications to the effect that wars of mass destruction are now passé, on account of the emergence of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” and its encouragement of information-based warfare.22 Together with this, there has emerged the argument that large scale war between states or coalitions of states, as opposed to varieties of unconventional warfare and failed states, are exceptional and potentially obsolete.23 The spread of WMD and ballistic missiles in Asia could overturn these expectations for the obsolescence or marginalization of major interstate warfare.

Uniqueness

Containing Now

Pivot marks transition to containment strategy Krepinevich, PhD Harvard, 15(Andrew F, currently serves as President of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-02-16/how-deter-china March/April) In the U.S. military, at least, the “pivot” to Asia has begun. By 2020, the navy and the air force plan to base 60 percent of their forces in the Asia-Pacific region. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is investing a growing share of its shrinking resources in new long-range bombers and nuclear-powered submarines designed to operate in high-threat environments. These changes are clearly meant to check an increasingly assertive China. And with good reason: Beijing’s expanding territorial claims threaten virtually every country along what is commonly known as “the first island chain,” encompassing parts of Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan—all of which Washington is obligated to protect. But to reliably deter Chinese aggression, the Pentagon will have to go even further. Emerging Chinese capabilities are intended to blunt Washington’s ability to provide military support to its allies and partners. Although deterrence through the prospect of punishment, in the form of air strikes and naval blockades, has a role to play in discouraging Chinese adventurism, Washington’s goal, and that of its allies and partners, should be to achieve deterrence through denial—to convince Beijing that it simply cannot achieve its objectives with force.

Abandoning Engagement

Engagement era coming to an end- containment now Shambaugh, PhD Michigan, 15(David, professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University in Washington DC,[1] as well as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1819980/fundamental-shift-china-and-us-are-now-engaged-all-out?page=all , 6-12)The relationship between the United States and China has rightly been described as the most important relationship in world affairs. It is also the most complex and fraught one. These two titans are the world's two leading powers and are interconnected in numerous ways bilaterally, regionally, and globally. It is therefore of vital importance to understand the dynamics that underlie and drive this relationship at present, which are shifting. While Washington and Beijing

cooperate where they can, there has also been steadily rising competition in the relationship. This balance has now shifted, with competition being the dominant factor. There are several reasons for it - but one is that security now trumps economics in the relationship. The competition is not only strategic competition, it is actually comprehensive competition: commercial, ideological, political, diplomatic, technological , even in the academic world where China has banned a number of American scholars and is beginning to bring pressure to bear on university joint ventures in China. Mutual distrust is pervasive in both governments, and is also evident at the popular level. The last Pew global attitudes data on this, in 2013, found distrust rising in both countries. Roughly two-thirds of both publics view US-China relations as "competitive" and "untrustworthy" - a

significant change since 2010 when a majority of people in both nations still had positive views of the other. One senses that the sands are fundamentally shifting in the relationship. Viewed from Washington, it is increasingly difficult to find a positive narrative and trajectory into the future. The "engagement coalition" is crumbling and a "competition coalition" is rising. In my view, the relationship has been fundamentally troubled for many years and has failed to find

extensive common ground to forge a real and enduring partnership. The "glue" that seems to keep it together is the fear of it falling apart. But that is far from a solid basis for an enduring partnership between the world's two leading powers.

Engagement consensus has brokenBrowne, Senior Correspondent, 15(Andrew, http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-china-be-contained-1434118534 6-12)

For many Americans today, watching the administration of President Xi Jinping crack down hard on internal dissent while challenging the U.S. for leadership in Asia, that promise seems more remote than ever before. In his recently published book “The Hundred-Year Marathon,” Michael Pillsbury—an Asia specialist and Pentagon official under Presidents

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush—writes that China “ has failed to meet nearly all of our rosy expectations .”

U.S. foreign policy has reached a turning point , as analysts from across the political spectrum have started to dust off Cold War-era arguments and to speak of the need for a policy of containment against China. The once solid Washington consensus behind the benefits of “constructive engagement” with Beijing has fallen apart.

Coalition of “engagement” proponents breaking down nowEisenmen, PhD, 16

(Joshua, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin's Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs and senior fellow for China studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/756 1-21)Now, however, a growing contingent in Washington and beyond is arguing that extensive U.S. engagement has failed to prevent China from threatening other countries. One longtime proponent of engagement with China, David

M. Lampton, gave a speech in May 2015 entitled "A Tipping Point in U.S.-China Relations is Upon Us," in which he noted that, despite the remarkable "policy continuity" of "constructive engagement" through eight U.S. and five Chinese administrations, "today important components of the American policy elite increasingly are coming to see China as a threat."11 Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd summarized this view: “Beijing's long-term policy is aimed at pushing the U.S. out of Asia altogether and establishing a Chinese sphere of influence spanning the region.12 Similarly, in June, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on PBS Newshour: "The longstanding consensus that China's rise is good for the U.S. is beginning to break down.13 In response to these misgivings about Beijing's intentions, there have been calls for Washington to actively shape China's strategic choices by enhancing U.S. military capabilities and strengthening alliances to counterbalance against its growing strength. Recent publications reflect increasing apprehension; most argue that policymakers must avoid an enduring " structural problem" in international relations that causes rising powers to become aggressive . Some experts, like Princeton's

Aaron Friedberg, contend that the U.S. should "maintain a margin of military advantage sufficient to deter attempts at coercion or aggression.14 Thomas Christensen, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, noted in June, that there are two primary questions for U.S. security vis-à-vis China: How to dissuade China from using force in East Asia? How can we get China to actively contribute to stabilizing global governance? These initiatives, Christensen noted, are based on the assumption that "whenever a country becomes a rising power, tensions with neighbors arise.15 Christensen agrees with Bader that the U.S.' "strategic goal" vis-à-vis China is to "shape Beijing's choices so as to channel China's nationalist ambitions into cooperation rather than coercion." 16 To elicit Beijing's participation U.S. policymakers should “persuade China that bullying its neighbors will backfire, while proactive cooperation with those neighbors and the world's other great powers will accelerate China's return to great power status.17 The U.S. should build a robust deterrence architecture to counter-balance China's rise and push Beijing towards meaningful engagement, Christensen argues. The U.S. and its allies "need to maintain sufficient power and resolve in East Asia to deter Beijing from choosing a path of coercion or aggression.18 "Chinese anxiety about a U.S. containment effort could carry some benefits for the United States: the potential for encirclement may encourage Chinese strategists to become more accommodating," resulting in more "moderate policies." Both engagement supporters and deterrence supporters agree that the U.S. should change China's strategic calculus in ways that increase the benefits of cooperation and the costs of aggression; where they disagree is on how to achieve this.

Answers to: China Peaceful

China’s grand strategy is to supplant the US Blackwill, Senior fellow @ CFR, 16(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-strategy-asia-maximize-power-replace-america-16359 5-26)China’s primary strategic goal in contemporary times has been the accumulation of “comprehensive national power.” This pursuit of power in all its dimensions—economic, military, technological and diplomatic—is driven by the conviction that China, a great civilization undone by the hostility of others, could never attain its destiny unless it amassed the power necessary to ward off the hostility of those opposed to this quest . This vision of strengthening the Chinese state while recovering China’s centrality in international politics—both objectives requiring the accumulation of “comprehensive national power”—suggests that the aims of Beijing’s grand strategy both implicate and transcend the United States’ and China’s other Asian rivals, to replace U.S. primacy in Asia writ large. For China, which

is simultaneously an ancient civilization and a modern polity, grand strategic objectives are not simply about desirable rank orderings in international politics but rather about fundamental conceptions of order.

Chinese grand strategy is explicitly to counter US influence Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) The profound test that the rise of Chinese power represents for the United States is likely to last for decades. It is unrealistic to imagine that China’s grand strategy toward the United States will evolve in a way—at least in the next ten years—that accepts American power and influence as linchpins of Asian peace and security, rather than seeks to systematically diminish them. Thus, the central question concerning the future of Asia is whether the United States will have the political will; the geoeconomic, military, and diplomatic capabilities; and, crucially, the right grand strategy to deal with China to protect vital U.S. national interests.(39)

We must take Chinese leaders at their word- otherwise analysis is impossible Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) Policy experts critical of the grand strategy toward China proposed in this report will likely fall into at least six categories. First, some will argue that China has no grand strategy. Although there may be those in Beijing who disagree with China’s current strategic approach, its dominating elements are not a mystery. Chinese officials insistently argue that the U.S. alliance system in Asia is a product of the Cold War and should be dismantled; that the United States’ Asian allies and friends should loosen their U.S. ties and that failure to do so will inevitably produce a negative PRC reaction; that U.S. efforts to maintain its current presence and power in Asia are dimensions of an American attempt to contain China and therefore must be condemned and resisted; that U.S. military power projection in the region is dangerous and should be reduced (even as the PLA continues to build up its military capabilities with the clear objective of reducing U.S. military options in the context of a U.S.-China confrontation); and that the U.S. economic model is fundamentally exploitative and should have no application in Asia. To not take seriously official Chinese government statements along these lines is to not take China seriously. That Beijing does not hope to realize these policy goals in the short term does not reduce their potential undermining effect in the decades ahead. In short, if China were to achieve the policy objectives contained in these official statements, it would clearly replace the United States as Asia’s leading power. If that does not represent a PRC grand strategy, what would? (34)

China Rise goes neg- they will never accepts bounds of engagement Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US China

Strategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)The belief in Beijing that, whatever its current challenges, China’s relative power will continue to grow while America’s declines does not augur well for attempts to forge a ‘grand bargain’ . For as long as they see the tides of history flowing in their favour, China’s leaders are unlikely to accept a spheres-of-influence arrangement based on the current distribution of power, even if it is in some respects an improvement on the status quo. In the past, Beijing had little choice but to accept America’s dominant regional presence and its alliances, albeit with the caveat that they were ‘relics of the Cold War’. Why should it ratify their existence now, when it has more means at its disposal than ever before with which to try and weaken them, and when (especially insofar as Japan is concerned) they no longer seem to be acting as a restraint on the military programmes of other regional powers? The idea that China’s leaders believe they can subsist comfortably as a continental power, leaving control of the maritime domain to the United States, also appears increasingly implausible and at odds with the facts. Even if China succeeds in ‘marching West’, building transport and communication links through Central and South Asia, it will continue to be heavily reliant on seaborne imports of energy, food and raw materials.46 The presence of US forces and bases around China’s maritime periphery, and its leadership of a maritime coalition that extends from Northeast Asia into the Indian Ocean, will likely be perceived as posing an even greater threat in the future than it does today. (104-5)

China has a plan to overtake the US- its official doctrine if unwritten Pillsbury, PhD, 15(Michael, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hundred-year-marathon-excerpt-2015-2 2-9)In the late 1990s, during the Clinton administration, I was tasked by the Department of Defense and the CIA to conduct an unprecedented examination of China’s capacity to deceive the United States and its actions to date along those lines. Over time, I discovered proposals by Chinese hawks (ying pai) to the Chinese leadership to mislead and manipulate American policymakers to obtain intelligence and military, technological, and economic assistance. I learned that these hawks had been advising Chinese leaders, beginning with Mao Zedong, to avenge a century of humiliation and aspired to replace the United States as the economic, military, and political leader of the world by the year 2049 (the one hundredth anniversary of the Communist Revolution). This plan became known as “the Hundred-Year Marathon.” It is a plan that has been implemented by the Communist Party leadership from the beginning of its relationship with the United States. When I presented my findings on the Chinese hawks’ recommendations about China’s ambitions and deception strategy, many U.S. intelligence analysts and officials greeted them initially with disbelief. Chinese leaders routinely reassure other nations that “China will never become a hegemon.” In other words, China will be the most powerful nation, but not dominate anyone or try to change anything. The strength of the Hundred-Year Marathon, however, is that it operates through stealth. To borrow from the movie Fight Club, the first rule of the Marathon is that you do not talk about the Marathon. Indeed, there is almost certainly no single master plan locked away in a vault in Beijing that outlines the Marathon in detail. The Marathon is so well known to China’s leaders that there is no need to risk exposure by writing it down. But the Chinese are beginning to talk about the notion more openly — perhaps because they realize it may already be too late for America to keep pace. I observed a shift in Chinese attitudes during three visits to the country in 2012, 2013, and 2014. As was my usual custom, I met with scholars at the country’s major think tanks, whom I’d come to know well over decades. I directly asked them about a “Chinese-led world order”— a term that only a few years earlier they would have dismissed, or at least would not have dared to say aloud. However, this time many said openly that the new order, or rejuvenation, is coming, even faster than anticipated. When the U.S. economy was battered during the global financial crisis of 2008, the Chinese believed America’s long-anticipated and unrecoverable decline was beginning. I was told — by the same people who had long assured me of China’s interest in only a modest leadership role within an emerging multipolar world — that the Communist Party is realizing its long-term goal of restoring China to its “proper” place in the world. In effect, they were telling me that they had deceived me and the American government. With perhaps a hint of understated pride, they were revealing the most systematic, significant, and dangerous intelligence failure in American history. And because we have no idea the Marathon is even under way, America is losing.

China Aggressive Now

China is pursuing a revisionist foreign policy risking warDavidson, senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, 16(John Daniel, http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/12/china-expansionist-foreign-policy/ 4-12) For months, Americans have been riveted by headlines about Islamic State terrorist attacks across the globe. From

Brussels to Lahore, it seems ISIS is the biggest thing going on overseas. Yet a far greater threat to global stability is brewing in the South China Sea, where China has been building military bases on man-made islands and asserting maritime rights to some of the busiest global trade routes.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, Chinese intelligence services have deployed an ever-widening network of spies. Although not directly connected, both of these developments are manifestations of China’s new, expansionist foreign policy in the Pacific. If China and the United States don’t alter their trajectory, we could be slow-walking into another cold war—or setting the stage for a hot one. Naval Officer Charged With Espionage News broke over the weekend that a Taiwan-born Navy officer, Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, has been charged with passing military secrets to China. On its own, the discovery of a Chinese human intelligence operation in the United States is perhaps not all that remarkable, since by some estimates there are scores of Chinese spies in America, most of them engaged in corporate espionage. If China and the U.S. don’t alter their trajectory, we could be slow-walking into another cold war. But Lin’s case is different because he had access to sensitive military intelligence. Lin, who became a naturalized citizen in 2008 and speaks fluent Mandarin, served as a signals intelligence specialist for naval spy planes. “Signals intelligence” is how the U.S. military identifies the whereabouts of foreign military units, like submarines, and the methodology behind this work ranks among the U.S. armed forces’ most closely guarded secrets. Although corporate spying by the Chinese might be common, the last time an active-duty member of the Navy was caught spying was in 1985, when John Walker, a Navy officer and submariner, was caught passing secrets to the Soviet Union as part of an elaborate spy ring that operated for 18 years. That was during the Cold War, when spying between America and the Soviet Union was an open secret. The incident with Lin is the latest sign that a cold war with China could be on the horizon, especially as evidence mounts that China might be willing to risk a military conflict with America’s allies in Asia, and perhaps with America itself. Chinese Spies Are Everywhere News of Lin’s alleged espionage comes on the heels of recent remarks by the former head of the House Intelligence Committee that there are more foreign spies operating the United States than at any point in our history. In a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, former Rep. Mike Rogers said foreign agents in the United States outnumber those of any previous period, including the Cold War. “They’re stealing everything. If it’s not bolted down, it’s gone,” Rogers said. “And if it’s bolted down, give them about an hour—they’ll figure out how to get that, too.” There are more foreign spies operating the U.S. than at any point in our history. In his remarks, Rogers noted the difference between Russian and Chinese operatives. The former tend to be trained professionals, he said, while the latter are often recruits with “a very specific goal of stealing a very specific piece of intellectual property,” making them harder to detect—and also more numerous. Rogers isn’t the first to raise concerns about espionage in the United States. In 2012, former top CIA covert officer Hank Crumpton told CBS News there are more spies in America than during the peak of the Cold War. Crumpton, who ran counterintelligence inside the U.S. as chief of the CIA’s National Resources Division and served as deputy director of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center, claimed major world powers, particularly China, have “very sophisticated intelligence operations, very aggressive operations against the U.S.” China’s Military Outposts in the South China Sea But espionage is just one aspect of China’s broader strategy to establish hegemony in the Pacific. A more visible sign of this strategy is the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea on a string of disputed reefs and islets called the Spratley Islands. The man-made islands, which are more than 500 hundred miles from mainland China and now feature military-length runways and radar stations, are the main source of growing tension between China and its neighbors. China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea now feature military-length runways and radar stations. Over the past year, ongoing construction of the islands has prompted U.S. freedom-of-navigation patrols, designed to challenge China’s claim to them. Last month, the United States sent a carrier strike group, and the Navy has said it’s planning a third patrol near the artificial islands this month. In an effort to mollify anxious Pacific allies, we’ve also increased military aide to the Philippines and struck an agreement that would allow the Pentagon to use some military bases there to deploy U.S. troops for the first time in decades. This issue isn’t going away. At a recent meeting of the G7, foreign ministers expressed concerns about “territorial disputes” in the East and South China Seas. Although not named outright, China’s artificial islands were clearly what the foreign ministers were referring to in a joint statement at the end of a meeting held in Hiroshima, Japan. The statement expressed “strong opposition to any intimidating, coercive or provocative unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions,” and urged states to refrain from “land reclamations, including large scale ones,” and “building out outposts.” Why such a strong statement? More than half of the world’s merchant fleet tonnage passes through the choke points surrounding the South China Sea. Robert Kaplan calls it “the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans—the mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce.”I spoke with Dr. Arthur Waldron, a professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the highly classified Tilelli Commission, which evaluated the China operations of the CIA from 2000 to 2001. He told me China’s foreign policy shifted sharply in 2008 . “It is now aggressive and expansionist,” he said, and if it doesn’t change, “it’s going to lead to war.” Waldron

believes our inability to respond to China’s new posture has been a long time in the making. Under President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, it was thought that the United States would partner with China as a strategic ally against the Soviet Union. For decades, we treated China as our most important Asian partner. But in recent years, the U.S. intelligence community has been astonished at the kind of aggressive intelligence operations China has launched at the United States, the vast number of people involved, and the sensitive targets they have chosen. “We haven’t figured out how to react,” Waldron said. “One reason is that the administration is completely divided between people

who are still holding the torch for a partnership and people who have had the scales fall from their eyes, and have realized that what we have now is something else. We can’t change their policy, but we can change ours.”

China’s rise is immanent and hostile- US must confront Bosco, JD LLM Harvard, 16(Joseph, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as China country desk officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and taught a graduate seminar on US-China-Taiwan relations at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service http://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-expects-the-us-roll-over-15688 4-6)Former Pacific Commander and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has rendered yet another valuable public service, this time as head of Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA (SPF). The organization has produced a comprehensive report assessing China’s evolving strategic posture and presenting alternative scenarios for the U.S.-Japan alliance response to the ensuing threats and opportunities. While the paper is dispassionate and clear-eyed about the risks and openings presented by China's rise, the implications are ominous. The paper posits four possible outcomes for a future China: a powerful and benevolent state; a powerful and aggressive state; a weak and inward-looking state, or a weak and aggressive state. The study offers a caveat, however: “It is dangerous to base an Alliance strategy on a single future for the China of 2030 . . . [It] . . . will not fall neatly into any of the four alternatives . . . The most likely scenario is elements of different futures. Theoretical neatness aside, the report also states that "current trends project a somewhat more powerful and aggressive China than the United States and Japan have dealt with in the past." Indeed, on its own terms the report already identifies China's present course as increasingly threatening. We don't need another ten to fifteen years to know from the preponderance of evidence that we already face the worst-case scenario: a powerful and aggressive China that is on course to become even more powerful and more aggressive. The even more powerful nature of this "future" China, the report prognosticates, would consist of a predominantly market-based economy with growth of five to seven percent; increased restrictions on foreign businesses in China; strongly mercantilist policies overseas; and high defense spending approaching that of the United States. Most of these characteristics are already true of today's China or are rapidly becoming the status quo. As for the aggressive part of the picture, this "future China" would use its "economic and military advantage . . . to support its current core interests—primacy of the CCP, reunification with Taiwan, secure administration of Tibet and Xinjiang, and success in pursuing its claims in the East and South China Seas"—again, all of which China is now doing. (An additional area would be expansionist claims vis a vis India and the Indian Ocean which China is not yet pursuing vigorously.)

Support for the near-certainty of an increasingly powerful and aggressive China can also be found in other sections of the text. For example, Xi Jinping is said to see his “new model of great power relations” as the key to a stable U.S.-China relationship. The report offers two alternatives to understand “Beijing’s calculus for achieving this stability”. In a best-case scenario, the Chinese seek to ensure that competitive elements in the U.S.-China relationship remain firmly under control— roughly analogous to the period of U.S.-Soviet détente during the Cold War. During that earlier period of détente, the Soviet Union cracked down on internal dissent, conducted an increasingly interventionist foreign policy in Latin America and Africa, and invaded Afghanistan—hardly a posture the West would want China to emulate. Additionally, there is the report's “less benign assessment” of China's new model. China is using the framework of great power relations to seek U.S. acquiescence to China’s definition of “core interests,” which include maintaining

China’s political system, territorial claims, and way of shaping and applying international rules and regimes. In other words, the United States would accept China’s regional, and quite possibly global hegemony. Under both the “best case” and “less benign” scenarios, the U.S. response must be either capitulation or confrontation.

U.S. Deterring China

Overwhelming evidence points to Chinese revisionism- only US strength can deter Krepinevich, PhD Harvard, 15(Andrew F, currently serves as President of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-02-16/how-deter-china March/April) China claims that its rise is intended to be peaceful, but its actions tell a different story : that of a revisionist power seeking to dominate the western Pacific. Beijing has claimed sovereignty over not only Taiwan but also Japan’s Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands) and most of the 1.7 million square miles that make up the East China and South China Seas, where six other countries maintain various territorial and maritime claims. And it has been unapologetic about pursuing those goals. In 2010, for example, China’s then foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, dismissed concerns over Beijing’s expansionism in a single breath, saying, “China is a big country, and other countries are small countries, and that is just a fact.” Consider Beijing’s recent bullying in the South China Sea. In March 2014, Chinese coast guard boats blocked the Philippines from accessing its outposts on the Spratly Islands. Two months later, China moved an oil rig into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, clashing with Vietnamese fishing boats. The moves echoed earlier incidents in the East China Sea. In September 2010, as punishment for detaining a Chinese fishing boat captain who had rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels, China temporarily cut off its exports to Japan of rare-earth elements, which are essential for manufacturing cell phones and computers. And in November 2013, China unilaterally declared an “air defense identification zone,” subject to its own air traffic regulations, over the disputed Senkaku Islands and other areas of the East China Sea, warning that it would take military action against aircraft that refused to comply. Some have suggested that as its military grows stronger and its leaders feel more secure, China will moderate such behavior. But the opposite seems far more likely. Indeed, Beijing’s provocations have coincided with the dramatic growth of its military muscle. China is now investing in a number of new capabilities that pose a direct challenge to regional stability. For example, China’s People’s Liberation Army is bolstering its so-called anti-access/area-denial capabilities, which aim to prevent other militaries from occupying or crossing vast stretches of territory, with the express goal of making the western Pacific a no-go zone for the U.S. military. That includes developing the means to target the Pentagon’s command-and-control systems, which rely heavily on satellites and the Internet to coordinate operations and logistics. The PLA has made substantial progress on this front in recent years, testing an antisatellite missile, using lasers to blind U.S. satellites, and waging sophisticated cyberattacks on U.S. defense networks. China is also enhancing its capacity to target critical U.S. military assets and limit the U.S. Navy’s ability to maneuver in international waters. The PLA already has conventional ballistic and cruise missiles that can strike major U.S. facilities in the region, such as the Kadena Air Base, in Okinawa, Japan, and is developing stealth combat aircraft capable of striking many targets along the first island chain. To detect and target naval vessels at greater distances, the PLA has deployed powerful radars and reconnaissance satellites, along with unmanned aerial vehicles that can conduct long-range scouting missions. And to stalk U.S. aircraft carriers, as well as the surface warships that protect them, the Chinese navy is acquiring submarines armed with advanced torpedoes and high-speed cruise missiles designed to strike ships at long distances. Beijing’s actions cannot be explained away as a response to a U.S. arms buildup. For the last decade, Washington has focused its energy and resources primarily on supporting its ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. defense budget, which until recently stood at above four percent of the country’s GDP, is projected to decline to less than three percent by the end of the decade. Simply put, the Pentagon is shedding military capabilities while the PLA is amassing them. Yet if the past is prologue, China will not seek to resolve its expansionist aims through overt aggression. Consistent with its strategic culture, it wants to slowly but inexorably shift the regional military balance in its favor, leaving the rest of the region with little choice but to submit to Chinese coercion. For the most part, China’s maritime neighbors are convinced that diplomatic and economic engagement will do little to alter this basic fact. Several of them, including Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, are increasingly focusing their militaries on the task of resisting Chinese ambitions. They know full well, however, that individual action will be insufficient to prevent Beijing from carrying its vision forward. Only with U.S. material support can they form a collective front that deters China from acts of aggression or coercion.

Conflict Coming

Conflict inevitable as China pursues regional hegemony Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)

So one of the really interesting questions here is what is the competition between China and the United States going to look like? First of all, I think there’s going to be a serious arms race. I think that the Chinese will spend increasing amounts of money on defense and they will build more and better military capability. At the same time, the United States is going to increase defense spending, and it’s going to send more and more of its military assessments to Asia than it has in the past because the United States is going to be bent on containing China, and this will lead to an arms race. The Chinese will try and best us, and we will try and best them, much the way the United States and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. I think it’s almost for sure you’ll have crises. You’ll have crises in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a crisis on the Korean peninsula that threatened to bring the United States and China into the fray. That would be a very dangerous situation. So I think, in addition to arms races, you’ll have crises. And then, of course, you’ll have the ever-present danger that those crises will escalate to wars. And given the geography of Asia, it is possibly that you could have a war between the United States and China. Just to give you one example: If a conflict were to break out between Japan and China over the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands, the United States would almost certainly come in on the side of Japan; and it’s possible to imagine shooting starting in that situation because you’re talking about a war that would be fought at sea, and where there would be no need to use nuclear weapons. This is not like a war on the central front during the Cold War where the United States and the Soviet Union, were they to fight, would end up fighting World War III with nuclear weapons; and because that possible scenario was so horrific, it was extremely unlikely. We’re talking about fighting a war over a series of rocks out in the East China Sea. It’s easy to imagine such a war starting. It’s easy to imagine North Korea collapsing and a conflict breaking out between North and South Korea that pulls the United States and the Chinese in. It’s easy to imagine a war being fought over Taiwan and the United States coming in on the side of Taiwan, presenting a situation where the United States and China are fighting each other. Where the Chinese have gone wrong, in my opinion, is they have overreacted in almost every case; and, as a consequence, they have scared their neighbors, and they have scared the United States. The Chinese argue that it’s imperative in these crises to lay down markers and to make it clear where China stands on the conflict or the dispute in question; and I understand that, but they do it in ways that seem very aggressive in tone and — or aggressive in nature, and they end up scaring people. And that’s not smart. Now, some people might say, a lot of countries have pursued hegemony in the past and they have ended up destroying themselves. Look at what happened to imperial Germany, look at what happened to imperial Japan, look at what happened to Nazi Germany. Look at what happened to the Athenians. Now, there’s no question that, in the past, countries have pursued hegemony and have ended up getting destroyed in the process. What subsequent countries do, looking back, is say to themselves: We’re going to be much smarter the next time. We’re going to pull it off. We’re going to be like the United States. Just take China for example. The Chinese understand full well what happened to Imperial Germany, what happened to the Soviet Union; and the Chinese do not want to end up committing suicide. So what the Chinese are doing is thinking about how to maximize their power in smart and sophisticated ways. So my argument would be that, given the tragedy of great power politics, they will pursue regional hegemony. They will try to push the Americans out of Asia, they will try to dominate Asia, and they will try to do it smartly. Whether they’re successful or not is another matter.China is a revisionist power Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)I think it’s very clear that China is a revision of state. The Chinese have made it clear that they think that Taiwan should be made part of China. They believe that the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, in the East China Sea, should become Chinese. The Japanese, of course, now control them. And they believe that they should dominate the South China Sea in ways that they don’t at the moment. And what the Chinese would like to do, is they’d like to push the United States back towards the United States . And the first step would be to push them beyond the First

Island Chain, which would allow them to control all of the waters in between that First Island Chain and the Chinese mainland. And then, of course, if they push the Americans out beyond the Second Island Chain, they’d control most of the West Pacific. They’d control the waters off their coastline.

Links

China sees plan as appeasement

China will view the plan as appeasement – part of their national political strategyFord 12 - formerly Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Technology and Global Security at Hudson Institute [Christopher Ford, Challenges of Regional Peace and Stability in East Asia, September 27th, 2012, http://www.hudson.org/research/9308-challenges-of-regional-peace-and-stability-in-east-asia] doa 5-24-16

These four factors represent the conventional wisdom about the causes of the recent inflammation of tensions in the SCS and ECS, and I think there is much truth in analyses that emphasize such factors. I’d like, however, to suggest an additional factor one that also has to do with internal PRC political dynamics, but which isn’t likely to go away after the 18th Party Congress in November 2012. For the last two decades, the CCP regime has invested political capital in cultivating anti-foreign nationalism as a basis for the Party’s legitimacy narrative, and this nationalism has indeed become a potent force. As another part of its effort to develop a post-Marxist ideology to sustain one-party rule, the Chinese Party-State has also been developing a discourse of quasi-Confucian domestic politics and international relations doctrine.Together, these two themes of the modern CCP legitimacy narrative call it Confucio-nationalism, if you will have an impact upon Chinese policy. They have helped make China more moralistically confrontational in its foreign relations and more inclined to press its neighbors into patterns of deference to Beijing than at any other point since the era of “reform and opening” took off under Deng Xiaoping more than three decades ago. This just isn’t a pre-Party-Congress pose, in other words, but in fact an important part of the “new normal” in 21st-Century China. Though adopted, in the first instance, for domestic political reasons tied to the Party’s desire to cling to power, these themes essentially demand confrontational foreign postures and efforts to nudge East Asia, at the very least, into more Sinocentric forms of interstate order. Significantly, moreover, Beijing today feels freer to act upon such thinking than at any time since the death of Mao Zedong.Let me explain a little more about what I think has happened. After Tiananmen, Deng is said to have articulated a pithy phrase about the importance of “biding one’s time and hiding one’s capabilities,” which encapsulated important conclusions about China’s interest in strategic caution. This did not amount to any relinquishment of the dream of national “rejuvenation” and “return” that so many Chinese have shared since the Qing Dynasty was first humbled by Western power in the 19th Century, but it was a clear policy of tactical postponement of the kind of self-assertion implied by the country’s destined “return.“ China, it was said, needed breathing space in which to build up its strength, and to this end should carefully keep a low profile and adopt a relatively non-provocative posture.This approach of Dengist “time-biding,” which some scholars have referred to as “Taoist Nationalism,” became the foundation of China’s foreign relations for many years. As China’s strength and confidence have grown in the international arena, however and as the CCP has invested more and more political capital in Sino-nationalist legitimacy strategies that encourage both revanchiste posturing against an outside world felt to have “humiliated” China and quasi-Confucian notions of the desirability of a Sinocentric global order such “time-biding” has come increasingly under pressure.A dynamic that I think has been particularly important recently, however and which is probably a major factor behind China’s recent moves to escalate tensions in the SCS and the ECS is Beijing’s perception that America is enfeebled, weary of foreign commitments, and in a precipitous decline.Why is that? “Taoist Nationalism” based its strategic logic on two main assumptions. First, it was felt that in order to gain the strength necessary to effect its “return” to glory, China needed to learn modernity from the West, particularly from the iconic modern state and the most powerful of the Western polities: the United States. This required congenial engagement in which China could engage in export-driven growth, acquire technology and modern know-how from the West, and have the breathing space necessary for its development. Second, it was recognized that the outside world and the Americans in particular were still powerful enough to be able to impose huge costs on the PRC if sufficiently threatened or provoked. Accordingly, great care should be taken not to provoke them, at least until China was strong enough to handle the consequences. The strategic caution of “Taoist Nationalism” thus rested upon the presumed great benefits of friendly engagement and high costs of confrontation.To my eye, however, this balance was destabilized by the U.S. financial crisis and our present indebtedness and ineffective political leadership. In Chinese eyes, I think we no longer appear an attractive teacher or model of modernity, which reduces the “benefits of friendly engagement” side of the equation. Our continuing politico-economic woes have also encouraged Beijing to think we are on a steep downhill slope in what Chinese strategists call “comprehensive national power,” thus also reducing the “costs of confrontation” element.As a result, it is presumably harder than ever in Beijing to argue for a continuation of “Taoist Nationalism,” and more confrontational sentiments are gradually coming to predominate. Even as the CCP regime has staked its political legitimacy on anti-foreign nationalism and increasingly Sinocentric pretensions of global “return,” in other words, the confrontational postures encouraged by such thinking have seemed more feasible than ever.To my eye, there is little chance in the near term of conclusively resolving the disputes in question. One could argue all day about the relative legal merits of the various competing claims and lots of people do but whatever their merits, I think it is unlikely that we’ll see the issues

“resolved” any time soon. It is thus the challenge of diplomacy and statesmanship to defer the issue peacefully and manage the situation so as to keep things from getting out of hand. Near-term crisis management will be important in this work, as will trying to persuade all participants to avoid provocative actions, and doing everything possible to reaffirm freedom-of-navigation rights in the region. In order to reduce the sting of resource competition in the SCS, and indeed to give parties some incentive to cooperate with each other, some observers have also suggested that a moratorium on oil and gas drilling should be imposed until all agree upon a formula for resource-sharing.Much discussion in the SCS, at least, has referred to the importance of establishing a good “code of conduct” for regional interactions. I don’t disagree, but so far, this hasn’t amounted to much and what preliminary agreement has already materialized clearly hasn’t restrained anybody. I think the problem lies deeper than simply a lack of clarity about how one should approach interactions; the real problem seems to have more to do with whether parties want to interact peaceably.Fundamentally, most current proposals for managing these problems fail to address one of the key factors that I believe is contributing to these problems: the destabilizing effect of China’s growth combined with its increasing willingness to take confrontationally self-assertive positions vis-à-vis its neighbors. The problem with Chinese behavior goes beyond simply taking positions playing to nationalist sentiments prior to the 18th Party Congress. The deeper difficulty is due to the Party-State’s adoption of legitimacy narratives that encourage and to some extent require foreign affairs positions that are increasingly confrontational.If what I’ve suggested about the internal debate between low-profile strategic caution and more self-assertively confrontation is true, however, it is possible that we can still influence China’s decision-making for the better even if they do continue to perceive us as being in decline. As noted, strategic caution is losing ground in Beijing because China feels it now has less to gain from congenial engagement and less to lose from confrontation.

Accomodations

Accommodation leads to revisionism and breaks down assurances Jackson 15 August 6 [Van Jackson, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of the forthcoming book Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations] The Myth of a US-China Grand Bargain Accommodating China won’t produce peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/the-myth-of-a-us-china-grand-bargain/ A number of scholars have tried to advance the well-intentioned proposal that U.S. concessions to China’s many

concerns will somehow facilitate a peaceful order in Asia. While I agree with the sentiment and recognize that there are areas of

international life where Sino-U.S. cooperation is essential, the idea that U.S. accommodation of China will produce a peaceful and stable order in Asia isn’t just unrealistic; it’s irresponsible .Though it wasn’t the first, Hugh White’s China Choice was an early and pointed call for the United States to form a “G-2” with China in which the two countries would work together to set the terms of the regional order, requiring that the United States accommodate the demands of a rising China. Jim Steinberg’s and Michael O’Hanlon’s Strategic Reassurance and Resolve reiterates many of White’s points, but with better theoretical grounding. Lyle Goldstein’s Meeting China Halfway argues far more persuasively than many in this lineage, and some of his specific recommendations merit serious consideration—not least because they would incur no

great cost to try. But there are equally serious reasons to doubt the transformative ambitions attached to U.S. concessions.The latest salvo in this “America must accommodate China” literature hails from an accomplished political scientist at George Washington University, Charles Glaser, writing in the most recent issue of International Security. Glaser makes the sweeping and somewhat unhelpful claim that military competition is risky and therefore undesirable. As an alternative he suggests that if only the United States would abandon commitments to Taiwan, China would be willing to resolve its territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, thereby sidestepping military competition.

Prior to around 2008, proposals for U.S. accommodation of a rising China made much more sense , or at least

could be taken more seriously. But times have changed. China’s ambitions have changed. And so has its foreign policy behavior. These contextual changes matter for whether and when accommodation can have the desired effect. More to the point though, there are a number of problems with the grand bargain line of argumentation.

First, any proposal for a Sino-U.S. solution to regional problems is by definition taking a great power view of Asia that marginalizes the agency and strategic relevance of U.S. allies and the region’s middle powers. In the brief period (five to ten years ago) when a G-2 concept was taken semi-seriously in Washington, allies—especially South Korea and Japan—chafed. The region’s middle powers would be unlikely to simply follow the joint dictates of China and the United States without being part of it, and attempting a G-2 could ironically create a more fragmented order as a result. Including others, at any rate, is antithetical to the concept of a Sino-U.S. G-2 arrangement. As early as the 1960s U.S. officials tried to rely on China to deal with regional issues spanning from North Korea to Vietnam. It was almost always to no avail.

Second, and as I’ve written about extensively elsewhere, Asia is rife with security concerns that have nothing to do with China directly, so any understanding reached with China would leave unresolved many of the region’s latent sources of potential conflict. Sino-U.S. grand bargain proponents forget that China and the United States only have real conflicts of

interest by proxy. Every conceivable conflict scenario involves China and some other Asian state— Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Korea . The United States only becomes part of the picture because of a commitment to regional order, including its alliance network.

Third, as its recent stock market crash makes all too obvious, China remains a “fragile superpower,” to quote Susan Shirk. Many factors in its domestic political situation—corruption, growing wealth disparities, and many forms of civil challenges to government legitimacy—make it an unpredictable player. Nor is China showing meaningful signs of political liberalization. There’s so much brewing underneath the surface in China that dealing with China today as if it were a hegemon tomorrow assumes too much, and grants China too much credit too soon.Fourth, there’s a defunct theory that’s been smuggled into arguments about changing Chinese behavior through U.S. accommodation. Political scientists call it “neofunctionalism,” a term rarely used these days, even though its spirit is pervasive in grand bargain arguments. Neofunctionalism came about in the 1950s as a failed way to account for and push for European integration.The basic idea involved an assumption that low level and innocuous types of cooperation would “spillover” into still more and better quality cooperation. Comity among nations, it was thought, would be the eventual outcome of mundane socioeconomic interactions. But by the 1970s, the theory had become largely discredited.Nevertheless, echoes of neofunctionalism remain in contemporary claims that properly calibrated restraint, accommodation, or appeasement can have a transformative effect on a relationship. Ironically, these arguments tend to come from scholars, not policymakers. The idea that the United States can induce China into resolving its East and South China Sea disputes by “giving” it Taiwan reflects precisely this type of expectation, as do calls for the United States to make small concessions to China in hopes that it will enable a more stable situation.None of this means that accommodative gestures or strategies should be outright dismissed. There were numerous periods of detente with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and that rivalry was much more confrontational. China and the United States, moreover, have a number of overlapping—not just conflicting—interests. I might even go as far as saying that neofunctionalism has a bit of a bad rap; there are times when trivial or non-costly forms of cooperation can lead to greater and deeper cooperation, but political scientists haven’t convincingly figured out what those conditions are.

But grand bargains rarely work . There’s a dangerous naivete in abandoning U.S. commitments on the hope that China will then be more willing to resolve its other disputes. And policies of accommodation will not suspend military competition because that involves more than present day concerns with surveillance overflight missions, territorial disputes, and current political commitments. Regardless of the policy and crisis management decisions we make today, military competition plays out over years and decades; it relates to force structure investment and doctrinal decisions that can’t be sacrificed for political promises.

China’s concerns will only be assuaged when the United States divests of the military force structure that makes it possible to project power globally, uphold its

commitments, and bolster the regional order. The U.S. military will be unable to pursue such a course as long as China maintains openly expansionist geopolitical ambitions and a force structure designed to achieve it. Competition, it seems, is the logic of the situation. We ignore that at our own peril .

Perception Matters

Perception is all that matters- the world watches US China policy closelyKrauthammer, MD Harvard, 16(Charles, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist, author, political commentator, and physician, http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20160108/OPINION04/160109282 1-8) For the United States, that would be the greatest geopolitical setback since China fell to communism in 1949. Yet Obama seems oblivious. Worse, he appears inert in the face of the three great challenges to the post-Cold War American order. Iran is only the most glaring. China is challenging the status quo in the South China Sea, just last week landing its first aircraft on an artificial island hundreds of miles beyond the Chinese coast. We deny China's claim and declare these to be international waters, yet last month we meekly apologized when a B-52 overflew one of the islands. We said it was

inadvertent. The world sees and takes note. As it does our response to the other great U.S. adversary — Russia. What's happened to Obama's vaunted “isolation” of Russia for its annexation of Crimea and assault on the post-Cold War European settlement? Gone. Evaporated. Kerry plays lapdog to Sergei Lavrov. Obama meets openly with Vladimir Putin in Turkey, then in Paris. And is now practically begging him to join our side in Syria. There is no price for defying Pax Americana — not even trivial sanctions on Iranian missile-enablers. Our enemies know it. Our allies see it — and sense they're on their own, and may not survive.

Perceived less containment

Perceived decline in US commitment causes prolif Gompert 13 professor of national security studies at the U.S. Naval Academy and an adjunct fellow at the RAND Corporation, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, held a number of corporate executive and senior government positions, including Senior Advisor for National Security in Iraq, Deputy to the Under Secretary of State, Special Assistant to President George H. W. Bush, and Special Assistant to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, ‘13 (David C., “Sea Power and American Interests in the Western Pacific,” RAND)

Regional jitters due to Chinese military power have been aggravated by unease over U.S. steadfastness ,

especially during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At present, the United States appears resolved to back its East Asian friends, old and new, in the face of Chinese pressures. This is clear from U.S. diplomatic opposition to Chinese attempts to bully states bordering the South China Sea and from U.S. support for South Korea in the face of provocations by North Korea, China’s ally. Failure to stand alongside its friends would deplete U.S. influence with these important states and possibly weaken their resolve to resist intimidation. In the case of Japan and South Korea, there is an additional risk that faltering U.S. steadfastness would tempt them to acquire nuclear weapons . Overall, owing mainly to China’s economic success, the steady expansion and reorientation of its

military capabilities toward the Pacific, and signs of its growing reliance on force, East Asia may be entering a period of instability.

Under these conditions, the instinct of the United States—true to its policy since becoming a Pacific power a century ago—is to renew its commitment to regional equilibrium , to its friends (China’s neighbors), to the peaceful resolution of disputes, and to the unrestricted use of the international waters by its shipping and naval forces.7 This is a matter not just of

U.S. regional strategy but of U.S. global strategy . In its latest national defense strategy, the U.S. government has made clear that its preoccupation with the Middle East and South Asia since 2001 has been succeeded by the recognition that its global interests demand greater attention to Asia.

East Asia is a region of global importance not only economically but also in addressing international security problems of U.S.

concern around the world. Japan, Australia, and South Korea, for example, have to varying degrees supported the United States in

stabilizing the Middle East and South Asia and in countering the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand are important in stemming the spread of violent Islamist extremism. Moreover, equilibrium and peace in East Asia are essential if the United States is to confront threats to itself and its interests elsewhere in the world, as it did in the decade following 9/11. Now, with the United States struggling with mounting debt and domestic challenges—nagging unemployment, lagging education, and

sagging infrastructure—East Asia’s stability takes on added significance.

U.S. Isolationism

If the US pulls back China will expand into our sphere of influence Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)

One might argue that what the United States should do if China continues to rise is that we should retreat to Hawaii or retreat to the continental United States; and we should pursue an isolationist strategy. And the argument here would be that it doesn’t really matter whether China dominates Asia because it can’t get at the United States anyway. This is actually a very powerful argument. If you think about it, we’re separated from China as we separated from Europe by two giant moats. The Chinese would have to come 6,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean to get to California. There’s not going to be an amphibious operation that’s 6,000 miles long across the Pacific Ocean. So not only do we have these oceans, we also have thousands of nuclear warheads, which are the ultimate deterrent. Furthermore, we dominate the Western Hemisphere. So the United States is an incredibly secure country; and one can make a quite persuasive argument that, even if China dominates Asia, it’s not going to affect the United States in any meaningful way. My view is that there’s one powerful counter to that argument; and it’s the main argument again isolationism; and it says that if China dominates all of Asia, if it’s a regional hegemon, it is then free to roam around the world much the way the United States, as a regional hegemon, is free to roam around the world. Most Americans don’t think about this, but the reason that the United States is wandering all over God’s little green acre, sticking its nose in everybody’s business, is because we are free to roam. We have no threats in the Western Hemisphere that pin us down. Now if China is free to roam because it’s a potential hegemon, it can roam into the Western Hemisphere. It can develop friendly relations with a country like Brazil or country like Mexico. It could put a naval base in Brazil much the way the Soviets were putting troops in Cuba, right? So what the United States fears about China dominating Asia is the possibility that it will not invade the United States, but that it will move into the Western Hemisphere, form a close alliance with a country like Brazil or Cuba or Mexico, and become a threat to the United States from inside the Hemisphere.

U.S. Offshoring

Offshore balancing encourages Chinese aggression- new alliances won’t work to balance Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US ChinaStrategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)

An explicit American shift towards ‘offshore balancing’ would greatly exacerbate these risks . While it is possible that the prospect of being forced to provide for their own security would shock at least some current US allies into more vigorous defence programmes, it would likely demoralise others, creating new opportunities for Beijing to pursue divide-and-conquer strategems. The advocates of this approach assume that, even if they cannot balance China alone, in the absence of full US support other Asian countries will be impelled to cooperate more closely with one another. Again, this may be easier in theory than it turns out to be in practice. Some of the states that would have to join in a countervailing coalition (most notably Japan and South Korea) have long histories of suspicion and animosity. Others (such as Japan and India) do not, but they also have little experience of close strategic cooperation of the kind that would be needed to counter a fastgrowing challenge. (105-6)

Supporting Taiwan

Reduced support for Taiwan encourages Chinese aggression and weakens alliances Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US ChinaStrategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)Attempting to implement a spheres-of-influence strategy would also carry significant risks. In addition to the harmful implications for its people, ‘backing away’ from Taiwan could unleash a cascade of damaging consequences for the United States.

Finally succeeding in its decades-long campaign to ‘reunify’ with Taiwan seems more likely to feed Beijing’s appetite for further gains than to satisfy it. Aside from its impact on China’s intentions, gaining access to the island would increase its capabilities, enhancing its ability to project power into the Western Pacific and potentially threatening the sea lines of communication of Japan and South Korea.47 Regardless of the way in which it was framed , a decision to abandon its ambiguous but long-standing commitment to Taiwan would inevitably raise doubts in the minds of America’s other friends and allies. If they conclude that continued balancing is no longer a viable option, some may choose instead to bandwagon with China. (105)

Chinese Econ Growth

Stopping Chinese growth k2 forestall military conflict Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)There’s no question that preventive war makes no sense at all, but a much more attractive strategy would be to do whatever we could to slow down China’s economic growth. Because if it doesn’t grow economically, it can’t turn that wealth into military might and become a potential hegemon in Asia. I mean, what really makes China so scary today is the fact that it has so many people and it’s also becoming an incredibly wealthy country. Our great fear is that China will turn into a giant Hong Kong. And if it has a per capita GNP that’s anywhere near Hong Kong’s GNP, it will be one formidable military power. So the question is, Can you prevent it from becoming a giant Hong Kong? My great hope is that China’s economy will slow down on its own. I think it’s in America’s interest, and it’s in the interest of China’s neighbors to see the Chinese economy slow down in terms of its growth rate in really significant ways in the future because if that happens, it then can’t become a formidable military power.

Answers to: Chinese Growth Good

Growth won’t moderate China- encourages aggression Bosco, JD LLM Harvard, 16(Joseph, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as China country desk officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and taught a graduate seminar on US-China-Taiwan relations at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service http://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-expects-the-us-roll-over-15688 4-6)Interestingly, developments under Xi’s leadership portrayed as good news for the West are things that make the Communist regime internally stronger and more efficient—economic reforms eliminating “excessive regulation and local protectionism [that] have made the market inefficient.” To the extent those reforms produce benefits for the Chinese people, they presumably increase the regime’s legitimacy, both domestically and internationally. One may very well hope that such news of increasing influence would induce a more relaxed attitude among Chinese leaders regarding their place in the world. More realistically, however, given the Communist Party of China’s implacable view of the United States and its allies as the enemy—despite more than four decades of Western engagement —and its expectation that it can achieve U.S. “acquiescence” to the dominance Xi seeks, China will almost certainly become even more ambitious and aggressive.

Growth is crucial to CCP control- weakens US fopo and stops regional allies from challenging the PRC Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) Preserving internal control remains the foremost objective of the CCP today. But the goal of ensuring continued and unchallenged Communist rule leads to the second operational aspiration: sustaining the high levels of economic growth necessary to preserve social order. Since the founding of the Communist state, transforming the Chinese economy has remained an important political aim. After all, Mao Zedong had no doubts that political power grew out of not only a monopoly of force, but, more fundamentally, material foundations. Unfortunately for China, however, Mao’s collectivist strategies failed to achieve the high levels of growth chalked up by its neighbors, and his capricious political actions only further stunted China’s development. Yet so long as Mao remained alive, his towering personality and his ruthless politics—especially the extreme and effective brutality of the PLA and the Red Guards—ensured that the CCP’s hold on power did not suffer because of economic underperformance.17 Since the beginning of the reform period under Deng Xiaoping, however, high levels of economic growth have become indispensable. In the absence of charismatic leaders such as Mao and Deng, economic growth has become important for sustaining the legitimacy of the CCP—even for China’s current

“imperial president,” Xi Jinping.18With the shift to market reforms beginning in 1978, the imperative for high growth has only intensified as the distinctiveness of the CCP as the vanguard of socialism has progressively eroded. There is nothing particularly unique about the party anymore, except that it remains the sole holder of political power in China. Why this should be the case in perpetuity remains difficult to answer—and the party has sought to deflect this question by, in effect, promising high levels of sustained economic growth as its newest justification for continued rule. This strategy of mitigating a fraying political legitimacy through impressive economic performance has come to embody the essence of the new social contract in China: through its economic policies, the party promises rising standards of living for China’s population and an increase in personal (but not political) freedoms in exchange for an unchallenged acceptance of continued Communist rule. For the moment at least, this strategy appears to be successful. For whatever its discontent may be, the Chinese population ultimately ends up supporting the regime because it views order and control as essential for maintaining the high rates of economic growth that generate the prosperity demanded by the citizenry. The populace and the party are thus locked into an uncertain symbiosis that provides the regime with strength and the polity with a modicum of stability—a relationship that compels China’s leaders to maintain strong economic ties with the outside world while protecting the country’s claims and prerogatives internationally as the price of political success at home. The aim of sustaining high levels of economic growth, therefore, is colored by both economic and political imperatives. The former speak to the development agenda of the Chinese state—the importance of lifting vast numbers of people out of poverty and enriching the population at the fastest rate possible—while the latter are advanced by the fact that rapid economic expansion contributes to the CCP’s political legitimacy, increases its available resources for domestic and international (including military) ends, and underwrites its status and material claims in the international arena. China’s means of producing high economic growth have also been distinctive. By liberalizing commodity and labor prices but not the prices of other elements such as land, capital, and energy, Beijing created limited free markets in China that operated under the supervision of a strong and controlling state. Because many foreign firms invested in China under this scheme, manufacturing consumer and industrial goods intended primarily for export, China has become the “new workshop of the world.”19 This economic model of production for overseas markets is slowly changing: it is now supplemented by increasing attention to domestic consumers and by the rise of new private enterprises, but it was controlled capitalism that elevated China’s growth to unprecedented levels, thus permitting

Beijing to portray its older approach—which consisted of incremental reforms, innovation and experimentation, export-led growth, state-dominated capitalism, and authoritarian politics—as the superior alternative to the American framework of free markets overseen by democratic regimes. The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 raised doubts about the wisdom of Washington’s methods of economic management, giving new life to China’s critique of liberal democracy and free markets. Although the attractiveness, endurance, and exportability of this so-called Beijing model are suspect on multiple grounds, the fact remains that it has more or less served China well until now.20 This model has bequeathed Beijing with huge investible surpluses (in the form of vast foreign exchange reserves), substantially increased its technological capabilities (thanks to both legitimate and illegitimate acquisitions of proprietary knowledge), and—most important—has tied the wider global economy ever more tightly to China. Although this last development has generated wealth and welfare gains globally, it has also produced several unnerving strategic consequences. It has made many of China’s trading partners, especially its smaller neighbors, asymmetrically dependent on China and thus reluctant to voice opposition even when China’s policies leave them disadvantaged.21 China’s economic integration has also produced higher relative gains for itself, even with its larger trading partners, such as the United States—not in the narrow sense pertaining to the bilateral terms of trade, but in the larger strategic sense that its overall growth has risen far faster than it might have had China remained locked into the autarkic policies of the pre-reform period. U.S. support for China’s entry into the global trading system has thus created the awkward situation in which Washington has contributed toward hastening Beijing’s economic growth and, by extension, accelerated its rise as a geopolitical rival . Furthermore, China’s growing economic ties have nurtured and encouraged various internal constituencies within China’s trading partners to pursue parochial interests that often diverge from their countries’ larger national interests with regard to China .22 Finally, economic integration has shaped the leadership perceptions of many of China’s trading partners in ways that lead them to worry about their dependence on and vulnerability to China. Even if such worry is sometimes exaggerated, it weakens their resistance to both Chinese blandishments and coercion.23 Given these outcomes, it should not be surprising that Beijing has consciously sought to use China’s growing economic power in a choking embrace designed to prevent its Asian neighbors from challenging its geopolitical interests , including weakening the U.S. alliance system in Asia. Beijing’s commitment to sustaining high economic growth through deepened international interdependence, therefore, provides it not only with internal gains—a more pliant populace and a more powerful state—but consequential external benefits as well, in the form of a growing military and deferential neighbors who fear the economic losses that might arise from any political opposition to China. These gains are likely to persist even as China’s economic growth slows down over time—as it inevitably will—so long as Beijing’s overall material power and its relative growth rates remain superior to those of its neighbors.24 (10-13)

Prolif Impacts

Threshold Small

The threshold for our link is low --- requirements for assurance are greater than for deterrence --- even small declines in Japanese confidence in our umbrella can trigger arms racing and nuclear use.Santoro & Warden 15 - senior fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS & WSD-Handa fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS [Santoro, David, and John K. Warden. "Assuring Japan and South Korea in the Second Nuclear Age." The Washington Quarterly 38.1 (2015): 147-165.]

The New Assurance ImperativeDubbed the second nuclear age,2 the current context has been widely discussed for its differences with the Cold War, or the world’s first nuclear age. During this first age, two nuclear superpowers were locked in a competition for global dominance with allies on each side, a handful of which developed small nuclear arsenals. U.S.–Soviet competition was intense, but remained cold in part because Washington and Moscow developed arms-control and crisis management mechanisms to regulate their behavior . Stability endured because even though Washington and Moscow did not control all the triggers, they had sufficient authority to keep bloc discipline and avoid becoming entrapped in a nuclear war. The security environment was always extremely dangerous because the possibility of global nuclear annihilation was omnipresent, but per the notorious formula, “a stable balance of terror” endured.3The end of the Cold War gave rise to hopes—mainly in Western quarters— that nuclear weapons would be relegated to the dustbin of history.4 This belief led the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to downsize their arsenals and assist a financially-strapped Russia to do the same. Meanwhile, several states across Asia—in Western Asia (the Middle East), South Asia, and East Asia—developed nuclear and long-range missile programs.5 China’s efforts to modernize its nuclear and missile forces continued steadily. India and Pakistan pushed forward with their own programs and, after exploding nuclear devices in 1998, became nuclear-armed states. North Korea conducted several rocket tests during the late 1990s and tested its first nuclear device in 2006. Iran, Syria, and others also developed nuclear and missile programs. By the early 21st century, the Cold War order tightly controlled by the United States and the Soviet Union was replaced by a multiplayer arena with several less experienced nuclear decision-making parties and an epicenter in Asia. As a result, today , while there is less risk of global annihilation— both because major-power relations have improved and because important firebreaks against conflict are in place, including robust crisis management mechanisms and enhanced economic interdependence—the potential for war, and even nuclear use, is growing.6Not surprisingly, these developments have led U.S. allies to seek strengthened assurances that the United States, their main security guarantor, will continue to protect them from coercion and attack. The assurance challenge is particularly difficult because it turns on more than effective deterrence. Deterrence primarily requires the United States to influence an adversary’s calculus at critical moments during a crisis. For allies to be fully assured , however, the United States must, during peacetime, convince them 1) that U.S. extended deterrence will succeed in preventing adversaries from challenging their core interests, and 2) that should deterrence fail, the United States can and will provide for their defense. Hence former British defense minister Denis Healey’s formulation that during the Cold War it took “only five percent credibility of U.S. retaliation to deter the Russians, but ninety-five percent credibility to reassure the Europeans.”7In the second nuclear age, it is more difficult for the United States to assure its Northeast Asian allies than it was during the Cold War. James Schoff notes that during the Cold War “the U.S. commitment to counter the Soviet threat was largely unquestioned in Tokyo, and the details about how deterrence worked mattered little.”8 Today, the United States must convince allies that it can deter multiple nuclear-armed adversaries, some of whom have less adversarial relations with the United States than the Soviet Union did. Just as important, the United States also faces an equally difficult task of convincing its allies that it could and would respond should extended deterrence fail.

Allies Nervous

Any perception of change in US commitment sparks allied prolif Swaine, PhD Harvard, 15(Michael D, expert in China and East Asian security studies and a Senior Associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/04/20/beyond-american-predominance-in-western-pacific-need-for-stable-u.s.-china-balance-of-power/i7gi, 4-20)Second, and closely related to the prior point, U.S. decisionmakers are extremely loath to contemplate significant adjustments in the current status of the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan. From the U.S. perspective, any movement toward a reduction in or even a significant modification of the U.S. security commitment to these two actors (a U.S military

ally and a de facto U.S. protectorate, respectively) could result in either moving to acquire nuclear arms, and/or threats or attacks from North Korea or China. In addition, Japan might react to such movement by questioning Washington’s basic security commitment to Tokyo, which could result in a break in the U.S.Japan alliance and/or Japanese acquisition of nuclear arms. These concerns are real, if no doubt exaggerated by some in Tokyo or Taipei in order to justify maintenance of the existing U.S. relationship, and in some cases to avoid undertaking costly defense improvements of their own.

Lack of Security Checks

Northeast Asia lacks security institutions and has historical animosity and nuclear capabilities – guarantees global nuclear warJames Clay Moltz, November 2006. Deputy director and research professor at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and associate Professor on the National Security Affairs faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School. “FUTURE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION SCENARIOS IN NORTHEAST ASIA,” The Nonproliferation Review 13.3, Informaworld.

Over the next 10 years, Northeast Asia could become one of the most volatile regions of the world when it comes to nuclear weapons. Compared to other areas, it has a higher percentage of states with not only the capability to develop nuclear weapons quickly, but also the potential motivation.1 With the exception of Mongolia, all the countries in the region—Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan—already have civilian nuclear power infrastructures. They also have experience with nuclear weapons. Northeast Asia has two established nuclear weapon states—Russia and China—and North Korea is a presumed nuclear power. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are considered “threshold” states—all have had nuclear weapons development programs and could resume them in the future. Adding potential volatility to the mix, Northeast Asia suffers from underlying political and security fault lines: the legacy of the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula; enduring Korean and Chinese enmity over Japanese atrocities committed before and during World War II; Russo-Japanese disputes over the Kuril Islands; and the tensions created by China's growing effort to rein Taiwan into its governance. For these and other reasons, regional security institutions in Northeast Asia are weak and tend to be based around bilateral commitments (Sino-North Korean, U.S.-Japanese, U.S.-South Korean, and U.S.-Taiwanese). The nuclear character of Northeast Asia is further defined by the fact that the United States used nuclear weapons twice against Japan in August 1945 and eventually stationed 3,200 nuclear weapons in South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the formerly U.S.-held islands of Chichi Jima, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.2 Major and minor wars involving regional powers were fought in the years from 1945 to 1991: the Chinese Civil War, the Taiwan Strait crisis, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, border skirmishes between China and the Soviet Union, and the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. Given this violent history, it is remarkable that further nuclear proliferation did not occur. The role of U.S. security guarantees with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan clearly played a major role in this sometimes less-than-willing restraint. In recent years, however, there has been a gradual erosion of political support for U.S. forces in both South Korea and Japan. North Korea's withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 2003 also has caused both states to reevaluate their decisions to halt nuclear weapons programs. Moreover, the views of some top officials in the George W. Bush administration regarding the acceptability of nuclear weapons may be eroding national restraint and increasing the willingness of countries to go the final step, using their nuclear capabilities to make up for any conventional defense gaps. This essay examines potential nuclear proliferation trends among the states of Northeast Asia to 2016 from the context of early post-Cold War predictions, current capabilities, and possible future “trigger” events. It offers the unfortunate conclusion that several realistic scenarios could stimulate horizontal or vertical nuclear proliferation.3 Indeed, if left unattended, existing political and security tensions could cause Northeast Asia to become the world's most nuclearized area by 2016, with six nuclear weapon states. Such a scenario would greatly exacerbate U.S. security challenges and probably spark nuclear proliferation elsewhere in the world.

Timeframe Quick

Timeframe – Japan and South Korea have the infrastructure and materials to go nuclear in months.Michael Moran, 10/15/2006. Executive editor of CFR.org and a columnist for Globalpost.com. “Will nukes march across Asia?” Star Ledger, http://www.cfr.org/publication/11731/.So far, the reaction of North Korea’s Asian neighbors has been moderate: careful condemnations, calls for sanctions, pledges to work for a peaceful solution, etc. This certainly is a far cry from Pakistan’s tit-for-tat, nuke-for-nuke response to India’s 1998 nuclear test. But those who make a living tracking proliferation threats remain concerned. Both South Korea and Japan are signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the treaty North Korea renounced in 2003 before its final push for

nuclear weaponry began. Yet, of all the non-nuclear states that have pondered, secretly or openly, the wisdom of going nuclear, none is more capable of fielding an actual arsenal as quickly and completely as Japan and South Korea are. As the only nation ever to suffer a nuclear attack, Japan has repeatedly vowed in the years since 1945 to never “develop, use, or allow the transportation of nuclear weapons through its territory.” It later emerged Japan had, in fact, studied the idea during the 1960s. By and large, however, Japan has been

true to its word. Yet Japan, more vulnerable than any other major industrial nation to oil crises, also developed a civilian nuclear power in dustry larger than any outside France and the United States. This expanding network of nuclear plants, which Japan hopes will

produce over 40 percent of national electricity needs by 2010, also produced spent plutonium at levels which alarm nonproliferation experts. While this is not “bomb-grade” plutonium in the strictest sense, experts believe Japan could quickly field an arsenal if it so chose. Michael Levi, an expert in arms control and proliferation at the Council on Foreign Relations, says Japan could nuclearize its military “in a matter of months , if not sooner.” This has led some to deem Japan a “paranuclear” state. Such thoughts would have been quickly dismissed a decade ago given the lingering taboo and

trauma caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In recent years, however, particularly since North Korea test-fired a missile in 1998 that crossed Japanese territory before splashing into the Pacific Ocean, some politicians have called for a rethinking of the pacifism imposed on Japan by the United States after World War II. Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former prime minister, told a reporter last month Japan needed “to study the issue of nuclear weapons.” Japan’s new prime minister, before winning power, expressed the opinion that nothing in the country's constitution specifically forbids development of a nuclear deterrent. Abe has been careful since the North Korean test to say Japan is not planning to go nuclear. But

he clearly is aligned with those who feel a nuclear arsenal to be on the table for study. As with Japan, South Korea’s sophisticated domestic nuclear power industry is poised to nuclearize if it so chooses. From the 1950s until the late 1980s, in

South Korea’s official accounts, Seoul pursued a nuclear weapons program as vigorously as its communist archrival to the north. In fact, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who visited South Korea in 2003 discovered research on enriching plutonium continued until at least 2000. While the IAEA found no evidence of any military motive, it was a reminder of how little we may actually know about such activity there and elsewhere.

Answers to: Japan wouldn’t get nukes

Even if Japan doesn’t actually get weapons --- a shift in its attitude to seriously consider them triggers all our regional arms racing impacts.Elizabeth D. Bakanic, 6/9/2008. MA International Affairs Princeton, traveled to Tokyo for a government report, conducting interviews with Japanese and U.S. government officials, nuclear experts, and academics. “The end of Japan's nuclear taboo,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-end-of-japans-nuclear-taboo.

All that said, by no means is Japan on the road to nuclear weapons development--or even considering it as a serious option. Technically speaking, Japan has several huge constraints to nuclear weapons development--see "Preventing Nuclear Proliferation Chain Reactions: Japan, South Korea, and Egypt" PDF and "Japan's Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests." PDF So why should the world be concerned about Japan's fading nuclear allergy? Because Tokyo's attitude toward nuclear weapons is incredibly important to Japan's neighbors and the nonproliferation regime, meaning subtle changes in its attitude could carry serious security consequences for both. Historically, Japan has maintained complicated relations with many of its neighbors--specifically China, North Korea, and South Korea. While functional relationships do exist, deep mistrust and suspicions persist, creating a paranoid security environment where an innocuous change from an outside perspective sets off alarm bells in the region. So what may seem like a natural shift in Japan's nuclear attitudes may be a destabilizing change for those less trustful and less objective. Therefore, if discussing nuclear weapons becomes more acceptable in Japan, China and the Koreas might perceive this as a dangerous development and use it as an excuse to increase their military capabilities--nuclear or otherwise. In terms of the teetering nonproliferation regime, a change in Japan's attitude toward nuclear weapons would be a serious blow. To date, Tokyo has been a foremost advocate of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, campaigning against proliferation and rejecting the idea of developing nuclear weapons despite possessing the best nuclear capability of any non-nuclear weapon state and having two nuclear weapon states near its borders. The binding nature of international agreements relies on such attention and support from its signatories. So although Japan may never violate the treaty, if Tokyo is perceived as being less supportive as it opens up domestically on the nuclear issue, the effect on NPT morale could be dire, which speaks directly to the NPT's current vulnerability. Some element of the changing attitude toward nuclear weapons in Japan must be due to discomfort with the status quo and a security need that the NPT or the country's other security partnerships isn't satisfying. Therefore, a disturbing factor of Japan's nuclear normalization is what it may symbolize for the NPT overall.

Answers to: Allied Prolif Good

Allied prolif produces asymmetries inviting conflict Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US ChinaStrategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)If it were to happen overnight, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by current US security partners in East Asia (perhaps including Taiwan, as well as Japan and South Korea) might improve their prospects for balancing against

Chinese power. But here again, there is likely to be a significant gap between theory and reality. Assuming that Washington did not actively assist them, and that they could not produce weapons overnight or in total secrecy, the interval during which its former allies lost the protection of the American nuclear umbrella and the point at which they acquired their own would be one in which they would be exposed to coercive threats and possibly pre-emptive attack. Because it contains a large number of tense and mistrustful dyads (including North Korea and South Korea, Japan and China, China and Taiwan, Japan and North Korea

and possibly South Korea and Japan), a multipolar nuclear order in East Asia might be especially prone to instability.48(106)

Turns Case Impacts

Won’t Work

Accommodations won’t work – China won’t change based on concessionsRoy 13 – Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu who specialises in Asia-Pacific international security issues [Denny Roy, The Problem with Premature Appeasement, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Review Essay, Volume 55, Issue 3, 2013]

Sharing is withdrawingRalph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues that even if the United States was willing to follow White's policy prescription, it would be ineffective if China did not accept and follow the agreement.30 A key question is therefore what strategic concessions Washington can make to persuade Beijing that the United States and China are equals, and that it is no longer trying to maintain regional primacy. The basic problem with such adjustments is that small US concessions would not satisfy China, while large concessions would effectively hand it regional domination.White's approach to solving this problem does too much and too little. He specifies that the United States should end its alliance with Japan, halt its support for an autonomous Taiwan, recognise Indochina (but not the South China Sea) as within the Chinese sphere of influence and accept that China's military and nuclear forces can be as large as its own.Acknowledging China's sphere of influence entails acquiescing to Chinese domination; the question is the size of the sphere. White asks Washington to abandon Taiwan and, apparently, Vietnam to Chinese influence. The US–Japan alliance, which White wants America to walk away from, has been the basis of one of Washington's closest partnerships for over six decades. Such an act could result in Japan succumbing to defeatism and eventually accommodating China. If the United States' alliance with Japan ended, its alliance with South Korea would also come under increased pressure. Although he asks much of Washington, White does not require Beijing to reciprocate. By contrast, Donald Gross, a former White House and US Department of State official, argues that US–China rapprochement requires concessions from both Washington and Beijing. Gross asks that the Chinese pull back missiles and other forces threatening Taiwan, formally promise not to use force against Taiwan or other Asia-Pacific countries, cease naval activities in the seas close to Japan and submit its claims in the South and East China Seas to international arbitration.31White's plan does too little in that it does not address some of the major causes of strategic tension in the region. Other than those in Japan, he does not discuss reductions in US forces based in and constantly moving through the Asia-Pacific region; rather, he suggests Chinese forces should become larger. By leaving the South China Sea out of China's sphere of influence, he maintains flash points there and in the East China Sea. The other possible outcome of severance of the US–Japan alliance is a cold war between China and a rearmed, self-reliant Japan.The onus is on White to explain why an offer by the United States to partially withdraw from the region in recognition of China's new strength would not stoke demands for further expansion from the PLA and a nationalistic Chinese public. Such demands could force Beijing to push more strongly to achieve the long-sought goals of complete recovery from the ‘Century of Shame’ and restoration of China's previous position as leader of the region. Amid the triumphalism of China's rise and Beijing's persistent worries about maintaining its domestic legitimacy, the country's leadership understands the risks of disappointing such expectations.White starkly differentiates a hypothetical US withdrawal from his proposal of levelling and power-sharing. He argues that withdrawal would, disastrously, encourage China to seek primacy, while levelling and powersharing would maintain peace and prosperity by ensuring that neither country dominated the region. In practice, however, these options are similar because levelling and power-sharing would require the United States to make changes that would result in a partial withdrawal and, consequently, at least partial Chinese primacy. White's US–China bargain seems to encourage a Chinese drive for unambiguous hegemony, while leaving enough strategic clutter to ensure a continuation of serious friction between the countries.Ultimately, White's project proves too ambitious. His recommendations are problematic. By following White's advice, Washington may invite China to take a giant step towards achieving the primacy the author sees as disastrous. Furthermore, White does not supply a rationale for why his proposed Concert would surmount the obstacles that have prevented China and the United States from amicably resolving their strategic disagreements.Asking the United States to unilaterally give up much of its leadership and influence in the Asia-Pacific region and abruptly pull China into an exclusive regional G4 is not yet warranted. This would be tantamount to handing Beijing an undeserved victory. China is approaching but has not yet reached a level of economic, military or diplomatic strength equal to that of the United States. It is unclear how the relative power of the countries will change in the medium term. China remains inconsistent in the quality of its global citizenship and is reluctant to pay the costs of international leadership, except where its interests are directly involved. Other states in the region continue to demand US engagement and are willing to rally in defence of the current international order. Within that order, China is achieving both security and prosperity. White's

book is worthy and thought-provoking, and ventures bold answers to essential questions. Clearly, however, premature appeasement is not the right answer.

Self-interest makes appeasement unlikely to workRoy 13 – Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu who specialises in Asia-Pacific international security issues [Denny Roy, The Problem with Premature Appeasement, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Review Essay, Volume 55, Issue 3, 2013]

White presumes that the United States and China can reach an agreement that ‘protects American interests and enforces vital norms of international conduct … within limits acceptable to China’, thereby satisfying the demands and aspirations of both countries (p. 130). This may not be possible.For the Concert to work, White says, its members must follow several principles. However, the practical application of these principles would be hugely problematic. Concert nations must ‘agree not to try to deprive one another of the status of a great power … [and] share a clear understanding of legitimate conduct’ (pp. 137–38). If Washington and Beijing could agree on the terms under which China becomes a great power and specify what constitutes legitimate international behaviour, the Concert would be unnecessary. These issues are the basis of much current Sino-American strategic competition. Beijing does not accept Washington's argument that US arms sales to Taiwan and US bases and alliances in Asia do not impede China's ascension to great power status. Washington finds it equally difficult to accept China's nine-dashed line claim in the South China Sea, support for outlaw regimes and apparent involvement in cyber theft and attacks as legitimate.Bilateral US–China discussions have not settled many significant strategic disagreements because both countries value attaining their preferences more than achieving consensus with a major strategic rival. The Concert could succeed if it could reverse these priorities but White does not explain how this would be achieved, except by saying that the United States and China should ‘give serious consideration’ to each other's views (p. 149). Shifting the format from bilateral talks to a four-party Concert would not solve these substantive problems. If anything, progress would be more difficult because negotiations would involve four governments instead of two. White puts the cart before the horse. Settlement of fundamental strategic issues is as much a prerequisite for establishing the Concert as an outcome of its work.

China Doesn’t Need Engagement

Appeasing isn’t necessary – China won’t challenge us nowRoy 13 – Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu who specialises in Asia-Pacific international security issues [Denny Roy, The Problem with Premature Appeasement, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Review Essay, Volume 55, Issue 3, 2013]

Too early to give inWhite's policy recommendation asks Washington to accept defeat prematurely. China has not yet caught up economically. Its gross domestic product is about half that of the United States. No serious military analyst suggests the PLA is a match for US military forces in the Pacific. If war broke out today, the most the Chinese could realistically aspire to would be to destroy a major US warship, while it would not be an unrealistic goal of US forces to sink the entire PLA Navy.Beijing's increasing confidence in challenging the US role in the AsiaPacific region is largely based on the expectation, which White shares, that present trends will continue and China's strength, relative to that of the United States, will increase. This expectation is certainly defensible, as China's faster rate of economic growth suggests it will overtake the United States in economic output in approximately a decade.21 With the world's largest economy, China would have the wherewithal to build strong military forces and wield unparalleled influence with its many trading partners, laying the foundation for its challenge to US supremacy in the Asia-Pacific. But this premise is highly controversial, and the obstacles that could prevent China from achieving such regional dominance are significant. Former US ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, one of the United States' foremost China experts, is among those who conclude that it is ‘foolish to postulate that the twenty-first century will belong to China’.22Over the next decade, China will face many internal obstacles to its rapid economic growth. The factors that have driven its expansion in the postMao era – chiefly an abundant supply of cheap labour and capital, alongside worldwide demand for Chinese exports – are diminishing. Many economists believe that Chinese economic growth will decrease to a rate closer to those of today's developed economies within a decade or two.23 The effect of Beijing's one-child policy will begin to impair the country's productive capacity. China's fertility rate has dropped to 1.4 births per woman: below the developed country rate of 1.7 and far below the population replacement level of 2.1. The majority of Chinese factory workers are between the ages of 20 and 24, and the number of people in this age bracket will decrease by 42% in 2010–30. This reduction in factory workforce will be compounded by an increasing number of young adults pursuing university studies. It is estimated that the number of people in this age bracket available for factory work will therefore soon shrink by around 50%. Additionally, national savings will decline as the population ages, and the number of Chinese over the age of 60 will double in 2010–30. During this period, the number of workers supporting each retiree will drop from five to two.24 To maintain the economy's growth, Chinese leaders must rebalance and restructure it to rely on innovation and domestic consumption rather than infrastructure investment and exports. Beijing is aware of the need for changes. Outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao famously said China's growth is ‘unbalanced, unsustainable and uncoordinated’.25 The Chinese Communist Party, however, is conservative and wary of social turmoil. The required changes would be opposed by powerful special interest groups and would roil much of Chinese society. The greater transparency and rule of law needed to boost entrepreneurship and innovation are implicit political challenges to Beijing's leadership. It is unclear whether China's rulers will be bold enough to fully implement the necessary reforms.China is a major economic and military power. It is not, however, strong enough to dominate the region. War with the United States would be so devastating that the Chinese leadership could not contemplate it unless a vital Chinese interest was under attack. China's continued ascension to a position of strength from which it could expect to prevail at acceptable cost in a regional conflict against US forces or against two or more of its neighbours is uncertain. It would be unwise for the United States to make large concessions to China to prevent a scenario that may not occur.

Hegemony Impacts

Heg Impact Module

China is the biggest threat to US global leadership- new, smarter containment strategies are crucial to prevent hostile challengers Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) In the aftermath of the American victory in the Cold War and the dissolution of containment, U.S. policymakers have struggled to conceptualize a grand strategy t hat would prove adequate to the nation’s new circumstances beyond the generic desire to protect the liberal international order underwritten by American power in the postwar era. Though the Department of Defense during the George H.W. Bush administration presciently contended that its “strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor”—thereby consciously pursuing the strategy of primacy that the United States successfully employed to outlast the Soviet Union— there was some doubt at the time whether that document reflected Bush 41 policy.5 In any case, no administration in Washington has either consciously or consistently pursued such an approach. To the contrary, a series of administrations have continued to implement policies that have actually enabled the rise of new competitors, such as China, despite the fact that the original impulse for these policies—the successful containment of the Soviet Union—lost their justification with the demise of Soviet power. Because the American effort to “integrate” China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia— and could eventually result in a consequential challenge to American power globally —Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy. This strategy cannot be built on a bedrock of containment, as the earlier effort to limit Soviet power was, because of the current realities of globalization. Nor can it involve simply jettisoning the prevailing policy of integration. Rather, it must involve crucial changes to the current policy in order to limit the dangers that China’s economic and military expansion pose to U.S. interests in Asia and globally. These changes, which constitute the heart of an alternative balancing strategy, must derive from the clear recognition that preserving U.S. primacy in the global system ought to remain the central objective of U.S. grand strategy in the twenty-first century. Sustaining this status in the face of rising Chinese power requires, among other things, revitalizing the U.S. economy to nurture those disruptive innovations that bestow on the United States asymmetric economic advantages over others; creating new preferential trading arrangements among U.S. friends and allies to increase their mutual gains through instruments that consciously exclude Chin a ; recreating a technology-control regime involving U.S. allies that prevents China from acquiring military and strategic capabilities enabling it to inflict “high-leverage strategic harm” on the United States and its partners; concertedly building up the power-political capacities of U.S. friends and allies on China’s periphery; and improving the capability of U.S. military forces to effectively project power along the Asian rimlands despite any Chinese opposition—all while continuing to work with China in the diverse ways that befit its importance to U.S. national interests. The necessity for such a balancing strategy that deliberately incorporates elements that limit China’s capacity to misuse its growing power, even as the United States and its allies continue to interact with China diplomatically and economically, is driven by the likelihood that a long-term strategic rivalry between Beijing and Washington is high. China’s sustained economic success over the past thirty-odd years has enabled it to aggregate formidable power, making it the nation most capable of dominating the Asian continent and thus undermining the traditional U.S. geopolitical objective of ensuring that this arena remains free of hegemonic control. The meteoric growth of the Chinese economy, even as China’s per capita income remains behind that of the United States in the near future, has already provided Beijing with the resources necessary to challenge the security of both its Asian neighbors and Washington’s influence in Asia, with dangerous consequences. Even as China’s overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth slows considerably in the future, its relative growth rates are likely to be higher than those of the United States for the foreseeable future, thus making the need to balance its rising power important. Only a fundamental collapse of the Chinese state would free Washington from the obligation of systematically balancing Beijing, because even the alternative of a modest Chinese stumble would not eliminate the dangers presented to the United States in Asia and beyond. Of all nations—and in most conceivable scenarios—China is and will remain the most significant competitor to the United States for decades to come.6 China’s rise thus far has already bred geopolitical, military,

economic, and ideological challenges to U.S. power, U.S allies, and the U.S.-dominated international order. Its continued, even if uneven, success in the future would further undermine U.S. national interests. Washington’s current approach toward Beijing, one that values China’s economic and political integration in the liberal international order at the expense of the United States’ global preeminence and long-term strategic interests, hardly amounts to a “grand” strategy, much less an effective one. The need for a more coherent U.S. response to increasing Chinese power is long overdue. (4-6)

Hegemony solves a laundry list of impacts –regional war, economic collapse, prolif Brooks and Wohlforth, PhDs, 16(Stephen G, Associate Professor of Government @Dartmouth, William C, Daniel Webster Prof of Government @Dartmouth, May/June, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-13/once-and-future-superpower?cid=nlc-fatoday-20160520&sp_mid=51424540&sp_rid=c2NvdHR5cDQzMUBnbWFpbC5jb20S1&spMailingID=51424540&spUserID=MTg3NTEzOTE5Njk2S0&spJobID=922513469&spReportId=OTIyNTEzNDY5S0) Given the barriers thwarting China’s path to superpower status, as well as the low incentives for trying to overcome them, the future of the international system hinges most on whether the United States continues to bear the much lower burden of sustaining what we and others have called “deep engagement,” the globe-girdling grand strategy it has followed for some 70 years. And barring some odd change of heart that results in a true abnegation of its global role (as opposed to overwrought, politicized charges sometimes made about its already having done so), Washington will be well positioned for decades to maintain the core military capabilities, alliances, and commitments that secure key regions, backstop the global economy, and foster cooperation on transnational problems . The benefits of this grand strategy can be difficult to discern, especially in light of the United States’ foreign misadventures in recent years. Fiascos such as the invasion of Iraq stand as stark reminders of the difficulty of using force to alter domestic politics abroad. But power is as much about preventing unfavorable outcomes as it is about causing favorable ones, and here Washington has done a much better job than most Americans appreciate. For a largely satisfied power leading the international system, having enough strength to deter or block challengers is in fact more valuable than having the ability to improve one’s position further on the margins. A crucial objective of U.S. grand strategy over the decades has been to prevent a much more dangerous world from emerging, and its success in this endeavor can be measured largely by the absence of outcomes common to history: important regions destabilized by severe security dilemmas, tattered alliances unable to contain breakout challengers, rapid weapons proliferation, great-power arms races, and a descent into competitive economic or military blocs. Were Washington to truly pull back from the world , more of these challenges would emerge, and transnational threats would likely loom even larger than they do today. Even if such threats did not grow, the task of addressing them would become immeasurably harder if the United States had to grapple with a much less stable global order at the same time. And as difficult as it sometimes is today for the United States to pull together coalitions to address transnational challenges, it would be even harder to do so if the country abdicated its leadership role and retreated to tend its garden, as a growing number of analysts and policymakers—and a large swath of the public—are now calling for.

Competing with China prevents Global War

Loss of super power competition with China causes global war Cohen, PhD Harvard, 13(Eliot, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Carey Business School, both at the Johns Hopkins University, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324196204578300262454939952 3-19)In Mr. Obama's second term the limits of such withdrawal from conventional military commitments abroad will be tested. In East Asia, an assertive China has bullied the Philippines (with which the U.S. has a 61-year-old defense pact) over the Spratly islands, and China has pressed its claims on Japan (a 53-year-old defense pact) over the Senkaku Islands. At stake are territorial waters and mineral resources— symbols of China's drive for hegemony and an outburst of national egotism . Yet when Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister of an understandably anxious Japan, traveled to Washington in February, he didn't get the unambiguous White House backing of Japan's sovereignty that an ally of long standing deserves and needs. In Europe, an oil-rich Russia is rebuilding its conventional arsenal while modernizing (as have China and Pakistan) its nuclear arsenal. Russia has

been menacing its East European neighbors, including those, like Poland, that have offered to host elements of a NATO missile-defense system to protect Europe. In 2012, Russia's then-chief of general staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, declared: "A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens." This would be the same Russia that has attempted to dismember its neighbor Georgia and now has a docile Russophile billionaire, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, to supplant the balky, independence-minded government loyal to President Mikhail Saakashvili. In the Persian Gulf, American policy was laid down by Jimmy Carter in his 1980 State of the Union address with what became the Carter Doctrine: "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." America's Gulf allies may not have treaties to rely upon—but they do have decades of promises and the evidence of two wars that the U.S. would stand by them. Today they wait for the long-promised (by Presidents Obama and George W. Bush) nuclear disarmament of a revolutionary Iranian government that has been relentless in its efforts to intimidate and subvert Iran's neighbors. They may wait in vain. Americans take for granted the world in which they grew up—a world in

which, for better or worse, the U.S. was the ultimate security guarantor of scores of states, and in many ways the entire international system. Today we are informed by many politicians and commentators that we are weary of those burdens—though what we should be weary of, given that our children aren't conscripted and our taxes aren't being raised in order to pay for those wars, is unclear. The truth is that defense spending at the rate of 4% of gross domestic product (less than that sustained with ease by Singapore) is eminently affordable. The arguments against far-flung American strategic commitments take many forms. So-called foreign policy realists, particularly in the academic world, believe that the competing interests of states tend automatically toward balance and require no statesmanlike action by the U.S. To them, the old language of force in international politics has become as obsolete as that of the "code duello," which regulated individual honor fights through the early 19th century. We hear that international institutions and agreements can replace national strength. It is also said—covertly but significantly—that the U.S. is too dumb and inept to play the role of security guarantor. Perhaps the clever political scientists, complacent humanists, Spenglerian declinists, right and left neo-isolationists, and simple doubters that the U.S. can do anything right are correct. Perhaps the president should concentrate on nation-building at home while pressing abroad only for climate-change agreements, nuclear disarmament and an unfettered right to pick off bad guys (including Americans) as he sees fit. But if history is any guide, foreign policy as a political-science field experiment or what-me-worryism will yield some ugly results. Syria is a harbinger of things to come. In that case, the dislocation, torture and death have first afflicted the locals. But it will not end there, as incidents on Syria's borders and rumors of the movement of chemical weapons suggest. A world in which the U.S. abnegates its leadership will be a world of unrestricted self-help in which China sets the rules of politics and trade in Asia, mayhem and chaos is the order of the day in the Middle East, and timidity and appeasement paralyze the free European states. A world, in short, where the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must, and those with an option hurry up and get nuclear weapons.

Heg Good

Hegemony solves war, terrorism, climate Brooks and Wohlforth, PhDs, 16(Stephen G, Associate Professor of Government @Dartmouth, William C, Daniel Webster Prof of Government @Dartmouth, May/June, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-13/once-and-future-superpower?cid=nlc-fatoday-20160520&sp_mid=51424540&sp_rid=c2NvdHR5cDQzMUBnbWFpbC5jb20S1&spMailingID=51424540&spUserID=MTg3NTEzOTE5Njk2S0&spJobID=922513469&spReportId=OTIyNTEzNDY5S0) Lasting preeminence will help the United States ward off the greatest traditional international danger, war between the world’s major powers. And it will give Washington options for dealing with nonstate threats such as terrorism and transnational challenges such as climate change . But it will also impose burdens of leadership and force choices among competing priorities, particularly as finances grow more straitened. With great power comes great responsibility, as the saying goes, and playing its leading role successfully will require Washington to display a maturity that U.S. foreign policy has all too often lacked.

Push for Heg Inevitable

Push For Hegemony Inevitable

Policy makers won’t give up the drive for Asian hegemonySwaine, PhD Harvard, 15(Michael D, expert in China and East Asian security studies and a Senior Associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/04/20/beyond-american-predominance-in-western-pacific-need-for-stable-u.s.-china-balance-of-power/i7gi, 4-20)On the U.S. side, first and foremost is the general refusal of most if not all U.S. decisionmakers and officials to contemplate an alternative to U.S. military predominance in this vital region. Such maritime predominance has arguably served Washington and most of the region well for many decades, and it accords with the deepseated notion of American exceptionalism, which prescribes a dominant U.S. leadership role throughout the world. In addition, the shortterm perspective, natural inertia, and risk avoidance of bureaucrats and policy communities in Washington (and elsewhere) militate against major shifts in policy and approach, especially in the absence of an urgent and palpable need for change. Indeed, it is extremely difficult for any major power, much less a superpower, to begin a fundamental strategic shift in anticipation of diminished relative capabilities before that diminishment fully reveals itself. In the Western Pacific in particular, with regard to both U.S. ISR activities along the Chinese coast and the larger U.S. military presence within the first island chain, the United States Navy and many U.S. decisionmakers are wedded to the notion that American power (and in particular naval power) must brook no limitation in areas beyond a nation’s 12nauticalmile territorial waters and airspace. This derives in part from the belief that any constraints on U.S. naval operations will lead to a cascade of coastal states challenging the principle of U.S. maritime freedom of action and to possible reductions in the level of resources and the scope of operations available to support U.S. naval power. Moreover, the specific U.S. desire to maintain a strong naval presence along China’s maritime periphery reflects a perceived need to acquire more accurate intelligence regarding Beijing’s growing offshore air and naval capabilities. Such a presence is also viewed as essential to sustaining U.S. credibility with Asian allies such as Japan and the Philippines, and to the maintenance of deterrent capabilities against a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan. This combination of service interests, intelligence needs, and perceived security requirements reinforces the general U.S. bias in favor of continued maritime predominance. However, an inevitable Chinese refusal to accept that predominance over the long term will be expressed first and foremost in opposition to the past level of U.S. naval activities along the Chinese coastline, that is, within China’s EEZ at the very least, and possibly within the entire first island chain.

2NC Blocks/Answers To

AT: Allies Won’t Support

Allies demand US confrontation with ChinaBlackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) Fifth, critics may also say that the United States’ Asian allies and friends will never go along with the grand strategy outlined in this document. This concern seems to concentrate not on the merits of our strategic approach, but rather on its reception in the region. In any case, what the allies want is not to cut ties with China, but rather increased U.S. capabilities in the region, increased reassurance of American protection, and increased U.S. support for their own economic growth and security. The grand strategy outlined in this report advances all of these objectives. Moreover, it is difficult to exaggerate the current anxiety among virtually all Asian nations about the strategic implications of the rise of Chinese power, recent examples of PRC aggressiveness in the East and South China Seas, and the conviction that only the United States can successfully deter Beijing’s corrosive strategic ambitions . Because of PRC behavior, Asian states have already begun to balance against China through greater intra-Asian cooperation—actions that are entirely consistent with and only reinforce our U.S. grand strategy. Indeed, the worry across Asia today is not that the United States will pursue overly robust policies toward China; rather, it is that Washington is insufficiently aware of Beijing’s ultimate disruptive strategic goals in Asia, is periodically attracted to a G2 formula, and may not be up to the challenge of effectively dealing with the rise of China over the long term . These deeply worried views across Asian governments are fertile ground on which to plant a revised U.S. grand strategy toward China. Moreover, a close examination of the specific policy prescriptions in this study reveal few that would not be welcomed by the individual nations of Asia to which they apply. Although this major course correction by the United States toward China would not gain allied endorsement overnight, with sustained and resolute U.S. presidential leadership and the immense leverage the United States has with its Asian allies and friends , this is not too steep a strategic hill to climb , especially given the profound U.S. national interests at stake across Asia. Finally, nothing in this grand strategy requires the United States and its allies to diminish their current economic and political cooperation with China. Rather, the emphasis is on developing those U.S. and allied components that are ultimately necessary to make this cooperation sustainable. In other words, if the balance of power alters fundamentally, U.S. and Asian economic cooperation with China could not be maintained. (36-7)

Regional players like Vietnam fear China enough to cooperatePerlez, Award Winning Journalist, 16(Jane, chief diplomatic correspondent in the Beijing bureau , http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/world/asia/access-to-bay-adds-enticement-as-us-weighs-lifting-vietnam-embargo.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&_r=0 )Vietnam’s government, pressed by an ever more powerful China, knows it cannot stand up to Beijing alone and is cautiously moving toward increased ties with the United States. Despite their shared Communist ideology, Vietnam and China fought over islands in the South China Sea in the 1970s and ’80s. Two years ago, China sent an oil rig into disputed waters close to the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both countries, leading to clashes at sea and anti-Chinese riots in Vietnamese cities. More recently, China has built artificial islands with military runways in the South China Sea just 300 miles from the Vietnamese coast. Vietnam’s needs dovetail with those of the U nited States, which has been encouraging maritime states in Southeast Asia to better defend themselves, an effort partly aimed at keeping the United States from being dragged into a direct naval conflict with China. The prospect of access to Cam Ranh Bay, where the Vietnamese have built a new international port, provides another enticement for lifting the ban. An American presence there would allow United States forces to use the port on the western edge of the South China Sea, complementing American facilities in the Philippines on the sea’s eastern edge. “If the United States can get regular access to Cam Ranh Bay, it would be very advantageous to maintaining the balance of power with China,” said Alexander L. Vuving, a Vietnam specialist at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. “If something happens in the South China Sea, it takes a while for the U.S. to get there. China can get there more quickly.”

AT: Chinese Backlash

Chinese backlash would be limited, and would reinforce US alliances in the region Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) Finally, the question arises regarding how China will respond to the U.S. grand strategy recommended here. Are not the risks of pursuing this grand strategy too great? One could certainly expect a strong Chinese reaction and a sustained chill in the bilateral relationship, including fewer meetings among senior officials, little progress on bilateral economic issues, less opportunities for American business in China, reduced military-to-military interaction, a reduction in societal interchange, and perhaps fewer Chinese students in American universities. (We dismiss the likelihood that China would respond to the measures recommended in this report by selling off its U.S. bond holdings because of the consequential reduction in their value.) These steps by Beijing would not be trivial but also would not threaten vital U.S. national interests. If China went further in its policy as opposed to reacting

rhetorically, the more aggressive Beijing’s policy response and the more coercive its actions, the more likely that America’s friends and allies in Asia would move even closer to Washington . We do not think that China will find an easy solution to this dilemma. Moreover, it is likely that Beijing would continue to cooperate with the United States in areas that it thinks serve China’s national interests—on the global economy, international trade, climate change, counterterrorism, the Iranian nuclear weapons program, North Korea, and post-2016 Afghanistan. Put differently, we do not think the Chinese leadership in a fit of pique—hardly in China’s strategic tradition— would act in ways that damage its policy purposes and its reputation around Asia. In short, this strategic course correction in U.S. policy toward China would certainly trigger a torrent of criticism from Beijing because it would begin to systemically address China’s goal of dominating Asia and produce a more cantankerous PRC in the UN Security Council, but it would not end many aspects of U.S.-China international collaboration based on compatible national interests . Although there are risks in following the course proposed here, as with most fundamental policy departures, such risks are substantially smaller than those that are increasing because of an inadequate U.S. strategic response to the rise of Chinese power In any case, there is no reason why a China that did not seek to overturn the balance of power in Asia should object to the policy prescriptions contained in this report. And which of the policy prescriptions would those who wish to continue the current prevailing U.S. approach to China—that is, cooperation—reject? In short, these measures do not “treat China as an enemy” as some American analysts rightfully warn against; rather, they seek to protect vital U.S. and allied national interests, a reasonable and responsible objective. Washington simply cannot have it both ways—to accommodate Chinese concerns regarding U.S. power projection into Asia through “strategic reassurance” and at the same time to promote and defend U.S. vital national interests in this vast region. It is, of course, the second that must be at the core of a successful U.S. grand strategy toward China. (37-8)

AT: China Collapse

China spreads fear of collapse to reduce international resistance Pillsbury, PhD, 15(Michael, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hundred-year-marathon-excerpt-2015-2 2-9)In 1996, I was part of a U.S. delegation to China that included Robert Ellsworth, the top foreign policy adviser to the Republican presidential nominee, Robert Dole. In what appeared to be a forthright exchange of views with Chinese scholars, we were told that China was in serious economic and political peril — and that the potential for collapse loomed large. These distinguished scholars pointed to China’s serious environmental problems, restless ethnic minorities, and incompetent and corrupt government leaders — as well as to those leaders’ inability to carry out necessary reforms. I later learned that the Chinese were escorting other groups of American academics, business leaders, and policy experts on these purportedly “exclusive” visits, where they too received an identical message about China’s coming decline . Many of them then repeated these “revelations” in articles, books, and commentaries back in the United States. Yet the hard fact is that China’s already robust GDP is predicted to continue to grow by at least 7 or 8 percent, thereby surpassing that of the United States by 2018 at the earliest, according to economists from the

International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United Nations. Unfortunately, China policy experts like me were so wedded to the idea of the “coming collapse of China” that few of us believed these forecasts. While we worried about China’s woes, its economy more than doubled .

2NC “Congagement”

Engagement with balancing isn’t enough- failed for 20 years Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, https://www.iiss.org/en/politics%20and%20strategy/blogsections/2015-932e/may-7114/debate-over-us-china-strategy-f18a)AF: My starting position for this is to observe that over the last 20 years or so the United States, across Republican and Democratic administrations, has had a pretty consistent strategy for dealing with China. There have been variations, but the

basic strategy has combined two elements: the need to engage in diplomacy, trade, scientific–educational cooperation and so on; and balancing – efforts to maintain a balance of military power in the Asia-Pacific region that favours the interests of the United States and its

allies. Where there has been variation it has been a matter of emphasis and degree , rather than a fundamental shift. What has happened over the last five or six years, I think, is that that mixed strategy has begun to be called increasingly into question, from a variety of different angles. China’s capabilities are growing. It is wealthier than ever, it is more powerful militarily than it has ever been, and it is starting to assert itself more in its

neighbourhood and on the global stage, including in ways which are perceived by many people in the region, as well as in

the United States and elsewhere, as potentially threatening to stability. The engagement side of US strategy, I think, was ultimately intended to encourage China’s leaders to see their interests as lying in upholding the existing international system, rather than challenging it. It was also intended, at least originally – we haven’t talked about this so much in

recent years – to encourage political liberalisation in China. What has happened is that people have begun to realise that, at least for the moment, China is not liberalising. To some extent, under the new leadership China has gotten tougher and more ideological than it was a few years ago. In part because of these more assertive behaviours, it has become increasingly difficult to sustain the view that China just wants to become a member in good standing of the international system. It wants to change some things, starting with its own neighbourhood – in particular maritime disputes, but also US alliances.

2NC AT: Confucian Pacifism

China is realist- no Confucian pacifism Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)Many Chinese believe that there will not be trouble in Asia because China is a Confucian culture. This is what I called the Confucian Pacifism argument; and the argument is that China has historically not behaved in an aggressive way towards its neighbors. It’s behaved in a Confucian way, which is to say that it has behaved very defensively. It’s not been aggressive at all; and to the extent that China has been involved in wars, it’s due to aggression on the part of its

neighbors. In other words, China is always the good guy, and its adversaries in wars are always the bad guys. This is a lot like “American Exceptionalism,” right? Americans believe that they’re almost always the good guy, and it’s the other side that is the bad

guy. We tend to see the world in very black and white terms, where we’re the white hats and the other side is the black hats. The same thing is true with Confucian Pacifism. It’s basically a story that says, you know, the Chinese are the white hats. The fact is if you look at Chinese history, what you see is that the Chinese have behaved ,

over time, much like the European great powers, the United States, and the Japanese. They have behaved very aggressively whenever they can; and when they have not behaved aggressively, it’s largely because they didn’t have the military capability to behave aggressively. But the idea that China is a country that has not acted according to the dictates of realpolitik and has always been the victim, not the victimizer, is clearly contradicted by the historical record. China is like everybody else.

AT: Democratization Engagement not democratizing ChinaPillsbury, PhD, 15(Michael, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hundred-year-marathon-excerpt-2015-2 2-9)China has certainly changed in the past thirty years, but its political system has not evolved in the ways that we advocates of engagement had hoped and predicted. The idea that the seeds of democracy have been sown at the village level became the conventional wisdom among many China watchers in America . My faith was first shaken in 1997, when I was among those encouraged to visit China to witness the emergence of “democratic” elections in a village near the industrial town of Dongguan. While visiting, I had a chance to talk in Mandarin with the candidates and see how the elections actually worked. The unwritten rules of the game soon became clear: the candidates were allowed no pubic assemblies, no television ads, and no campaign posters. They were not allowed to criticize any policy implemented by the Communist Party, nor were they free to criticize their opponents on any issue. There would be no American-style debates over taxes or spending or the country’s future. The only thing a candidate could do was to compare his personal qualities to those of his opponent. Violations of these rules were treated as crimes .

2NC AT: Deterrence Checks

Nuclear weapons don’t make war impossible, they funnel it into proxy wars Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)The existence of nuclear weapons makes it virtually impossible for the United States and China to end up fighting World War III, in other words, a large conventional war. I think that the presence of nuclear weapons makes that one scenario impossible; but I do think it’s possible that the United States and China could end up in a limited war over, let’s say, Taiwan, over Korea, over the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, or over a series of islands in the South China Sea. These are more limited conflicts, and I think that nuclear weapons do not make them impossible . So I think that nuclear weapons are a force for peace between the United States and China in the sense that they rule out World War III; but there are all sorts of other kinds of war, more limited in nature, that I believe are not ruled out by the presence of nuclear weapons. And I would note to support this that during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union both had thousands of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, they maintained large conventional forces, and they even thought about fighting a conventional war in the heart of Europe.

AT: Deterrence Fails SQ Is reverse goldilocks- we make deterrent threats but don’t follow through which encourages Chinese aggression Bosco, JD LLM Harvard, 15(Joseph, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as China country desk officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and taught a graduate seminar on US-China-Taiwan relations at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service http://nationalinterest.org/feature/deterrence-delayed-time-get-tough-china-13543?page=2 8-11)Deferred deterrence is a lot like deferred maintenance—when we finally get around to doing what needs to be done, the cost is almost always higher than it would have been with timelier action. That is happening now with U.S.-China relations, which under the best of circumstances require constant vigilance. The first issue is China's stunningly lawless claim of sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea. When the claim was limited to the rhetorical and diplomatic realm, Washington responded in an appropriately measured manner. It noted the invalidity of Chinese overreach under international law, the need for multilateral negotiations and peaceful mechanisms for dispute resolution, and the inviolability of rights of navigation and overflight. But when Beijing ignored those diplomatic and legalistic appeals and proceeded to implement its territorial ambitions over a year ago by building artificial islands—creating not only facts on the ground but actual new ground—it became necessary to push back by peacefully but firmly exercising navigational and overflight rights. This summer, the United States did send a reconnaissance flight over the area and wisely invited CNN to record the public and transparent challenge in accordance with international norms. But nothing was done to assert navigational freedom, which is the most relevant mode of trade access for countries in the region. That passivity unfortunately continues months later. If the U.S. Navy has made some secret passage through those waters, it would be an ineffective gesture; lack of transparency defeats the international law and public diplomacy purposes of the Freedom of Navigation (FON) program. With each day that passes without U.S. ships steaming within twelve miles of China's man-made islands, and declaring the transits, the perception grows that Chinese claims are being grudgingly accepted by the international community—that is, by the United States, it's most important member. Beijing can only be satisfied with the current state of play. If and when the United States does make its FON challenge, it will carry more confrontational baggage than would have been the case had it occurred at or around the same time as the overflight. (An alternative scenario would be a Beijing-Washington arrangement whereby China "allows" the United States to make its symbolic transit in exchange for some diplomatic or other concession in the relationship, such as a reduction in reconnaissance flights near China, a muting of criticism on human rights, or some deliverable for Xi Jinping's September visit to Washington. That would be an unacceptable accession to China's aggressive behavior—some will call it appeasement—that would reward bad behavior and portend even more dire consequences for overall U.S.-China relations.) The other potentially explosive issue is the need for an effective response to the massive hacking of U.S. government personnel files that has been widely, but unofficially, attributed to China. In fact, David Sanger of the New York Times reports that “administration officials are under strict instructions to avoid naming China as the source of the attack." Doing so would require a U.S. response that then "could lead to an escalation of the hacking conflict between the two countries . . . [and] the downsides of any meaningful, yet proportionate, retaliation [might] outweigh the benefits." As the president's staff struggles to meet his request for "a creative set of responses," one senior official said "we need to be a bit more public about our responses, and one reason is deterrence." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, affirmed the urgency of the challenge, telling Congress the hacking problem would only get worse “until such time as we create both the substance and psychology of deterrence.” At present, the deterrence dynamic in both the South China Sea and cyber warfare situations is actually working against the United States because of fears over how China would respond. The psychology is working in a perverse, but not historically unfamiliar, way. The transgressing state, in this case China, by definition does not respect international norms. The aggrieved international community, represented here by the United States, is genetically programmed to emphasize peaceful, diplomatic solutions to challenges—and, at the same time, it fears that the offending party will react to sanctions or other retaliatory action by further lashing out. This is often described in the West as "irrational" behavior, but it is actually quite rational as long as there is no real price to be paid. As Director Clapper said about China's hacking feat, “You have to kind of salute the

Chinese for what they did." Unless Washington finally breaks the counter-deterrence cycle by taking decisive action in both the South China Sea and the hacking episode, there will be a lot more saluting of China for what it is getting away with.

2NC AT: Economic Interdependence

Empirics show interdependence doesn’t prevent war Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)Many people find it hard to believe that countries that engage in security competition also continue to trade with each other economically. But if you look at Europe before World War I— and, indeed, if you look at Europe before World War II, what you see is that there was a great deal of economic interdependence on the continent and with Britain before both world wars. So I believe that if China continues to grow economically, there will still be much economic intercourse between China and its neighbors and China and the United States. And I still think that you will have a lot of potential for trouble between these two countries. And don’t forget, even though you had all this economic intercourse between World War I and World War II, you still got World War I and you still got World War II. If you look at Europe before World War I, there were extremely high levels of economic interdependence between Germany and virtually all of its neighbors, certainly between Germany and Russia, Germany and France, and Germany and Britain, these were the main players. And despite this economic interdependence, these high levels of economic interdependence, you still got World War I. Another example would be the period before World War II. The Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. And for the previous two years, Germany and the Soviet Union— this is Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union— had been close allies in Europe. In fact, in September 1939 they had invaded Poland together and divided it up. So there was a great deal of economic intercourse between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 22 June, 1941. Nevertheless, that economic interdependence did not prevent World War II from escalating into a major war between Moscow and Berlin. And, in fact, there are all sorts of stories about the German forces invading the Soviet Union and passing trains that were going into the Soviet Union that were carrying German goods, and trains coming from the Soviet Union towards Germany that were carrying Soviet raw materials and some Soviet goods as well. So there was economic interdependence between Germany and the Soviet Union and yet you still got a war.

Politics Trump economics- especially for China Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)I’ve talked about the fact that I think China cannot rise peacefully, probably a hundred times; and the argument that is used against me most often is clearly the economic interdependence argument, and it goes like this: The United States and China, and China and its neighbors are all hooked on capitalism and everybody is getting rich in this world of great economic interdependence; and nobody in their right mind would start a war because you would, in effect, be killing the goose that lays the golden egg. So that what is happening here is that economic interdependence has created a situation where it’s a firm basis for peace. I think this is wrong. Let me explain. I think there’s no doubt that there are going to be certain circumstances where economic interdependence will be enough to tip the balance in favor of peace; but I think as a firm basis for peace, it won’t work because there will be all sorts of other situations where politics trumps economics. People who are making the economic interdependence argument are basically saying that economics trumps politics. There are no political differences that are salient enough, right, to override those economic considerations? Again, there will be cases where that’s true. But there will be many more cases, in my opinion, where political considerations are so powerful, so intense, that they will trump economic considerations. And just to give you an example or two. Taiwan: The Chinese have made it clear that if Taiwan were to declare its independence now,

they would go to war against Taiwan, even though they fully understand that that would have major negative economic consequences for Beijing. They understand that, but they would go to war anyway.

Why? Because from a political point of view, it is so important to make Taiwan a part of China, that they could not tolerate Taiwan declaring its independence. Another example is the conflict in the East China Sea

between Japan and China, over the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands. It is possible to imagine those two countries, China and Japan, actually ending up in a shooting match over a bunch of rocks in the East China Sea. How can this possibly be because it would threaten the economic prosperity of both countries? It would have all sorts of negative economic consequences. But the fact is, from the Chinese point of view and the Japanese point of view, these rocks are sacred territory . The politics of the situation are such that it is conceivable that should a conflict arise, it will escalate into a war because politics will trump economics.

2NC AT: Engagement Modifies Chinese Behavior/Liberalizes

Engagement won’t moderate China – their government uses it for asymmetric information warfare Eisenmen, PhD, 16(Joshua, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin's Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs and senior fellow for China studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/756 1-21)American policymakers' beliefs about China are rooted in their own preconceived views and experiences in China. Since Americans began visiting the PRC in the early 1970s, rosy assessments have become commonplace. As the Sinologist Robert Scalapino observed after his 1973 visit: There is serious risk that one may be badly misled by what one sees, hears, and instinctively feels [in China]. This is partly due to the tendency within all of us to superimpose our own values and cultural perspectives on another environment. Such tendency surely exists, and for some, it represents an ever-present bias. Their writings consequently reveal far more about their own views of their own social order than about China. Each individual, in any case, carries his prejudices with him in some measure, and he may well reinforce them as he goes.21 "Because China is so vast," James Palmer recently observed in the Washington Post, "its successes can be attributed to whatever your pet cause is.22 In short, Americans see what we want to see in China, and what we want to see most, argues Michael Pillsbury, is ourselves: "In our hubris, Americans love to believe that the aspirations of every other country is to be just like the United States. In recent years, this has governed our approach to Iraq and Afghanistan. We cling to the same mentality with China."23 American misunderstanding has been facilitated by Beijing's courting of influential Americans. China has done a better job at using engagement to improve American perceptions of China than America has done in changing Chinese perceptions of U.S. intentions . The Communist Party of China (CPC) uses bilateral engagement to assess U.S. capabilities, collect intelligence, and manipulate their American counterparts. Extensive economic, educational, scientific, cultural, and personal ties allow the CPC to build a large, loose coalition of Americans to carry the message that Beijing is Washington's indispensable partner.24 U.S. officials, however, are generally ignorant of CPC objectives and tactics toward them, collectively known as the United Front Doctrine. Americans interact with only a "thin outer crust" of Chinese policymakers.25 Each institution has an office that deals specifically with foreign visitors, and the party maintains dozens of front groups that conduct hundreds of interactions and conferences every year with Americans. The CPC's International Department's front organization is the China Center for Contemporary World Studies; the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs and the China Institute of International Relations are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' front groups; the Ministry of State Security's is the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, and so on. The CPC has also created entities specifically to conduct "host diplomacy" with Americans, including the Hong Kong–based China–United States Exchange Foundation, which "promotes the positions of the Chinese government through the research grants it gives to American institutions.26 These groups both observe Americans and work to influence their views through dialogues and the distribution of English-language propaganda with titles such as The Strength of Democracy: How Will the CPC March Ahead.27 Information asymmetry is a longstanding aspect of U.S.-China relations, but has become increasingly problematic since President Xi Jinping took power in 2011. In July 2015, China enacted new laws regulating all aspects of Chinese interaction with foreigners, including a national security law that covers every domain of public life in China—politics, military, education, finance, religion, cyberspace, ideology and religion. These initiatives are "aimed at exhorting all Chinese citizens and agencies to be vigilant about threats to the party.28 They help explain why Washington's engagement strategy has been unable to change party leaders' perceptions or successfully support moderates over hawks. The consequence of Americans knowing so little about the CPC and its strategies and tactics towards them is that many Americans continue to be badly misled by what they hear and see in China . The extensive U.S.-China engagement architecture has produced analytical limitations, or blind spots, within the U.S. policy community that if remain unaddressed are likely to produce the same types of intelligence failures that have occurred repeatedly in U.S.-China relations since 1911. The only way to redress these systemic deficiencies is to move beyond engagement and containment and adopt a nuanced strategy that prioritizes high quality human intelligence about Chinese leaders and policymaking and incorporates them effectively into U.S. policymaking towards China.

*this is a key piece of 2NC evidence you will want to read in just about every debate because it makes an epistemology argument to set up evidence comparison- aff engagement defenders are wrong/have blindspots about Chinese behavior

China won’t change through engagement- it gives them all the leverage Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) Because these twin expectations have not materialized, China’s rise as a new great power promises to be a troubling prospect for the United States for many years to come. China’s economic growth derives considerably from its participation in the multilateral trading system and the larger liberal international order more generally, but its resulting military expansion has placed Beijing’s economic strategy at odds with its political objective of threatening the guarantor of global interdependence, the United States. At the moment, China displays no urgency in addressing this conundrum, aware that its trading partners hesitate to pressure Beijing because of the potential for economic losses that might ensue . Given this calculation, Chinese leaders conclude that their country can continue to benefit from international trade without having to make any fundamental compromises in their existing disputes with other Asian states or their efforts to weaken U.S. power projection in Asia. (17)

Benefits from engagement will fuel military modernization and authoritarianism- not liberalization Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) The long-term U.S. effort to protect its vital national interests by integrating China into the international system is at serious risk today because Beijing has acquired the capacity, and increasingly displays the willingness , to pursue threatening policies against which American administrations have asserted they were hedging .

Nevertheless, these same U.S. policymakers have continued to interact with China as if these dangerous Chinese policies were only theoretical and consigned to the distant future. In short, successive administrations have done much more cooperating with China than hedging, hoping that Beijing would gradually come to accept the U nited States’ leading role in Asia despite all the evidence to the contrary, not least because cooperation was so much less costly in the short term than military, geoeconomic, and diplomatic hedging. China has indeed become a rapidly growing economy, providing wealth and welfare gains both for itself and for American citizens, but it has acquired the wherewithal to challenge the United States, endangering the security of its allies and others in Asia, and to slowly chip away at the foundations of the liberal international order globally. In other words, China has not evolved into a “responsible stakeholder” as then Deputy Secretary of

State Robert B. Zoellick called on it to become.37 Instead, in recent decades Beijing has used the benign U.S. approach to the rise of Chinese power to strengthen its domestic economy, and thus the CCP’s hold on power, to enhance its military capabilities and increase its diplomatic and geoeconomic sway in Asia and beyond, all while free-riding on the international order and public goods provided by the United States and its allies. (20)

Decades of engagement have failed to liberalize China- they’ve moved in the opposite direction Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US ChinaStrategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)The goals of this mixed strategy have been to ‘tame’ and ultimately to transform the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Through balancing, the United States aims to uphold its alliances and to preserve peace and stability by deterring aggression or attempts at coercion. At the same time, through engagement, Washington has sought to encourage China’s full incorporation into the existing international system, in the anticipation that its leaders will come to see their interests as lying in

preserving and strengthening that system rather than seeking to challenge or overthrow it. Although, in recent years, they have become somewhat more circumspect in stating this goal directly, since the early 1990s US policymakers have also continued to hope that, in time, China’s domestic political institutions would evolve toward something more closely resembling those of a liberal democracy. This is not a process to which the United States has sought to contribute directly, but rather one that it has attempted to encourage by indirect means, including the promulgation of ideas and, above all, the promotion of trade. Thus, since the early 1990s, one of the primary justifications for deepening economic engagement has been the claim that expanding trade and investment would accelerate growth, thereby hastening the emergence of a reform-minded Chinese middle class. Albeit with occasional shifts in rhetorical tone and emphasis, and comparatively minor adjustments in the blend of engagement and balancing, for the past quarter-century successive US administrations have continued to adhere to the same basic approach. In the last several years, however, questions have emerged about the adequacy and long-term durability of this strategy. While China is obviously far richer today than it was in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, it is no more democratic. Indeed, to the contrary, the elevation of Xi Jinping to the status of China’s paramount leader in 2012 has been accompanied by a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent, a further tightening of controls over access to the internet, and new restrictions on the activities of non-governmental organisations, especially those suspected of trying to strengthen civil society in order to promote human rights and social justice. Despite decades of deepening engagement, China appears, if anything, to have moved further away from meaningful political reform. Meanwhile, fuelled by rapid economic expansion, the nation’s military capabilities have grown to impressive dimensions. Among other developments, the deployment by China of so-called ‘anti-access/area-denial’ (A2/AD) forces has raised serious questions about the future willingness and, perhaps, the ability of the United States to project power into the Western Pacific. Especially in light of the fiscal constraints under which it now labours, it is not obvious that the United States can continue to play its accustomed role in preserving a favourable balance of power in East Asia. Finally, China’s recent behaviour, especially in disputes with several of its maritime neighbours, has caused some observers to re-examine the pleasing assumption that the country is fast on its way to becoming a status quo power. To the contrary, China’s assertion of the right to control most of the water, islands and resources off its coasts, and its new-found ability to use displays of power and threats of force to advance those claims, have shattered the illusion that it wants nothing more than to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the existing international order . In light of all these developments, analysts have begun to consider whether and, if so, how the prevailing approach should be adapted to meet changing circumstances. A survey of recent writing suggests that there are six possibilities presently on offer in public discussion, each involving a different mixture of the familiar elements that make up current strategy. As described more fully below, these can be arrayed along a spectrum ranging from renewed and redoubled efforts at engagement, to a virtually exclusive emphasis on balancing. (89-91)

2NC AT: Integration

China supports the liberal order for personal benefit only Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) The character of Beijing’s international involvement, therefore, suggests that its commitment to the current order is considerably instrumental . China is content to operate within that order to the degree that it receives material or status benefits , but it has no fundamental commitment to protecting that system beyond the gains incurred. At one level, this should not be surprising because, as Kissinger astutely noted, China is still “adjusting [itself] to membership in an international system designed in its absence on the basis of programs it did not participate in developing.”30 But, when all is considered, this ambivalence ultimately undermines American national interests and, most important, the premise on which the current U.S. strategy of integration is based: that China’s entry into the liberal order will result over time in securing its support for that regime, to include the avoidance of threats levied against its principal guardian, the United States.31 (16)

PRC Benefits O/W benefits to the US Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) Fourth, some may assert that China’s integration into the international system broadly serves important U.S. purposes, binds Beijing to a rules-based system and increases the costs to the PRC of going against it , and thus should trump other U.S. concerns about China’s internal and external behavior. We accept that integrating China into international institutions will continue and that the United States will accrue some benefits from that activity. Our argument is that basing U.S. grand strategy primarily on such Chinese global integration ignores the strategic reality that China has made far greater relative gains through such processes than the United States has over the past three decades, that China has accordingly increased its national power in ways that potentially deeply threaten U.S. national interests in the long term, and that therefore the United States needs to understand and internalize this disturbing fact and respond to such PRC international assimilation with much more robust American policies and power projection into Asia. (35-6)

AT: Reassurance

Chinese demands for reassurance are a smokescreen- engagement signals US weakness and invites Chinese aggression Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US ChinaStrategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)The claim that the United States needs to find ways to reassure China reflects a questionable reading of the dynamics of the current strategic competition, as well as what appears to be an overly benign interpretation of Beijing’s motivations and intentions. While it may be true that China’s leaders see their ongoing military build-up as in some sense ‘defensive’, this does not make it any less threatening to their neighbours or to the interests of the United States. Proposals for restraint rest on the belief that the United States and China are on the verge of an ‘arms race’. In fact, a competition is already well under way. As during the Cold War, the mechanical ‘action–reaction’ image grossly oversimplifies the character of the interactions between the two sides and points towards prescriptions that are likely to be unhelpful, and possibly dangerous . China’s leaders feel constrained and potentially threatened, not by any particular US weapons programme or operational concept, but by the presence of its forward-deployed forces, the persistence of its alliances and its continuing commitment to intervene on behalf of its friends if they are threatened or attacked. Beijing has had to live with these facts because, for many years, it lacked the means to challenge or change them. Today that is no longer the case. China now has the resources, as well as the resolve, to push back against American power, and it has started to do so. Many of its military-modernisation programmes appear to be aimed precisely at making it more difficult, costly and dangerous for the United States to continue to project power into the Western Pacific .

Unfortunately, at this point in the sequence of strategic interaction, China’s leaders are likely to interpret gestures of restraint not as an indication that a more aggressive approach is unnecessary, but rather as a sign that it is succeeding . Advocates of reassurance also likely overestimate the degree to which the leadership of the Communist Party of China is motivated by fear and insecurity about external, as opposed to possible internal, threats. The current cycle of Chinese ‘assertiveness’ did not begin when the United States was building up its forces in the Western Pacific, but rather when it seemed to be weak, preoccupied and in decline.43 While the initial announcement of the ‘pivot’ gave Beijing pause, the subsequent lack of follow-through has reinforced the view that the United States is constrained, at least for the time being.

Despite their protestations about ‘encirclement’, China’s leaders evidently believe that their more assertive stance is succeeding, rather than provoking an effective countervailing response from the United States and its allies.44 (103-4)

AT: Rudd- Unique Moment

Rudd lacks evidence that we have a unique moment for a China grand bargain Economy, PhD @Umich, 15(Elizabeth, senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/the-debate-on-u-s-china-relations-make-room-make-way-or-make-hay/ 5-23)Rudd’s argument is premised on his belief that Chinese President Xi Jinping is someone with whom the United States can work, that he is prepared to take calculated risks, and that there is now a window in China for Washington and Beijing to strike a grand bargain. According to Rudd, it is up to the United States to use this space as creatively as possible, while it lasts. While this is an appealing narrative, the report does not make clear why Rudd believes this. Rudd also leaves the reader hanging when he asserts that China will become a more active participant in the reform of the global rules-based order and that it will bring a “new, forthright Chinese voice in the world.” It would have been helpful had the prime minister explained whether this voice will mean more Air Defense Identification Zones or more Asian Infrastructure Investment Banks or both. The implications for the region are vastly different. There are also some off-putting notes. Rudd begins by announcing that the Chinese economy will continue to thrive, noting: “Sorry, but on balance, the Chinese economic model is probably sustainable.” It is an awkward pronouncement that assumes that Americans want the Chinese economy to fail—something very few Americans, in fact, desire. (What Americans do want is a thriving Chinese economy that offers a fair and open trade and investment environment.) While bold and fun to read, Rudd’s analysis of Xi’s presidency and the potential for significant new cooperation with the United States—should only the United States

seize the moment—ultimately falls short because it is difficult to find the evidence to support it. Xi may well have the political capital to strike a grand bargain, but Rudd’s faith in him notwithstanding, it remains unclear that he wants one.

2NC AT: Self-fulfilling Prophecy

China exploits western fears of self-fulfilling prophecy- must send clear signals to stop aggression in the short term Bosco, JD LLM Harvard, 16(Joseph, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as China country desk officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and taught a graduate seminar on US-China-Taiwan relations at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service http://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-expects-the-us-roll-over-15688 4-6)There is the risk of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the United States and Japan base their policies on the expectation of a powerful and aggressive China, and take preparatory measures that Beijing interprets as a containment strategy, China might decide to adopt aggressive policies to defend itself, leading to a cycle of armament and tension that neither side desired. China's leaders clearly understand this Western reticence and consistently exploit it to their advantage, pressing at each incrementally assertive point and expecting the West to exercise the necessary prudence to avoid confrontation and escalation. In the military and security areas, China has been deterred from direct aggression, but has advanced its interests using sophisticated forms of military coercion and simple gunboat diplomacy, as well as a wide range of nonmilitary activities. The paper repeats the conventional wisdom that China sees "the need for a peaceful international environment" in order to pursue its domestic economic development. But Beijing relies on an acquiescent and somewhat intimidated neighborhood to ensure the peace while it pursues its ambitious goals by means just short of outright war. The ink was hardly dry on the SPF report when fresh news arrived of an even more threatening move by China on its islands: the installation of anti-ship missiles that will constrain activities of the U.S. and Japanese navies among others. As the Obama and Abe administrations digest this important SPF report, they will hopefully recognize that the more powerful and aggressive China is already here . The future is now, and it is dire unless U.S. and Japanese policymakers send some strong deterrence and dissuasion messages to China, backed up by meaningful actions. At the very least, that means regular freedom of navigation and overflight operations in the East and South China Seas that actually challenge China's unlawful sovereignty claims—not merely innocent passages which effectively reinforce them.

AT: US-China Relations Good

Relationship can’t be revitalized- macro trends doom engagement Shambaugh, PhD Michigan, 15(David, professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University in Washington DC,[1] as well as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1819980/fundamental-shift-china-and-us-are-now-engaged-all-out?page=all , 6-12)The macro trajectory for the last decade has been steadily downward - punctuated only by high-level summits between the two presidents, which temporarily arrest the downward trajectory. This has been the case with the last four presidential summits. Occasionally, bilateral meetings like the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which will convene in Washington in two weeks' time, provide similar stabilisation and impetus for movement in specific policy sectors. But their effects are short-lived, with only a matter of months passing before the two countries encounter new shocks and the deterioration of ties resumes. The most recent jolts to the relationship, just a few months since Xi Jinping and Barack Obama took their stroll in the Zhongnanhai (the so-called Yingtai Summit), have been the escalating rhetoric and tensions around China's island-building in the South China Sea. Behind this imbroglio lies rising concerns about Chinese military capabilities, US military operations near China, and the broader balance of power in Asia. But there have been a number of other lesser, but not unimportant, issues that have recently buffeted the relationship in different realms - in law enforcement (arrests of Chinese for technology theft and falsification of applications to US universities), legal (China's draft NGO and national security laws), human rights (convictions of rights lawyers and the general repression in China since 2009), cyber-hacking (of the US Office of Personnel Management most recently) and problems in trade and investment. Hardly a day passes when one does not open the newspaper to read of more - and serious - friction. This is the "new normal" and both sides had better get used to it - rather than naively professing a harmonious relationship that is not achievable.

Relations are a farce- China only cooperates when it is in their interest- engagement builds them up for future confrontation Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) So long as the United States does not alter the intense “global codependency” that currently defines U.S.-China economic relations, China is content to maintain the current arrangement.32 China still seeks to cooperate with the United States whenever possible , but only when such collaboration is not unduly burdensome in the face of common interests, does not undercut its geopolitical ambitions to undermine U.S. primacy, and does not foreclose future options that might one day prove advantageous to China. Because China recognizes that its quest for comprehensive national power

is still incomplete, it seeks to avoid any confrontation with the United States or the international system in the near term. Rather, Beijing aims to deepen ties with all its global partners—and especially with Washington—in the hope that its accelerated rise and centrality to international trade and politics will compel others to become increasingly deferential to China’s preferences . Should such obeisance not emerge once China has successfully risen, Beijing would then be properly equipped to protect its equities by force and at a lower cost than it could today, given that it is still relatively weak and remains reliant on the benefits of trade and global interdependence. The fundamental conclusion for the United States, therefore, is that China does not see its interests served by becoming just another “trading state,” no matter how constructive an outcome that might be for resolving the larger tensions between its economic and geopolitical strategies . Instead, China will continue along the path to becoming a conventional great power with the full panoply of political and military capabilities, all oriented toward realizing the goal of recovering from the United States the primacy it once enjoyed in Asia as a prelude to exerting global influence in the future.(17)

Competition structures US-China relations- no cooperative era possible Blackwill, Senior Fellow @ CFR, and Tellis, PhD, 15(Robert, Former Ambassador to India, Ashley, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China March) In this same sense, there is no real prospect of building fundamental trust, “peaceful coexistence,” “mutual understanding,” a strategic partnership, or a “new type of major country relations” between the United States and China. Rather, the most that can be hoped for is caution and restrained predictability by the two sides as intense U.S.-China strategic competition becomes the new normal, and even that will be no easy task to achieve in the period ahead. The purpose of U.S. diplomacy in these dangerous circumstances is to mitigate and manage the severe inherent tensions between these two conflicting strategic paradigms, but it cannot hope to eliminate them. Former Australian Prime Minister and distinguished sinologist Kevin Rudd believes the Chinese may have come to the same conclusion: “There is emerging evidence to suggest that President Xi, now two years into his term, has begun to conclude that the long-term strategic divergences between U.S. and Chinese interests make it impossible to bring about any fundamental change in the relationship.”59 The Obama administration has clearly pursued a policy approach far different than the one recommended in this report. To be clear, this involves a more fundamental issue than policy implementation. All signs suggest that President Obama and his senior colleagues have a profoundly different and much more benign diagnosis of China’s strategic objectives in Asia than do we. Like some of its predecessors, the Obama administration has not appeared to understand and digest the reality that China’s grand strategy in Asia in this era is designed to undermine U.S. vital national interests and that it has been somewhat successful in that regard. It is for this overriding reason that the Obama team has continued the cooperate-but-hedge policy of its predecessors, but with much greater emphasis on cooperating than on hedging. Many of these omissions in U.S. policy would seem to stem from an administration worried that such actions would offend Beijing and therefore damage the possibility of enduring strategic cooperation between the two nations, thus the dominating emphasis on cooperation. That self-defeating preoccupation by the United States based on a long-term goal of U.S.-China strategic partnership that cannot be accomplished in the foreseeable future should end. (38-9)

AT: “Spillover”

Engagement doesn’t facilitate cooperation- empirics Pillsbury, PhD, 15(Michael, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hundred-year-marathon-excerpt-2015-2 2-9)For four decades now, my colleagues and I believed that “engagement” with the Chinese would induce China to cooperate with the West on a wide range of policy problems. It hasn’t. Trade and technology were supposed to lead to a convergence of Chinese and Western views on questions of regional and global order. They haven’t. In short, China has failed to meet nearly all of our rosy expectations. Take , for example, weapons of mass

destruction. No security threat poses a greater danger to the United States and our allies than their proliferation. But China has been less than helpful — to put it mildly — in checking the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran. In the aftermath of 9/11, some commentators expressed the belief that America and China would henceforth be united by the threat of terrorism, much as they had once been drawn together by the specter of the Soviet Union. These high hopes of cooperating to confront the “common danger” of terrorism, as President George W. Bush described it in his January 2002 State of the Union address, by speaking of “erasing old rivalries,” did not change China’s attitude. Sino-American collaboration on this issue has turned out to be quite limited in scope and significance.

AT: Swaine Swaine’s vision isn’t feasible, and ignores empirics Browne, Senior Correspondent, 15(Andrew, http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-china-be-contained-1434118534 6-12)So what, specifically, should America do? In one of the most hawkish of the recent think-tank reports, Robert D. Blackwill, a former U.S. deputy national security adviser and ambassador to India under President George W. Bush, and Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who also served on the National Security Council staff under President Bush, write that engagement with China has served to strengthen a competitor. It is time, they declare, for a new grand strategy: less engagement and more “balancing ” to ensure the “central objective” of continued U.S. global primacy. Among other things, America should beef up its military in Asia, choke off China’s access to military technology, accelerate missile-defense deployments and increase U.S. offensive cyber capabilities. For Michael D. Swaine, also of the Carnegie Endowment, this is a certain recipe for another Cold War, or worse. He outlines a sweeping settlement under which America would concede its primacy in East Asia, turning much of the region into a buffer zone policed by a balance of forces, including those from a strengthened Japan. All foreign forces would withdraw from Korea. And China would offer assurances

that it wouldn’t launch hostilities against Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province. Such arrangements, even if possible, would take decades to sort out. Meanwhile, warns David M. Lampton, a professor at the Johns Hopkins

University’s School of Advanced International Studies, U.S.-China ties have reached a tipping point. “Our respective fears are nearer to outweighing our hopes than at any time since normalization,” he said in a recent speech. The West has been in this position before. Optimism about the prospects of transforming an ancient civilization through engagement, followed by deep disillusion, has been the pattern ever since early Jesuit missionaries sought to convert the Chinese to Christianity. Those envoys adopted the gowns of the Mandarin class, grew long beards and even couched their gospel message in Confucian terms to make it more palatable. The 17th-century German priest Adam Schall got as far as becoming the chief astronomer of the Qing dynasty. But he fell from favor, and the Jesuits were later expelled.

2NC AT: US Imperialism

Past US action has already locked in Chinese threat perception Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)Many Americans think that because the United States is a democracy and it is a hegemon, that it is a benign hegemon. And those same Americans think that the rest of the world should view the Americans in those terms. They should see us as a benign hegemon. But that’s not the way most other countries around the world see us, and it’s certainly not the way the Chinese see us. The United States has fought six separate wars since the Cold War ended in 1989, the first of which was against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1991. Then we fought against Serbia over Bosnia in 1995, and again, in 1999 against Serbia, but this time over Kosovo. And then we went to war against Afghanistan in the wake of September 11th, and then in 2003, March 2003, we invaded Iraq. And in 2011 we went to war against Libya. So anyone who makes the argument that the United States is a peaceful country because its democratic, right, is confronted immediately with evidence that contradicts that basic claim. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the United States is addicted to war. We are not reluctant at all to reach for our six-shooter. And countries like China understand this. And when countries like China see the United States pivoting to Asia, and they see what our record looks like in terms of using military force since 1989. And when they think about the history of US-Chinese relations, when they think about the Open Door policy and how we exploited China in the early part of the 20th century. And when they think about the Korean War - most Americans don’t realize this, but we were not fighting the North Koreans during the Korean War, we were fighting the Chinese from 1950 to 1953. We had a major war, not with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but with China. China remembers all these things. So they do not view the United States as a benign hegemon. They view the United States as a very dangerous foe that is moving more and more forces to Asia and is forming close alliances with China’s neighbors. From Beijing’s point of view, this is a terrible situation.

2NC Epistemology

Aff engagement literature makes crucial mistaken assumptions about Chinese goals and behavior- you should heavily discount it Friedberg, PhD Harvard, 15(Aaron L, Prof of Politics and international affairs @Princeton, The Debate Over US ChinaStrategy Survival | vol. 57 no. 3 | June–July 2015 | pp. 89–110)The six strategies discussed here reflect differing assumptions about the sources of Chinese conduct and the likely impact of US behaviour upon it, as well as on the actions of other Asian nations. The first three options rest on what appear increasingly to be overly optimistic assessments of the likely extent of the ambitions of the current Communist regime and the degree to which it can be placated or appeased. As regards ‘enhanced engagement’, the notion that the regime wants nothing more than to be accepted as a full-fledged member of the prevailing American-led order does not comport well with the evidence of recent Chinese behaviour; it also reflects a certain lack of imagination and historical perspective. Rising powers typically want to change things for reasons of pride and prestige, as well as rational material calculation . Their leaders believe that prevailing structures, put into place when they were relatively weak, are inherently unfair and disadvantageous. But they also chafe against having to accept rules and roles that were designed by others; they want to make their own mark and to receive the deference to which they believe themselves entitled.41 In intensifying its claims to offshore waters and resources, Beijing has already made clear its desire to alter certain aspects of the status quo in Asia. The fact that it has not yet put forward a full-fledged alternative vision for global order is hardly surprising, and should not be mistaken for acceptance of the one that currently exists. The growth of China’s power has been so rapid in recent years that the nation’s strategists have only just begun to lift their eyes from their immediate neighbourhood and to think about how they might like the wider world to look someday.42 Instead of allowing themselves simply to be absorbed and transformed by the existing global system, as optimistic Western observers believe,

China’s leaders seem to have chosen to play within its rules for the time being, exploiting them to their advantage and pushing for marginal modifications wherever they can, while continuing to accumulate the wealth and power that will be needed to implement more far-reaching changes. Meanwhile, in its own neighbourhood, Beijing is already seeking to establish alternative structures, including regional trade agreements and new political mechanisms that serve its interests and enhance its influence, while marginalising the United States. An American strategy that continues to bank on the transformative potential of engagement may yet bear fruit, but only if it is accompanied by a programme of balancing sufficiently vigorous to defend the existing order and to compel China to continue to operate within its boundaries. (101-2)

Affirmative arguments rely on decades old, disprove ideas about China Mann, award winning journalist, 15(James, fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies and the author of three books about America and China https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/changing-the-rules-of-engagement/2015/09/17/d96c955a-5bd2-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html 9-17)This summer, President Obama offered a pithy description of the way that inertia sometimes prevents the United States from discarding old ideas that no longer fit current circumstances. “Sometimes we allow ourselves to be trapped by a certain way of doing things,” he said. “We don’t have to be imprisoned by the past. When something isn’t working, we can — and will — change.” The president was talking about Cuba. But he should also apply these words with equal force to U.S. policy toward China. As Washington prepares for a visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, American thinking about China seems stuck on concepts developed in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. Since that time, however, China has evolved in ways that

few, if any, in Washington saw coming. It has become more assertive overseas, more repressive at home and more mercantilist in its trade practices than was anticipated two decades ago. Back then, American leaders regularly predicted that trade and prosperity would produce a more open China, one that would ease into the existing international system created under U.S. leadership. Yet even as China moves in new directions, we use the mindset of the past when we talk about it. We continue to draw on ideas dating to Richard Nixon’s opening — even though it seems likely that Nixon himself, were he alive today, would take a much tougher stance toward China than he did in

1972. Several intellectual traps stand in the way of developing new approaches . The first is the notion of

“engagement.” This concept dates to the period after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when President George H.W. Bush resisted proposals to cut off all contact with Chinese leaders. Instead, he laid down a policy of engagement — meaning that his administration would meet with Chinese leaders in hopes of changing them. President Bill Clinton perpetuated the use of “engagement,” and it has become a catchphrase for conciliatory, non-punitive approaches to our differences . But it was never really clear what “engagement” sought, other than meetings and talk. And now, a quarter century after Tiananmen,

when no one suggests cutting off contact, “engagement” has lost whatever slight meaning it once held. Likewise,

those who resist any policy change frequently argue that, beginning with Nixon, eight presidents in a row have come around to roughly the same China policies — and that therefore these policies should not be altered. This idea also has a history. Since the Nixon era, several presidents — most notably Ronald Reagan and Clinton — have campaigned promising to change U.S. policy toward China, only to do an about-face in office. Yet the history isn’t so simple. Obama, for example, actually did a reverse about-face: He set out to avoid conflict, then toughened his approach after his first year in office. More fundamentally, as Obama’s words on Cuba recognize, what a series of predecessors have done does not answer what the United States should do when circumstances change. Nixon himself inherited a China policy carried out by his four immediate predecessors, but rightly reversed the policy. Then there are the recurrent calls for a “G-2.” It is sometimes proposed that China and the United States should reach a broad strategic accommodation allowing them, together, to guide the affairs of the world. This idea gained strength during the financial crisis, when China appeared to be the economically strongest partner for the United States. More recently, Xi’s repeated proposal for a “new type of major-power relationship” seems a variant of the old calls for a “Group of 2.” But such formulations overlook larger realities. They implicitly downgrade the interests of U.S. allies and friends (Japan, India, South Korea and the European Union, for starters) who would naturally feel threatened by the notion of the United States and China teaming up without them. They also ignore fundamental differences in values and political systems. Do advocates expect the United States to stay silent on issues such as China’s severe repression of dissent? The underlying reality is that the congruence of strategic interests that held the United States and China together in the late Cold War no longer exists. And the desire of the U.S. business community for trade and investment in China, which drove U.S. policy in the 1990s, has also been transformed: These days, U.S. businesses tend to come to the White House not to get help in expanding trade but looking for a tougher line on issues such as intellectual property and cybertheft. In this climate, efforts to perpetuate the old U.S.-China relationship seem increasingly out of touch. The truth is, the United States’ China policy is already changing at the working levels of government and at the grass-roots level, but our overriding ideas about this relationship have not kept pace. Over the next few years, a new U.S. policy toward China is sure to emerge, but it may do so gradually, from the bottom up. As it does, some simple concepts could be brought back into play. One is the idea that China should be treated by the same rules as other countries. Another is the notion of reciprocity: When China penalizes U.S. businesses or media, the United States should respond with similar limits on Chinese entities. We should develop a more businesslike approach, forsaking the dream that some personalized diplomacy or dramatic communiqué can bring back the special relationship of the past. The United States and China are in a new era. It’s time to develop policies and ideas that don’t try fruitlessly to replicate the past.

Chinese strategic culture favors deceptionPillsbury, PhD, 15(Michael, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hundred-year-marathon-excerpt-2015-2 2-9)In our hubris, Americans love to believe that the aspiration of every other country is to be just like the United States. In recent years, this has governed our approach to Iraq and Afghanistan. We cling to the same mentality with China. In the 1940s, an effort was funded by the U.S. government to understand the Chinese mind-set. One conclusion that emerged was that the Chinese did not view strategy the same way Americans did. Whereas Americans tended to favor direct action, those of Chinese ethnic origin were found to favor the indirect over the direct, ambiguity and deception over clarity and transparency. Another conclusion was that Chinese literature and writings on strategy prized deception. Two decades later , Nathan Leites, who was renowned for his psychoanalytical cultural studies, observed: Chinese literature on strategy from Sun Tzu through Mao Tse-tung has emphasized deception more than many military doctrines. Chinese

deception is oriented mainly toward inducing the enemy to act in expediently and less toward protecting the integrity of one’s own plans.

2NC Prodict

Best scholarship concludes engagement is doomed Shambaugh, PhD Michigan, 15(David, professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University in Washington DC,[1] as well as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1819980/fundamental-shift-china-and-us-are-now-engaged-all-out?page=all , 6-12)A qualitative shift in American thinking about China is occurring. In essence, the "engagement" strategy pursued since Nixon across eight administrations, that was premised on three pillars, is unravelling. The American expectation has been, first, as China modernised economically, it would liberalise politically; second, as China's role in the world grew, it would become a "responsible stakeholder" - in Robert Zoellick's words - in upholding the global liberal order; and

third, that China would not challenge the American-dominant security architecture and order in East Asia. The first premise is clearly not occurring - quite to the contrary, as China grows stronger economically , it is becoming more, not less, repressive politically. There are any number of examples, but political repression in China today is the worst it has been in the 25 years since Tiananmen. With respect to the other two, we are not

witnessing frontal assaults by China on these regional and global institutional architectures. But we are witnessing Beijing establishing a range of alternative institutions that clearly signal China's discomfort with the US-led postwar order .

Make no mistake: China is methodically trying to construct an alternative international order.

2NC Turn Shield

No turns- China spins all US policy as containment- collapse of engagement inevitable Kyung-Hoon, Beijing SW, 15(Kim, http://theconversation.com/challenging-the-chinese-containment-myth-42463 6-1) The United States is not trying to contain China’s rise. But you would never know it from reading Chinese domestic media, which overwhelmingly embraces this theor y to explain America’s resistance to China’s military and

territorial expansion in Asia. To regular readers of Chinese discourse, this containment narrative isn’t new. What is new is that it is spilling over into the English language information space, in places such as this article by Australia-based scholar Xu

Qinduo. It’s a positive sign that the two sides are talking more directly about their strategic fears. But the irony is that this popular misattribution of America’s motives may soon lead Washington to reconsider its engagement policy – to China’s detriment. Containment everywhere As part of an ongoing effort to understand how the Chinese frame matters of strategy, I recently analyzed over 500 translated documents reflecting Chinese internal discourse on regional

conflict. The single unifying narrative across all areas was the idea that the US is working to prevent China’s prosperity or “contain” China’s rise. Criticism of China’s cyber operations? “Containment.” US rebalance?

“Containment.” Pushback on land reclamation in the South China Sea? “Containment.” But to American strategists, “containment” has a very specific meaning: a comprehensive political, economic, and military strategy to deny an enemy nation freedom of access to the international system. Containment, when successful, leads to isolation and even political collapse. The simplest way to show that there is no US containment policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is to remember when there was. When you’re being contained, you know it During the 1950s and 1960s, Washington blocked PRC access to development loans, armed and trained ethnic insurgencies to destabilize its government, conducted intelligence overflights from Taiwan, and prevented Beijing from claiming a seat at the United Nations. Its partners and allies denied the PRC diplomatic recognition and sharply limited opportunities for trade, dialogue or cultural exchange. China remained a poor, isolated country with little political significance – much like North Korea or Cuba today. Chinese commentators like to remind their readers that today’s China is not the weak China of 40 years ago. Indeed it isn’t – neither China’s situation, nor US policy, bears any resemblance to that past. Last year alone, the United States imported US$466 billion in Chinese goods and welcomed more than 274,000 Chinese students to US universities. One out of every three foreign students now holds a Chinese passport. If training an entire generation of engineers, scientists and programmers is “containment,” it’s possibly the worst containment policy ever. America’s true motives revealed The containment narrative confuses a policy of preventing China’s prosperity with a policy of influencing China’s strategic choices. The US is not selfless, but for the past 40 years it has

been pursuing a policy of enlightened self-interest. Through engagement, the US seeks to shape China’s strategic culture away from conspiratorial, zero-sum thinking and toward shared responsibility . It puts constraints on the exercise of Chinese power because those constraints are the cost of admission to the system it created. It may criticize Chinese policies, but criticism is not containment. The worst that can be said is that the US has attempted to create structures (like the TransPacific Partnership) that are difficult for China to join, or infrastructure (like military bases in the Pacific) that would constrain Chinese options in a conflict. These may complicate China’s strategic calculations, but fundamentally don’t prevent it from pursuing its interests or achieving prosperity. A turn away from engagement? If the US isn’t attempting to contain China, why popularize the idea that it is? One reason is that it may be useful inside China to cultivate an enduring sense of victimhood. If you promote the idea that the US is set on thwarting China’s rise, then any pushback on China’s actions becomes proof of a covert hostility. But accommodating China’s expanding claims would hardly demonstrate US sincerity – only that it was forced recognize

China’s legitimate interests in the face of hard power. Inside the structure of this narrative, either confrontation or accommodation justifies further expansion and military capability. Faced with this dilemma, the danger for China is that US policymakers start to reexamine whether the logic of engagement still holds. For the first time in decades, American analysts are questioning America’s basic policy. “Washington is giving up on Beijing becoming a stakeholder in the present global order,” writes the Financial Times. “Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy,” say Robert Blackwill and Ashley J Tellis in a recent report for the Council on Foreign Relations. Even now, no one is seriously talking about containment. But a US decision to reconsider engagement as the foundation for future relations may be difficult to reverse, and could have a significant impact on China’s interests down the road. Tragically, China’s cultivated conspiracy could end up producing a much more hostile policy than the one that actually exists now.

Engagement can’t produce benefits fast enough to matter- even if they win their turns, our link outweighs on timeframe Rudd, Former Aussie PM, 2015(Kevin, PhD Focus in Chinese/China History, U.S.-China 21 The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping Toward a new Framework of Constructive Realism for a Common Purpose http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Summary%20Report%20US-China%2021.pdf April) China’s worldview, as for all nation-states, is deeply shaped by its past. In China’s case, this means one of the world’s oldest continuing civilizations, with a continuing written language and literary tradition over several thousand years. For China, the mark of history is profound, as are the scars of collective memory. This applies to China’s philosophical tradition; its core, continuing values; its historical experience of its neighbors and those which invaded it; and its cumulative perceptions over time of the United Kingdom, the United States and the collective, colonizing West. China also takes great pride in its civilizational achievements; the glories of its imperial past; and the resilience of its people across the millennia, celebrating the material and cultural achievements of the Han (汉) people. Within those achievements, China has also generated a self-referential body of philosophical thought and way of thinking (siwei 思 维) that does not readily yield to the epistemological demands and intellectual taxonomies of the Western academy. And within this philosophical system, Confucianism in its various forms lies at the core. Westerners may find Chinese public formulations arcane. But that is the way the Chinese system conducts its official discourse, in which case we have some responsibility to understand what these formulations really mean, rather than once again simply dismissing them as propaganda. Chinese intentions are shaped not simply by the deep value structures alive in Chinese tradition and in China’s modern political mind-set. They are also shaped by China’s national historiography – its narrative about its own place in history, as well as its historical account of its dealing with its neighbors, the phalanx of Western colonial powers eager to carve up its territory, and the United States. China’s lived experience of the outside world, as well as how it recalls that experience in the current period, exercises a profound impact on how China now views the world. The main thematics that emerge in China’s own account of its historical engagement with the world are as follows: First, China, at least over the last 500 years, has been the innocent party and did nothing by way of its own offensive actions against the West or Japan to provoke the imperial carve-up of its territory and its people in the modern period; • Second, China has therefore been the victim of international aggression, rather than a perpetrator, particularly during the so-called “century of foreign humiliation” from the First Opium War to the proclamation of the People’s Republic; • Third, Chinese national losses during the Japanese invasion and occupation were of staggering proportions even by global standards, explaining Beijing’s unique and continuing neuralgia toward Tokyo, both in terms of the official Japanese historical record of the war as a basis for any effective long-term reconciliation with Japan, and in terms of any evidence today of Japanese remilitarization or revanchism; • Fourth, Russia too has loomed large in the Chinese national memory and has been predominantly seen as a strategic adversary through most of its history, rather than as a strategic partner; • Fifth, throughout its past, right through to the present period, China’s national pre-occupations have been primarily, although not exclusively domestic: governing a quarter of humanity rather than dreaming of carving out even more territory for itself; • Sixth, China, after 150 years, has now regained its proper place in the community of nations, as a product of its own efforts to build national power, rather than depending on anybody else; and • Finally, Chinese leaders have a profound sense that China’s time has now come for China to have its own impact on the region and the world; but they are concerned that others (principally the United States) will now prevent it from doing so because this will challenge U.S. global dominance. The current relationship between the United States and China has been characterized privately by one Chinese interlocutor as one condemned to a future of " Mutually Assured Misperception. ” The report argues that there is considerable truth to this, as each side engages in

various forms of mirror imaging of the other. As another senior Chinese interlocutor said during the preparation of this report: The problem is the United States believes that China will simply adopt the same hegemonic thinking that the United States has done historically, as seen under the Monroe Doctrine and the multiple invasions of neighboring states in the Western Hemisphere that followed. Since the Second World War, there has barely been a day when the United States has not been engaged in a foreign war. As a result, the United States believes that China will behave in the same way. And this conclusion forms the basis of a series of recent policies towards China. Americans offer their own variations on the same theme concerning Chinese mirror imaging. Nonetheless, the report argues that Chinese leaders have begun to form a worrying consensus on what they believe to be the core elements of U.S. strategy towards China, despite Washington’s protestations to the contrary . These are reflected in the following five-point consensus circulated among the Chinese leadership during 2014, summarizing internal conclusions about U.S. strategic intentions: • To isolate China; • To contain China; • To diminish China; • To internally divide China; and • To sabotage

China’s leadership. While these conclusions sound strange to a Western audience, they nonetheless derive from a Chinese conclusion that the United States has not, and never will, accept the fundamental political legitimacy of the Chinese administration because it is not a liberal democracy . They are also based on a deeply held, deeply “realist” Chinese conclusion that the U.S. will never willingly concede its status as the pre-eminent regional and global power, and will do everything within its power to retain that position.

In Beijing, this assumption permeates perceptions of nearly all aspects of U.S. policy , from campaigns on human rights, political activism in Hong Kong, arms sales to Taiwan, and America’s failure to condemn terrorist attacks by Xinjiang separatists, to support for Falungong and the Dalai Lama. As a result, senior Chinese interlocutors conclude that the U.S. is effectively engaged in a dual strategy of undermining China from within, while also containing China from without. American arguments that U.S. policy toward China bears no comparison with the Cold War-era containment of the Soviet Union are dismissed by Chinese analysts. China points to the U.S. strategic decision to “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia as unequivocal evidence of this. Beijing also points to Washington’s de facto support for Japanese territorial claims in the East China Sea, and its alleged abandonment of neutrality on competing territorial claims in the South China Sea in support of the Philippines, Vietnam and other South-East Asian states at the expense of China, as further evidence of containment. Finally, China adds the most recent examples of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (which excludes China) and failed American efforts to dissuade its allies from joining the AIIB. All the above, as seen from Beijing, are designed to deny international space to China in policy domains ranging from hard security, to economics and trade diplomacy. The report notes that the U.S. disputes each of the above, and instead argues that Chinese foreign policy appears geared for an attempt to push the United States strategically out of Asia. It is against this unhappy background that, in 2013, Xi Jinping elevated the concept of “a new type of great power relationship” as a centerpiece of his diplomacy towards the U.S. Xi argued it was time to liberate the bilateral relationship from “a cold war mentality” (lengzhan siwei 冷战思维) and the politics of “a zero sum game” (linghe youxi 零和游戏). While disagreements inevitably arose over the definition of Chinese and American “core interests” (hexin liyi 核心利益). the U.S. administration initially welcomed the proposal. But this concept soon fell victim to a deeply partisan debate within the United States on the administration “conceding strategic and moral parity to China” and has since disappeared from the public language of the administration. The report argues that mutual strategic misperceptions between the U.S. and China, informed both by history and recent experience, are likely to endure . I argue that the only real prospect of altering the present reality in a substantive and durable way lies not in discovering some magical

declaratory statement. Instead, the U.S. and China should set out an explicit, agreed road map of cooperative strategic projects (bilateral, regional and global) to build mutual trust and reduce deeply rooted strategic perceptions, inch by inch, year after year. The gains from such an approach will be slow and grueling, the reversals numerous. But it is the only way to arrest the political and policy dynamics that flow from China’s conclusion that the U.S. will do whatever it takes to retain its status as the pre-eminent power. (12-15)

Containment is the best available option- security competition is inevitable, containment minimizes it by limiting Chinese power Mearsheimer, PhD, 16(John, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago Co-director, Program on International Security Policy University of Chicago, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-strangling_b_9417476.html 3-10)I think that the optimal strategy for the United States for dealing with China is to pursue a containment strategy similar to the one that we pursued with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. There will be some people who will argue for preventive war or for a rollback strategy, but it would be remarkably foolish, in my opinion, to pursue that option. It makes much more sense for the United States just to work with China’s neighbors to try and contain it and to prevent it from becoming a regional hegemon. The problem that we face, however, is that as we move towards a containment strategy now, we almost certainly guarantee that there will be an intense security competition between the United States and China. One might say to me: “John, the argument you’re making for containment now, basically creates a situation where you have a self-fulfilling prophecy, where it guarantees that China and the United States will compete for security and they will always be

a danger of war.” My response to that is it’s true, but we have no choice because we cannot afford to let China grow and dominate Asia for fear that it might have malign intentions. So, therefore, we have to contain it now, and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And my argument is that this is the tragedy of great power politics.