U.S.-China Confrontation Runs Counter to Both Countries’ Interests

Consequences of Confrontation with China

Both the U.S. military build-up under Reagan and George W. Bush were limited in scope. Reagan’s aim was not to fight a war with the U.S.S.R. but to exert economic pressure on the Soviet Union at a time when the Soviet economy was growing less rapidly than that of the U.S. Meanwhile the military forces of George W. Bush’s targets, Afghanistan and Iraq, were pitifully weak when compared to China’s. But even Reagan and Bush’s partial military build-ups nevertheless destabilized the U.S. economy and swelled the national debt.

A U.S. confrontation with China, whose economy is growing much faster than that of the U.S. and which possesses military forces considerably more powerful than those of the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, would require a further massive diversion of U.S. resources into military expenditure, and consequently far greater destabilization of the U.S. economy than was ever witnessed under Reagan or George W. Bush. This, in turn, would affect the political dynamics within the United States.

If the U.S. were to be directly attacked, its people would of course make immense sacrifices and display the same bravery as those of any other country. The U.S.’s loss of life during the Pacific War after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was small compared to China’s, but the bravery of individual U.S. soldiers fighting in Iwo Jima and Okinawa was equal to that displayed by Chinese soldiers battling Japan’s invasion.

Between 1940 and 1945, the percentage of U.S. household consumption as GDP also fell from 69 percent to 53 percent, due to the huge diversion of resources into military expenditure. But it brought no serious social discontent or destabilization in the U.S., whose people logically and rightly considered these sacrifices necessary and justified to repel any direct attack by Japan on the United States.

But the U.S. population has since WWII, again logically and rightly displayed a growing antipathy to making sacrifices for non-core U.S. interests or conflicts. This has intensified with the slowdown of the U.S. economy and relative decline of U.S. economic dominance. U.S. public opinion has therefore shown a clear trajectory of growing popular opposition to the launch abroad of any major military actions unless U.S. core interests are directly threatened.

A U.S. decision to confront China, not necessarily in a war but in an attempt to exert on it serious pressure, would of course require far greater sacrifices from the U.S. population than earlier conflicts. But local wars (Vietnam, Iraq) and military build-ups against economies growing less rapidly than the U.S. both destabilized the U.S. economy and caused a decline in the people’s living standards.

U.S. public opinion, as evident in polls, may or may not be favorable to China. That is something that changes periodically. But the facts as explained above show a clear absence of any indication that the U.S. population would willingly make the economic sacrifices necessary to confront China.

On the contrary, all evidence shows that, unless China were to make a serious and provocative foreign policy miscalculation that recklessly and aggressively threatened U.S. core interests, or major policy errors that slowed down China’s economy, the U.S. population would shun the concomitant ramifications of confronting China.

Conclusion

These economic processes clear two fundamental paths for the U.S. people. The first, which correlates both to the interests of China and the prosperity of the U.S. people, is that whereby the U.S. seeks “win-win” collaboration with China. This means that, for example, important trade negotiations between the world’s two biggest trading nations – China and the U.S. – would be oriented towards cooperative agreement, rather than, as in the TPP, protectionism. U.S. foreign policy would thus seek to lighten the burden of military spending by lessening direct tensions with China and seeking agreements with the country, and other powers, in efforts to avoid and contain regional conflicts. This is indeed in the interests of China but also takes into account the prosperity of the U.S. people.

The other path – of U.S. confrontation with China – would mean a further plummet in the U.S. population’s living standards. It would also have an even more economically destabilizing effect on the U.S. than its confrontations with the U.S.S.R. while in economic decline or the militarily weak Afghanistan and Iraq.

In short, “China bashing” is in the interests neither of China nor of the U.S. people.

JOHN ROSS is a senior research fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University.