Confront China
By James H. Anderson and Daniel R. Green
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024
Presented as a guide for practitioners, the pragmatic objective of Confront ChinaA volume published by James H. Anderson and Daniel R. Green (Praeger, 2024), proves both strength and weakness. The chapters, written by well -informed and well -created experts, summarized the main disputes and political challenges linked to China in a wide range of subjects, ranging from the management of alliances to cyberspace. However, the accent put by the book on the military dimension of the competition is a weakness. Missing a clear and convincing explanation of the threat posed by the Chinese army, the recommendations for a massive American military accumulation seem unbeatured and impractical.
The book begins with the fairly uncontrolling observation according to which “the rise of China as a competing peer created an unprecedented threat to the international order of the Second World War” (p.1). It cannot be denied that China has become an almost peers, the second economy of the world and the diplomatic influence that extends in the world. China’s dissatisfaction with the main elements of the international order led by the United States is also well known. As an example, in 2016, the main diplomat FU Ying compared the existing international order of the United States and its compatibility with China to an “old costume that no longer corresponds”.
However, characterizing China in these terms suggests that the competition will take place mainly in diplomatic, political and economic fields. Some chapters recognize the importance of these non-military fields, in particular in the sections that examine Beijing’s efforts to undermine American alliances and spread Chinese influence in Africa, in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific.
But reflecting a theme of “security”, the book focuses mainly on the military dimension of the competition. As the authors point out, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has undergone a massive and disturbing accumulation in recent decades. From 2000 to 2016, the Chinese military budget increased approximately 10% annually, although this growth later slowed down to around 5 to 7% per year. The Chinese army, as noted by the DOD annual report on Chinese military power, now aligns advanced aircraft, missiles, warships and tanks that go beyond or slightly lagging behind the United States.
What end does China modernize its strengths? Although the authors of the book, after conventional wisdom, assume that Beijing’s motivations are aggressive, they neglect other potential economic and political reasons. Chinese leaders generously finance the soldiers in part to cultivate their support, provide patronage, strengthen patriotic support and encourage military contributions to economic development. These economic and political factors explain, in part, the persistent corruption problems and poor preparation for combat that afflict the APL.
Even if we assume that accumulation is caused by aggressive impulses, and even if we assume that the accumulation ultimately leads to very competent and fatal soldiers, it is not clear how a powerful PLA could help Beijing achieve its objectives. The authors said on several occasions that the military accumulation of China is in a way linked to its alleged objective of “world domination” (p. 103). However, the Chinese army is widely considered as a regional soldier at best with a limited capacity to project power abroad. China has no military allies except perhaps North Korea and a single military base abroad (in Djibouti), while the United States has dozens of allies and up to 750 military bases in 80 countries.
Despite the disparity of the global military presence, China could perhaps use its soldiers to challenge the primacy of America in a war transition. Andersen’s introduction chapter alludes to this possibility, declaring that “most of the largest power rivalries ultimately end in bloodshed”. Likewise, Green’s chapter cites books with titles such as The coming conflict with China suggesting such a war can be profiled in advance (p. 25). However, the power of power transition tends to occur when an increasing power threatens to go beyond a power of status quo. The downward trajectory of China and the economic success of the United States has made such a transition increasingly unlikely. In 2021, the Chinese economy reached 76% of the size of the American economy, but three years later, stagnation left the Chinese economy 2/3 the size of a flourishing American economy.
While the prospects for the war of transition from power fell, some have rather proposed a war motivated by a drop in fears of China for the future. But these predictions have not confirmed, because Chinese leaders have shown little interest in belligerent in the midst of an accent consuming national misfortunes. The most popular argument is that China could trigger a war with Taiwan which degenerates in a broader war with the United States, a vision put forward by several authors of the book. However, this does not solve the problem of how a powerful PLA helps China achieved its objective of international primacy. A Chinese victory over Taiwan does not guarantee the American capitulation more than Japan’s victory over the United States at Pearl Harbor. In addition, the war between China and the United States, no matter how or where it started, has a huge risk of climbing for nuclear annihilation, which would make questions of “international primacy” without meaning. Even if the United States had decided not to intervene directly in a Chinese-Taiwan war, it is not clear if it would really end American international leaders. After all, America’s refusal to get involved directly in combat operations when Russia has invaded Ukraine did not fatally undermine the US international leadership.
Perhaps, despite these objections, the scale and extent of the modernization of the APL require an American response. If so, what? Here, a second problem arises with the book – the impracticality of a massive American military construction offered. On page 304, an author calls for floating “300 billion dollars per year” of obligations to pay the expanded production of defense to “dissuade China from breaking peace”. Similarly, an author offers a return to a planning construction of the “two war” force, which, according to the author, could lead to “quantitative and qualitative improvements to the American conventional forces”, “deployments of more robust forces” and a “greater capacity to” swing “from the forces of a theater of operations to the other before and during a conflict” (p. 180). The implications for the resources of financing such a large army are astounding and raise questions if it is really the only or the best answer.
After all, such a breathtaking ambition faces serious economic and political obstacles. Anxiety about the country’s colossal debt burden left the American public and the skeptical congress even as to the current levels of military spending. Serious and insoluble problems of political polarization and perpetually weak public support for the government have dissuaded American administrations from directly involving American troops in war areas in Europe and the Middle East. Even indirect aid, thanks to military aid, has proven controversial and difficult to maintain.
China’s challenge to American management remains real and imposing, but military competition does not seem to be the most urgent domain. Future research may perhaps guide political decision-makers on how to conduct a complex and multi-domain rivalry with China in a way that agrees with the country’s increasingly serious economic constraints and fragile policy. However, this book is waiting to be written another day.
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