The U.S.-China competition is broad and deep.
Militarily, the strategy of an island chain surrounding China with bases of naval and air force power has been in place since the establishment of the PRC in control of mainland China. The island chain’s threat to China was real and effective. However, China has been modernizing its military since the end of the last century. In the previous three decades, China’s defense force, navy, air force, and rocket forces have advanced sufficiently to render the U.S. Island chain strategy less effective, at least from its first chain (S. Korea, Japan, LiuQiu, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Singapore) standpoint. China has demonstrated its capability to defend any military offense with counter-attack ability beyond the first island chain. Furthermore, China has strengthened its military capability in the South China Sea by fortifying several islands with airstrips and naval ports, allowing its carriers and naval battleships to exert their power from the China East Sea to the China South Sea. The intent of choking China’s import and export passageways in sea lanes and air space by the first island chain is essentially reduced to nominal ‘freedom of navigation.’
Diplomatically, the U.S. dominance in world politics through its bonding in alliances such as NATO, Five Eyes, and other bilateral relations has shown fatigue in recent years. The constant regional wars the U.S. got involved in essentially weakened rather than strengthened U.S. diplomacy. The rise of G20 over G7 is one piece of evidence. The expansion of BRICS, SCO, RCEP, and the BRI initiative launched by China have also clearly shown that the change of diplomatic influence of the U.S. versus China is happening. The United Nations is another arena where China has been gaining influence in the new century. China’s presence in Africa, its influence over the ASEAN countries, and its increasing influence in South America have no doubt caused concerns about U.S. foreign policy.
On the economy, the growth of the U.S. economy versus China’s has shown a divergent path, one more emphasizing a virtual economy driven by financial engineering and capital manipulation and the other more focusing on the real economy by strengthening manufacturing and infrastructure investment. As a result, the U.S. can maintain its position as the number one economy of the world (~$25T) but has a debt of $32T, while China has become the manufacturer of the world, keeping a number one trade position with over 125 nations. China’s GDP is growing at a faster rate than that of the U.S. and is expected to overtake the U.S. by 2030. Currently, the U.S.’s China strategy is still targeting China as an enemy, deploying all measures to stop or slow down China’s growth with no real solutions in diagnosing its own problems.
The U.S. government has just transitioned from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration; we do expect some changes in foreign policy toward China. Recently, an article in Foreign Affairs (2-20-2025), entitled, The Real China Trump Card – The Hawk’s Case Against Decoupling, authored by Stephen Brooks, Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, and Ben A Vagle, a policy analyst at the U.S. Treasury, really exhibited the muddy situation in U.S. China economic war. The long-winded article essentially revealed the authors’ helpless state of mind in offering solutions to the U.S.-China economic, diplomatic, and military competition. Brooks and Vagle claim exercises on 12 models (or scenarios) of consequences of de-coupling with China but offer little conclusion but the obvious. The U.S. needs its allies to join together to battle China with de-risk or de-coupling, but the allies may sense different levels of pain (more than the U.S. will endure, according to Brooks and Vagle) and hesitate to participate.
Brooks and Vagle suggest that the U.S. may form another alliance with allies to coordinate de-coupling with China, but the U.S. needs to strengthen its security assurances to its allies (such as NATO and the authors cited the ASML of Dutch caving in to the U.S. pressure because the U.S. security offer to Europe.) This author believes that the real situation is far more complicated. First, China does not have territorial ambition (Uniting Taiwan is not a territorial ambition but fulfilling national responsibility under international treaty obligation.). Hence, Brooks and Vagle’s definition of ‘peacetime’ and breaching the status quo by China are simply the authors’ U.S. definition. That is the very reason the U.S. cannot rally its allies with a ‘common value’ argument. That is why the U.S. appears to be helpless in waging an economic war against China.
This author believes that one does not have to use any sophisticated model to assess pains if the U.S. brings a broad economic cutoff to China. China, for survival reasons, will retaliate, and if the U.S. would change the ‘peacetime’ to wartime, China would respond accordingly. In the end, it is not going to be who will suffer more economic pain; it will be a situation in which no one can survive the devastation. The China hawks will not be persuaded by economic model calculation but will be by real events taking place day by day. Brooks and Vagle are wrong to use corporate profit to measure the U.S. economic might (Forbes 2000 companies) since the Chinese corporations plow back profits to research and development or fundamental infrastructure investment to safeguard employment and future advances. Brooks and Vagle’s argument on GDP numbers is equally not persuasive.
Information Technology and Innovation (ITIF) and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) both reported that China is currently (2023) leading in advanced science and technology across 7 out of 10 categories (ITIF) and 37 out of 44 critical technology areas (ASPI). On military assessment, the U.S. Pentagon report has clearly stated that China has made significant advances in the navy (carriers and battleships, increase in number and fighting power), air force (stealth jets and 6th generation highspeed fighter planes), and rocket force (various missiles and ICBM with accuracy in guidance and supersonic speed). Therefore, it is meaningless to talk about ‘cutoff’ to China.
What the U.S. should do is to abandon its hegemony notion of preventing other competitors in the world from rising. It makes more sense to cooperate with the rising nations for mutual advantages and the benefit of all mankind. With the rich natural resources the U.S. is blessed with, the U.S. stands a better chance to succeed than any other country in a fair economic competition.