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China: Making an adversary

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Abstract

Commentators in the Western media, the United States Congress and academia are increasingly contending that China is on its way to becoming a threatening global force, an adversary, if not an enemy. This article examines whether those views are justified, after first establishing the importance of critically assessing all claims that a nation is turning into an adversary. The examination proceeds by summarizing the arguments of those who consider China an adversary in the making – the ‘adversarians’ – and the responses of those who hold China is leaning toward a peaceful development and should be engaged – the ‘engagers’. The discussion is organized into three segments, each analyzing the debate with regard to the different sectors of power: military/geopolitical, economic and ideational. The concluding sections explore alternative American responses to China's rising power in each of the three sectors.

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Notes

  1. For example, consider how President Kennedy made the threat of a purported ‘missile gap’ with the Soviet Union a key campaign issue in the lead-up to his successful 1960 election.

  2. For instance, Blumenthal (2010) contends, ‘Beijing has been focused like a laser beam on how to coerce and intimidate Taiwan while deterring US and Japanese intervention’.

  3. This hypothetical scenario is explored in Kraska (2010).

  4. The most noted such incident for the United States occurred in March, 2009 and involved the US surveillance ship, the Impeccable. Other examples include the 2006 incident when a Chinese submarine stalked the USS Kitty Hawk and surfaced within a torpedo's firing range and two incidences in 2009 involving the USS John S. McCain and The Victorious. Regarding Japan, in April 2010, a Chinese helicopter buzzed (flew dangerously close to) a Japanese destroyer near Japan's coast.

  5. For example, changes in China's conduct are already reflected in its rise in the annual rankings of countries in terms of their level of intellectual property rights protection. China moved from fifty-third to twenty-seventh place of 139 countries between 2008 and 2011, according to The Global Competitiveness Report, published by the World Economic Forum (Schwab and Porter, 2009; Schwab, 2011).

  6. This paradigm was advanced by the RAND Corporation and especially by Andy Marshall.

  7. According to an article in Bloomberg Business Week (2006), a reason why the United States has not been more persistent in using the WTO to halt Chinese piracy is that ‘the WTO lacks clear standards on adequate progress towards enforcement’ of intellectual property rights. To prove China's inadequate enforcement of anti-piracy laws, the United States would need hard data from companies that do business in China. But the problem is that even if these companies are being harmed by intellectual property rights violations, they also do not want to be seen as cooperating with the US government. ‘Besides risking retaliation against their mainland operations, executives aren’t sure a successful WTO ruling will solve anything, given China's weak rule of law’. Moreover, if the suit were to fail – a not unlikely prospect – an even worse scenario could arise: China would probably be emboldened to become even laxer about enforcing its intellectual property rights laws. See also Bradsher (2010).

  8. See also Peerenboom (2008) for an argument that China is not doing so badly in law/governance for its level of development, and MKeping (2008) as an example of a moderate democratizing position within China.

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Marissa Cramer for extensive research assistance and editorial comments and to Avery Goldstein, Jonathan Holslag, and Brantly Womack for comments on a previous draft.

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    Amitai Etzioni

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Etzioni, A. China: Making an adversary. Int Polit 48, 647–666 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2011.27

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