The flexibility and resilience of America and its advanced-economy allies represent the polar opposite of China’s state-directed planning and implementation model. Their openness to people, ideas, and capital flows makes them creative dynamos, as well as fuels world-class research universities and yields demographic dividends by attracting talented and motivated people from all over the world. These qualities underpin their long-term comprehensive national power and the bloc’s global competitiveness. It also makes their responses to an assault formidable and favors their odds the longer a major cold or hot war continues. But free-wheeling systems also complicate near-term proactive preparation to head off conflicts.
Fortunately, Beijing’s belligerent behavior has helped solidify multiple allied diplomatic and military initiatives that, while presently insufficient to defend the rules-based order, nonetheless constitute a solid foundation on which to build. Diplomatic proofs of concept such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”),81 security alignments such as AUKUS, and hard security actions such as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative82 are now falling into place. The stage is set for follow-up measures to comprehensively “peak” the non-authoritarian world’s protective actions to hold the line in the Indo-Pacific.83
Throughout this decade of danger, American policymakers must understand that under Xi’s strongman rule, personal political survival will dictate PRC behavior. For Washington and its allies, the struggle centers on preserving and expanding the type of human well-being yielded by a system oriented toward freedom and rules-based governance that emphasizes reason and fair process over coercion and force. Conversely, Xi (like fellow authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un) uses a totally different operating system: rule for life, non-transparency, a ruthless “ends-justify-any- means” mindset, and policies that ultimately tend to be one-way, high-leverage bets on continued successful (and lightly opposed) revisionist actions abroad and near- absolute control domestically.
...
Gauntlet over Gizmos: Protecting Taiwan from Peak PRC Pressure through Early 2030s
The flexibility and resilience of America and its advanced-economy allies represent the polar opposite of China’s state-directed planning and implementation model. Their openness to people, ideas, and capital flows makes them creative dynamos, as well as fuels world-class research universities and yields demographic dividends by attracting talented and motivated people from all over the world. These qualities underpin their long-term comprehensive national power and the bloc’s global competitiveness. It also makes their responses to an assault formidable and favors their odds the longer a major cold or hot war continues. But free-wheeling systems also complicate near-term proactive preparation to head off conflicts.
Fortunately, Beijing’s belligerent behavior has helped solidify multiple allied diplomatic and military initiatives that, while presently insufficient to defend the rules-based order, nonetheless constitute a solid foundation on which to build. Diplomatic proofs of concept such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”),81 security alignments such as AUKUS, and hard security actions such as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative82 are now falling into place. The stage is set for follow-up measures to comprehensively “peak” the non-authoritarian world’s protective actions to hold the line in the Indo-Pacific.83
Throughout this decade of danger, American policymakers must understand that under Xi’s strongman rule, personal political survival will dictate PRC behavior. For Washington and its allies, the struggle centers on preserving and expanding the type of human well-being yielded by a system oriented toward freedom and rules-based governance that emphasizes reason and fair process over coercion and force. Conversely, Xi (like fellow authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un) uses a totally different operating system: rule for life, non-transparency, a ruthless “ends-justify-any- means” mindset, and policies that ultimately tend to be one-way, high-leverage bets on continued successful (and lightly opposed) revisionist actions abroad and near- absolute control domestically.
Xi’s personalist leadership and nearly comprehensive suppression of dissenting voices in the Party’s senior ranks simultaneously raises the chances of making policy mistakes while reducing the flexibility to deal with them early. In such an embrittled system, the proverbial “leverage” that would have left Xi with outsized returns on a successful bet instead amplifies the downside, all for which he personally and exclusively signed. The “best-case” scenario entails continued stagnation and rot within the Party along the lines of what Minxin Pei has articulated.84 The “intermediate case” is an accelerated version of that, with Xi suffering a loss of status and authority on the heels of a policy disaster, internal challengers rising within the PRC, and internecine strife leading to accelerated weakening of the Party. The “bad case” scenario—which, in practice, would likely be interrelated with the intermediate one—is that Xi would double down on a mistaken course of action to prioritize political self-preservation. If such mistakes led to—or were made in the course of—a kinetic conflict, personal survival measures could rapidly transmute into regional or even global (i.e., nuclear, space, cyber) threats.
If Xi triggered a “margin call” on his personal political account through a failed high-stakes gamble, it would likely be paid in blood. Washington must thus prepare the American electorate and its institutional and physical infrastructure, as well as that of allies and partners abroad, for the likelihood that tensions will periodically ratchet up to uncomfortable levels—and that, despite the promise of determined deterrence, actual conflict cannot be ruled out. Si vis pacem, para bellum (“If you want peace, prepare for war”) must unfortunately serve as a central organizing principle for a range of U.S. and allied decisions during the next decade with respect to China under Xi.85
Given these unforgiving dynamics, the implications for U.S. leaders and planners are stark:
Do whatever remains possible to reach “peak” preparedness for deterrent competition against China by the mid-to-late 2020s and accept the tradeoffs.86
Nothing the U.S and its allies might theoretically achieve after 2035 is worth pursuing at the expense of capabilities that might be “better” than those in service now, but that could not be realistically fielded at scale until five years or more from now.
Much will be decided by the end of this decade. If America falters at this critical time—whether through creeping corrosion of the rules-based order at Beijing’s hands or the shocking impact of failing to defend Taiwan against military attack— many aspects of the world and future will be determined at the expense of U.S. interests and values.
The decade of danger is upon us. With existential stakes for American interests and values looming, there is no time left to waste. Washington and its allies must push to maximize their competitive edge as rapidly as possible to avoid an outcome they cannot afford—“losing the 2020s.” At what point the PRC reaches its peak may ultimately defy precise prediction, but the strong possibility of it occurring over the next few years should front-load America’s bottom-line planning and preparations, given the potential for irreversible linchpin effects. Near-term preparation to run this decade’s unforgiving gauntlet justifies any corresponding long-term tradeoffs and risks: “losing the 2020s” would also mean losing the 2030s and beyond. Ultimately, the best achievements in coming decades will matter little if we lose Taiwan on our watch. More broadly, allowing PRC revisionism to run as rampant in the 2020s as it did in the 2010s would risk negatively reshaping the world order for decades to come and could actually set the stage for even worse conflicts by destabilizing the planet’s most populous region. Alternatively, proactive deterrence actions now can sow the seeds for a more peaceful and prosperous future that would benefit all Indo-Pacific countries, China included. The mission is vital, the stakes are high, and the clock is ticking.
I guess agreeing with the above make me a China "hater"...
I wouldn’t take anything from the Baker Institute at face value. Over the years they’ve proven themselves to be heavily involved in the creation of far-right propaganda. Not saying the above is wrong, just that you should probably look to an ideologically diverse source for validation. YMMV.
Uhm, considering that many sources worldwide are making more or less tha same arguments, your concerns of "right wing propaganda" fall flat.
Looks like you didn’t take the Baker Institutes words at face value—well done. Their role in creating propaganda though is well established.
Some people around here seem to think that linking "hawkish" information is "right wing", "Trumpist", or "hateful"; it isn't. China is a human rights violator, a bully to its neighbors, and a threat to world peace. As a Liberal, and having a fair knowledge of history, especially in the WWII Pacific campaigns, I'm only too aware of how little time the West has to counter China, and how little time China has to attempt to remain a world power.
There are plenty of other sources worldwide that mirror the Baker Institutes warning, albeit most are less "hawkish", but there is a consensus that China is a threat to the West, and the existing Rules of Order, and that the U.S. and our allies would be better off constraining China's impulse to invade Taiwan, than allowing China's militarism to go unchecked.
In the meantime, China's demographics will likely create a slowing economy and a halving of its population by 2060.
You don't seem to have too much comment on the obvious pro China propaganda going on here, all of it from a small number of the usual posters.
Please explain how do you implicates the WWII Pacific campaigns to China today? The western version of history always intrigues me such as the Opium War and Chinese Exclusion Act. Some westerners try to brainwash people thinking China is a threat to world peace. History shows for the last two hundred years all the major wars are launched by western nations. So the prediction is against history. This is a contradiction.
LOL!
At some point, you are just talking to yourself. There is ample evidence that China is a threat to the West, and I've posted plenty of links on that.
Please also attempt to counter my claim about both China's overaged demographic, and there slowing growth. I'll wait.
You can only laugh at your own words? Why can't you answer your own words I bold-faced?
How about reading a history book on the War in the Pacific; then get back to me.
Everybody knows WWII. I just want to know what you mean by WWII Pacific campaigns. And how you relate them to what China will be doing in the near future. You should be able to describe it in a few sentences. If you got it from the right wing propaganda, you can just copy it over here.
It's about Geography, the first, and second, island chains, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia, and even the UAE.
Then, look at how China is attempting to expand its presence in the Central and South Pacific. and Indian Ocean. Hence why the U.S. and it Allies are pushing back against China's military expansionism.
That is the same as UK and other western nations expand their trades with China. They attacked China several times and forced China to open ports and gave them territory. Do they think they threatened the peace of China? It is weird these old foes are blaming China for repeating what they did to China.
The flexibility and resilience of America and its advanced-economy allies represent the polar opposite of China’s state-directed planning and implementation model. Their openness to people, ideas, and capital flows makes them creative dynamos, as well as fuels world-class research universities and yields demographic dividends by attracting talented and motivated people from all over the world. These qualities underpin their long-term comprehensive national power and the bloc’s global competitiveness. It also makes their responses to an assault formidable and favors their odds the longer a major cold or hot war continues. But free-wheeling systems also complicate near-term proactive preparation to head off conflicts.
Fortunately, Beijing’s belligerent behavior has helped solidify multiple allied diplomatic and military initiatives that, while presently insufficient to defend the rules-based order, nonetheless constitute a solid foundation on which to build. Diplomatic proofs of concept such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”),81 security alignments such as AUKUS, and hard security actions such as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative82 are now falling into place. The stage is set for follow-up measures to comprehensively “peak” the non-authoritarian world’s protective actions to hold the line in the Indo-Pacific.83
Throughout this decade of danger, American policymakers must understand that under Xi’s strongman rule, personal political survival will dictate PRC behavior. For Washington and its allies, the struggle centers on preserving and expanding the type of human well-being yielded by a system oriented toward freedom and rules-based governance that emphasizes reason and fair process over coercion and force. Conversely, Xi (like fellow authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un) uses a totally different operating system: rule for life, non-transparency, a ruthless “ends-justify-any- means” mindset, and policies that ultimately tend to be one-way, high-leverage bets on continued successful (and lightly opposed) revisionist actions abroad and near- absolute control domestically.
...
Gauntlet over Gizmos: Protecting Taiwan from Peak PRC Pressure through Early 2030s
The flexibility and resilience of America and its advanced-economy allies represent the polar opposite of China’s state-directed planning and implementation model. Their openness to people, ideas, and capital flows makes them creative dynamos, as well as fuels world-class research universities and yields demographic dividends by attracting talented and motivated people from all over the world. These qualities underpin their long-term comprehensive national power and the bloc’s global competitiveness. It also makes their responses to an assault formidable and favors their odds the longer a major cold or hot war continues. But free-wheeling systems also complicate near-term proactive preparation to head off conflicts.
Fortunately, Beijing’s belligerent behavior has helped solidify multiple allied diplomatic and military initiatives that, while presently insufficient to defend the rules-based order, nonetheless constitute a solid foundation on which to build. Diplomatic proofs of concept such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”),81 security alignments such as AUKUS, and hard security actions such as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative82 are now falling into place. The stage is set for follow-up measures to comprehensively “peak” the non-authoritarian world’s protective actions to hold the line in the Indo-Pacific.83
Throughout this decade of danger, American policymakers must understand that under Xi’s strongman rule, personal political survival will dictate PRC behavior. For Washington and its allies, the struggle centers on preserving and expanding the type of human well-being yielded by a system oriented toward freedom and rules-based governance that emphasizes reason and fair process over coercion and force. Conversely, Xi (like fellow authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un) uses a totally different operating system: rule for life, non-transparency, a ruthless “ends-justify-any- means” mindset, and policies that ultimately tend to be one-way, high-leverage bets on continued successful (and lightly opposed) revisionist actions abroad and near- absolute control domestically.
Xi’s personalist leadership and nearly comprehensive suppression of dissenting voices in the Party’s senior ranks simultaneously raises the chances of making policy mistakes while reducing the flexibility to deal with them early. In such an embrittled system, the proverbial “leverage” that would have left Xi with outsized returns on a successful bet instead amplifies the downside, all for which he personally and exclusively signed. The “best-case” scenario entails continued stagnation and rot within the Party along the lines of what Minxin Pei has articulated.84 The “intermediate case” is an accelerated version of that, with Xi suffering a loss of status and authority on the heels of a policy disaster, internal challengers rising within the PRC, and internecine strife leading to accelerated weakening of the Party. The “bad case” scenario—which, in practice, would likely be interrelated with the intermediate one—is that Xi would double down on a mistaken course of action to prioritize political self-preservation. If such mistakes led to—or were made in the course of—a kinetic conflict, personal survival measures could rapidly transmute into regional or even global (i.e., nuclear, space, cyber) threats.
If Xi triggered a “margin call” on his personal political account through a failed high-stakes gamble, it would likely be paid in blood. Washington must thus prepare the American electorate and its institutional and physical infrastructure, as well as that of allies and partners abroad, for the likelihood that tensions will periodically ratchet up to uncomfortable levels—and that, despite the promise of determined deterrence, actual conflict cannot be ruled out. Si vis pacem, para bellum (“If you want peace, prepare for war”) must unfortunately serve as a central organizing principle for a range of U.S. and allied decisions during the next decade with respect to China under Xi.85
Given these unforgiving dynamics, the implications for U.S. leaders and planners are stark:
Do whatever remains possible to reach “peak” preparedness for deterrent competition against China by the mid-to-late 2020s and accept the tradeoffs.86
Nothing the U.S and its allies might theoretically achieve after 2035 is worth pursuing at the expense of capabilities that might be “better” than those in service now, but that could not be realistically fielded at scale until five years or more from now.
Much will be decided by the end of this decade. If America falters at this critical time—whether through creeping corrosion of the rules-based order at Beijing’s hands or the shocking impact of failing to defend Taiwan against military attack— many aspects of the world and future will be determined at the expense of U.S. interests and values.
The decade of danger is upon us. With existential stakes for American interests and values looming, there is no time left to waste. Washington and its allies must push to maximize their competitive edge as rapidly as possible to avoid an outcome they cannot afford—“losing the 2020s.” At what point the PRC reaches its peak may ultimately defy precise prediction, but the strong possibility of it occurring over the next few years should front-load America’s bottom-line planning and preparations, given the potential for irreversible linchpin effects. Near-term preparation to run this decade’s unforgiving gauntlet justifies any corresponding long-term tradeoffs and risks: “losing the 2020s” would also mean losing the 2030s and beyond. Ultimately, the best achievements in coming decades will matter little if we lose Taiwan on our watch. More broadly, allowing PRC revisionism to run as rampant in the 2020s as it did in the 2010s would risk negatively reshaping the world order for decades to come and could actually set the stage for even worse conflicts by destabilizing the planet’s most populous region. Alternatively, proactive deterrence actions now can sow the seeds for a more peaceful and prosperous future that would benefit all Indo-Pacific countries, China included. The mission is vital, the stakes are high, and the clock is ticking.
I guess agreeing with the above make me a China "hater"...
I wouldn’t take anything from the Baker Institute at face value. Over the years they’ve proven themselves to be heavily involved in the creation of far-right propaganda. Not saying the above is wrong, just that you should probably look to an ideologically diverse source for validation. YMMV.
Uhm, considering that many sources worldwide are making more or less tha same arguments, your concerns of "right wing propaganda" fall flat.
Looks like you didn’t take the Baker Institutes words at face value—well done. Their role in creating propaganda though is well established.
Some people around here seem to think that linking "hawkish" information is "right wing", "Trumpist", or "hateful"; it isn't. China is a human rights violator, a bully to its neighbors, and a threat to world peace. As a Liberal, and having a fair knowledge of history, especially in the WWII Pacific campaigns, I'm only too aware of how little time the West has to counter China, and how little time China has to attempt to remain a world power.
There are plenty of other sources worldwide that mirror the Baker Institutes warning, albeit most are less "hawkish", but there is a consensus that China is a threat to the West, and the existing Rules of Order, and that the U.S. and our allies would be better off constraining China's impulse to invade Taiwan, than allowing China's militarism to go unchecked.
In the meantime, China's demographics will likely create a slowing economy and a halving of its population by 2060.
You don't seem to have too much comment on the obvious pro China propaganda going on here, all of it from a small number of the usual posters.
Please explain how do you implicates the WWII Pacific campaigns to China today? The western version of history always intrigues me such as the Opium War and Chinese Exclusion Act. Some westerners try to brainwash people thinking China is a threat to world peace. History shows for the last two hundred years all the major wars are launched by western nations. So the prediction is against history. This is a contradiction.
LOL!
At some point, you are just talking to yourself. There is ample evidence that China is a threat to the West, and I've posted plenty of links on that.
Please also attempt to counter my claim about both China's overaged demographic, and there slowing growth. I'll wait.
You can only laugh at your own words? Why can't you answer your own words I bold-faced?
How about reading a history book on the War in the Pacific; then get back to me.
Everybody knows WWII. I just want to know what you mean by WWII Pacific campaigns. And how you relate them to what China will be doing in the near future. You should be able to describe it in a few sentences. If you got it from the right wing propaganda, you can just copy it over here.
It's about Geography, the first, and second, island chains, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia, and even the UAE.
Then, look at how China is attempting to expand its presence in the Central and South Pacific. and Indian Ocean. Hence why the U.S. and it Allies are pushing back against China's military expansionism.
That is the same as UK and other western nations expand their trades with China. They attacked China several times and forced China to open ports and gave them territory. Do they think they threatened the peace of China? It is weird these old foes are blaming China for repeating what they did to China.
China offers undeveloped countries economic assistance and opportunity without interfering in their internal affairs. China Haters call that unfair expansionism and relate it to western practices of imperialism and colonialism. But, I don't think their whining will deter either China or the beneficiaries of their largess. Instead, the whining just makes us look petty, small and weak.
This is today's news. Will Tesla head onto U.S. investment blacklist? This seems blatant violation of western Xinjiang agenda against China. Apple is dragged into this news too.
Comments
China offers undeveloped countries economic assistance and opportunity without interfering in their internal affairs. China Haters call that unfair expansionism and relate it to western practices of imperialism and colonialism. But, I don't think their whining will deter either China or the beneficiaries of their largess. Instead, the whining just makes us look petty, small and weak.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-china-xinjiang-region-new-store-uyghur-2022-1