{"id":12078,"date":"2014-02-04T12:30:25","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T01:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=12078"},"modified":"2014-02-05T15:18:29","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T04:18:29","slug":"the-paper-tiger-myth-how-america-is-underestimating-chinas-resolve-and-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-paper-tiger-myth-how-america-is-underestimating-chinas-resolve-and-power\/","title":{"rendered":"The paper tiger myth: how America is underestimating China\u2019s resolve and power"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paper<\/a><\/p>\n

Most American policymakers are saying two things following China\u2019s establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). (1) China\u2019s challenge to the US-led Asian order is serious and calculated, and (2) America must get China to back down. We should be concerned, because their analysis is self-contradictory. The United States is falling prey to the ‘paper tiger myth<\/a>‘\u2014the belief that China is utterly threatening to America\u2019s position in Asia and<\/i> would retreat if we \u2018pivoted\u2019 just a bit more. This is a dangerous miscalculation of Chinese resolve and power.<\/p>\n

In past weeks, pundits have declared that the PRC leadership is increasingly willing to risk confrontation to achieve its goals. On Wednesday, Senator John McCain (R-AR) called China ‘a rising threat’<\/a> because of its ‘profound belief\u2026 that China must, and will, regain the dominant role that they had for a couple of thousand years in Asia’. Similarly, Michael J. Green of CSIS argued in Foreign Affairs<\/i><\/a> <\/i>that the new ADIZ is ‘part of a longer-term attempt by Beijing to chip away at the regional status quo’. In Foreign Policy<\/i> magazine, Elbridge Colby (CNA) and Ely Ratner (CNAS) claimed it amounts to an ‘expansionist strategy’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response, they want America to demonstrate it won’t accept China\u2019s threat or use of coercion. Green suggests we ‘leave no doubt that the United States is prepared to\u2026 ensure Beijing understands that its attempts at coercion will not work’. Colby and Ratner likewise advocate ‘raising the stakes’ and elevating the risk of escalation. At the Joint Seapower and Asia Subcommittee hearing on January 14th, Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH) reasoned that China must be acting<\/a> on a ‘misguided hope that Japan, Southeast Asian nations and the US will just grudgingly accept it’.<\/p>\n

There’s an implicit expectation here: once China realises that the United States refuses to budge, it’ll bow out and stop contesting US primacy in the Asia-Pacific. But it\u2019s paradoxical to say China is bent on changing the international order and<\/i> will roll over easily if opposed. This paper tiger myth is a well-documented belief\u2014look no further than the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Only this time, it\u2019s the paper, not the tiger, that\u2019s the illusion.<\/p>\n

Mainstream American analysis makes little sense for two reasons. First, China\u2019s resolve is at least as strong as America\u2019s. As all these observers say, recent assertive behavior isn’t a series of isolated slip-ups; it reflects a deeper strategy to force the United States to respect China\u2019s growing power. You don’t just go and declare an ADIZ or apply military pressure against foreign territory for years on a whim. Backing down now over either would be absolutely humiliating for Beijing\u2014all the more so given the government\u2019s domestic campaigns that have plastered ‘The Diaoyu Islands Are China\u2019s!<\/a>‘ on everything from billboards to bumper stickers. Since President Xi Jinping took over the Leading Small Group (LSG) on maritime affairs<\/a>, most signs indicate that these acts are part of a broader attempt to push back against US military activity in China’s immediate periphery.<\/p>\n

Second, China is rapidly acquiring the edge in operational capacity in Asia, and there\u2019s little the United States can or is willing to do about it. With annual increases in defense expenditure over 10%, China is making steady relative gains. According to a recent net assessment from the Carnegie Endowment<\/a>, the combined US\u2013Japan alliance will no longer have a guaranteed advantage over the PLA by 2030. If we believe a 2009 RAND report<\/a>, the US already lacks credible military options in the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n

In many ways, it\u2019s a simple question of economics. Who cares how many F-35s and carriers we move to the Pacific? The fact that China\u2019s economy will soon eclipse America\u2019s ensures that the balance of power will gradually shift. The ‘tyranny of distance’, continued American preoccupation with the Middle East, and the shift from offensive to defensive advantage in maritime military technology<\/a> only amplify this underlying reality. And if Obama\u2019s State of the Union address is any indication, American voters are becoming less and less interested in sustaining its global role<\/a>.<\/p>\n

American analysts are essentially calling for a re-rebalance to Asia. Before anyone hops on the bandwagon, we might note the effects of the original. If the Pivot\u2019s purpose was to dissuade Chinese aggression by proving American staying power, it failed<\/a>. China has only become more willing to contest American primacy, as the ADIZ and USS Cowpens<\/i> incident demonstrate. It isn’t backing down, and America’s defence posture is no longer preventing the intensification of conflict in the Asia-Pacific.<\/p>\n

America should remember Otto von Bismarck\u2019s words that ‘policy is the art of the possible’. All strategies must reconcile ends and means. If the US neglects to accept its increasingly vulnerable position and instead choose escalation, deeper and more precarious rivalry is certain. Success is not.<\/p>\n

Jake A. Douglas is a research assistant at the College of William & Mary, Virginia. Image courtesy of Flickr user ‘No Matter’ Project<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Correction: an earlier version of this post inadvertently omitted the last two paragraphs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most American policymakers are saying two things following China\u2019s establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). 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