Foreign Policy

Comparing the Chinese to the Soviet Union has always been interesting, but the method they use to project power are very different.

Foreign Policy has gone down hill in recent years as a heavyweight, but then most publications have gone down similar paths.

This much chatter regarding China leaves me convinced that difficult times are imminent for the Paper Dragon. These issues were known in detail 5 years ago by, among others, the U.S Navy.

Undoubtedly, Chinese war planners see a future in which China will be able to defend itself offshore and its navy will operate beyond what is sometimes referred to as the "first island chain" (an imaginary line stretching from Japan, through Okinawa and Taiwan, and south to the Philippines and the South China Sea), eventually encompassing much of the Western Pacific up to the "second island chain" that runs from Japan southward past Guam to Australia. But whether Beijing envisions one day establishing overseas bases, or simply having the capability to project power globally when needed, is unclear.

Some wonder whether China and the United States are on a collision course. Kaplan raised the ominous possibility in the Atlantic that when the Chinese navy does push out into the Pacific, "it will very quickly encounter a U.S. Navy and Air Force unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the Asian mainland," resulting in a "replay of the decades-long Cold War, with a center of gravity not in the heart of Europe but, rather, among Pacific atolls." Unquestionably, there is deep strategic mistrust between the two countries. China's rapid economic growth, steady military modernization, and relentless nationalistic propaganda at home are shaping Chinese public expectations and limiting possibilities for compromise with other powers.

This does not make conflict inevitable, but it is cause for long-term concern and will shape U.S. efforts to avoid hostilities with China. Military-to-military contacts lag far behind the rest of the U.S.-China relationship. Taiwan is an obvious point of disagreement and the one place where the two powers could conceivably come into direct conflict. U.S. maritime surveillance activities inside China's exclusive economic zone are another contentious point. There is, however, a growing recognition that the United States and China should engage one another and seek to avoid a conflict that would almost certainly be destructive to both sides.