Why has the US failed to prevent China’s

rise?
The power that China now projects in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific is its
strategic necessity

Dr Muhammad Ali EhsanDecember 19, 2021

The writer is Dean Social Sciences at Garrison University Lahore and tweets @Dr M Ali Ehsan

A popular American narrative today about China is that “it is no

more rising; it has already risen”. But what is stranger and more
important is the US behaviour during the entire process of
China’s rise. This is because the US made no deliberate effort to
prevent or even slow down this rise. In fact, it facilitated the
same. It is unnatural in world politics for one great power to allow
space for another rising power as all great powers, when they
become economically strong, seek military means to safeguard
and protect their economic empire. Great powers always convert
their economic power into military power and when they do that,
they jump the fence of competition to land in the arena of
confrontation and conflict. Is the late American realisation of
seeing China no more as a competitor but as a rival a deliberate
attempt on its part and a well thought-out public policy? Is this
the brainchild of those that run and benefit from the military-
industrial complex (MIC) — the Lockheed Martins and the
Northrop Grummans and their likes? There exists a mutual
interest between the US military and the defence industry that
supplies it, and together both make a great force to influence the
US public policy. So, has a threat been deliberately created?
Joe Biden continues what Donald Trump started — a trade war
against China and giving up on the US policy of engagement to
replace it with the realist approach of containing China. The
previous administrations have been facilitating China and giving it
access to not only their domestic markets but also the world
markets through the WTO membership and the MFN status
conferred on the country. The real question that the world needs to
ask is: why has the US woken up so late? Has it deliberately allowed
a threat to grow? Is this done in a military-industrial complex
scenario in which the need for war-fighting weapons is
deliberately created by this great trinity of alliance i.e. the defence
contractors, the Pentagon and the politicians? There is already a
precedence which tells you that either the US deliberately allowed
China’s rise or, less possibly, it was ignorant and didn’t learn the
right lessons from history.
In 1946, George Kennan, a US diplomat and historian, advised the
US policymakers on what they should do about their World War II
ally and partner Soviet Union. Serving in the US Embassy in Moscow
in 1946, he sent his now famous ‘Long Telegram’ to the US in which
he questioned the nature of Soviet politics and suggested that the
US look at the Soviet Union not as an ally but as a rival and be
prepared for their expansionist tendencies. It was through his
political insight that the US initiated the vigilant containment of
Russia. Why wasn’t a similar strategy adopted against China? Why
was China not contained when the US had the opportunity to do
so?
John Joseph Mearsheimer, a political scientist and international
relations scholar who is considered by many as the greatest
influential realist of this generation, believes that the US should not
have engaged with China and instead given it the opportunity and
strategic space to rise. He considers that China’s greater flexibility
to cause trouble abroad was gifted by the US. If this is a correct
realist assumption then the military-industrial complex theory of
the US providing a deliberate space for China to rise and become
a threat makes sense.
The geopolitical setting of the Cold War between the US and the
Soviet Union was built around the Iron Curtain in Europe. But even
with armies armed to the teeth and equipped with thousands of
nuclear weapons, the Cold War never turned hot because the
Soviet Union was contained. However, the geopolitical setting of
this new Cold War 2.0 between the US and China is not built
around any such symbolic barrier. It is oceanic, more specifically
built around the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. China has
already risen and its economic as well as military potential
continues to gather steam. An important question being asked is:
will this new Cold War turn hot and, if yes, why?
One of the indicators to determine sea power is merchant
shipping and China, together with Greece, leads the world in this
area. US military theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, in his book The
Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1660-1783) published in 1890,
had argued that a state’s power to protect its fleets has been a
determining factor in world history. The power that China now
projects in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific is its strategic
necessity. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted above
the poverty line and are now enjoying middle-class lifestyles.
President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party know that political
stability in China is related to two vital essentialities: i)
maintenance and sustenance of China’s economic rise; and ii)
preventing the reversal in people’s fortune. To do this, China must
protect the vital sea lines of communications (SLOCS) around the
southern Eurasian Rimland and ensure that 85% of oil and gas
from the Indian Ocean safely reaches China’s Pacific Ocean ports
through the Malacca Strait. The US sees China’s presence in the
Western Pacific and Indian Ocean as a threat, whereas China sees
it as its great strategic necessity.
Political geography argues that a state’s politics emanates from
its geography. In the previous Cold War, the effect of geography
on politics was not as significant as today. The USSR was being
contained and its communist presence in Eastern Europe was
being blunted through the Marshall plan. The close geographic
proximity of the nation states at both sides of the Iron Curtain
divide meant any start of war would engulf the entire region.
In the current Cold War between the US and China, there is no Iron Curtain
and possible conflict flashpoints are considerable since they spread out on
the wide seascape of the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Geography
of this Cold War 2.0 is more war-prone and thus needs a careful assessment
by all stakeholders. The world cannot afford another Cold War under the
current geographical setting. It is dangerous.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2021.