Chinese Grand Strategy
Explore the implications of China’s global rise for U.S. primacy and the liberal international order.
Our aim in this seminar will be to explore the future of rising China and alternative U.S. policy approaches for coping with it. A core focus of our discussion will be the domestic sources and drivers of China’s conduct. We will begin by considering the nature of the PRC-Leninist regime that has ruled China since 1949. We will then explore how Chinese nationalism and the PRC party-state’s search for “political security” in the post-Cold War era has shaped the PRC’s efforts to maintain its rule at home as well as its conduct abroad. On the basis of these discussions, we will then evaluate some U.S. policy approaches and requirements for coping with the rise of China and keeping the peace in Asia. On the final day, we will explore alternative U.S. long-range strategies for coping with China’s rise in the course of a crisis simulation.
Image courtesy Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China
Eric Brown on the future of Chinese democracy
Faculty
Eric Brown
Eric Brown is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where he studies Asian and Middle East affairs, international security and development, alternative geopolitical futures, and U.S. diplomacy and strategy. In recent years, his work has focused on the contest over order in West Asia, the geostrategic ramifications of growing Trans-Asian connectivity, coping with state fragility, and U.S. security strategy.
Eric Brown
Eric Brown is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where he studies Asian and Middle East affairs, international security and development, alternative geopolitical futures, and U.S. diplomacy and strategy. He is also the editor, with Hillel Fradkin and Husain Haqqani, of the review Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. In recent years, his work has focused on the contest over order in West Asia, the geostrategic ramifications of growing Trans-Asian connectivity, coping with state fragility, and U.S. security strategy.
For 15 years, he has conducted research across Eurasia on strategic, governance, educational and political issues as well as on developing new expeditionary diplomacy and stabilization tools and plans. He has a special interest in the geopolitics of mountainous areas, from the Zagros to the Himalayas. In 2017, he completed a field-work intensive study on U.S. alliances from the Maghreb to India, and on strategies for bolstering allies against state fragility and breakdown and expanding grey zone conflict.
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Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session
Ruling China: The “Great Enterprise” in the 21st-Century
Readings:
- Confucius, Analects, Book Thirteen
- Nathan Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo, Ch.3
- David Lampton, “How China is Ruled,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2014
- Timothy Beardson, Stumbling Giant: The Threats to China’s Future, Ch. 7
- Charles Horner and Eric Brown, “A Century After the Qing: Yesterday’s Empire and Today’s Republics,” China Heritage Quarterly, September 2011
- Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, “How China Sees America, the Sum of Beijing’s Fears,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2012
- General Office of the CCP, “Document No. 9: Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere”
Discussion Questions:
- What does Confucius mean by the “rectification of names,” and why is this so important to the conduct of a country’s political and strategic affairs?
- In what ways are “China” and the “PRC” Leninist regime that rules China different, and in what ways are they one and the same?
- How might domestic factors—including corruption, lack of the rule of law, demographic imbalances, and the booms and busts of economic dynamism—affect the future shape and orientation of the PRC’s rule?
- What are the implications of “China’s” integration with the Asian liberal order for the “PRC”?
“Political Security” and Pathways of Ascent
Readings:
- Geremie Barme, “After the Future in China”
- Jacqueline Newmeyer Deal, “China’s Nationalist Heritage,” The National Interest, January/February 2013
- Aaron Friedberg, A Contest For Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle For Mastery in Asia, Ch. 6
- William A. Callahan, “Chinese Visions of World Order: Post-Hegemonic or a New Hegemony?,” International Studies Review (2008)
- Liu Xiaobo, No Enemies, No Hatred, “Bellicose and Thuggish”
Discussion Questions:
- What are the fears, interests and ambitions that motivate Chinese nationalism?
- Does Chinese nationalism enhance the security of China and the PRC regime or does it undermine it?
- What are the implications of Chinese nationalism and the Chinese search for alternative theories of world order for the PRC’s relations with its neighbors and with the U.S.?
The U.S. and the Asian Order
Readings:
- John J. Mearsheimer, “Can China Rise Peacefully?” The National Interest
- Ashley J. Tellis, “Balancing Without Containment: A U.S. Strategy for Confronting China’s Rise,” The Washington Quarterly, Fall 2013
- John G. Ikenberry, “The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive?,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008
- Liu Xiaobo, No Enemies, No Hatred, “Behind the Rise of Great Powers”
- Cui Tiankai and Pang Hanzhao, “On China and U.S. Working Together to Build a New-Type Relationship between Major Countries,” China International Strategy Review (2012)
- James T. H. Tang, “Northeast Asia Without the United States: Towards Pax Sinica?”
Discussion Questions:
- What kind of “Risen China” does the U.S. want, and what is the U.S. willing to do to achieve this?
- What instruments of national power does the U.S. have at its disposal to shape the course of China’s rise? What new instruments might we need?
- What are the implications of a weak, unstable, and potentially chaotic China for Asia and for the PRC’s conduct in it?
Scenario Exercise
Readings:
On this day we will explore alternative US long-range strategies for coping with the rise of China through a simulation of a protracted crisis in Asia.
