A stitch in time saves nine. Pay me now or pay me later. Ukraine shows that failing to deter Russia before its February 2022 invasion has proven far more costly than active deterrence would have been. American foreign policy in Asia needs to learn lessons from this failure.
Chaos is displacing the stable global order that has been led by the United States since World War II. Active American leadership is required or worse will come. Yet a powerful segment of our political class apologizes for the good we have done for three-quarters of a century and defaults to a passive and reactive foreign policy, thinking it reduces risk. Despite grousing by adversaries and some friends, when the U.S. leads, the world is a more peaceful and prosperous place. The word “isolationism” is overused these days, but those who use it most are those who characterize “America First” as isolationism. Isolationism can be seen as the result of the U.S. retreating into passivity, reacting rather than leading. This is as true today as it was in 1940.
American foreign policy is most effective when it is actively leading. To lead, one needs to have an idea of where he or she is going. This requires an honest assessment of our desired ends and those of our adversaries. From these, we should produce an active strategy of ends, ways, and means. American interests have, over time, been consistently focused on security, prosperity, and human rights. The benefits of this approach accrue to others, not just the U.S. Once objectives are determined, identifying the ways and means to achieve them results in a coherent and executable strategy. The 2017 National Security Strategy was unique in its detailed recommendations for execution.
Autocrats naturally complain about American leadership because it is a direct threat to their continued rule. However, their people thrive when the U.S. holds their illegitimate leaders accountable. The lives of billions of people improve when values-based rule-of-law leadership prevails. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing claims that Chinese culture is compatible only with authoritarian governance, yet Taiwan thrives as a vibrant multiparty democracy. Beijing claims only the Chinese Communist Party could bring 800 million of its 1.4 billion people out of poverty (leaving 600 million, or 40%, in poverty). But this is untrue. Democracies such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan have generated prosperity that has raised the living standards of their entire populations. The American formula of security, prosperity, and human rights works.
Democratic politics and market economics combine for effective governance. The U.S. has led the world, through example and influence, in providing others the benefits of that formula. American leadership is most effective when active, sharing without embarrassment what’s possible when people are free to think and innovate and to benefit from their creativity and work.
But the U.S. has not always led. During periods of U.S. aimlessness, the global rule of law has weakened and the world has become less stable. Leaders who accept the status quo and are unwilling to push for improvement are usually risk averse. Their passive policy amounts to “don’t do stupid stuff.” They don’t play to win — they play not to lose. While the world changes, passive leaders do not adapt but hold fast, abjuring action in the hope of avoiding blame.
Active, transformational leaders tolerate risk. They anticipate change and adapt policy to win. That does not mean they are reckless. Instead, they create policy that forces adversaries to react to America rather than the other way around. They knock adversaries off balance and force them to burn their resources in defense, leaving them unable to maintain the offense. America is going through a period of passivity and reactive foreign policy, and this has made the world increasingly chaotic. Adversaries feel free to pursue their malign ends because they know America is too busy reacting to the expanding chaos.
Beijing has been deliberate in pursuing its stated goal of returning to the center of the global stage, displacing the U.S., and has developed a clear strategy to achieve this. But aside from 2017-21, Chinese activity has generally been met with passivity. American inaction has been excused with the misguided assumption that “if we treat China like an enemy, it will become one.”
Any real student of Communist China knows Beijing has considered the U.S. its enemy since the Korean War in 1950. What we call the Korean War, the Chinese government calls the “Resist America Support North Korea”( 抗美援朝 in Chinese) war. There is an apocryphal tale that reflects the dynamic that developed: Two senior military leaders, one American and one Chinese, discuss China’s development of militarized islands. The American asks pleadingly, “I thought we had an understanding. Why did you build those islands?” To which the Chinese leader replies, “Because you did nothing to stop us.” Beijing expected the U.S. to block construction. Its failure to do so was taken as a green light to continue.
Unchecked, the CCP’s plan has yielded seven militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea that threaten a treaty ally and the wider region. It has been allowed to develop a monopoly on rare earth metals, pharmaceutical precursors, and solar panels. It has implemented its One Belt One Road concept, suffocating nations with debt. After 40 years of waiting for Beijing to see the error of its ways and join the international system, the Trump administration’s decision to advance U.S. interests actively and stop Beijing’s juggernaut was timely and necessary. The Biden administration has kept the Trump tariffs in place, which validates the approach. Former President Donald Trump took the policy a step further. To advance U.S. and Western interests and force Beijing to react to the U.S., the Trump administration declared Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur people constituted genocide, actively supported Taiwan, and threw hundreds of CCP agents out of the U.S.
Fears by some that this proactive policy would begin a cycle of escalation proved unfounded. The closing of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, the expulsion of 60 Chinese “journalists,” and increasing tariffs on subsidized Chinese manufactured goods — all defended U.S. interests without creating a negative response. Bullies back down when challenged. Yet there are those who still advise against a more active foreign policy out of fear despite enormous evidence to the contrary, that Beijing will overreact. It didn’t. It flinched and recalibrated its position.
To compete effectively, American policymakers need to understand that Beijing’s outrageous actions are tests. China is prodding America to see if Washington has the stomach to compete. Historically, when the U.S. resists, Beijing backs off, seeing it has touched a red line. Failure to respond encourages further adventurism. As with a schoolyard bully, one merely need fight back and the aggressor backs down.
Critics’ objected to imposing tariffs on Chinese goods when Beijing failed to live up to its World Trade Organization commitments and all other remedies had failed. By subsidizing exports that erode American manufacturing and beggar the middle class, China distorts markets to its advantage. The last administration took the unpopular but necessary decision to raise tariffs on imported Chinese goods. The impact was not immediate, but after nearly seven years, it has been substantial, as seen in the Chinese economy’s current travails. Tariffs took an economic weapon away from China that it had used to bend others to its will. Critics proposed no options other than the passivity of accepting the continued hollowing-out of the American economy and middle class, hoping Beijing would come around. Taking action to defend U.S. interests is never wrong.
Those who advise inaction assume passivity reduces risk. A survey of increasing global conflicts shows the opposite is true. Weakness and passivity breed aggression — they don’t mitigate it. An honest assessment of an adversary’s strengths and weaknesses is necessary so there is a solid basis for a plan of action. Creating and then executing an active strategy against China and other adversaries would force them to react to the U.S. rather than the other way around.
Here are some ways to go on offense:
Reinstate the China-focused 2017 NSS substrategy, such as the FBI’s China Initiative, to expose Chinese malfeasance and advance the interests of the U.S. and its allies. Use information initiatives such as the Philippines’s assertive transparency to expose China’s aggression. This undermines the CCP’s global and domestic legitimacy and would force Beijing to respond to the U.S., taking back the initiative. Identify measurable objectives and a timeline for execution. Resist the urge to include talks as objectives. Talks are means to an end, not an end in themselves. When the focus is on talks, policy gets bogged down in endless negotiation that works against America’s interests. Talks have been shown to favor Beijing, which has shown repeatedly that it will not be bound by “scraps of paper,” such as its treaty obligations to maintain Hong Kong’s autonomy for 50 years.
When dealing with China’s excesses, avoid the urge to respond in kind. Instead, assess where the U.S. and its allies have advantages and focus effort there. Rather than get drawn needlessly into the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, where China enjoys natural advantages, take the initiative where China is weak, such as in and around restive Tibet and Xinjiang, which China annexed in 1950. (Called East Turkestan until annexation, Xinjiang 新疆 translates as “New Frontier”, which questions the legitimacy of Beijing’s claim that it has always been Chinese territory.) Meet publicly with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders, and highlight Beijing’s inane statements such as “the Dalai Lama must reincarnate in Tibet, according to PRC law.” On Xinjiang, engage with the Uyghur diaspora in Central Asia to identify and broadcast human rights violations inside China. Leverage Voice of America to reassure the Uyghur people inside China that their plight is registering around the globe.
Develop meaningful deterrence concepts beyond nuclear weapons. Consider ideas such as “Mutually Assured Information Destruction,” where an attack on critical information-enabled infrastructure, such as the Colonial Pipeline or banking, would generate an overwhelming response in the information space but also in other domains where the Chinese government is sensitive.
Beijing has weaponized its economy and uses it as a lever to modify political behavior in other countries. Extend the concept of NATO’s Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all), which has been tried by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. The U.S., the European Union, and Japan constitute roughly 60% of the world economy. If they worked together to enforce WTO rules and punish China’s violations, such as dumping electric vehicles in Europe, it would go far to moderate Beijing’s mercantilist behavior. Remember, Beijing needs our markets as much as we need its products.
We don’t want to mimic China by violating our own principles, such as free speech, so we should develop ways to give the Chinese people unrestricted access to the internet. Make it impossible for China to shut it down. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies access to information as a human right. China is a signatory, so Beijing should not object to making Starlink or similarly capable communication services available in China, bypassing its Great Firewall. If Beijing objects, highlight this to the world — what legitimate government is afraid of allowing its people to have access to uncensored information?
Educate Americans about the CCP’s information warfare against the West and its many manifestations, such as TikTok. TikTok is designed to destroy the social fabric in open democracies and to censor free speech. How can banning TikTok, which is a censorship platform, constitute censorship? The first country to ban TikTok was China. The U.S. should do the same.
Diplomatically, stop chasing dialogue. When the climate envoy flew to Beijing for climate talks in 2021, he was made to wait in Tianjin, 100 miles from Beijing. He was then made to conduct climate talks via Zoom. It was an act of deliberate humiliation by Beijing. The Chinese government uses dialogue to gauge Washington’s stomach for tension. The topics of the talks are irrelevant, for Beijing abandons agreements whenever they become inconvenient. It deliberately presents humiliating conditions for talks to test America’s resolve and appetite for competition. It is not the subject matter of talks but their conditions that tell the story. Those who chase dialogue are effectively asking their Chinese counterparts, “You won’t overreact if we defend our national interests, will you?” This is no substitute for proper risk assessment.
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The flawed assumption of the recent spate of Cabinet officials going to Beijing is that effective communication is limited to senior leaders and that crisis communications depend on Americans reaching out to their Chinese counterparts. Limitless opportunities for passing messages already exist through diplomats in other capitals. This is their primary but underutilized purpose. There are also many military channels at the tactical and strategic levels that can be used to good effect.
Dealing with the regime in Beijing requires patience and risk tolerance. Senior American leaders must understand that Beijing exploits weakness, interpreting American overtures for dialogue as a lack of confidence. Use the time spent to dialogue with Beijing to cultivate relations and coordinate actions with our many friends and allies in China’s periphery. Support allies such as the Philippines that oppose China’s abuse of our open information and economic systems. We hold all the cards. It is time to start playing them.
Retired Brig. Gen. David Stilwell is the Fox fellow for future pacing threats at the Institute for Future Conflict and was a defense attache to Beijing and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s assistant secretary of state for pacific affairs. He is “wanted” under an active arrest warrant in China.