President Xi ‘s Megalomania

More than three thousand years ago, around the time horses were domesticated, men from the upper classes started wearing pants in China. It was a sign of prestige. The elite typically owned the horses during this period and wearing pants made riding easier for them. By 1205 AD these “big boy pants” became known as britches. Today, China’s ambitious President Xi Jinping has outgrown his modern-day britches. His grandiose desire to remake the world in China’s image is an outsized and extremely dangerous dream. The threat is one the world has only recently accepted as real and imminent.

RAND Corporation released a major 252-page report this week examining the international and defense dimensions of the US-China relationship from Beijing’s perspective to aid western leaders in developing a strategy to deal with the rising communist giant. Using primary source documents, it confirms that the communist giant’s immediate goal is to establish its primacy in the Asia-Pacific region and assume leadership of the international order. It reveals that China has not ruled out military force to achieve its objectives, although it currently is relying heavily on its economic expertise and diplomatic wolf warriors. According to the report, China may choose to conduct a proxy war with the US in the next decade or so or engage in a direct limited conflict to attain it goals. Most significantly, it says that China’s strategy “will not allow” the United States to get in its way or to dislodge China from its future position of advantage over the West.

The authors of the report, Timothy Heath, Derek Grossman, and Asha Clark conclude that Chinese military strategy calls for building a superior force to make the cost of war too great for any nation, including the US, to oppose China’s plans. Part of that strategy includes shaping the international environment so that security ties with client states favor Beijing and not Washington. The analysts point out that China already acknowledges there will be intense competition but has yet to overtly admit to the inevitability of a future armed conflict. Unlike earlier hegemons, China primarily is centered on dominating Eurasia, the Middle East, and Africa. “Chinese international leadership would be characterized by a reliance on finance, diplomatic engagement, and security assistance to exercise influence while maintaining a modest overseas military presence,” they said.

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Marginalization of the United States and its Western allies would have dire economic consequences for the whole world. The RAND report has implications that should wake up the Biden Administration and West European leaders. By 2050 it says China expects successful competition with the United States may include “militarized crises or conflicts of a limited scope.” China expects the US to be forced into recognizing its authority as the global leader. President Xi plans to contain the US in the Americas. Worse still is China’s goal to alter the international rules-based order, a system which has proved stable, in favor of the norms upheld by China when managing conflicts of an economic or military nature. According to the report, Beijing expects to dictate the terms under which the US and the communist giant cooperate.

Chinese overseas aggression has intensified since President Xi assumed power. The country has embarked on a mission to secure the South China Sea, absorb Hong Kong under Chinese law, internationally isolate and then take Taiwan back, militarize and control space, and ensure the US and Europe remain at odds in their approach toward China, among other areas. The authors summarize five major objectives derived from Chinese primary sources. First, Beijing intends to force the US to modify its policies to accommodate China’s demands regarding its core interests. Next, China intends to foment divisions inside the US regarding opinions on the threat posed by China. This involves the US media, academia, and cultural elites. Third, it intends to force the US government to cooperate on shared concerns on equal terms per the “new type great power” framework. China also expects the US to facilitate it technological development and it plans to ensure Washington is ineffective in restraining Chinese “extraction” of the needed technology. Finally, China intends to make US attempts to constrain Beijing ineffective. To do so Beijing intends to make its BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) the compelling choice above US geoeconomic initiatives.

China has gotten too big for its britches. US diplomatic efforts going forward need to shore up American alliances and partnerships to restrain China. Anything else dooms the free world to a Chinese style gulag archipelago by 2050.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.