September 27, 2000

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: THOMAS DONNELLY, Deputy Director

SUBJECT: China & Containment

Granting “permanent normal trading relations” status to the People’s Republic of China means that the U.S. has recognized China as a great power. The process of “engagement,” as the Clinton Administration has termed its policy, overrides all other concerns about Chinese behavior, and engagement is to result in a period of détente between Washington and Beijing. The final 83-to-15 vote in the Senate shows how broad is the support for the bet on détente. Even skeptics of the gamble that free trade inexorably will lead to political freedom in China, like Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), eventually voted in favor.

But, during the Cold War, containment came before détente. The initial Cold-War relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was premised upon recognition of a fundamental ideological and political conflict. The United States could then afford the risk of détente because it had achieved a reasonable measure of containment: strategic nuclear stability, a NATO alliance with the other European great powers, hundreds of thousands of troops to standing nose-to-nose with the Red Army.

None of these conditions exists today. Most American politicians are loathe to admit that there might be a fundamental conflict of interest between America and China. Indeed, even discussing such an idea is considered dangerous because such talk itself supposedly will turn the Chinese into our enemies.

Furthermore, and thanks in large measure to China’s own proliferation activities, the global nuclear equation for the United States has become increasingly complex; the old bipolar balance, gone. Nor have we done much to cobble together a “containment coalition” for China, let alone anything like a formal alliance by treaty. And the ability of American forces to defend Taiwan -- the strategic equivalent of defending West Germany during the Cold War -- is very much in doubt, especially as China modernizes its forces for just this contingency.

Most importantly, the continued support of the instruments of containment provided a hedge against the eventual failure of détente by the late 1970s. When the Reagan Administration decided to turn away from détente and craft an offensive strategy against the Soviet Union, it could do so effectively only because the infrastructure of containment was still in place. But détente without containment is more than a gamble. It is a bluff.

Ironically, today’s détente comes not at a moment of American weakness but at the height of American power. China’s power, on the other hand, is still more potential than actual. There is thus still time to balance détente with containment. One immediate step would be for Congress to pass the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act and for the next administration to make a serious commitment to improving the island’s defenses. Regional military exercises, combining U.S. forces and those of our regional allies, would also lead to a broader and deeper security regime in East Asia. And it would be useful to recognize the defense of Taiwan as a central scenario in the Pentagon’s upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review.

None of these steps is incompatible with a policy of détente toward China. But they are essential if this new détente is to have any hope of bringing Beijing peacefully into today’s international system led by the United States. “Containment” has become a scare word in U.S. China policy. But without it, détente is mere appeasement.