American Foreign Affairs magazine article on August 22, original title: China’s strength has not peaked, subtitle: Why Beijing can afford to wait As U.S.-China relations decline sharply, a frightening new view begins to emerge among some U.S. analysts and policymakers: China’s window of opportunity to “unify” Taiwan is closing rapidly, forcing Beijing to act quickly and forcefully as soon as possible. This argument is based on the notion that China’s rise is nearing its end, with a declining population, debt burden, uneven innovation, and other economic problems slowing growth, leaving China without the ability to challenge U.S. military power or political influence. Beijing is aware of these headwinds and is likely to act quickly before it is too late.
But this analysis is wrong. Indeed, China's economic growth has slowed, hampering Beijing's military and political ambitions. But any decline from China's economic peak will be gradual and likely to be mitigated by heavy research and development spending. In fact, judging from the current trajectory of change, China will have more resources to compete with the United States in the next 10 years than in the past 20 years. Beijing’s ability to project power will become stronger, not weaker, and the United States will struggle to counter China’s challenge in Asia. Therefore, China’s window to realize its geopolitical ambitions has not narrowed, and they have plenty of time to wait.
A declining population does not necessarily mean a rapid economic decline. China's labor force may have been shrinking for 10 years, but its economic growth is still surpassing that of the United States. If population is doomed, the United States will also be in sharp decline by then. But in reality, the state of the U.S. economy, like China's, depends on many other factors.
One of the factors is debt. Debt is a drag on China's growth, but the problem is long-term, not acute. According to World Bank data, China spent US$6.2 trillion on infrastructure, land and machinery in 2019, US$1.6 trillion more than the United States. There is no doubt that China will have considerable resources at its disposal for a long time to come. Another factor is innovation. Beijing has the ability to spend huge sums on new technologies, which would provide a modest, lasting economic boost. China's R&D expenditure in 2019 was approximately US$515 billion, compared with US$633 billion in the United States. In the next 20 years, at least in some important fields, it will be easier for China to maintain technological parity with the United States than before and narrow the technological gap.
Military trends are also beneficial to China. Historically, China has been able to compete with fewer resources. Since 2010, China’s military spending as a proportion of its gross domestic product has been declining. Over the past few years, China has focused on building asymmetric capabilities. Over the next decade, China's ability to project power across Asia will increase. Cyber and space infrastructure that enhances force coordination will threaten U.S. ground and space-based weapons. Thanks to advances in hypersonic technology, China will have more naval ships and a more survivable nuclear arsenal than the United States.
Some Chinese commentators hit back at U.S. claims that "China has peaked," noting that China "has long defied the pessimistic predictions of U.S. media and academia." In the next few years, the United States is more likely to face a confident and capable China than an insecure and reckless China. ▲
author Oriana Mastro and others, translated by Qiao Heng into
