September 07, 2017
Wanted: A U.S. Strategic Response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
China is engaging in a nearly trillion dollar play for the future of Afro-Eurasia—called the Belt and Road Initiative—and has so far caught the United States flat-footed. Unless the United States works with key allies and partners to craft a forward-leaning response, it risks replicating the strategic failure that occurred in the South China Sea. The result could be a China-centric economic and security order extending across Eurasia and along the Indian Ocean rim.
Observing Beijing’s approach to the South China Sea in late 2013, American leaders experienced a failure of imagination. They did not anticipate the ambitious scope of China’s land reclamation. At over 3,200 acres, China has reclaimed an area equivalent to more than 20 percent of the island of Manhattan. Additionally, American leaders did not envision the cascading military and diplomatic consequences of a slow-moving U.S. response, which gave China the opportunity to project power more than five hundred miles from its mainland and undermine U.S. credibility by demonstrating to the region that China could unilaterally change the facts on the ground without paying a significant price.
Read the full op-ed in The National Interest.
More from CNAS
-
Leverage the new US International Development Finance Corporation to compete with China
Commentary
The United States has a unique opportunity to up its game in the global economic competition with China. In early October, even as Democrats and Republicans in the Senate enga...
By Daniel Kliman
-
On GPS: The future of US-China relations
Video
Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell breaks down the factions and relationships shaping US-China relations. View the full vide...
By Kurt Campbell
-
What is the end game with China?
Commentary
As President Trump prepares to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, there is intense speculation about whether the two leaders will strike a deal over the ...
By Peter Harrell
-
The United States' Greatest Strength Over Russia and China is Its Alliance with Europe
Commentary
President Donald Trump has rightly recognized that America must do more to stand up to Chinese and Russian threats to U.S. interests. While most agree that having a national s...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Julianne Smith
