Assessing the China threat.

• Author: Ross, Robert S.

AFTER A period of calm in U.S.-Chinese relations, in which U.S. China policy stressed economic engagement, cooperation against terrorism and stability in the Taiwan Strait, attention has returned to the military and economic rise of China and the challenges to American security.

China's economy has been growing at 9 percent per year since 1979. China's reforms have transformed its bankrupt socialist system into an increasingly unregulated and openly trading economy that drives economic growth throughout the world. Since the early part of this decade, China has been replacing the United States as the most important market for all of East Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore already export more to China and send more investment capital to China than they do to the United States. The export and investment trends elsewhere in East Asia make it increasingly clear that the East Asian economies depend more on China than on the United States for economic growth, employment and political stability. Moreover, Chinese trade policy actively reinforces these trends. Its free trade agreements with the ASEAN countries promote expansion of their exports to China. The result of these developments is the determined emergence of an East Asian economic system with China as its hub.

Will Chinese economic power cause local states to align increasingly with China? The behavior of the regional states clearly answers this question. Where the United States retains military supremacy, states are enhancing their military cooperation with the United States, despite regional economic trends. The rise of Chinese economic influence is not a threat to U.S. strategic interest in a divided East Asia.

There is no question that countries that are vulnerable to China's improving ground force and land-based capabilities are realigning toward China. South Korea understands that the United States cannot offset Chinese ground force improvements, given constraints on U.S. military power in mainland theaters, and the ROK has readjusted accordingly. It no longer supports U.S. policy toward North Korea, but rather cooperates with China to undermine U.S. efforts to isolate and coerce North Korea.

The growth of Chinese military power also affects Taiwan's foreign policy. Chinese short- and medium-range missiles and Su-27 and Su-30 fighter aircraft threaten Taiwan's economy and democracy. Even if the United States intervened in a war between China and Taiwan, China would still likely penetrate Taiwan's defenses. Although the U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan is stronger today than at any time since the 1960s, the Taiwanese independence movement is dying. Taiwanese polling consistently reveals that less than 10 percent of the population supports a declaration of independence. Eighty percent of the people oppose changing the name of the island from "Republic of China." The defeat of Chen Shui-bian's party in the December 2004 legislative election reflected widespread dissatisfaction with his mainland policy. Since then, opposition politicians have made popular high-profile visits to Beijing and made strong statements against independence, while Chen's popularity has plummeted. Meanwhile, Taiwan resists U.S. pressure to purchase advanced American weapons. Fifty-five percent of the respondents in a recent poll believe that U.S. weaponry cannot make Taiwan secure, and only 37 percent support purchasing the weapons. Another poll reported that nearly 60 percent of the public believes that Taiwan cannot defend itself against the mainland. Taiwan's Ministry of Defense concurs. In 2004 it concluded that the mainland would gain military superiority over Taiwan in 2006.

China's soft power has followed the rise of its hard power. More than one million Taiwanese now have residences on the mainland. By the end of 2004 there were more than 250,000 "cross-strait marriages", and these marriages had grown to over 20 percent of all new Taiwanese marriages. In early 2004 there were 5,000 students from Taiwan enrolled in Chinese universities, even though Chinese degrees are not recognized by Taiwan.

But while South Korea and Taiwan reconsider their dependency on the United States for security, the countries of maritime East Asia, despite their growing dependence on the Chinese economy, are moving closer to the United States. As early as 1995 Tokyo agreed to revised guidelines for the U.S.-Japanese alliance, facilitating closer war-time coordination between the Japanese and U.S. militaries, including U.S. use of Japanese territory in case of war with a third country. Since then, Japan has become the most active U.S. partner in the development of missile defense technologies. It has agreed to a five-year plan for U.S.-Japanese joint production of a missile defense system, and it will contribute $10 billion by the end of the decade. In 2001 it passed legislation allowing the Japanese military to provide non-combat support to U.S. anti-terrorist operations and then sent its navy to join in the search for Al-Qaeda forces in the waters off Pakistan and Iran. That same year Japan passed legislation allowing the government to deploy ground troops in support of U.S. operations in Iraq. As China has risen, Japan has strengthened defense cooperation with the United States. It has...