In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China.
This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said.
The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past few decades, including a demographic dividend and benign security environment, are becoming headwinds, as its population starts to shrink and the US and its allies step up their containment.
However, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has yet to achieve his ambitious goals of placing China at the heart of a new international order and bringing Taiwan under Chinese sovereignty, they said.
Indeed, foremost on Brands’ and Beckley’s minds was Taiwan. Not only is Taiwanese public opinion trending in the opposite direction for Xi — with those identifying as Chinese at historic lows — but also Taiwan’s long-delayed defense reforms are soon to come online. In addition, allied cooperation to defend the nation is only deepening.
They called this the “danger zone” — a period of near-term maximum danger where Beijing, losing confidence that time is on its side, might strike before the US and its allies have fully prepared to meet the China challenge.
However, these views of China in decline are “both ill-advised and premature,” Georgetown University Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues senior fellow Evan Medeiros wrote in Foreign Affairs this month in “The Delusion of Peak China.”
“Xi still believes China is rising,” Medeiros said, adding that “many Chinese elites, including Xi, believe it is the US that is in terminal decline. For them, even if China is slowing down, the power gap between the countries is still narrowing in China’s favor.”
“Xi remains committed to the idea that China still enjoys what he calls a ‘period of strategic opportunity,’” Medeiros said. “The CCP’s official history of the last 100 years, released in 2021, stated that China is ‘closer to the center of the world stage than it has ever been,’ and that it ‘has never been closer to its own rebirth.’”
For Taiwan, it is good if China believes that time is on its side, as this should forestall Xi from acting rashly. As the recent visit of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians to China showed, Beijing still thinks it can further its “peaceful unification” goals short of war. However, this should not lull the nation into a false sense of security.
Brands and Beckley said the China challenge would be short, sharp and intense, while Medeiros said the China challenge would be a complex competition over the long term.
For Taiwanese, it would be prudent to view the China challenge as an intense, multifaceted, urgent and immediate threat, to spur the much-needed defense reforms, national awareness and diplomatic support for the nation.
Medeiros might be right that Xi feels like time is on his side, but this could change at any moment. With Beijing’s slowing economy, and if the US’ technology controls and allied containment of China have a stifling effect, a sense of malaise and urgency could soon set in.
History is littered with examples — Japan in 1941, Germany in 1914 and Russia in 2022 — of great powers betting the house on an invasion, because they think the alternative is gradual decline. Yes, the China challenge will be long and enduring, but for Taiwan it is also immediate and urgent.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS