US-China Relations: The Year in Review

2015 was a contentious year in U.S.-China relations. There were some notable accomplishments – on climate change, most prominently, but U.S.-China cooperation also made the Iran deal possible. However, as we look back at the state of the relationship, those successes seem far outweighed by growing tensions in areas where conflict is increasingly possible (though still remote).

We may look back at 2015 as the year the South China Sea finally became a major issue in the bilateral relationship, despite the fact that Washington has no claims in the region and has repeatedly insisted it does not take a position on the sovereignty issue. Though China began constructing its artificial islands all the way back in 2013, the issue didn’t really become a major point of friction until this year when the Obama administration opted for a tougher stance. The Pentagon made up for lost time by criticizing China’s attempts to change the status quo at every available turn and backed up words with actions by conducting a surveillance flight over an artificial island in May and an official freedom of navigation operation in October. China reacted with all the typical rhetorical bombast to these moves, while also stepping up its military drills in the region and continuing to beef up its South Sea Fleet. The potential for escalation (particularly should China choose to challenge a U.S. patrol) is far higher than it was this time last year.

Meanwhile, cyberspace has also grown more contentious. Again, not because of new actions from China, but because of a changed response from the Obama administration. The White House has upped the pressure over cyber issues in the past few years (although its early attempts to discuss cyber espionage were derailed in grand fashion by the Snowden leaks). This year, the Obama administration made the cyber issue a critical focus of Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the United States, by simultaneously threatening cyber sanctions against Chinese firms found to have benefited from cyber economic espionage. Both sides reached a potential breakthrough in the joint statement issued after Xi’s visit, but only time will tell whether implementation lives up to the grand promises to refrain from economic espionage and cooperate on investigating cyber crimes.

Meanwhile, amid these two glaring issues are the typical host of disagreements that plague relations: U.S. companies complaining about access to Chinese markets; China’s frustrations over U.S. efforts to stonewall its new initiatives (such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank); and mistrust stemming from China’s human rights situation. Plus, both sides are trying to diplomatically outmaneuver each other when it comes to shoring up ties in the broader Asia-Pacific.

While things seem bleak, it’s important to provide some historical context. The sad truth is that most years end up looking like net losses for U.S.-China relations. In the grand scheme of things, 2015 wasn’t actually all that bad. It certainly doesn’t compare to 1989, when the massacre of protesters in Beijing soured the American public on China and led to demands for economic sanctions. Or 1999, when the United States accidentally (or not, according to many Chinese) bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Or 2001, when a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet crashed over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot.

Even within the Obama presidency, 2010 still stands as the nadir in U.S.-China relations. That year, President Barack Obama approved an arms sale to Taiwan (in fact, it approved another one in the last weeks of December 2015) and met with the Dalai Lama within the span of a month; China retaliated by severing military-to-military relations for most of the year. Also in 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared Washington’s enduring interest in Internet freedom (with China as the obvious foil) and placed the United States right in the thick of the South China Sea disputes with a speech at the ASEAN Regional Forum.

If the relationship survived all that – what makes 2015 so special?

The real change worth paying attention to – the one that goes beyond discrete events – is the increasing tendency of U.S. analysts and policymakers to second-guess what has been the bedrock of the United States’ China policy for the past 40 years: The assumption that increasing China’s integration with (and entanglement within) the existing international order is in America’s best interest. The idea was that China, as a “responsible stakeholder,” would become invested in the U.S.-led (and, in many ways, U.S.-created) system, and would work to uphold it. That idea is now coming under attack, with Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis firing an opening salvo in their report on “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China.”

China is enmeshed in the world system, from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization, but it has (predictably) used its growing international influence to its own benefit, not necessarily to Washington’s. That has led some, like Blackwill and Tellis, to argue that the strategy of seeking to integrate China in the world order was a mistake and that the United States should stop trying to assist China’s rise. The unspoken call, then, is for Washington to start actively opposing China’s rise, a path that recognizes enmity between the two sides as all but inevitable. 

At the same time, we’re seeing an increase in rhetoric from Beijing claiming that the United States and China are already at war – an ideological, informational war. From “Document 9,” which directly tied Western values with attacks on China’s political and economic systems to the talk of an “Internet war” being waged by the United States, it’s clear that some corners of China’s political leadership see the United States and China as fundamentally opposed. By believing that the United States’ political system is destined to try to overthrow China’s, Beijing creates its own version of the Thucydides trap.

In late May, noted China scholar David Lampton pointed to a coming “tipping point” in U.S.-China relations, where mutual fears between the two superpowers begin to outweigh hope. A lack of hope, Lampton argued, would erode the restraint and patience that have characterized the U.S.-China relationship for 40 years. The game of action-reaction-escalation the United States and China are playing (in the South China Sea, in particular) backs up his analysis.

That’s what you should take away from U.S.-China relations in 2015. As geopolitical realities change, a growing number of scholars on both sides are moving away from the conventional wisdom, which called for cooperation. That shift is more of a threat to the relationship than anything happening in the South China Sea.