Request for more space cooperation, us policy prevents any bilateral exchange



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Stability Impacts

Instability between US/China leads to crisis – 3 reasons


Goldstein, David M. Knott Professor of Global Politics and International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, 13

[Avery, 4-13, “First Things First: The Pressing Danger of Crisis Instability in U.S.-China Relations”, International Security, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 49–89, AR]



The running debate about the long-term implications of China’s rise is not just¶ an unfortunate diversion from the more urgent danger facing the United States and China today—the risk of a war-threatening crisis—it is also a surprising¶ diversion given that near-term concerns about the dangers of conflict while¶ China remains relatively weak were raised more than a decade ago in a widely¶ cited article by Thomas Christensen.10 To be sure, Christensen’s arguments¶ about asymmetric conflict did result in analysts paying more attention to the¶ weapons and strategies that Beijing was developing to cope with continued¶ U.S. superiority should fighting occur, particularly in the Taiwan Strait. Yet,¶ the article did not result in a close focus on broader questions about the prospects for the initial resort to force during a Sino-American crisis. For three reasons, a focus on potential instability in U.S.-China crises, rather than on scenarios for war fighting, as well as on the potential for such crises emerging in contingencies other than Taiwan, is warranted.¶ First, a crisis would not only be likely to precede significant military action; it would also be accompanied by the risk of grave consequences from the use of force, even if war were ultimately avoided. A now voluminous literature¶ comparing Chinese and U.S. military options has discussed escalation risks¶ (usually when invoking concerns about limiting conflict once military force¶ has been used), but it has given short shrift to the prior question of the initial¶ escalation to the use of force. The literature that does discuss crises in U.S.-¶ China relations has provided close assessments of historical cases and has offered suggestions for crisis prevention and crisis management. This literature¶ has not, however, integrated its Sino-American empirical focus with the theoretical ideas developed by international relations scholars to illuminate the¶ problem of crisis instability.11 Second, although scholars and policymakers have long speculated about¶ and planned for a wide variety of ways in which wars between nuclear-armed¶ great powers might be conducted, there have (fortunately) been no such wars¶ from which to draw lessons. By contrast, the literature on crisis instability is at least partly informed by the actual experience of crises between two nuclear-armed great powers that occurred during the Cold War. This literature can serve as a starting point for thinking about the crises that could ensnare the United States and China.12¶ Third, East Asian theaters other than the Taiwan Strait now present clear risks for crises and conflicts that could involve the United States and China over the next decade or two. Indeed, some analysts might argue that the probability of a Sino-American crisis elsewhere has risen, whereas the probability¶ of a military confrontation over Taiwan’s fate has diminished.13 Cross-strait relations have improved significantly in recent years, and since 2003, the United¶ States has more definitively stated that it does not support a Taiwanese push¶ for independence—the most likely trigger, as Christensen explained, for China¶ to resort to force in the face of superior U.S. capabilities.14 Yet the potential for¶ a dangerous confrontation over Taiwan endures, and therefore continues to¶ warrant close attention.

U.S. China War– Precedents prove


Cropsey, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, 13

[Seth, 6/20/13, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324798904578531781367548350.html, 7/5/13, ARH]



The growing disparity between Chinese and U.S. military investment will eventually alter the balance of power in the Western Pacific. This shift will likely lead either to military conflict or to tacit American acknowledgment of Chinese dominance. A war would be disastrous, but Chinese dominance would not bode well either: The U.S. ability to shape the international order would end with Chinese supremacy in the most populous and economically vigorous part of the world. The budgets needed to achieve the Navy's goals were unlikely even before sequestration. The defense budget since 9/11 has averaged 4.1% of GDP. Under the budgets projected by the Obama administration, the figure is projected to drop to 2.5% in less than a decade. If America's unilateral disarmament occurs and the Pentagon leadership clings to a more or less equal division of dollars among the military services, the U.S. sea power available in the Western Pacific will decline significantly. Alternatively, to maintain strong forces in the Pacific, the U.S. would be forced to abandon its naval presence in such areas of strategic concern as the Caribbean or the Persian Gulf. Such a shell game is not in the best interest of U.S. strategy. Neither is it in the interest of the international order that America has helped to establish and maintain in the decades since World War II. What ultimately matters for the U.S. and for a stable world order is America's ability to maintain a distributed and powerful presence across the globe. Yes, the U.S. needs to pay greater attention to the security situation in Asia. But "rebalancing" requires weight, and America is losing this weight. Japan's plan to increase its submarine fleet to 24 from 16 demonstrates that Asia's leaders know it.

Threat of U.S. China War Real—Talks prove


Chang, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet from 1985 to 1987, 13

[Gordon, 5/30/13, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chang-chinese-navy-20130530,0,7560801.story, 7.5.13, ARH]



Since then, we have been hearing bold war talk in the Chinese capital, from new leader Xi Jinping to senior officers and colonels who say they relish combat — a "hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.," as one of them put it in 2010. Why do China's officers want to go to war? There is an unfortunate confluence of factors. First, there is a new Chinese confidence bordering on arrogance. Beijing leaders, especially since 2008, have been riding high. They saw economic turmoil around the world and thought the century was theirs to dominate. The U.S. and the rest of the West, they believed, were in terminal decline. The Chinese military also has gained substantial influence in the last year, perhaps becoming the most powerful faction in the Communist Party. Beginning as early as 2003, senior officers of the People's Liberation Army were drawn into civilian power struggles as Hu Jintao, then the new leader, sought their support in his effort to shove aside Jiang Zemin, his wily predecessor who sought to linger in the limelight. Last year, the civilian infighting intensified as the so-called Fifth Generation leadership, under the command of Xi, took over from Hu's Fourth. Like a decade ago, feuding civilians sought the support of the generals and admirals, making them arbiters in the party's increasingly rough game of politics. The result of discord among civilian leaders has been a partial remilitarization of politics and policy. Senior officers are now acting independently of civilian officials, are openly criticizing them and are making pronouncements in areas once considered the exclusive province of diplomats. The remilitarization has had consequences. As Huang Jing of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy said: "China's military spending is growing so fast that it has overtaken strategy. The young officers are taking control of strategy, and it is like young officers in Japan in the 1930s. They are thinking what they can do, not what they should do." What do China's admirals want? They are supporting their nation's territorial ambitions to close off the South China Sea to others. This brings them into conflict with nations surrounding that critical body of water and pits them against the U.S. If there has been any consistent U.S. foreign policy over the course of two centuries, it has been the defense of freedom of navigation. According to a white paper it issued in April, China is building a navy capable of operating in the ocean's deep water, and has 235,000 officers and sailors. Its navy last year commissioned its first aircraft carrier, and it is reportedly building two more. China has about a dozen fewer submarines than the U.S., but the U.S. has global responsibilities. The Chinese, therefore, can concentrate their boats in waters close to their shores, giving them tactical and operating advantages. While the Chinese plan to dominate their waters and eventually ours, we are helping them increase their effectiveness with invitations to RIMPAC and other exercises and by including them in joint operations like the one directed against Somali piracy. The U.S. Navy at the same time is continuing to reduce its fleet, currently at 283 deployable ships. As Beijing's behavior has become more troubling, the Pentagon has clung to the hope that military-to-military relations will somehow relieve tensions with the Chinese.

U.S.-Sino War is impending doom


Freedberg, Deputy Editor of Breaking Defense and Defense Reporter for the National Journal, 13

[Sydney, 5/30/13, http://breakingdefense.com/2013/05/30/no-longer-unthinkable-should-us-ready-for-limited-nuclear-war/, 7.5.13, ARH]



Watts is less worried about the threat of nuclear terrorism than he is about nation-states. He doubts Iranian mullahs, for example, would trust even their favorite proxies, Hezbollah, with a nuclear weapon. But he’s skeptical of the conventional wisdom that the Chinese have sworn never to use nuclear weapons except in response to a nuclear attack on them. “If you start digging into the literature [by Chinese strategists], they say all the politically correct things in the front of the book about how we’re not going to use nuclear weapons first,” Watts said. As you read more deeply, however, he found an unnerving willingness to consider nuclear detonations to generate EMP, for example, under the special circumstances of what Chinese doctrine called “local high-tech warfare under informationalized conditions.” Such special circumstances might well arise in a Western Pacific war, perhaps triggered by a Sino-Japanese clash over the Senkaku Islands, in which the US came to an ally’s defense by waging a long-range AirSea Battle. In theory, both sides could swear off strikes on each other’s homelands and try to limit the fighting to the air and sea. But there’s one big problem: While America’s main weapons for a naval battle are ships, submarines and aircraft launched from carriers at sea, China’s naval arsenal depends heavily on long-range sensors and missiles based on land. The US would either have to take shots from Beijing’s best weapons without responding or escalate to an attack on China’s coastal provinces. Watts did not discuss this topic in detail, but another strategist at the discussion did. “The issue is escalation… if you cross the Chinese coastline,” said Peter Wilson, a national security consultant. “How do you keep the war regional?” Even if the US strike causes no Chinese casualties – for example, a precision missile or even cyber attack that shut down China’s power grid – “the reply may be a HEMP shot over Hawaii.”


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