Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic and/or diplomatic engagement with the People’s Republic of China



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1NC US-China War Frontline

  1. No US-China War—people know the consequences and miscommunication happens all of the time



Think Progress, 2014 [News outlet, “Why Everyone Needs To Stop Freaking Out About War With China”, February 7, http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/02/07/3222021/china-japan-war/]
But there’s one big factor shaping the balance of power in East Asia that means the talk is likely to remain just that: nuclear weapons. The tagline for World War I in 1914 — “The War To End All Wars” — would have a decidedly different meaning in 2014, as war’s end would be accomplished by the world’s end. So whereas, in 1914, all of the European powers thought they could win the war decisively, East Asia’s great powers recognize the risk of a nuclear exchange between the United States and China to be catastrophic. Carleton University’s Stephen Saideman calls this the end of the “preemption temptation;” nobody thinks they can win by striking first anymore. Indeed, despite the words of some of its military leaders, China (at least nominally) has a no-clash-with-Japan policy in place over the islands. That also helps explain why the most commonly-cited Senkaku/Diaoyu spark, accidental escalation, isn’t as likely as many suggest. When The Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Browne writes that there’s a “real risk of an accident leading to a standoff from which leaders in both countries would find it hard to back down in the face of popular nationalist pressure,” he’s not wrong. But it won’t happen just because two planes happen across each other in the sky. In 2013, with tensions running high the whole year, Japan scrambled fighters against Chinese aircraft 433 times. Indeed, tensions have flared up a number of times throughout the years (often sparked by nationalist activists on side of the other) without managing to bleed over into war. That’s because, as MIT East Asia expert M. Taylor Fravel argues, there are deep strategic reasons why each side is, broadly speaking, OK with the status quo over and above nuclear deterrence. China has an interest in not seeming like an aggressor state in the region, as that’s historically caused other regional powers to put away their differences and line up against it. Japan currently has control over the islands, which would make any strong moves by China seem like an attempt to overthrow the status quo power balance. The United States also has a habit of constructive involvement, subtly reminding both sides when tensions are spiking that the United States — and its rather powerful navy — would prefer that there be no fighting between the two states. Moreover, the whole idea of “accidental war” is also a little bit confusing . Militaries don’t just start shooting each other by mistake and then decide it’s time to have a war. Rather, an incident that’s truly accidental — say, a Japanese plane firing on a Chinese aircraft in one of the places where their Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs) overlap — changes the incentives to go to war, as the governments start to think (perhaps wrongly) that war is inevitable and the only way to win it is to escalate. It’s hard to envision this kind of shift in calculation in East Asia, for all of the aforementioned reasons.


  1. Impact Turn: China expansion solves war between Southeast Asian countries



Li and Yanzhuo, 2015 [Xue and Xu, Director of the Department of International Strategy at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Xu Yanzhuo received her doctorate from Durham University (UK) in December 2014 and studies international responsibility, South China Sea disputes, and Chinese foreign policy. “The US and China Won't See Military Conflict Over the South China Sea”, June 19, http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/the-us-and-china-wont-see-military-conflict-over-the-south-china-sea/]
For its part, China is determined to build artificial islands and several airstrips in the Spratlys, which I argue would help promote the resolution of SCS disputes. But it’s worth noting that if China establishes an ADIZ and advocates a 200 nautical miles EEZ (as the U.S. fears), it would push ASEAN claimants and even non-claimants to stand by the United States. Obviously, the potential consequences contradict with China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategy. In February 2014, in response to reports by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun that a South China Sea ADIZ was imminent, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hinted that China would not necessarily impose an ADIZ. “The Chinese side has yet to feel any air security threat from the ASEAN countries and is optimistic about its relations with the neighboring countries and the general situation in the South China Sea region,” a spokesperson said. Since the “Belt and Road” is Beijing’s primary strategic agenda for the coming years, it is crucial for China to strengthen its economic relationship with ASEAN on the one hand while reducing ASEAN claimants’ security concerns on the other hand. As a result, it should accelerate the adjustment of its South China Sea policy; clarify China’s stand on the issue, and propose China’s blueprint for resolving the disputes.

  1. Brink Passed—All of their evidence says that there will be a war extremely soon. The BIT will take time to pass and relations to develop. This means that their impacts will happen before they can fix them.



  1. China is reducing military spending—they’re not a threat



VOA News, March 2016 [News organization centered around China, “China Cuts Defense Spending as Economy Stumbles”, March 4, http://www.voanews.com/content/china-defense-budget-slows-as-economy-stumbles/3219375.html]
Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, told reporters Friday the military will see an increase of seven to eight percent this year. The announced increase is the first time China’s spending on defense has slipped below double-digit growth in six years, and follows more than a decade of nearly consistent double-digit growth. The official figure will be announced Saturday when China’s National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislative body, begins its annual meetings in Beijing, Fu Ying said. “China’s military budget is based on two key things: the needs of military development as well as economic development and government revenues,” she said. Last year, China announced it was cutting its massive military by 300,000 troops, even as its territorial claims in the region have increasingly been a point of controversy. 'New normal' Analysts said the reduction is very much in line with what China describes as its “new normal” for slower economic growth. “With overall GDP growth in China moving below seven percent, it would be appropriate, I think, in the eyes of the leadership to calibrate defense expenditure more in line with that new normal,” said Alexander Neill, a Shangri-La Dialogue senior fellow for Asia at the Institute for International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore. For more than a decade “the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has been the recipient of a lot of cash from the central leadership and this may very well represent a gradual tapering down of that,” he added. Transparency concerns China is the world’s second biggest military spender, and while its annual budget last year increased by 10.1 percent, for a total of more than $135 billion, it still pales in comparison to the United States.


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