By John Bergstrom
On February 1, 2023, a Foreign Policy article discussed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s prospective trip to Beijing. In the article, author James Palmer described how the U.S. and China would seek to stabilize ties and reduce tensions following years of international disagreement. On the same day of the article’s release, however, a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over the U.S. state of Montana, and U.S.-China relations intensified rather than subsiding. Subsequent events included the postponement of Blinken’s scheduled trip and the plastering of the balloon hovering in the sky across TV screens. Although the balloon was eventually shot down, its visual impact will likely persist as millions of Americans either saw the balloon in the sky themselves or were exposed to images of it through news and social media. Given that Americans were provided with a tangible manifestation of a foreign power’s pervasive influence, many will label China a threat to be addressed on a greater and more aggressive scale than before. However, a new age of brinkmanship will not serve U.S. interests. Rather, the U.S. should focus on improving measures that will aim to mitigate the degrees of conflict between the U.S. and China, and provide lines of communication that can be used to diffuse future confrontations. In the days following the balloon incident, the American people’s indignation was expressed through their elected representatives, with the U.S. House of Representatives passing a unanimous condemnation of China’s activities. Furthermore, a POLITICO article aptly summarized the political situation within the U.S. in which “lawmakers across the political spectrum see a clear benefit in taking a hawkish stance toward the global power.” While both American political parties have tried to surpass the other in their anti-China rhetoric, temporarily satisfying the American people’s emotions by promising to match China wherever it conducts intelligence or military operations does not signify a coherent strategy or long-term path for the stabilization of relations. Additionally, the U.S. does not have any bilateral arms control agreements or consistent crisis management dialogues with China. Therefore, turbulent political conditions and a lack of strategic safety nets maximizes the potential of escalating conflict in the future. This can be seen as China seeks to increase its nuclear arsenal, disagreements over Taiwan persist, and additional aerial objects recently being shot down over U.S. airspace, albeit of unknown origin.
To minimize the perpetuation of further tension, the U.S. should pursue avenues of direct communication and diplomatic transparency with China. One such measure the U.S. can encourage is the reinstatement of military-to-military communications between the U.S. and China, which China severed following then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022. These methods of communication between military personnel should not be seen as a form of political discourse in which policy is decided, but rather as a basic exchange of logistics between the militaries when incidents occur involving American and Chinese forces or equipment. In this sense, military-to-military channels are not some political prizes to be granted and withdrawn whenever one side becomes politically frustrated with the other; rather, they are essential points for management that serve both American and Chinese interests. Accordingly, the U.S. should not use the balloon incident to shun China, but instead take the initiative as the recently aggrieved party, to discuss arms control with China from a point of leverage. Not currently bound by treaties such as the one implementing a cap on nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia set to expire in 2026, China could be involved in discussions to prevent all three nations from sparking a new arms buildup. While China failed to participate in agreements limiting nuclear weapons in the past, increasing its own stockpile would come at great expense. Both the U.S. and China would benefit from refraining from a new arms race. If China is unreceptive to proliferation-halting efforts of any kind, the U.S. can then describe its attempts to act as a peacemaker to the international community and cultivate support from nations that have been hesitant to ally themselves with the U.S. over China in the past because they have failed to see differences between the two. Considering the intensity of the U.S.-China relationship at the moment, efforts to stabilize relations can serve their intended function and minimize the hazards of hostility or, if unsuccessful, be used to enhance the U.S.’s image as a partner for peace in its conduct of foreign policy elsewhere.
Although the aftermath of the balloon incident is still unfolding, it has become clear that the American people and their elected officials are growing more concerned about the threat of influence. What remains undefined though is how U.S.-China relations will proceed without substantive guardrails, and if increasingly hawkish sentiment in the U.S. can be harnessed in a manner that will bring about long-term stability instead of short-term frenzy. No matter which policy decisions are enacted, it is doubtful that many of the points of contention between the U.S. and China will be resolved in the immediate future. Nevertheless, the two nations can do their utmost to avoid conflict by instating measures to ensure that what has been described as a new Cold War does not heat up for both countries.
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