Strategy without hubris: How China rose by managing America’s reaction

Why didn’t China’s rise trigger containment sooner?

For three decades, Beijing’s economic weight expanded dramatically, its military modernized at speed, and its diplomatic footprint widened across every region. Structural theories of power transition would lead us to expect sharper and earlier confrontation as capabilities converged. Instead, the U.S.-Chinese rivalry deepened gradually, punctuated by crises but rarely exploding into decisive pushback. The United States remained engaged economically, its alliances held but were not quite mobilized to balance Chinese power, and many countries hedged rather than chose sides.

One explanation for the lack of a containment strategy is that American policymakers misjudged China — seduced by engagement, distracted by the so-called Global War on Terror, or overly confident that economic integration would produce political convergence. Another is that China’s intentions hardened only recently. Both narratives are politically convenient, but neither fully explains the pattern. A more uncomfortable possibility is that China rose not despite American awareness, but partly because it competed in ways that made containment difficult to justify, costly to organize, and slow to mobilize.

Read more at War on the Rocks