Chinese hegemony causes inevitable authoritarianism but is unachievable absent American decline.

The United States and China are now locked in a geopolitical competition that is structural and deepening. How this contest evolves will determine the rules, norms, and institutions that govern international relations in the coming decades. Should the United States fail to rise to the China challenge, the world will likely see the emergence of an illiberal and expansive Chinese sphere of influence. This is not to suggest that Beijing should be denied a voice or sway commensurate with its position as a major power—but there’s a substantial difference between greater Chinese power (even China being the most powerful country in the region) and a situation in which Beijing exerts illiberal hegemonic control over Asia and beyond.

It is incomplete to view U.S.-China dynamics as a disparate set of competitive domains. Instead, we should be principally concerned about the aggregate and mutually reinforcing consequences of a China-led order if Beijing gains dominant control of vital regions and functional domains. Core features of this order would include the People’s Liberation Army administering the South and East China Sea; regional countries sufficiently coerced into not questioning or challenging China’s preferences on military, economic, and diplomatic matters; the de facto unification of Taiwan; Beijing with agenda-setting power over regional institutions; a China-centric economic order in which Beijing sets trade and investment rules in its favor; and the gradual spread of authoritarianism in the developing world, reinforced by the proliferation of China’s high-tech surveillance state.5

For the United States, an illiberal China-led order would translate into weaker U.S. alliances, fewer security partners, and a military forced to operate at greater distances; U.S. firms without access to leading markets and disadvantaged by unique technology standards, investment rules, and trading blocs; U.S. participation in inert international and regional institutions unable to resist Chinese coercion; and a secular decline in democracy and individual freedoms around the world. Many of these effects are already occurring globally and particularly in Asia, the center of gravity in the competition. Arresting and reversing these trends stands among the most urgent and important tasks in U.S. foreign policy.

China’s trajectory: On China’s intentions, future power, internal constraints, counterbalancing coalitions, and the role of the United States

This paper posits that China will not be easily steered away from pursuing an expansive and illiberal order. This is primarily due to the inflexible exigencies of the ruling regime rather than an assessment of whether grand strategists in Beijing harbor revisionist intentions or hegemonic designs. Beijing’s most problematic behavior tends to stem from the Communist Party’s efforts to make the world safe for China’s state-led economy and its authoritarian political system. The widening divergence between Washington and Beijing is further exacerbated by the fact that China has expanding interests and ever-greater capabilities to protect and defend those interests around the globe, thereby increasing the degree to which it is willing and able to wield influence in world politics. Short of an exogenous shock, we should not expect Beijing to substantially alter its current course.

Nevertheless, that leaves the question of whether forces in and around China will come to constrain its illiberal impulses. The test case of the last three decades suggests that integration into the global economy will not be enough. Unfortunately, the liberal internationalist project did not lead to sufficient convergence, and political and economic engagement did not adequately produce or empower liberals inside China. The oft-heard statement in Washington that China has been the greatest beneficiary of the liberal international order is both debatable and irrelevant. Many of the liberal elements of that order are threatening to the Communist Party, which is using its newfound power and influence to revise key aspects of the prevailing system.

Other potential roadblocks to the maturation of an illiberal China-led order include its domestic and structural weaknesses. These myriad challenges include a slowing economy, rising debt, increasing labor costs, environmental degradation, social unrest, unfavorable demographics, an aging population, poor social services, and more. Two points, however, should give us pause before assuming that China will get stuck in its own quicksand before Beijing can consolidate an illiberal order. First, even if these structural factors eventually do come home to roost, China will have opportunities between now and then to make substantial and irreversible changes in its favor. Second, China has already amassed significant power such that Beijing is likely to be a major actor on the global stage under almost any circumstance; from here on out, China will have significant throw-weight even if its economy and military develop at much slower rates.

If not China’s internal problems, then external constraints are often assumed to preclude a China-led order. It is an empirical fact that most countries in Asia do not want to live under a Chinese sphere of influence. A frequent, but misguided, extension of this argument is that a counterbalancing coalition will necessarily develop to staunch Beijing’s reach. But this is by no means assured. Absent the United States providing a viable alternative, regional states would have to assume potentially unaffordable and unacceptable risk in standing up to China. Rather than binding together, major powers including Australia, India, and Japan would more likely pursue fortress strategies in which they harden their defenses and more acutely protect their core interests. This would all come at the expense of their broader foreign policy goals, including challenging China on nonessential matters and in nonessential regions.

These pressures to bandwagon with China would be reinforced by domestic political dynamics in foreign capitals. Beijing would be able to wield outsized carrots and sticks using an array of economic, military, and diplomatic tools. Combined with greater Chinese control of data, information, and media, there would be fewer domestic constituencies in Asia calling for a tougher stance toward China.

The cardinal implication here is that the role of the United States is paramount: the region will either hang together with the United States or hang separately without it. Beijing recognizes this as well, which is why so many facets of China’s strategy are aimed at reducing U.S. power and influence, and weakening U.S. ties to Asia. Any version of a consolidated China-led order would require the United States to fail to compete effectively. In other words, the path to an illiberal Chinese sphere of influence would have to be paved by the failure or unwillingness of the United States to prevent it. China cannot readily dominate key regions or functional domains if Washington is focused and committed to defending its overseas values and interests.