China must be checked

I look forward to his response and a thoughtful debate. To preface this, I am outlining the basic sentiments behind my argument for the resolution: China must be checked/contained. I will provide further evidence as the debate continues, elaborating on my arguments and responding to my opponent. Assessing China’s ‘Grand Strategy’In the past few years, both Chinese and foreign analysts began to reach the conclusion that China has developed a fairly consistent and coherent grand strategy in the past decade, even though they may disagree somewhat on the nature and content of that grand strategy. Because China is a regional power with very limited global interest, China’s regional strategy is the bulk of its grand strategy. The core of Chinese grand strategy can be traced back to Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China. Chinese leaders and elite have always believed that China rightly belongs to the “great power” (大国) club because of its size, population, civilization, history, and more recently, its growing wealth. And if China has never been a great power in the past two centuries, China’s goal now is to make China a great power again. China’s AggrandizementLike a wave building unseen beneath the ocean's surface, the incredibly fast rise of the Chinese economy, along with a concomitant growth in its military strength and a rapidly expanding geopolitical clout has suddenly risen like a tsunami upon the receding economic shores of nations around the globe. International leaders and pundits seem to be scratching their heads in confusion as to why the obvious mutual benefits of China's increasing prosperity to the global community is now causing increased consternation and mistrust. Actions taken by an individual or a nation are, up to a point, necessary and beneficial. Indeed, other nations benefit by the increased wealth, production, and trade as the subject nation grows and prospers. With that economic growth comes a perceived need to have increased military protection. And, with that increased strength comes increased political clout. At some point, the simultaneous expansion of the wealth, the military, and the political influence transitions from increased mutual benefit to perceived increased threat. Hubris is a word that seems to fit well when viewing China's words and deeds since the global economic crisis beginning in 2007—ultimately counterproductive attitudes and actions of a nation with new-found wealth and influence. A logical strategy would be for that growing nation to have adequate military force for self-preservation but not keep expanding its expenditures on forces to a point that other nations feel threatened. Likewise, it might be a logical strategy to not throw one's weight around too much on the world's geopolitical stage. As it happens, China’s recent conduct has been far from affable with a number of countries, and with some it has even been threatening in some degree. In 2009-2010, there was a veritable behavioral shift among the Chinese ruling elite, including a sudden change in the tone and content of Chinese declarations, which became sharply assertive of issues from monetary policy to Western democracy. More strikingly, mostly dormant territorial disputes were loudly revived with India, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam—and more or less all at the same time, amplifying the effect. Actual incidents duly followed with the vessels or island outposts of Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, with successive episodes up until the present. China has and will continue promoting the implementation of its maritime strategy to turn China into a maritime power. And to become a maritime power, China needs to control and dominate the East Sea. According to such logic, China’s pursuit of the Chinese goal to become a world power is creating new concerns for its neighbours and the international community. This has been clearly reflected by China’s recent actions in the East Sea. To realize its dream, China’s navy forces did not hesitate to attack and opened fire on Vietnamese fishing vessels on 20 March 2013, and authorized its warships, destroyers, corvettes and other law enforcement forces (such as Marine Surveillance, Fishery Patrol, Sea Patrol) to advance to the East Sea to show off its power and threaten its coastal neighbors. Particularly on 26 March 2013, China conducted for the first time large-scale military exercises at the southernmost point of the “cow-tongue line”. As many as four navy amphibious vehicles were ordered to approach James Shoal for the military drills. One of these was China’s largest amphibious vehicles designed to attack islets and capable of carrying helicopters, hovercraft, small amphibs and a battalion. Furthermore, China is making no legitimate attempt to solve its longstanding internal problems, namely abuse of social, cultural, environmental and economic rights. This certainly grants it no friends in the international community, and as China becomes increasingly assertive and unreceptive to reforms, it only increases the need for foreign containment. Abuse of Human RightsChina’s new leadership, consisting of the Communist Party’s seven permanent standing committee members, assumed power at the 18th Party Congress in November, ending the decade-long leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. That era saw sustained economic growth, urbanization, and China’s rise as a global power, but little progress on human rights. The government rolled back protections on the administration of justice, presided over a significant rise in social unrest, including the largest inter-ethnic incidents in decades in Tibet and Xinjiang, and expanded the power of the security apparatus. China’s citizens had no say in the selection of their new leaders, highlighting that, despite the country’s rapid modernization, the government remains an authoritarian one-party system. The government curbs freedom of expression, association, and religion, and controls all judicial institutions. It censors the press and enforces highly repressive policies in ethnic minority areas in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. At the same time, citizens are increasingly prepared to challenge authorities over issues such as land seizures, forced evictions, abuses of power by corrupt cadres, discrimination, and economic inequalities. Abuse of the EnvironmentRecently, the Chinese government unveiled a series of reforms to restrict air pollution… Many environmentalists, both in the country and outside, fear it is too little, too late. A study released by America’s National Academy of Sciences in July found that air pollution in the north of China reduces life expectancy by five-and-a-half years. The rivers are filthy, the soil contaminated… And there is something else in the air, less immediately damaging but with a far bigger global impact. China’s greenhouse-gas emissions were about 10% of the world’s total in 1990. Now they are nearer 30%. Since 2000 China alone has accounted for two-thirds of the global growth in carbon-dioxide emissions. This will be very hard to reverse. While America and Europe are cutting their emissions by 60m tonnes a year combined, China is increasing its own by over 500m tonnes. This makes it a global threat. China’s impact on the climate, though, is unique. Its economy is not only large but also resource-hungry. It accounts for 16% of world output but consumes between 40% and 50% of the world’s coal, copper, steel, nickel, aluminium and zinc. It also imports half the planet’s tropical logs and raises half its pigs… The country’s energy use is similarly gargantuan. China will suffer as much as anywhere. Already its deserts are spreading, farmland is drying out and crop yields are plateauing. Climate change may make matters worse. It has 80m people living at sea level who are vulnerable to rising oceans and higher storm surges. And as heavy manufacturing and mining move from coastal areas to poorer western provinces like Xinjiang and Tibet, the shift may increase environmental damage. These areas have particularly fragile ecosystems and degradation could quickly become irreversible. The costs of environmental and natural-resource degradation, according to the World Bank, are the equivalent of 9% of GDP, an enormous amount which is dragging down the long-term growth rate. The biggest downdrafts include health damage from air pollution and the degradation of soil nutrients. And since the party takes credit for the benefits of growth, it gets blamed for the costs of pollution. As Ma Jun, China’s best-known environmental activist, puts it, “Everyone knows the link between the environment and their own health. ” None of the challenges facing the new generation of leaders is bigger than those posed by the environment. ConclusionChina is in need of geopolitical containment, preventing its eventual implosion of a fragile, undiversified economy, a corrupt and authoritarian system of government, an aggressive and increasingly militant foreign policy, and unwise abuse of human, social, cultural and economic rights.