U.S.-China Strategy: Containment Then & Now

Readings:

• Dan Blumenthal, Ch. 1, “Big Ambitions,” The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State (2020)
• Rush Doshi, Ch. 3, “New Cold Wars Have Begun: The Trifecta and the New American Threat,” The Long Game (2021)
• Daniel Tobin, “How Xi Jinping’s ‘New Era’ Should Have Ended U.S. Debates on Beijing’s Ambitions,” CSIS, May 2020
• Ashley J. Tellis, Ch. 1, “Pursuing Global Reach: China’s Not So Long March toward Preeminence,” Strategic Asia 2019
• Hal Brands, Ch. 5, “The Second Eurasian Century,” The Eurasian Century (2025)

Supplementary Readings:

• Doshi, Ch. 4, “Grasping the Assassin’s Mace: Implementing Military Blunting,” and 8, “Make More Offensive Moves: Implementing Military Building,”The Long Game (2021)
• Hal Brands, Ch. 3, “The Totalitarian Abyss,” The Eurasian Century (2025)
• Peter Mattis, “Prepared Statement: The Malign Influence of the People’s Republic of China at Home and Abroad: Recommendations for Policy Makers,” Senate Hearing 119–33 (2025)
• Thomas G. Mahnken, Ross Babbage, and Toshi Yoshihara, Ch. 3, “The Chinese Approach to Political Warfare,” and Ch. 4, “A Profile of China’s United Front Work Department,” Countering Comprehensive Coercion: Competitive Strategies Against Authoritarian Political Warfare, CSBA (2018)

Discussion Questions:

1. What drove China’s adoption of the “hiding one’s capabilities and biding one’s time” strategy? What influenced its assessment that a new Cold War began just as the Soviet Union collapsed? What did China avoid doing as a result of adopting this strategy?
2. What does the CCP aim to achieve by significantly altering the post-Cold War global order? What domains and measurements of power are most important to Beijing?

Readings:

• Dan Blumenthal, Ch. 3, “Deng’s National Rejuvenation,” The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State (2020)
• Ezra Vogel, Ch. 9, “The Soviet-Vietnamese Threat,” Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2013)
• Henry Kissinger, Ch. 13, “Touching the Tiger’s Buttocks”: The Third Vietnam War,” On China (2011)
• Chen Jian, Ch. 9, “The Sino-American Rapprochement, 1969–1972,” Mao’s China and the Cold War (2001)
• Margaret MacMillan, Ch. 5, “Meeting with Mao,” Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (2005)
• Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian, Ch. 4, “Americans,” The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform (2024)

Supplementary Readings:

• Xiaoming Zhang, Ch. 2, “Deng Xiaoping and China’s War Decision,” Deng Xiaoping’s Long War: The Military Conflict Between China and Vietnam, 1979–1991 (2015)

Discussion Questions:

1. How did China under Deng Xiaoping seek to address the perceived threat of a Vietnamese-led Indochinese federation and a potential “encirclement” of China? Are there parallels with the tactics (diplomatic, geopolitical, etc.) employed by post-Cold War Chinese leaders?
2. How does Deng’s conception of strategic cooperation without formal alliances compare to Chinese aims for a restructured international order under Xi Jinping? Have changes in China’s perception of its own relative power influenced shifts in its geopolitical strategy?

Readings:

• Melvyn P. Leffler, Ch. 4, “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945–1952,” The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. 1
• Hal Brands, Ch. 2, “Travails of the Heroic Statesmen: Grand Strategy in the Nixon-Kissinger Years,” What Good is Grand Strategy? (2014)
• John Lewis Gaddis, Ch. 11, “Reagan, Gorbachev, and the Completion of Containment,” Strategies of Containment (Revised and Expanded Edition) (2005)
• William Inboden, Ch. 14, “Endgame,” The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink (2022)
• Michael J. Green, Ch. 9, “An Even Balance: Nixon and Kissinger’s Redefinition of Containment in Asia, 1969–1975,” By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783 (2017)

Supplementary Readings:

• John Lewis Gaddis, Ch. 1, “Prologue,” and Ch. 2, “George F. Kennan and the Strategy of Containment,” Strategies of Containment (Revised and Expanded Edition) (2005)

Discussion Questions:

1. What were some of the successes of the US strategy of containment during the first Cold War? What challenges did it face?
2. How might the US pursue a strategy of containment focusing on post-Cold War China? Is such a strategy feasible, and what changes would be needed to make the strategy effective in the current geostrategic environment?

Readings:

• Robert C. O’Brien, “Remarks: The Chinese Communist Party’s Ideology and Global Ambitions,” June 24, 2020
• Michael R. Pompeo, “Speech: Communist China and the Free World’s Future,” July 23, 2020
• Antony J. Blinken, “Speech: The Administration’s Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” May 27, 2022
• Jake Sullivan, “The Future of U.S.-China Relations,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 30, 2024
• Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher, “No Substitute for Victory,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2024
• Rush Doshi, “The Biden Plan,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2024
• Peter E. Harrell, “How to China-Proof the Global Economy,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2024

Supplementary Readings:

• Andrew Krepinevich Jr., Ch. 6, “Archipelagic Defense 2.0: Part I,” Archipelagic Defense 2.0 (2023)
• Derek Scissors, “China Decoupling Handbook: Where We Are, What to Do,” AEI, September 2024

Discussion Questions:

1. What are some of the major points of difference between contemporary proposals for a US-China strategy? How do end goals differ between these strategies?

Readings:

• Roderick Lee and Marcus Clay, “Don’t Call it a Gray Zone: China’s Use-of-Force Spectrum,” War on the Rocks, May 9, 2022
• Dan Blumenthal and Fred Kagan, “China’s Three Roads to Controlling Taiwan,” AEI, March 2023
• Elbridge Colby and David Ochmanek, “How the United States Could Lose a Great-Power War,” Foreign Policy, October 2019
• Seth G. Jones, “The U.S. is Losing the Ability to Deter War with China,” Wall Street Journal, November 2024
• Raphael S. Cohen, “Call the Axis of Adversaries Whatever You Want, But Take it Seriously,” RAND, December 2024
• Kyle Marcrum, “Propensity, Conditions, and Consequences: Effective Coercion Through Understanding Chinese Thinking,” China Aerospace Studies Institute, July 2022
• Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Support Provided by the People’s Republic of China to Russia,” July 2023
• Hal Brands, Ch. 5, “The Second Eurasian Century,” The Eurasian Century (2025)

Supplementary Readings:

• Dan Blumenthal et al., “From Coercion to Capitulation: How China Can Take Taiwan Without a War,” AEI, May 2024
• Sheena Chestnut Greitens, “China, Regime Security, and Authoritarian Collaboration,” Hearing on “An Axis of Autocracy? China’s Relations with Russia, Iran, & North Korea, Panel on “Military & Security Cooperation,” US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (2025)
• David O. Shullman and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, “Best and Bosom Friends: Why China-Russia Ties Will Deepen after Russia’s War on Ukraine,” CSIS, June 2022

Discussion Questions:

1. What vulnerabilities are left unaddressed by a strategy which prepares only to counter all-out war? What gains can be achieved by an adversary pursuing a “short of war” campaign?
2. How would you concisely present the threat posed by China’s short of war activities in an “elevator pitch” to policymakers? To military leaders?