China Impact Toolbox UM 16

CHINA VS UNITED STATES

China-US War 1nc

No US/China war Chinese military inferiority and Economic interdependence
Artyom Lukin 2014 Professor @ Far Eastern Federal University (Russia), Imagining World
War III -- In 2034, 8/4/2014, The World Post (partnership of the Huffington Post and Berggruen
Institute, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artyom-lukin/world-war-iii_b_5646641.html
three reasons war is unlikely anytime soon. First, despite the double-digit annual
growth in its defense budgets, China's military still significantly lags behind the U.S.'
Second
China depends on America much more
than the other way round. China is still critically reliant on the U.S and its allies, the EU and
Japan, as its principal export markets and sources of advanced technologies and knowhow. Overall, China's dependence on international markets is very high, with the trade to GDP
ratio standing at 53 percent. China imports many vital raw materials, such as oil and iron ore.
China would be extremely vulnerable to a naval blockade, which is
likely to be mounted by the U.S. in case of a major conflict.
There are

It will take China 15 to 20 years to

attain parity or near-parity with the U.S.-Japan allied forces in the East Asian littoral.

, for all the talk of mutual interdependence,

As most

of its commodity imports are shipped by the sea,

Both for economic and strategic reasons, the Chinese government pursues policies to reduce the country's

reliance on foreign markets, trying to shift from an export-oriented model to domestic sources of growth. It is also making efforts to secure raw materials in the countries and regions contiguous to China, like Central Asia, Russia or Burma, so as to reduce dependence on sea-born shipments.

Third, China would have to confront not the

U.S. alone but also America's Asian allies, including Japan, Australia and perhaps India.
The
bottom line: over the next 15 to 20 years a major war in Asia is highly unlikely
because Beijing will be playing a cautious game. Even if a military clash does occur,
it will be short, with China being quickly routed by the preponderant American
force.
However, at least for the next 15 to 20 years China's dependency on the West-dominated global economic system is going to stay very significant.

Thus China needs at least

one major power ally and some lesser allies. Whether China dares to pose a serious challenge to the U.S. will, to a large extent, hinge upon Beijing and Moscow forming a Eurasian geopolitical bloc. This is already happening now, but it is going to take some more time.

However, around 2030 the balance is bound to undergo considerable changes, if China is successful in: 1) closing military gap with the U.S.; 2) making its economy less reliant on the Western markets and overseas raw resources; and 3) forming its own alliance

structure.

China-US relationship is dedicated to conflict management locks in a strong resilience

Zhou Bo July 13 2014 (honorary fellow with Center of China-American Defense Relations,
Academy of Military Science) Sino-US Military Relationship: Vulnerability vs Resilience,
http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/sino-us-military-relationship-vulnerability-vsresilience/#sthash.yZrdtatw.dpuf
The list of initiatives decided at the 2014 Sino-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED)
strategic track is longer than that of last year. The 116 outcomes, compared with 91 outcomes last
year, are impressive not only because of the progress made, but also because of the scope of the
issues to be addressed by these important countries. A lot of attention has been given to progress
in the military field since the last S&ED. What really raises eyebrows is the expression of a
new type of military relations, which is a step higher than the new level of military
relations coined at last years S&ED. It is also the first time that such an expression has
appeared in writing. Besides calling for deepening cooperation in counter-piracy, maritime
search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, both sides affirmed a mutual
commitment to the management of crises and prevention of accidental events. This is good news,
especially after senior American officials unleashed an avalanche of criticism about the PLA
being assertive in the East China Sea and salami-slicing in the South China Sea. It looks like
the pendulum has swung back and the US has decided to correct itself. The Sino-American
relationship is intrinsically imbued with two distinctive characteristics vulnerability and
resilience. The vulnerability is obvious, but the resilience is often overlooked. For example, in
April 2001, a collision between an American EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese J-8
fighter killed a Chinese pilot. No matter how appalling the incident was, soon after the US
government delivered its letter of two sorries, the Chinese government released the American
crew. The crisis was basically resolved, in only 11 days. This years Shangri-La Dialogue in

Singapore appeared to be very much soured by the spat between participants from China and
the US and Japan. However, the US later announced that four Chinese ships would attend
RIMPAC 2014, a multilateral exercise hosted by the US Navy off of Hawaii. And the size of the
Chinese participating task force is second to that of the US Navy. Such seemingly contradictory
phenomena reflect a strong resilience and even a kind of maturity in the relationship between the
two major powers. That is, if discord is unavoidable, you do what you can to avoid it from
becoming a crisis. The resilience between China and the US has been sustained, first of all, by
dialogue. There are over 90 dialogues of all sorts between the two countries, and quite a few of
them are at the military-level. Even the S&ED has a security dialogue. The defense and security
dialogues can provide a timely exchange of views and are therefore critically important. They
help avoid unnecessary surprises and miscalculations and should be encouraged
by all means. Cooperation between the two militaries has thus far been confined to practical
areas, such as counter-piracy, maritime search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief. There are twelve areas that are restricted by a paranoid American Congress for fear that
the PLA could benefit more than the US military from the interactions. But in recent years, more
bilateral and multilateral exercises are held in practical areas. This is a great step forward. The
US could continue inviting China for multilateral exercises, such as Cobra Gold and RIMPAC
2014 and accept PLAs greater involvement. Likewise, the PLA could invite the US military to
observe its exercises and visit more military facilities. The real challenge in the major power
relationship is not how good it will be, but the degree to which it could present less risk. Right
now, China and the US are discussing a mechanism for notifying each other of major military
activities and rules of behavior for air and maritime encounters. The bad news is that the progress
is slow; the good news is that the commitment is reaffirmed. Another healthy
development, according to the S&ED, is that the US coast guard and PRC maritime law
enforcement agency will be included in future discussions on rules for air and maritime behavior.
No region is more dangerous than the seas in the Western Pacific. Unplanned encounters
between naval ships and aircraft are not rare, especially between Chinese naval ships and
aircraft, and those of the US and Japan. Fortunately on 22 April, 2014, 21 states unanimously
voted for a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) in Tsingtao. CUES offers safety
procedures, a basic communications plan and maneuvering instructions when naval ships or
naval aircraft of two states meet unexpectedly at sea. It helps reduce miscalculations and
the chance of a conflict.
Interdependence checks china war
Nuno P. Monteiro is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he
teaches International Relations theory and security studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Political
Science from the University of Chicago in 2009. Theory of Unipolar Politics (Cambridge
University Press) April 2014 Ch 8: Conclusion, p. 202-232
This expectation is compatible with major powers continuing to invest in their own military
capabilities so that they strengthen their ability to condition outcomes in their own regions. For
example, we can expect China to continue to invest in its military so that over time it may be
able to deny U.S. forces an unfettered hand in East Asia and the Western Pacific. This would not,
however, represent the end of a unipolar world. The United States would continue to be the only
state able to project significant power and engage in prolonged politico-military operations
beyond its own region. In other words, even if China can match U.S. power in the Asia-Pacific
region, the United States would continue to be the sole great power and the world would remain
unipolar. China's interest in not challenging U.S. global power preponderance is strengthened

by the high degree of economic interdependence that has resulted from the past few
decades of U.S. accommodation of Chinese economic growth. As we have seen in Chapter 5, the
United States has consistently taken steps to incorporate China into the global U.S.-run economic
system. Beijing would therefore have much to lose from challenging that system. In this
sense, China is locked into a virtuous equilibrium of mutual accommodation with the
United States. Beijing may well want greater military capabilities to ensure secondary security
interests in its own region, but an unintended transformation of the international structure into
bipolarity as a result of Chinese efforts to boost regional power will remain unlikely.
Furthermore, the economic strategy of accommodation the United States has implemented
toward rising major powers such as Brazil, China, India, and Russia over the past few decades
also increases U.S. incentives to maintain its strategic course. Once Washington allows these
states to grow economically, their ability to balance against the United States, should they have
an incentive to do so, would be greater. This means that the more the U.S. accommodates their
growth, the more an eventual U.S. shift toward an economic strategy of containment or a military
strategy of offensive dominance in (or disengagement from) their region would trigger a swift
balancing effort on their part, leading to the quick reestablishment of a balance of power. Major
powers, of course, also know this. Overall, common knowledge of the added costs the United
States would pay if it would go on the offensive militarily, disengage from the world, or attempt
to contain others* economic growth has a stabilizing force on the international system. For this
reason, defensive accommodation produces a self-reinforcing virtuous equilibrium.

China-US War 2nc #1 No war

No US-China war: Chinese military inferiority, Economic interdependence, and the
American alliance system short circuit any conflict scenario thats Lukin
Not even the hardliners will risk it
Heydarian 8/25/2015 (Richard Javad Heydarian is an Assistant Professor in international affairs
and political science at De La Salle University, and previously served as a policy advisor at the
Philippine House of Representatives, Is Chinas Soft-Power Bubble about to Burst? August 25,
2015, http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/china%E2%80%99s-soft-power-bubble-aboutburst-13683?page=4,
The early-twentieth-century Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci, who devoted his
intellectual life to understanding the concept of hegemony, made a distinction between
War of Position and War of Maneuver. While the War of Maneuver pertains to a direct
confrontation of the status quo powers, the War of Position is more about undermining the
influence and sway of the existing leadership. In The Hundred-Year Marathon, Michael
Pillsbury traces Chinas patient and deliberate strategy aimed at supplanting the United States
as the global superpower by the middle of this century. His work shows that even
hardliners (Ying Pai) in Beijing are aware of the huge (quantitative and qualitative) military
gap between China and the West, so a direct confrontation is out of question for, at
the very least, the next two decades.

China-US War 2nc #2 resilience

Relations are resilient no war
Zurong Wu 2013 (China Foundation for International Studies Center for American Studies
executive director) China and Americas Innate Goal: Avoiding War Forever, 7-30,
http://watchingamerica.com/News/217271/china-and-americas-innate-goal-avoiding-warforever/
China and the U.S. are currently constructing a new kind of relationship between major powers,
with several aims. One intrinsic aim is especially worthy of attention, namely that China and the U.S. will not go to war today, nor
in the future, and will forever maintain a peaceful association. The Chinese and American
governments and people are striving toward this goal unceasingly because it is in the best interests of the people of China, America and the whole world. To avoid
conflict, to keep from fighting, to be mutually respectful and to embark upon a path of mutual cooperation acting in these ways would benefit everyone. First of all,
the globalization of the economy, information and other essential factors have created a global village, and the U.S. and China live and work together within this

their interests are intertwined and neither can break the inseparable bond each
has with the other. The global financial crisis of 2007 once again made clear the great extent to which the Chinese and American economies are linked
and mixed, for when one sinks into a recession or depression, it is almost impossible for the other to recover and flourish alone. When it comes to
international security, climate change, energy, counterterrorism, oceans and all sorts of other unprecedented areas, China and the U.S.
share more common interests every day, and cooperative negotiations are
unceasingly strengthened. Within this sort of atmosphere, discussing whether the U.S. and China want to go to war seems a little bit
community;

untimely and excessive. Second, the current period is fundamentally different than the era of the Cold War, for the development of peace is the theme of the present.
People from countries around the world are all concentrating their energy on revitalizing the economy and improving quality of life. After the end of the Cold War,
America launched several localized wars in smaller countries under the banner of the fight against terrorism, in the process bringing upon itself a heavy financial and

Perhaps it was upon consideration of the fact that large-scale conflicts could yield a
level of suffering and destruction that would be difficult to endure that America has not launched
any wars against the great powers that are in possession of nuclear arms. Even in the Cold War, during the Cuban
economic burden.

missile crisis of 1962, America and the Soviet Union did not go to war. The experience of history tells us that the inherent goal of this new form of Sino-U.S. relations
will have the support of the strength of the entire ranks of the worlds great powers; thus as long as both China and the U.S. have unflagging perseverance, it can be

Third, for over 40 years, China and the U.S. have promoted a strategy of mutual trust, of
the expansion of cooperation, of controlling differences of opinion. These lessons from experience are the U.S. and
Chinas most valuable treasure. Since Nixon visited the Chinese, Sino-American relations have gone through wind
and rain but have always developed onward; moreover, the speed, breadth and depth of
the development have far exceeded everyones expectations. Indeed, Sino-U.S. relations enjoy a great vitality. And since
the foundations were laid fairly recently, Sino-U.S. relations continually make significant progress. The highest leaders communicate
freely and military leaders exchange visits often. The two militaries are in the process of issuing plans for Chinese troops to participate
in the 2014 Pacific Rim joint military exercises. Both sides have decided to actively investigate significant military
activities, report mechanisms to each other and continue to research matters of security and issues regarding standards of conduct, which are relevant to the
Chinese and American navies and air forces. These collaborations will give rise to a significant and
far-reaching influence on world peace and international security and will vigorously promote the
actualization of the inherent goal of the new form of Sino-U.S. great power relations.
achieved.

China-US War 2nc #3 Interdependence

No risk of a US-Sino war, economic interdependence and coop on other issues check
Drysdale 2016- East Asia Forum
Peter, "The new geo-politics in Asia...and farewell," Jan 15,
www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/01/25/the-new-geo-politics-in-asiaand-farewell/
But does the economic and political transformation of Asia inevitably portend the rivalrous
carve-up of Asia into the big-power fiefdoms that much of what passes for security thinking
about the geo-politics of the region these days presumes? Andrew Sheng says that the past year
will be remembered as a year of shambolic shifts towards a more multipolar economic and
political order in Asia and the Pacific. The United States alone can no longer shape global
destiny but will have to share power with allies and rivals, even as regional powers find
themselves threatened by their own challenges. Sheng says there are four big interlocking forces
that underscore the need for power-sharing, cooperation and adaptation: geopolitics, geo-finance,
technology and climate change. At the geo-political level, the US pivot policy to the Asia Pacific
in 2011 opened up the South China Sea as a new front of tension, even before the United States
had managed to withdraw from the Middle East. Managing competing interests in the South
China Sea even as China projects its peripheral power will be tricky into the future. The rise of
regional powers, Sheng argues, means geo-political tussles with higher stakes, as in the South
China Sea. The potential for regional economic crisis, widespread technological shifts and
climate change are three pressing issues that can no longer be solved by a declining hegemonic
power alone, but require cooperation between affected states. In this weeks lead essay, Amitav
Acharya underlines similar contradictions, agreeing with Sheng, in effect, that the economic
imperatives for cooperation have become as important as shifting political alliances. Take the
United States and China, says Acharya. Washington insists that its rebalancing strategy
enhances regional stability. Sure enough, it is possible to see the military dimension of
rebalancing as crucial to maintaining the military balance of power in the region. But the
economic aspect of rebalancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) excludes China and
challenges United StatesChina economic interdependence. Similarly, China professes a deep
interest in enhancing regional economic interdependence. But its own initiatives, the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and One Belt One Road, challenge long-standing
modalities of regional economic cooperation. Security pluralism, argues Acharya, characterises
the new political order in Asia. Security pluralism is not a purely balance of power system; it
relies on other mechanisms. Security pluralism drives mutual accommodation among unequal
and culturally diverse states that preserves the relative autonomy of each and prevents the
hegemony of any or a few (and) respects political and cultural diversity, but fosters
accommodation among the great powers and their restraint towards the weaker actors, such as
ASEAN members. This is a better description of the Asia we live in today, reckons Acharya,
than one that is straitjacketed into the paradigm of great power politics. If it is, one must agree
with him that its a region ripe for institutional restructuring and innovation.
Interdependence checkschina and the US are more intertwined than any other countries
in the worldmeans no challengethats Monteiro
Interdependence means it wont go nuclear
Perry & Scowcroft, 9 *Professor at Stanford University, **Resident Trustee of the Forum for
International Policy (William & Brent, 2009, US Nuclear Weapons Policy, Council on Foreign
Relations)

Economic interdependence provides an incentive to avoid militaryconflictand

nuclear confrontation. Although the United States has expressed concern about the
growing trade deficit with China, the economies of the two countries have become
increasingly intertwined and interdependent. U.S. consumers have bought massive quantities of
cheap Chinese goods, and Beijing has lent huge amounts of money to the UnitedStates.
Similarly, Taiwan and the mainland are increasingly bound in a reciprocal economic relationship.
These economic relation- ships should reduce the probability of a confrontation between China and Taiwan,
and keep the United States and China from approach- ing the nuclear brink, were such a confrontation to occur.
On other nuclear issues, China and the United States have generally supported each other, as they
did in the six-party talks to dismantle North Koreas nuclear weapons programs. Here, the
supportive Beijing-Washington relationship points toward potentially promising dialogues on
larger strategic issues.

CHINA US RELATIONS

China-US relations 1nc (need newer evd)

Relations are resilient and war will never happen
Zurong Wu 2013 (China Foundation for International Studies Center for American Studies
executive director) China and Americas Innate Goal: Avoiding War Forever, 7-30,
http://watchingamerica.com/News/217271/china-and-americas-innate-goal-avoiding-warforever/
China and the U.S. are currently constructing a new kind of relationship between major powers,
with several aims. One intrinsic aim is especially worthy of attention, namely that China and the U.S. will not go to war today, nor
in the future, and will forever maintain a peaceful association. The Chinese and American
governments and people are striving toward this goal unceasingly because it is in the best interests of the people of China, America and the whole world. To avoid
conflict, to keep from fighting, to be mutually respectful and to embark upon a path of mutual cooperation acting in these ways would benefit everyone. First of all,
the globalization of the economy, information and other essential factors have created a global village, and the U.S. and China live and work together within this

their interests are intertwined and neither can break the inseparable bond each
has with the other. The global financial crisis of 2007 once again made clear the great extent to which the Chinese and American economies are linked
and mixed, for when one sinks into a recession or depression, it is almost impossible for the other to recover and flourish alone. When it comes to
international security, climate change, energy, counterterrorism, oceans and all sorts of other unprecedented areas, China and the U.S.
share more common interests every day, and cooperative negotiations are
unceasingly strengthened. Within this sort of atmosphere, discussing whether the U.S. and China want to go to war seems a little bit
community;

untimely and excessive. Second, the current period is fundamentally different than the era of the Cold War, for the development of peace is the theme of the present.
People from countries around the world are all concentrating their energy on revitalizing the economy and improving quality of life. After the end of the Cold War,
America launched several localized wars in smaller countries under the banner of the fight against terrorism, in the process bringing upon itself a heavy financial and

Perhaps it was upon consideration of the fact that large-scale conflicts could yield a
level of suffering and destruction that would be difficult to endure that America has not launched
any wars against the great powers that are in possession of nuclear arms. Even in the Cold War, during the Cuban
economic burden.

missile crisis of 1962, America and the Soviet Union did not go to war. The experience of history tells us that the inherent goal of this new form of Sino-U.S. relations
will have the support of the strength of the entire ranks of the worlds great powers; thus as long as both China and the U.S. have unflagging perseverance, it can be

Third, for over 40 years, China and the U.S. have promoted a strategy of mutual trust, of
the expansion of cooperation, of controlling differences of opinion. These lessons from experience are the U.S. and
Chinas most valuable treasure. Since Nixon visited the Chinese, Sino-American relations have gone through wind
and rain but have always developed onward; moreover, the speed, breadth and depth of
the development have far exceeded everyones expectations. Indeed, Sino-U.S. relations enjoy a great vitality. And since
the foundations were laid fairly recently, Sino-U.S. relations continually make significant progress. The highest leaders communicate
freely and military leaders exchange visits often. The two militaries are in the process of issuing plans for Chinese troops to participate
in the 2014 Pacific Rim joint military exercises. Both sides have decided to actively investigate significant military
activities, report mechanisms to each other and continue to research matters of security and issues regarding standards of conduct, which are relevant to the
Chinese and American navies and air forces. These collaborations will give rise to a significant and farreaching influence on world peace and international security and will vigorously promote the
actualization of the inherent goal of the new form of Sino-U.S. great power relations.
No US- China War- mutual interests
Etzioni 15 Professor of International Relations, George Washington University (Amitai, The
Diplomat, Mearsheimers War With China, http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/mearsheimerswar-with-china)//SEP
In the process, Mearsheimer ignores that if one does not follow the kind of real politik analysis
for which he is famous that is, an analysis that looks at security rather than at sentiments,
beliefs, and loyalties a rather different conclusion emerges. First, the United States and China
both have enormously pressing domestic problems. Chinas slowing economic growth and the
United States slow economic growth make it impossible for either country to without
neglecting these domestic demands invest many taxpayer dollars in their military. Second, a
military confrontation is very likely to be exceedingly costly for both sides. China cannot
achieved.

reasonably expect to war with the United States without suffering serious, lasting damage at
best. Third, the United States did not fare particularly well in four of its last five wars, as Henry
Kissinger delicately pointed out, and it has a hard time dealing even with ISIS, which has at most
35,000 fighters and lacks a navy, air force, nuclear weapons, or significant cyber capabilities.
Fourth and most importantly, the United States and China share many important shared and
complementary interests. These include slowing nuclear proliferation, curbing Islamic
extremism, protecting the environment, preventing climate change, and fostering economic
growth and stability.
Moreover, the two countries have very little real reason to confront each other. China can
secure access to the energy and raw materials essential to its economic well-being, without any
harm coming to the United States unless the two countries turn every change to the status quo
into a crisis of prestige. And China has shown, so far largely through land disputes, that it can
settle differences with its neighbors peacefully. The main value of Mearsheimers provocative
thesis is that it alerts those of us on both sides of the power divide to redouble our efforts to
prevent his dire predictions from coming true.

China-US relations 2nc (needs newer evd)

Extend the Wu 2013 evidence US-china interest are too intertwined, check conflict.
Low-level conflicts wont escalate to accidental war MAD and diplomacy still checks
Keck 13 - Former Deputy Editor of E-International Relations (Zachary, The Diplomat, Why
China and the U.S. (Probably) Wont Go to War, http://thediplomat.com/2013/07/why-chinaand-the-us-probably-wont-go-to-war/)//SEP
These can and should be supplemented with clear and open communication channels, which can
be especially useful when unexpected crises arise, like an exchange of fire between low-level
naval officers in the increasingly crowded waters in the region. While this possibility is real and
frightening, its hard to imagine a plausible scenario where it leads to a nuclear exchange
between China and the United States. After all, at each stage of the crisis leaders know that if it is
not properly contained, a nuclear war could ensue, and the complete destruction of a leaders
country is a more frightening possibility than losing credibility among hawkish elements of
society. In any case, measured means of retaliation would be available to the party wronged, and
behind-the-scenes diplomacy could help facilitate the process of finding mutually acceptable
retaliatory measures.
Interdependence and deterrence checkEmpirical evidence proves <Dibb 3/15/14 Paul Dibb is emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, The
Spectator, March 15, 2014, "2014 wont be like 1914", http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9158871/2014wont-be-like-1914/

The Jeremiah strategists are coming out of the woodwork to predict that Asia in 2014 will be a
repeat of Europe in 1914. In other words, that there will be an outbreak of war between the major
powers in our region, just like in Europe 100 years ago. This line of reasoning predicts that a
rising China will inevitably go to war with the United States, either directly or through conflict
with Japan. Some commentators are even suggesting that the Sarajevo incident that provoked the
first world war will be replicated between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in
the East China Sea. Kevin Rudd has likened this situation to what he calls a 21st-century
maritime redux of the Balkans a century ago a tinderbox on water. My colleague Hugh White
has proclaimed that the risk of war between China and Japan is now very real. There is
undoubtedly a significant risk that Chinas increasing aggressiveness in the East China Sea and
the South China Sea over its territorial claims will result in a military confrontation, either by
miscalculation or design. But a warship being sunk or military aircraft colliding is
a long way from all-out war. These sorts of incidents have occurred in the
past and have not escalated for example, the North Korean sinking in 2010 of the
South Korean warship and the Chinese collision in 2001 by one of its fighters with a US
reconnaissance aircraft. Unfortunately, however, a military incident between China and Japan
might be more serious than this. The commander of US air forces in the Pacific has said in an
interview on 9 February that the recent comments by the leaders of Japan and the Philippines
drawing parallels between Chinas assertiveness in the region and events in prewar Europe are
not helpful. But he did caution that any move by China to extend unilaterally an air defence
identification zone over the South China Sea would be very provocative. It is true that whereas
a war in Europe these days has become inconceivable that is not the case in Asia. In our region
there is a potentially potent combination of rising military capabilities and ugly nationalisms.
But, unlike in Europe 100 years ago, there is no sense of the inevitability of war and,
unlike in the Kaisers Germany in 1914, there is no fear in Beijing that time is not on its side.
The distinguished British historian Max Hastings points out in his book, Catastrophe: Europe

Goes to War 1914, that there was nothing accidental about the first world war. Germany was
bent on launching a European war because of its fears of a rising Russia in the east, a strong
France and Britain on its west and unrest at home. From Beijings perspective today, the
strategic correlation of forces in Marxist-Leninist terms is much more favourable than
this. Moreover, China continues to need to give priority to economic
development if it is to avoid domestic upheaval. The current German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has recently highlighted the diplomatic failures that led to the
outbreak of the first world war when there were rash predictions of a swift, successful military
campaign that in the event lasted for four years and resulted in 17 million dead. This was a
failure of political and military elites, but also of diplomacy. And this is where there is a concern
about Asia. The fact is that the multilateral organisations in our region are immature when it
comes to developing arms control and disarmament agreements and concrete approaches to
conflict avoidance. There is a lot of talk and plenty of meetings and that in itself is a good thing.
But we desperately need such confidence-building measures as an avoidance of naval incidents
at sea agreement along the lines of the one that was agreed between the US and the Soviet
Union in 1972. Even so, the key underpinnings for my confidence about a major power war in
Asia being unlikely are twofold. First, there is the iron discipline of nuclear
deterrence. For almost 70 years now the fear of nuclear war, even at the most dangerous
heights of the Cold War, has prevented a major war. An all-out nuclear war between the US and
China would involve the deaths of hundreds of millions of people on both sides in a matter of
hours. For all intents and purposes, they would cease to exist as modern functioning societies.
This is an existential threat unlike any faced by humankind previously. Once nuclear weapons
are used it would be practically impossible to avoid full-blown escalation. The second factor is
the unprecedented economic and technological interdependence that now
intertwines all our economies with each other in a way that has never existed before. It
is simply untrue to assert that globalisation was even deeper in 1914 than it is
today. Global supply chains for almost every product we consume make every country in our
region crucially vulnerable to the outbreak of war. And that includes China as much as any
other country or even more so. China is now crucially dependent on imports
for its economic security (for example, it accounts for 60 per cent of global seaborne iron ore
trade and by 2030 it will have to import 80 per cent of its oil). So, as the doyen of US
international relations studies Joseph Nye argues, we should be wary of analysts
wielding historical analogies, particularly if they have a whiff of inevitability. War, he
observes, is never inevitable, though the belief that it is can become one of its causes.
Caution solves
Bisley 3/10/14 Nick Bisley, Professor, is Executive Director of La Trobe Asia at La Trobe University, The Conversation,
March 10, 2014, "Its not 1914 all over again: Asia is preparing to avoid war", http://theconversation.com/its-not-1914-all-overagain-asia-is-preparing-to-avoid-war-22875
Higher risks, greater caution

States in Asia today are far more cautious about the way they use force than
Europeans were in 1914. A century ago, war was seen as not only a legitimate policy choice
but was championed by many for its ability to demonstrate national virtue, honour and prowess.
The experiences of war in the 20th century, the legal prohibitions that states have since created
and the professionalisation of armed forces have meant that there is not the same taste
for war that existed 100 years ago. Asia is not about to succumb to a great power
war because of the existence of nuclear weapons. The destructive power of these armaments
focuses the mind of decision-makers on the consequences of using force in any significant way.

Their existence acts as a crucial moderating influence on the policies of Asias great and aspirant
great powers. This is not a counsel borne out of complacency the region has very real
problems, which require careful and active management. Tensions in the East and South China
Seas over tiny islands do have very significant risks of friction and conflict escalation. A nuclear
breakout in northeast Asia remains an unlikely but nonetheless real possibility, while the old
flash-points of Taiwan and Kashmir remain. The region will require a great deal of vigilance to
keep the peace. But it is an awareness of this effort that marks perhaps the final point of contrast
with pre-war Europe. Asias statesmen and women are well aware of the challenge that confronts
them. So far we must pay them the credit of being up to that challenge and being capable of
taking the necessary steps to ensure devastating war does not return. We live in difficult times,
but Asia is not about to sleepwalk into conflict.

A2 Miscalculation
US-China have resilient commitment to prevent conflict, make miscalc HIGHLY
UNLIKELY
Zhou Bo July 13 2014 (honorary fellow with Center of China-American Defense Relations,
Academy of Military Science) Sino-US Military Relationship: Vulnerability vs Resilience,
http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/sino-us-military-relationship-vulnerability-vsresilience/#sthash.yZrdtatw.dpuf
The list of initiatives decided at the 2014 Sino-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED)
strategic track is longer than that of last year. The 116 outcomes, compared with 91 outcomes last
year, are impressive not only because of the progress made, but also because of the scope of the
issues to be addressed by these important countries. A lot of attention has been given to progress
in the military field since the last S&ED. What really raises eyebrows is the expression of a
new type of military relations, which is a step higher than the new level of military
relations coined at last years S&ED. It is also the first time that such an expression has
appeared in writing. Besides calling for deepening cooperation in counter-piracy, maritime
search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, both sides affirmed a mutual
commitment to the management of crises and prevention of accidental events. This is good news,
especially after senior American officials unleashed an avalanche of criticism about the PLA
being assertive in the East China Sea and salami-slicing in the South China Sea. It looks like
the pendulum has swung back and the US has decided to correct itself. The Sino-American
relationship is intrinsically imbued with two distinctive characteristics vulnerability and
resilience. The vulnerability is obvious, but the resilience is often overlooked. For example, in
April 2001, a collision between an American EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese J-8
fighter killed a Chinese pilot. No matter how appalling the incident was, soon after the US
government delivered its letter of two sorries, the Chinese government released the American
crew. The crisis was basically resolved, in only 11 days. This years Shangri-La Dialogue in
Singapore appeared to be very much soured by the spat between participants from China and
the US and Japan. However, the US later announced that four Chinese ships would attend
RIMPAC 2014, a multilateral exercise hosted by the US Navy off of Hawaii. And the size of the
Chinese participating task force is second to that of the US Navy. Such seemingly contradictory
phenomena reflect a strong resilience and even a kind of maturity in the relationship between the
two major powers. That is, if discord is unavoidable, you do what you can to avoid it from
becoming a crisis. The resilience between China and the US has been sustained, first of all, by
dialogue. There are over 90 dialogues of all sorts between the two countries, and quite a few of
them are at the military-level. Even the S&ED has a security dialogue. The defense and security
dialogues can provide a timely exchange of views and are therefore critically important. They
help avoid unnecessary surprises and miscalculations and should be encouraged
by all means. Cooperation between the two militaries has thus far been confined to practical
areas, such as counter-piracy, maritime search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief. There are twelve areas that are restricted by a paranoid American Congress for fear that
the PLA could benefit more than the US military from the interactions. But in recent years, more
bilateral and multilateral exercises are held in practical areas. This is a great step forward. The
US could continue inviting China for multilateral exercises, such as Cobra Gold and RIMPAC
2014 and accept PLAs greater involvement. Likewise, the PLA could invite the US military to
observe its exercises and visit more military facilities. The real challenge in the major power
relationship is not how good it will be, but the degree to which it could present less risk. Right

now, China and the US are discussing a mechanism for notifying each other of major military
activities and rules of behavior for air and maritime encounters. The bad news is that the progress
is slow; the good news is that the commitment is reaffirmed. Another healthy
development, according to the S&ED, is that the US coast guard and PRC maritime law
enforcement agency will be included in future discussions on rules for air and maritime behavior.
No region is more dangerous than the seas in the Western Pacific. Unplanned encounters
between naval ships and aircraft are not rare, especially between Chinese naval ships and
aircraft, and those of the US and Japan. Fortunately on 22 April, 2014, 21 states unanimously
voted for a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) in Tsingtao. CUES offers safety
procedures, a basic communications plan and maneuvering instructions when naval ships or
naval aircraft of two states meet unexpectedly at sea. It helps reduce miscalculations and
the chance of a conflict.

A2 Taiwan (needs newer evd)

China wont go to war over Taiwan
John F. COPPER- Prof International Studies @ Rhodes College, 6 August 2010, THE CHINATAIWAN ECONOMIC COOPERATION FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT: POLITICS, NOT
JUST ECONOMICS, EAI Background Brief No. 548 , http://www.eai.nus.edu.sg/BB548.pdf
Along with relations with the United States, Chinas foreign policy makers have long given the
highest priority to dealing with Taiwan.9 As often stated the paramount objective of Chinas
Taiwan policy is attaining the peaceful reunification of the island and other territory under
Taipeis control; but Chinas negotiating this agreement indicates this is a distant goal. Chinas
recent accommodative Taiwan policy comports with its overriding concern over maintaining its
domestic economic development, which requires peacein the region. China wants to present an
image of it being a champion of Asian and global stability.10 Chinese civilian leaders see serious
disadvantages in a conflict with Taiwan. Such might accelerate nationalist feelings at home,
transfer some (perhaps considerable) decision-making authority in foreign affairs to the military,
damage Chinas relations with theUnited States and Southeast Asia, and more.11 In late
2008, President Hu Jintao stated publically that reunification is at best a
distant goal.12 In 2009 President Hu endorsed the idea of an umbrella economic agreement
with Taiwan, one which Taiwans President Ma Ying-jeou had broached during the 2007-08
presidential election campaign.13 2.6 Meanwhile, in April 2009, Beijing acquiesced to Taiwan
sending an observer to the World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva. This gave Taiwans its
first presence in a United Nations body since it was expelled from the U.N. in 1971. In August,
when Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan causing serious damage and killing over 600, China sent aid
and refrained from disrupting other foreign aid providers.14 2.7 Negotiating the ECFA China
was quite generous to Taiwan. China made concessions during the talks to dampen criticism that
its exports might hurt traditional or small businesses and farmers or that ECFA was a trap as the
opposition in Taiwan described it.15 It appears that Beijing sought to boost public support in
Taiwan for the agreement in Taiwan and succor President Ma Ying-jeou.16 President Hu
promised full consideration of the interests of Taiwan compatriots. Chinese negotiators stated
that ECFA would be strictly an economic agreement, not a political one.
Squo defense commitments deter miscalc and escalation
Easley 16 Assistant Professor in the Division of International Studies at Ewha University and a
Research Fellow at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies (Leif-Eric, "Grand bargain or bad idea?
US relations with China and Taiwan," International Security, v. 40 #4, Spring 2016, p.178191)\\BPS
Beijings assertive policies contrast to the responsible, measured, and cooperative approach
Taipei has taken to managing disputed claims in the East China and South China Seas.17 Far
from being the dangerous source of entrapment Glaser describes, Taiwan is a valuable strategic
and economic partner.18 In June 2015, the United States and Taiwan signed the Global
Cooperation and Training Framework agreement to jointly offer capacity building in areas such
as public health, womens empowerment, environmental protection, and maritime safety. Leaders
across Taiwans political spectrum have internalized lessons from the provocative Chen Shuibian years and are not about to risk the lives and treasure of their people for the sake of forcing
Washingtons hand vis--vis Beijing. Moreover, the United States has historically managed to
deter challengers and restrain partners, preventing both sides from initiating or escalating
conflicts.19
The U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan is not preventing something good from happening, but

rather preventing some seriously bad things from happening.20 U.S. defense exchanges and
intelligence sharing with Taipei may annoy nationalists in Beijing, but they help avoid
miscalculation, support escalation control, and discourage provocation and aggression. Glaser
discounts the negative effects of abandoning Taiwan on U.S. military capabilities and
intelligence gathering in Asia, freedom of navigation, and maritime and energy security. Under
his proposed bargain, the United States would be avoiding hypothetical costs and pursuing
uncertain benefits while giving up known military benefits and incurring unnecessary strategic
costs.
Taiwan conflict doesnt go nuclear
Mearshimer 14 John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service
Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He serves on the Advisory Council
of The National Interest (John, Say Goodbye to Taiwan, March-April 2014,
http://nationalinterest.org/print/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931?page=6)//MP
In the face of this grim future, Taiwan has three options. First, it can develop its own nuclear
deterrent. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent, and there is no question that a Taiwanese
nuclear arsenal would markedly reduce the likelihood of a Chinese attack against Taiwan.
Taiwan pursued this option in the 1970s, when it feared American abandonment in the wake of
the Vietnam War. The United States, however, stopped Taiwans nuclear-weapons program in its
tracks. And then Taiwan tried to develop a bomb secretly in the 1980s, but again the United
States found out and forced Taipei to shut the program down. It is unfortunate for Taiwan that it
failed to build a bomb, because its prospects for maintaining its independence would be much
improved if it had its own nuclear arsenal.
No doubt Taiwan still has time to acquire a nuclear deterrent before the balance of power in Asia
shifts decisively against it. But the problem with this suggestion is that both Beijing and
Washington are sure to oppose Taiwan going nuclear. The United States would oppose
Taiwanese nuclear weapons, not only because they would encourage Japan and South Korea to
follow suit, but also because American policy makers abhor the idea of an ally being in a
position to start a nuclear war that might ultimately involve the United States. To put it bluntly,
no American wants to be in a situation where Taiwan can precipitate a conflict that might result
in a massive nuclear attack on the United States.
China will adamantly oppose Taiwan obtaining a nuclear deterrent, in large part because Beijing
surely understands that it would make it difficultmaybe even impossibleto conquer Taiwan.
Whats more, China will recognize that Taiwanese nuclear weapons would facilitate nuclear
proliferation in East Asia, which would not only limit Chinas ability to throw its weight around
in that region, but also would increase the likelihood that any conventional war that breaks out
would escalate to the nuclear level. For these reasons, China is likely to make it manifestly clear
that if Taiwan decides to pursue nuclear weapons, it will strike its nuclear facilities, and maybe
even launch a war to conquer the island. In short, it appears that it is too late for Taiwan to
pursue the nuclear option.

US-China war over Taiwan doesnt escalate and wont go nuclear

White 15 - Hugh White is professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University in
Canberra. His book The China Choice: Why We Should Share Power was published in the US
last year by Oxford University Press (Hugh, Would America Risk a Nuclear War with China

Over Taiwan?, 5/5/15, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/would-america-risk-nuclearwar-china-over-taiwan-12808)//MP

What about America's allies and friends in Asia? Wouldn't they help America defend Taiwan, if
only because they are so worried themselves about China? Many Americans seem to assume
they would. But even Australia, America's most reliable ally in Asia, is uncertain about this. And
if Australia is uncertain, it is pure wishful thinking to expect the likes of India, Singapore,
Vietnam or even the Philippines to offer anything more than mild diplomatic support to America
over Taiwan.
The exception is Japan, which under Shinzo Abe might be expected to join the fight, especially
after last week's visit to Washington. But does Mr. Abe really speak for Japan? Will future
Japanese leaders take the same view? And even if they did, how exactly would that help
America? How would Japan's support change the answers to the hard questions posed above, and
increase the chances that America would indeed come to Taiwan's aid?
So no one should lightly assert that America or its allies would help defend Taiwan from China.
But should they? This is a big subject. Suffice to say here that the question is not answered
simply by using the word appeasement to invoke the memory of Munich.

CHINA US COOPERATION

China-US Cooperation 1nc (needs newer evd)

Relations are resilient, but cooperation is impossible because of ideology
Harry Harding 11, founding dean of the School of Leadership and Public Policy at the
University of Virginia, Are China and the U.S. on a collision course?, June 14,
http://thinkingaboutasia.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-china-and-us-on-collision-course.html
In my judgment, it is highly unlikely for the relationship between the US and China to be
primarily cooperative, at least in the short to medium term. The differences in values, political
systems, interests, levels of development, and perceptions of the existing international order are
simply too great for the two countries to find common ground on all issues, or even to find a
mutually agreeable allocation of costs and benefits when they try to pursue common interests.
Only a common interest that was massively compelling say a widespread pandemic, another
financial crisis, a global outbreak of terrorist activity targeted at both countries, or increasingly
severe consequences of climate change might produce a predominantly cooperative
relationship. Fortunately, an essentially confrontational relationship is also unlikely, especially if
one is primarily concerned with the risks of military conflict. The high degree of economic
interdependence between the two countries has already created a relatively resilient relationship.
The cost of military conflict, especially given the fact that both China and the US are nuclear
powers, will be a significant deterrent against military conflict. Equally important, the
probability of the most worrying of the trigger events identified above a unilateral declaration
of independence by Taiwan is presently quite low, as is the risk that China would try to compel
unification through the use of force.

China-US Cooperation 2nc

cooperation doesnt solveUS-China interests too mismatched to spur cooperationthats
Harding
US-China cooperation impossibleleadership transition locks in confrontational relations
Stapleton Roy, Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, Former
Ambassador, 2/21/13, US-China Relations: Be Wary of Rivalry,
www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5197&Itemid=171
With China's leadership in transition and incoming Secretary of State John Kerry heading a new
foreign policy team in the second Obama administration, leaders in both countries must face a
"frightening array of domestic and foreign policy problems" in managing their vital relationship,
longtime senior US diplomat J. Stapleton Roy said in a Feb. 13 address at the East-West Center
in Hawaii. (See the video of Roy's speech.) "No task is going to be more important than trying to
arrest the current drift in US-China relations toward strategic rivalry," he said. "If leaders in both
countries fail to deal with this issue, there is a strong possibility that tensions will rise and
undermine the benign climate that has been so important in producing the Asian economic
miracle - and to a significant degree, political miracle - over the past 30 years." Roy, who served
as US ambassador to China from 1991 to 1995, said the two nations are "locked in the traditional
problem of an established power facing a rising power, and we know from historical precedent
that competitive factors that emerge in such situations often result in bloody wars." The good
news, he said, is that "leaders in both countries are aware of the historical precedents and are
determined to not let history repeat itself." While top leaders on both sides have recognized the
need to work together toward a stable balance between cooperation and competition, Roy said,
neither country has been able to implement this, and "it remains to be seen if it is even possible
to establish this new type of relationship." Roy said opinion polls over the last couple of years
have shown a dramatic increase in the percentage of Chinese citizens and officials who view
relations with the US as characterized by hostility rather than cooperation. During the same
period, he said, US polls indicate that "we don't think of China in the same way." "This is
something we need to be concerned about," he said, "because the tensions and passions on the
other side are stronger than they are on our side, and this requires careful management." While
incoming Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqian have already declared their
interest in implementing further market reforms and reining in pervasive corruption, Roy said,
"the Communist Party may lack the legitimacy and will to force through the far-reaching reforms
that are needed against the influence of special interests, especially large state-owned businesses.
One can reasonably doubt if a party corrupted by wealth at the highest level can carry out the
kind of fundamental systemic reforms that are necessary." In addition, he said, China's new
leaders will be faced with a litany of internal difficulties that "illustrate why it would still be
foolish to postulate that the 21st century will belong to China." These include what even
outgoing premier Wen Jiabao has characterized as an "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and
unsustainable" economy, Roy said, along with a rapidly aging population, slowing economic
growth, and what is known as the "middle income trap," when a rising economy loses the
competitive advantage of low-cost labor as it climbs the income scale. "Wages in China have
been rising rapidly, especially for skilled labor," Roy said. "So they have to substitute something
else, such as innovation or efficiency." Historically, he said, "over 100 countries have reached the
middle income trap, and 86 percent failed to get out of it. They grow, then reach a certain level
and stall out. China has to find way to avoid this, and that's a big challenge." Another huge issue,

Roy said, is that "rising nationalism is pushing China toward a more assertive international style
and enmeshing it in difficulties with a lot of its neighbors. This has the potential to undermine
the benign international environment that has underpinned the dramatic accomplishments China
has made." China's more assertive recent behavior is "both typical and predictable for a rising
power," he said. "But China is finding that when it expresses this nationalism through more
assertive behavior, its neighbors all show solidarity with the US, which is not what China is
trying to accomplish. And this is causing resentment in China, because they find that they can't
use their growing power effectively as a result of the negative consequences." This could actually
prove to be a positive phenomenon for the US, he said, "because if we're skillful enough to
understand this dynamic, we are in a position to constrain China when it's behaving irresponsibly
and cooperate with it when it behaves responsibly." "China is not the Soviet Union," he said.
"China's rise has benefitted all of the countries around it, and as a result they don't want a
containment policy; they want responsible behavior by China so they can expand economic and
trade relations, which already dwarf their relations with other countries. But when China behaves
badly, then they want the United States to be present because they can't deal with China on their
own. It's a dynamic that skillful diplomacy should be able to take advantage from." With China
now "locked in a web of disputes" with its neighbors over small but potentially resource-rich
islands in the region, Roy said, "the United States finds itself in the awkward situation of trying
to reassure our allies at the same time we try to restrain their behavior, because we don't want
tiny little islands in the western Pacific to end up bringing us into a great-power confrontation
with China." The threat of such hostility is real, he said, and "these disputes are having direct
impact on US-China relations - but it's an asymmetrical impact, because Americans
basically don't care about these islands. But in China it is an issue of great nationalist importance,
as it is for Japan, the Philippines and other claimants." Such issues, he said, illustrate the
complexity of trying to manage this vitally important relationship: "A stronger China will
undoubtedly see itself as again becoming a central regional player, but the United States intends
to remain actively engaged in East Asia, where we have formal alliances and strategic ties
throughout the region." The question for leaders of both countries, Roy said, is whether they can
find a solution to this conundrum. As of now, he said, "there is a disconnect between the highlevel desire on both sides not to have our relationship drift toward rivalry and confrontation, and
the way we're actually behaving, which is driving us in that direction." Open military conflict is
unlikely and preventable, he said, but just the threat of it could cause a costly "military
capabilities competition" for decades to come, at a time when the US is already facing budget
cuts.
No impact to U.S.-China cooperation---its impossible to sustain
Aaron L. Friedberg 12, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, September/October 2012,
Bucking Beijing, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 5, p. 48-58
Recent events have raised serious doubts about both elements of this strategy. Decades of trade
and talk have not hastened China's political liberalization. Indeed, the last few years have been
marked by an intensified crackdown on domestic dissent. At the same time, the much-touted
economic relationship between the two Pacific powers has become a major source of friction.
And despite hopes for enhanced cooperation, Beijing has actually done very little to help
Washington solve pressing international problems, such as North Korea's acquisition of nuclear
weapons or Iran's attempts to develop them. Finally, far from accepting the status quo, China's
leaders have become more forceful in attempting to control the waters and resources off their

country's coasts. As for balancing, the continued buildup of China's military capabilities, coupled
with impending cuts in U.S. defense spending, suggests that the regional distribution of power is
set to shift sharply in Beijing's favor. WHY WE CAN'T ALL JUST GET ALONG TODAY,
CHINA'S ruling elites are both arrogant and insecure. In their view, continued rule by the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is essential to China's stability, prosperity, and prestige; it is
also, not coincidentally, vital to their own safety and comfort. Although they have largely
accepted some form of capitalism in the economic sphere, they remain committed to preserving
their hold on political power. The CCP'S determination to maintain control informs the regime's
threat perceptions, goals, and policies. Anxious about their legitimacy, China's rulers are eager to
portray themselves as defenders of the national honor. Although they believe China is on track to
become a world power on par with the United States, theyremain deeply fearful of encirclement
and ideological subversion. And despite Washington's attempts to reassure them of its benign
intentions, Chinese leaders are convinced that the United States aims to block China's riseand,
ultimately, undermine its one-party system of government. Like the United States, since the end
of the Cold War, China has pursued an essentially constant approach toward its greatest external
challenger. For the most part, Beijing has sought to avoid outright confrontation with the United
States while pursuing economic growth and building up all the elements of its "comprehensive
national power," a Chinese strategic concept that encompasses military strength, technological
prowess, and diplomatic influence. Even as they remain on the defensive, however, Chinese
officials have not been content to remain passive. They have sought incremental advances,
slowly expanding China's sphere of influence and strengthening its position in Asia while
working quietly to erode that of the United States. Although they are careful never to say so
directly, they seek to have China displace the United States in the long run and to restore China
to what they regard as its rightful place as the preponderant regional power. Chinese strategists
do not believe that they can achieve this objective quickly or through a frontal assault. Instead,
they seek to reassure their neighbors, relying on the attractive force of China's massive economy
to counter nascent balancing efforts against it. Following the advice of the ancient military
strategist Sun-tzu, Beijing aims to "win without fighting," gradually creating a situation in which
overt resistance to its wishes will appear futile. The failure to date to achieve a genuine entente
between the United States and China is theresult not of a lack of effort but of a fundamental
divergence of interests. Although limited cooperation on specific issues might be possible, the
ideological gap between the two nations is simply too great, and the level of trust between them
too low, to permit a stable modus vivendi. What China's current leaders ultimately want -regional hegemony -- is not something their counterparts in Washington are willing to give. That
would run counter to an axiomatic goal of U.S. grand strategy, which has remained constant for
decades: to prevent the domination of either end of the Eurasian landmass by one or more
potentially hostile powers. The reasons for this goal involve a mix of strategic, economic, and
ideological considerations that willcontinue to be valid into the foreseeable future.

CHINA US TRADE WAR

China-U.S. Trade War 1nc

US-China trade war wont happen or escalate
Kaplan 2009 Gilbert B, Former Deputy Assistant and Acting Assistant Secretary of the U. S.
Department of Commerce, there will be no trade war, Oct 4,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gilbert-b-kaplan/there-will-be-no-trade-wa_b_308692.html
There will be no trade war. For the Chinese to declare a trade war on the United States in
retaliation for the U. S. actions would be roughly like Wal-Mart declaring a trade war on the
American consumer or Walt Disney declaring a trade war on America's children. The United
States is the best friend economically China has. It is basically China's free lunch. We have
thrown open our enormous market--still the largest in the world by far--to Chinese imports and
run a sustained trade deficit with China of over $100 billion a year since they joined the WTO.
Our deficit with China is now over $250 billion per year. We lowered out tariffs to zero and
admitted China to the WTO because we believe in free trade, but this was not something the
United States had to do. We could have blocked their entry. So the prospect of China wanting to
strike back on something beyond dorkings that would really hurt our economy is nil. Though
they have threatened action on auto parts as well, this has not yet materialized and even
the value of our auto part imports into China is small. Nor can President Obama's action be
called protectionist. China agreed in its Accession Protocol with the rest of the WTO members
and the United States that such short term safeguard measures could be applied against them.
Just as their enormous trade access to our market is a result of the WTO agreement, so is the
short term adjustment action President Obama took. The duties will only remain in effect for
three years. This is exactly the kind of case this remedy was designed for. Passenger tire imports
from China did indeed surge during the period of review, 2004-2008, increasing by well over
200%, and causing over 9,000 U. S. job losses through this year, and the closing or idling of
many U. S. production plants. And to say that the application of this 421 remedy has been
overzealous by the United States borders on the absurd. Only six other cases have even been
filed under the statute. Of these, the International Trade Commission, a bi-partisan independent
agency, has found injury in four others, but in none of those has the President ever imposed a
remedy. This is the first in eight years.

China-U.S. Trade War 2nc

wont happentrade war irrationallike wal mart declaring war on the American
consumerthats Kaplan
No trade war neither side wants it
Qingfen 2009 Ding, China-US trade war unlikely, 11-14,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/obamavisitchina/2009-11/14/content_8971627.htm
Although trade friction between China and the United States will likely rise in the months ahead
as the economic recovery of the US remains in limbo, there is little possibility that the two
countries will become embroiled in a full-blown trade war, analysts said. Since US
President Barack Obama issued a special duty on tire imports from China in September, the first
and largest, such maneuver of his administration, trade conflicts between two of the world's most
important economies have sharpened and have spread to other areas, particularly in recent days.
On Nov 4, the US requested that the World Trade Organization (WTO) establish a dispute
settlement panel to rule on China's restraints on exports of raw materials, which the Chinese
government insists is consistent with WTO rules. That same day, the US Commerce Department
slapped preliminary anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel pipe worth $2.6 billion. The move
came after preliminary anti-subsidy duties were put on the pipe, which is used in oil and gas
lines, in September. On Nov 5 the US International Trade Commission approved another two
probes of imports from China: glossy magazine-quality paper and certain salts. The new levies
were approved about one week ahead of Obama's trip to Asia. The trip includes a four-day visit
to China, starting Sunday. China is regarded as one of his most important destinations during the
trip. "As the unemployment rate is expected to remain high next year, the US will initiate more
trade protectionist cases or/and measures against China," said He Weiwen, a senior expert on
WTO and China-US trade relations. "China, undoubtedly, is and will remain the major target of
the US, and scapegoat of the low recruitment rate and sluggish economy, although the nation
should not have been so," said He. Despite news that the US economy has posted positive
growth during the third quarter of this year, the world's largest economy is still hamstrung by
high unemployment. According to the US Department of Labor, the country's unemployment rate
surged to 10.2 percent in October, the highest since 1983 and much higher than had been
expected. Most economists predict the job situation will remain grim through 2010. Even Obama
has conceded that more Americans will lose their jobs, even as the worst may be over for the
economy as a whole. Obama is under great pressure from labor unions, particularly the United
Steelworkers, the prime initiator of the recent trade remedy cases against China, including the
special guarantee tire case and the steel pipe duties. "Unions have given Obama nice support
during the presidential election, and therefore are winning his promise of returning the favor,"
said Zhang Yuqing, a panelist on the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. The healthcare reform
package Obama has been pushing forward to expand medical treatment to most Americans also
needs the support of unions, Zhang added. The US House of Representatives recently narrowly
endorsed healthcare reform legislation, the largest in decades. The Senate, however, has shown
signs of balking at the $1 trillion bill. No trade war However few believe a trade war of
any kind will break out. "There is neither sign nor reason that China and the US will turn
the conflicts into a war. It's not good for either party," He said. It is estimated that trade
remedy cases, as of late last year, only account for 5 percent of the China-US trade by volume.
"They are a minimal part of bilateral trade and happened in a special period. Cases will decrease
when the US economy turns good," he said. Most observers believe the US will not launch

additional trade remedy cases for fear of antagonizing China. Obama said recently that the US
sees China as a vital partner and competitor, but the two countries must address economic
imbalances or risk enormous strains on their relationship.

CCP

CCP Collapse 1nc

Cohesion, competence, and adaptability make the CCP resilient no viable opposition
Heath 2015 --- (Timothy Heath, March 13 2015, No, Chinas Not About to Collapse, The
Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/no-chinas-not-about-to-collapse/)//Jmoney
The CCPs liabilities are well known. These include an antiquated political identity, cumbersome
ideology, and widespread disenchantment with Marxism among the public (and among more
than a few party members). CCP-led government has failed to provide adequate services, ensure
rule of law, and has long tolerated corruption, malfeasance, and widening inequality. Many of
these vulnerabilities have persisted for years, and some have worsened over time.
The partys advantages are less often discussed, but these bear reviewing if one is to evaluate the
viability of CCP rule. One of the most overlooked, but important, assets is a lack of any credible
alternative. The partys repressive politics prevent the formation of potential candidates, so the
alternative to CCP rule for now is anarchy. For a country still traumatized by its historic
experience with national breakdown, this grants the party no small advantage. To truly imperil its
authority, the CCP would need to behave in so damaging a manner as to make the certainty of
political chaos and economic collapse preferable to the continuation of CCP rule. A party that
attempted to return to extreme Mao-era policies such as the catastrophic Great Leap Forward
could perhaps meet that threshold. But despite the numerous superficial comparisons in Western
media, little about the current administration policy agenda resembles classic Maoism.
The second major political advantage lies in improvements to the partys effectiveness in recent
years. In a major paradigm shift, the CCP redefined itself as a governing party whose primary
responsibility rests in addressing the myriad economic, political, cultural, ecological, and social
welfare demands of the people. It has carried out ideological and political reforms to improve its
competence and effectiveness accordingly. The Xi administration has refined, but upheld, the
focus on increasing the nations standard of living and realizing national revitalization, objectives
embodied in the vision of the Chinese dream. Although the party has rightly come in for
criticism for moving slowly and inadequately on these issues, the policy agenda nevertheless
appears to resonate with the majority of Chinese citizens. Independent polls consistently show
that the party has in recent years enjoyed surprisingly strong public support.
When weighing the partys political liabilities against its assets, therefore, the evidence suggests
that the CCP faces little danger of imminent collapse. Improvements to its cohesion, competence,
and responsiveness, combined with a policy agenda that resonates with most Chinese and the
lack of a compelling alternative outweigh the persistent political liabilities. The partys overall
political stability throughout the 2000s, despite massive political unrest generated by breakneck
economic growth, underscores this point.
No CCP collapse resilience, meritocracy, and legitimacy check.
Li 13 Eric X. Li is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He is also a venture capitalist in
Shanghai who serves on the board of directors of China Europe International Business School
(CEIBS) and is vice chairman of its publishing arm CEIBS Publishing Group. The Life of the
Party, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb, 92.1, EBSCO
In November 2012, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its 18th National Congress, setting
in motion a once-in-a-decade transfer of power to a new generation of leaders. As expected, Xi
Jinping took over as general secretary and will become the president of the People's Republic
this March. The turnover was a smooth and well-orchestrated demonstration by a confidently
rising superpower. That didn't stop international media and even some Chinese intellectuals,

however, from portraying it as a moment of crisis. In an issue that was published before the
beginning of the congress, for example, The Economist quoted unnamed scholars at a recent
conference as saying that China is "unstable at the grass roots, dejected at the middle strata and
out of control at the top." To be sure, months before the handover, the scandal surrounding Bo
Xilai, the former party boss of the Chongqing municipality, had shattered the CCP'S long-held
facade of unity, which had underwritten domestic political stability since the Tiananmen Square
upheavals in 1989. To make matters worse, the Chinese economy, which had sustained doubledigit GDP growth for two decades, slowed, decelerating for seven straight quarters. China's
economic model of rapid industrialization, labor-intensive manufacturing, large-scale
government investments in infrastructure, and export growth seemed to have nearly run its
course. Some in China and the West have gone so far as to predict the demise of the one-party
state, which they allege cannot survive if leading politicians stop delivering economic miracles.
Such pessimism, however, is misplaced. There is no doubt that daunting challenges await Xi. But
those who suggest that the CCP will not be able to deal with them fundamentally misread
China's politics and the resilience of its governing institutions. Beijing will be able to meet the
country's ills with dynamism and resilience, thanks to the CCP'S adaptability, system of
meritocracy, and legitimacy with the Chinese people. In the next decade, China will
continue to rise, not fade. The country's leaders will consolidate the one-party model and, in the
process, challenge the West's conventional wisdom about political development and the
inevitable march toward electoral democracy. In the capital of the Middle Kingdom, the world
might witness the birth of a post-democratic future. ON-THE-JOB LEARNING The
assertion that one-party rule is inherently incapable of self-correction does not reflect the
historical record. During its 63 years in power, the CCP has shown extraordinary
adaptability. Since its founding in 1949, the People's Republic has pursued a broad range of
economic policies. First, the CCP initiated radical land collectivization in the early 1950s. This
was followed by the policies of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and the Cultural
Revolution in the late 1960s to mid-1970s. After them came the quasi-privatization of farmland
in the early 1960s, Deng Xiaoping's market reforms in the late 1970s, and Jiang Zemin's opening
up of the CCP'S membership to private businesspeople in the 1990s. The underlying goal has
always been economic health, and when a policy did not work -- for example, the disastrous
Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution -- China was able to find something that
did: for example, Deng's reforms, which catapulted the Chinese economy into the position of
second largest in the world. On the institutional front as well, the CCP has not shied away from
reform. One example is the introduction in the 1980s and 1990s of term limits for most political
positions (and even of age limits, of 68-70, for the party's most senior leadership). Before this,
political leaders had been able to use their positions to accumulate power and perpetuate their
rules. Mao Zedong was a case in point. He had ended the civil wars that had plagued China and
repelled foreign invasions to become the father of modern China. Yet his prolonged rule led to
disastrous mistakes, such as the Cultural Revolution. Now, it is nearly impossible for the few at
the top to consolidate long-term power. Upward mobility within the party has also increased. In
terms of foreign policy, China has also changed course many times to achieve national greatness.
It moved from a close alliance with Moscow in the 1950s to a virtual alliance with the United
States in the 1970s and 1980s as it sought to contain the Soviet Union. Today, its pursuit of a
more independent foreign policy has once more put it at odds with the United States. But in its
ongoing quest for greatness, China is seeking to defy recent historical precedents and rise
peacefully, avoiding the militarism that plagued Germany and Japan in the first half of the last

century. As China undergoes its ten-year transition, calls at home and abroad for another round
of political reform have increased. One radical camp in China and abroad is urging the party to
allow multiparty elections or at least accept formal intraparty factions. In this view, only fullscale adversarial politics can ensure that China gets the leadership it needs. However sincere,
these demands all miss a basic fact: the CCP has arguably been one of the most self-reforming
political organizations in recent world history. There is no doubt that Chinas new leaders face a
different world than Hu Jintao did when he took over in 2002, but chances are good that Xi's
CCP will be able to adapt to and meet whatever new challenges the rapidly changing domestic
and international environments pose. In part, that is because the CCP is heavily meritocratic and
promotes those with proven experience and capabilities.

CCP Collapse 2nc

Extend the Li 2013 evidence the CCP is extremely adaptable to any political situation.
Their legitimacy provides political cover.
CCP is resilient can adapt and control public swings
Kurlantzick 2011Fellow at the USC School of Public Diplomacy and the Pacific Council on
International Policy.Frmr visiting scholar in the China program at Carnegie. (Joshua, Beijing has
bought itself a respite from middle class revolt, 7 March 2011,
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/beijing-has-bought-itself-a-respitefrom-middle-class-revolt?pageCount=0)
As governments across North Africa have been overthrown or are seemingly near the verge of
collapse, some Chinese writers and activists are hopefulthat this democratic wave might sweep
over the world'slargest and most powerful authoritarian state. Unknown Chinese activists have
anonymously posted an online manifesto calling for their own "Jasmine Revolution". Groups of
protesters - even joined by the American ambassador to China - havegathered in Beijing to heed
the call for revolt. The Chinese authorities, taking no chances, quickly shut down protests and
apparently jailed some of the demonstrators. They have also been blocking any internet
discussion of activists' "Jasmine Manifesto". But despite Beijing's quick response, in reality
China's leadership has far less to fear than Hosni Mubarak or Muammar Qaddafi. For one thing,
unlike in many parts of the Middle East, China's urbanised centres haven't turned against the
regime. Instead, most city residents essentially support, or at least tolerate, the regime. And why
not? The government has been very, very good to them, as Minxin Pei, a professorat Claremont
McKenna College, documented in his book China's Trapped Transition. After the 1989
Tiananmen protests, the Chinese Communist Party, recognising the power of educated urban
protesters, delivered a raft of new incentives to co-opt the urban middle class. The
government directed growth to urban areas, and launched other pro-middle class programmes.
These included higher salaries for academics and other professionals; restrictions on rural
people's housing and schools so that peasants cannot attend many of the best urban institutions;
and opening the Party to membership for entrepreneurs, many of whom eagerly joined as a
business networking opportunity. The Party reinforces the middle class content with the status
quo by usingspeeches and state media to suggest that, in a democracy, totalfreedom of movement
would allow rural peasants to swamp the cities, ruining the standard of living in wealthier urban
areas. All these incentives are reasons why Chinese city residents in polls show high appreciation
of the current state of affairs. In one recent survey, nearly 90 per cent of Chinese
expressed satisfaction with the current station of their nation; since these polls,
conducted by telephone, are focused on urbanareas, they represent more closely the views of the
urban middle class. China's leaders also are not as out of touch, isolated or brittle as some of
those in the Middle East. The Communist Party may be an authoritarian regime and there is
certainly plenty of corruption - one Chinese scholar estimates that corruption costs China more
than $80 billion (Dh294 billion) in growth each year. Still, the leadership now is a collective one,
and no single official amasses the type of enormous wealth of leaders like Tunisia's Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali. China's collective leadership, unlike in Mao's time, also has some ability to
listen to and respond to public opinion. In 2008, for example, protests in Tibet initially were met
by a relatively moderate response from the central government. But angry online sentiment - the
Chinese blogosphere is highly nationalist and often conservative - partly prompted a tougher
crackdown, according to Chinese officials and scholars. Perhaps most importantly, unlike much

of the Middle East, China's economy is booming, and not simply because of resource extraction.
In Tunisia, and then in Egypt, protests erupted after immolations by young men and women who,
although they had undergraduate degrees, were unable to find work in economies that could not
keep pace with growing populations. Although Chinese university graduates certainly have a
tougher time finding jobsthan they did several years ago, the Chinese economy continues to
boom:China grew by more than 9 percent last year, during a global economic crisis, and will
likely grow at least as much this year, a rate it has kept up for roughly three decades (the Chinese
premier, Wen Jiabao, downgraded that to 7 per cent this week). Educated young men and women
still can find high-paying jobs, particularly if they are willing to move to interior cities that have
been prioritised by the central government. And, unlike in places like Egypt, foreign powers such
as the United States - which has sold roughly $2 trillion in government debt to China - do not
have much leverage over the People's Republic. In the early 1990s, when China remained a
global pariah because of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, America had more leverage to push
Beijing on human rights and democracy, and President Bill Clinton, during a visit to the country,
publicly and harshly criticised China's record on rights. Today, the story is much different.
Dependent on China not only to keep the American economy propped up but also for
cooperation on global issues like trade and climate change, the Obama administration has taken a
much softer approach to Beijing. When Barack Obama headed to China for the first time as
president in the fall of 2009, he agreed to a "press conference" with the Chinese president Hu
Jintao at which the two actually took no questions, and when the American president held a town
forum with Chinese students, he delivered none of the broadsides against China's rights record
that his predecessor had. Any change that happens in China in the future is going to come from
domestic events, not from external pressure. But don't expect that change to happen anytime
soon.

CCP lashout 1nc

no lashout
Gilley 5 (Bruce, Professor of International Affairs @ New School University and Former
Contributing Editor @ the Far Eastern Economic Review, Chinas Democratic Future,)
More ominous as a piece of "last ditchism" would be an attack on Taiwan. U.S. officials and
many overseas democrats believe that there is a significant chance of an attack on Taiwan if the
CCP is embattled at home. Indeed, China's strategic journals make frequent reference to this
contingency: "The need for military preparations against Taiwan is all the more pressing in light
of China's growing social tensions and unstable factors which some people, including the U.S.
might take advantage of under the flag of 'humanism' to paralyze the Chinese government," one
wrote. Such a move would allow the government to impose martial law on the country as part of
war preparations, making the crushing of protest easier. It would also offer the possibility, if
successful, of CCP survival through enhanced nationalist legitimacy. Yet the risks, even to
a dying regime, may be too high. An unprovoked attack on Taiwan would almost
certainly bring the U.S. and its allies to the island's rescue. Those forces would not stop at
Taiwan but might march on Beijing and oust the CCP, or attempt to do so through stiff sanctions,
calling it a threat to regional and world peace. Such an attack might also face the opposition of
the peoples of Fujian, who would be expected to provide logistical support and possibly bear the
worst burdens of war. They, like much of coastal China, look to Taiwan for investment and
culture and have a close affinity with the island. As a result, there are doubts about whether such
a plan could be put into action. A failed war would prompt a Taiwan declarationof independence
and a further backlash against the CCP at home, just as the May Fourth students of 1919 berated
the Republican government for weakness in the face of foreign powers. Failed wars brought
down authoritarian regimes in Greece and Portugal in 1974 and in Argentina in 1983. Even if
CCP leaders wanted war, it is unlikely that the PLA would oblige. Top officers would see the
disastrous implications of attacking Taiwan. Military caution would also guard against the even
wilder scenario of the use of nuclear weapons against Japan or the U. S.At the height of the
Tiananmen protests it appears there was consideration given to the use of nuclear weapons in
case the battle to suppress the protestors drew in outside Countries .41 But even then, the threats
did not appear to gain even minimal support. In an atmosphere in which the military is thinking
about its future, the resort to nuclear confrontation would not make sense.

CCP lashout 2nc

Extend the Gilley 2005 evidence CCP lashout is extremely unlikely, lack PLA support and
deterrence checks opportunism
CCP turns inward
Feng 2010 [5/10, Zhu, PhD, Professor of School of International Studies and Director of the
Center for International & Strategic Studies @ Peking University, has served as research fellow
@ Washington based CSIS & Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies @ Harvard University,
visiting scholar @ Durham University in UK, An Emerging Trend in East Asia: Military Budget
Increases and Their Impact, May 10, 2010,
http://www.fpif.org/articles/an_emerging_trend_in_east_asia]
Many China watchers in the West contend that the weak legitimacy of the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) has spurred its military buildup. But this is mostly an attribution error. Despite a
great number of challenges from home and abroad, the CCPs ruling legitimacy has not suffered
from any shock. The Chinese people do not believe that a change of ruling partyor the partys
relinquishing of power will resolve their complaints. Even if domestic unrest flares up, China
would likely turn inward rather than outward, even at the cost of effectively muting an assertive
foreign policy.

CHINA ECONOMY

China Economy 1nc

China econs resilient
Katsenelson 9 Vitaliy N., director of research at Investment Management Associates in
Denver, Colo., and the author of Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound
Markets, 7/23/09, The China Bubble's Coming -- But Not the One You Think, Foreign Policy,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/23/the_china_bubbles_coming_but_not_the_one
_you_think
Despite everything, the Chinese economy has shown incredible resilience recently. Although its
biggest customers -- the United States and Europe -- are struggling (to say the least) and its
exports are down more than 20 percent, China is still spitting out economic growth numbers as if
there weren't a worry in the world. The most recent estimate put annual growth at nearly 8
percent. Is the Chinese economy operating in a different economic reality? Will it continue to
grow, no matter what the global economy is doing? The answer to both questions is no. China's
fortunes over the past decade are reminiscent of Lucent Technologies in the 1990s. Lucent sold
computer equipment to dot-coms. At first, its growth was natural, the result of selling goods to
traditional, cash-generating companies. After opportunities with cash-generating customers dried
out, it moved to start-ups -- and its growth became slightly artificial. These dot-coms were able
to buy Lucent's equipment only by raising money through private equity and equity markets,
since their business models didn't factor in the necessity of cash-flow generation. Funds to buy
Lucent's equipment quickly dried up, and its growth should have decelerated or declined.
Instead, Lucent offered its own financing to dot-coms by borrowing and lending money on the
cheap to finance the purchase of its own equipment. This worked well enough, until it came time
to pay back the loans. The United States, of course, isn't a dot-com. But a great portion of its
growth came from borrowing Chinese money to buy Chinese goods, which means that Chinese
growth was dependent on that very same borrowing. Now the United States and the rest of the
world is retrenching, corporations are slashing their spending, and consumers are closing their
pocket books. This means that the consumption of Chinese goods is on the decline. And this is
where the dot-com analogy breaks down. Unlike Lucent, China has nuclear weapons. It can print
money at will and can simply order its banks to lend. It is a communist command economy, after
all. Lucent is now a $2 stock. China won't go down that easily. The Chinese central bank has a
significant advantage over the U.S. Federal Reserve. Chairman Ben Bernanke and his cohort
may print a lot of money (and they did), but there's almost nothing they can do to speed the
velocity of money. They simply cannot force banks to lend without nationalizing them (and only
the government-sponsored enterprises have been nationalized). They also cannot force
corporations and consumers to spend. Since China isn't a democracy, it doesn't suffer these
problems. China's communist government owns a large part of the money-creation and moneyspending apparatus. Money supply therefore shot up 28.5 percent in June. Since it controls the
banks, it can force them to lend, which it has also done. Finally, China can force governmentowned corporate entities to borrow and spend, and spend quickly itself. This isn't some slowmoving, touchy-feely democracy. If the Chinese government decides to build a highway, it
simply draws a straight line on the map. Any obstacle -- like a hospital, a school, or a Politburo
member's house -- can become a casualty of the greater good. (Okay -- maybe not the Politburo
member's house). Although China can't control consumer spending, the consumer is a
comparatively smallpart of its economy. Plus, currency control diminishes the consumer's buying
power. All of this makes the United States' TARP plans look like child's play. If China wants to
stimulate the economy, it does so -- and fast. That's why the country is producing such robust

economic numbers.
Econ will be resilient
Xinhua, 3-5-2016, "Opinion: China's economy shows strong resilience despite downward
pressure," http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-03/05/c_135159087.htm RB
Despite the current slowdown in growth, China's economy has been showing strong resilience
and great development potential, as the government still has plenty of tools at its "toolbox" to
bolster economic growth. Premier Li Keqiang said Saturday at the annual parliamentary session
in Beijing that China will increase the deficit-to-GDP ratio to 3 percent this year from 2.3 percent
in 2015. The moderate increase in the government deficit, which is projected primarily to cover
tax and fee reductions for enterprises, is just one of the many policy tools at the government's
disposal to pump up economy. The world's second largest economy has been slightly slowing
down its pace of growth recently while seeking to rebalance its economy towards better-quality,
consumption-led growth from a traditional reliance on exports and investment. The slower pace
of growth, which is still the envy of most major economies, has however caused jitters in global
financial markets. This week, Moody's Investors Service cut its outlook on China's government
credit rating from stable to negative, citing "uncertainty about the authorities' capacity to
implement reforms." The concerns and Moody's move reflect a lingering pessimism over the
Chinese economy among some overseas investors and institutions, a miscalculation due to a lack
of understanding and vision on China's fiscal stability. As many economists pointed out, despite
a slowdown of growth, the Chinese economy still has great potential and the government has a
string of tools to support the economy, such as strategies for implementing the initiatives on the
construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (the Belt
and Road Initiatives), industrial upgrading, tax cuts, stimulating investment and lowering interest
rates and the reserve requirement ratio. Among all the reasons for the economists to remain
upbeat, the primary source of their confidence in China's economy comes from the fact that the
country's long-term economic fundamentals have remained unchanged and there is ample room
for the government to maneuver. First of all, China is still halfway towards urbanization and
industrialization, and the potential for economic expansion is vast. The new type of
industrialization, IT application and agricultural modernization that is in full swing have
generated strong domestic demand and great potential for future growth, and have also made the
economy more resilient and adaptable. All this, coupled with deepening structural reforms,
means that China will have very promising economic prospects. The second reason for optimism
is the country's stable job market. Official data showed that the country's employment remained
steady in 2015 despite the economic slowdown, with the unemployment rate in China's cities
standing at 4.05 percent at the end of 2015, unchanged from three months earlier. Throughout the
year, the government created 13.12 million new jobs for urban residents, exceeding the official
target, and there were no large-scale layoffs though certain sectors did cut jobs. Moreover, a
variety of new growth engines in recent years have been taking shape thanks to the government's
reform and pro-growth measures. New industries and businesses are emerging rapidly in China
nowadays, and official figures showed that a booming service sector accounted for 50.5 percent
of the country's GDP growth in 2015. Meanwhile, as traditional engines such as exports and
investment lost steam, policymakers turned their attention to innovation and entrepreneurship,
which have unlocked people's creativity and are becoming a powerhouse for economic growth.
China has a labor force of 900 million, and every year has over 7 million college graduates, with
a growing number of them becoming entrepreneurs and joining innovation industries.

China Economy 2nc

resilientchinas government can force banks to lend and controls fiscal and monetary
stimulusthat's Katsenelson
resilient--stimulus, monetary shifts, currency reservesand not key to global econ
Coonan 8 (10/25, Clifford, IrishTimes.com, China's stalling boom has globe worried,
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1025/1224838827729.html)
All of this downbeat news feeds into a growing suspicion that China has had its cake and eaten
for way too long, and that there is simply no precedent for a country growing and growing
without some kind of respite. Establishing what that pause will look like and what it means to the
rest of the world is the latest challenge facing global analysts. A hangover is considered
inevitable and the Olympics, while meaningless economically, are widely considered the
psychological trigger for China to face a slowdown. Despite all this gloom, however, writing
China off is premature. The Beijing government is well placed to help protect the economy from
the worst ravages of a global downturn. It has spent the last two years trying to fight inflation
and cool the overheating economy, so it's a lot easier for it to take the foot off the brakes than it
is to put them on in the first place. The central bank has lowered its benchmark interest rate twice
in the past two months, the first time in six years. The State Council is increasing spending on
infrastructure, offering tax rebates for exporters and allowing state-controlled prices for
agricultural products to rise. Expect significant measures to kick-start the property market to
avoid house prices falling too drastically. China has a lot of plus points to help out. Chinese
banks did not issue subprime loans as a rule, and the country's 1.43 trillion in hard-currency
reserves is a useful war chest to call on in a downturn. The currency is stable and there are high
liquidity levels, all of which give China the most flexibility in the world to fend off the impact of
the global financial crisis, says JP Morgan economist Frank Gong. China is now a globalised
economy, but its domestic market is still massively underexploited, and it is to this market that
the government will most likely turn. While it is a globalised economy committed to the WTO,
China is also a centralised economy run by the Communist Party, and it has no real political
opposition at home to stop it acting however it sees fit to stop sliding growth. Should the
economy start to worsen significantly, public anger will increase, but China has been so
successful in keeping a tight leash on the internet and the media that it is difficult for opposition
to organise itself in a meaningful way. Recent years of surging growth in China have certainly
done a lot to keep global economic data looking rosy, but perhaps China's influence has been
somewhat oversold. It is not a big enough economy by itself to keep the global economy ticking
over, accounting for 5 per cent of the world economy, compared to the United States with a
muscular 28 per cent. And whatever about slowing growth, 9 per cent is still an admirable rate,
one that European leaders gathered this weekend in Beijing for the Asian-Europe Meeting would
give their eye teeth to be able to present to their constituencies.
Alt cause- corruption and poverty doom the economy- AND prevent other sectors from
solving
Kashmir Times, 12 ("Independence Day poser," 8-14-12, l/n, accessed 10-27-12, mss)
But outward appearance, good as it may be, should not-and does not-hide the troubling facts
about the country's internal state of affairs. Mismanagement at the top stands out like a sore

thumb. Corruptionhas become a way of life even as it continues to erode the gains achieved on
other fronts. Social disparities have aggravated rather than getting reduced with the progress in
the economic sphere. Poverty remains as seriousa problemas it ever was. Conflicts rooted in
communal, caste, regional and ethnic factors continue to surface menacingly and take a toll of
the national fabric. These are the symptoms of degradation in the quality of governance. And
this, more than anything else, is today India's problem number one. Having moved away from its
traditional ideological moorings in the glare and glitz of ruthless market economy, India seems to
have lost its way. The present policy paralysis is a natural consequence. Decision making
apparatus has lost its dazzle which it used to flaunt, evidently in the reflected glory of some
distant object. Vicious recession, claiming one country after another from amongst the
supposedly prosperous nations, has given a couple of body blows to Indian economy as well.
The falling rupee, falling exports and, more importantly, fall in the rate of economic growthare
disturbingfeatures.
alt cause--Real Estate bubble devastates Chinese econ
Yang 10/3 (Jia Lynn Yang, Associated Press, As China's Economy Slows, Real Estate Bubble
Looms (Beijing),
http://www.northjersey.com/news/international/172550731_As_China_s_Economy_Slows__Rea
l_Estate_Bubble_Looms__Beijing_.html?page=all, October 3, 2012)
BEIJING Sitting on the floor of his apartment surrounded by the toys of his 1-year-old son,
GuoHui tallied the homes he and his wife had acquired over the years. There was this place, in a
compound a half-hour from downtown Beijing. There was a second apartment to the north, a
third place near the site of the 2008 Olympics, and a fourth home, close to the Forbidden City,
that was given to him by his parents. Guo gestured to the wall behind his couch. His neighbor?
He owns six apartments in this compound alone. Guo's friends, too, all own at least two homes
each. "There is definitely a bubble," said Guo, whose homes have tripled in value in
roughly a decade. As home prices have skyrocketed, many Chinese households have gone all in
on real estate by pouring years of savings into buying as many homes as they can. But as the
country's economy slows to its worst pace in years, China's dependence on real estate for
growth - it's a bigger driver than even exports now - has put the government in a
tough position. Allow prices to continue rising and help the economy in the near-term, and the
real estate bubble gets worse. Cool things off, and the entire economy slackens too much. The
nightmare scenario, though, is a bubble that bursts. A major drop in prices would ripple
through the Chinese economyand potentiallythe rest of the world. Real estate investment
constituted 13 percent of the country's gross domestic product last year. The sector feeds steel,
concrete and dozens of other industries.A downturn would also be devastatingto
the wealth of Chinese households. Urban housing stock made up 41 percent of Chinese
household wealth in 2011, compared with 26 percent in the United States, according to Nicholas
Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Lower home values
could drive Chinese consumers to rein in their spending, making it tougher for U.S. and foreign
firms to sell their products here. The Chinese government has acknowledged that real estate
prices have gotten too high, adding some rules in the past few years to limit how many homes
people can buy and requiring people to put more money down. This helped bring prices down
starting last year, although they edged back up this summer. These policies, though, have had a
limited effect. Chinese home buyers have been accumulating houses for years, mainly because

they have few options for safely stashing their savings. The stock market has lost money in
recent years. People are wary of putting money into savings accounts, because low interest rates
are not even keeping up with inflation. The obsession with real estate is also embedded in the
culture. People are expected to own homes before they get married, and there is a deep faith that
real estate is a foolproof investment. Since private homeownership has existed here only since
the 1990s, no one has ever seen firsthand what happens when housing prices start dropping. "Just
like in the U.S., that's what the speculators thought in Vegas and Florida, that there's only one
way to go but up," Lardy said. "Expectations could change very dramatically." Unlike U.S. home
buyers, who took advantage of zero-down-payment loans in the mid-2000s, Chinese home
buyers usually put down at least 20 percent or 30 percent, if they aren't buying their homes
outright with cash. This means it would take a far bigger drop in real estate prices to cause
people to default on their loans and therefore destabilize the banking sector. Still, the amount of
household debt as a percentage of disposable income has risen sharply in recent years, from 31.3
percent in 2008 to 53.6 percent last year, according to Lardy. He added that the current figure is
high next to countries with comparable per-capita GDP. Those who play down concerns about a
bubble say there is real demand for housing in China's cities that justifies the high prices. But the
astronomical cost - homes in cities cost on average $1,378 per square meter - has left many
unable to afford a house, whereas others accumulate more than they need. "It's like the way other
people collect watches," said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of the research firm J Capital.
People have bought so many homes for investment that they often leave them sitting empty. On a
recent evening, driving around the outer edges of Beijing, it was easy to spot residential high-rise
buildings along the highway that did not have a single window with a light on. In an area called
Daxing, one hour south of the city's center, two security guards stood in front of a gate leading
into a massive compound of 545 Italian-style, million-dollar mansions, almost all of them empty.
The compound, WeilaideVille, boasted a clock tower, a grocery store and a giant fountain past
the entrance gates. But just after dinnertime, there was little sign of life. The houses, row after
row of them, were darkened, silent hulks. Some areas of the compound were so empty that the
street lamps were turned off to save electricity. There are 3.8 million vacant houses in Beijing,
according to a report in June by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, though officials
later tried toargue that the number was probably too high. "What gets to me is the incredible
waste of it all," Stevenson-Yang said. After years of nonstop growth, the market has started to
wobble. Home prices in China's top 10 cities have dropped 1.5 percent since last year, according
to the China Real Estate Index System. Some owners are trying to offload their properties.
ZaoYaohua, a Beijing real estate agent handling some home sales at Weilai, said there is an
owner selling his home there for about $645,000. "He needs the money urgently," Zao said. Guo,
the prolific homeowner in Beijing, said he will sell at least one of his apartments when he moves
his family to the United States in the next few years. They're going there so his son can get an
American education. And he has his next real estate investment lined up. His wife's brother has a
home in Houston, and Guo has already bought a share of it.
Its resilient
Overholt 4 (Dr. William H., Asia Policy Chair Center for Asia Pacific Policy at the RAND
Corporation, Chinas Economy, Resilience and Challenge, Harvard China Review, Spring,
http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2005/RP1116.pdf)
China's economy has demonstratedextraordinary resiliencein the face ofthe globaleconomy

slowdown, the SARS tragedy, and the stresses of WTO entry. This resilience results fromthe
successful shift to domestic-led growth and from rising productivity caused by economic reform,
rising competition, and highly entrepreneurial economic structure, and high levels of foreign
direct investment. China's successes are being achieved by reforms thatovercome severe
challenges. Among these challenges are a pressures on China to revalue its currency and China's
rapidly expanding money supply and overheating economic expansion. What distinguishes China
from other countries facing similar challenges is that it has chosen a process of gradual reform
and opening that has proved successful in other Asia countries. It has also demonstrated an
ability to form a workable leadership consensus regarding its most important problems, to
implement solutions in the face of great political and social stress, and to overcome the stress by
delivering large benefits for most of the Chinese people.
Chinese growth will slow- declining growth, aging crisis
LeVine 2012, author @ The National Interest, 2012, 10-12, Jonathan, The National Interest.
China's Uncertain Path, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/chinas-uncertain-path-7583
The End of the Miracle Doomsayers have been predicting the end of China almost since the
beginning of China as we know it in the late 1970s. They have been wrong for over thirty years,
and those still predicting the elusive hard landing and subsequent collapse probably are still
mistaken. However, that does not mean Chinas growth will not slow down, perhaps
considerablyin the coming years. The last thirty years in China have been described as an
economic miracle, and anyone on the ground can attest that this is no exaggeration. Yet it is very
likely that we are at the end of the miracle, and that future Chinese growth, like that in all
developing countries, will slow to lower and more sustainable levels. The most salient factor in
this slowing growth is Chinas size. Unlike other nations that have experienced breakneck
growth and then slowedlike Japan or GermanyChinas uniquely large population presents
obvious difficulties. Germanys population of around eighty million is roughly equivalent to the
population of Sichuan Province, Chinas fourth largest. All normal indicators must be adjusted
for Chinas vastness. As a result, even if Chinas growth slows to 6 percent a yearstill an
enviable figure in any absolute senseit would have the effect of creating a functional
recessionfor a population long engorged on 10 percent growth and a skyrocketing standard of
living. The Chinese challenge is best summed up in a telling anecdote from Decision Points, the
memoir of President George W. Bush, who recounted asking Chinese president Hu Jintao what
keeps him awake at night. The Communist Party chairman did not need to think very hard.
Creating 25 million jobs a year, he replied.IfChinese economic growth cannot produce those
jobs for the next generation, it will undermine thecentral argument for the Communist Partys
continued existence. The shotgun social contracteconomic growth in exchange for one-party
rulecould become untenable. Slowing global demand, slowing direct investment, a deflating
housing bubble, immature financial instruments and bloated public spending are only the most
apparent drags that the new Chinese leadership will have to ameliorate or accommodate going
forward. The Devil in Demography U.S. policy makers look to the soon-to-be-retiring babyboomer generation with nothing short of terror. Now on the cusp of an entitlement windfall, they
are well on track to overwhelm the entire federal budget unless those programs are reformed. Yet
as bleak as our situation is, the Chinese soon will confront the same problem on a scale of
biblical proportions. Chinas one-child policy by some estimates may have prevented up to four
hundred million births, but it has also brought the long-term fertility rate to historic lows. Today

it is roughly 1.56, well below the rate of replacement of about 2.1, the size required to keep the
population relatively constant. This has generated a vicious phenomenon known as 4:2:1one
child, two parents, four grandparents. Even with thirty years of supersonic growth, China is not
wealthy enough to offset the effect of the avalanche of pensions and insurance claims that are on
the horizon. As The Economist succinctly put it, China will become old before it becomes rich.
For the youth, who are culturally enjoined to tend to their elders, it will be an enormous
and lasting burden.Much was made recently when China surpassed Japan to become the
worlds second-largest economy as measured by overall GDP. Given Chinas size, this milestone
was inevitable, just as it is equally inevitable that China will one day surpass the United States by
this metric. Lost in the weeds, however, was the real number that matters, GDP per capita. Here
China is losing big. According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States and Japan, both of
whom face rapidly aging societies, have GDPs per capita of $49,000 and $35,200. China, by
contrast, languishes at $8,500 [GDP per capita]. This translates to an individual living standard
comparable to Bosnia or East Timor. In other words, Japan, despite its perennial hangover from
the lost decade and its being on track to become the oldest society the world has ever known,
will be more than capable of managing its aged, as will the United States. For China, this is far
from certain.

EXPANSIONISM

China Expansionism 1nc

China isnt expansionist
Nuno P. Monteiro 2014 is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where
he teaches International Relations theory and security studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Political
Science from the University of Chicago in 2009. Theory of Unipolar Politics (Cambridge
University Press) April 2014 Chapter 5, p. 113--143
To conclude, China's economy is growing remarkably fast, a process aided by a U.S.
strategy of accommodation. Yet, China is investing in its military far less than it could - and
indeed far less than would be necessary to mount a full-fledged military challenge to the
United States. At the nuclear level, Beijing has opted for a relatively small deterrent force,
capable of assuring China's survival without triggering an arms race in the region or with the
United States. At the conventional level, China is modernizing its forces to increase its ability to
counter U.S. military preponderance in the Asia Pacific region. None of these trends point
to a path of Chinese global military expansion or competition with the United States. Having its
survival guaranteed by a small but robust nuclear deterrent, China is likely to focus on
economic growth through cooperation with the United States for as long as the latter
continues to ensure the international conditions conducive to this goal. The United States has
consistently implemented a strategy of defensive accommodation vis-a-vis China. Knowing that,
in the nuclear age, any other strategy will incur a competition cost by prompting China to
balance until U.S. military power is no longer preponderant, Washington has opted for allowing
the Chinese economy to grow unfettered and has refrained from attempting to revise the status
quo in the Asia Pacific region further in the United States'favor. As we see in Chapter 7, this
strategy has entailed a conflict cost for the United States. For the first two-and-a-half decades of
its power preponderance, however, Washington has judged the conflict cost of defensive
accommodation to be outweighed by the benefits it extracts from its position as the unipole. I
return to this strategic calculation in Chapter 8. For the foreseeable future, then, and even
after the time when China may become the largest economy on earth, the United States will
continue to be the only state capable of engaging in prolonged politico-military operations in
regions beyond its own. Although it is possible that Washington will have to devote a growing
share of its military assets to the Asia Pacific to ensure the maintenance of U.S. preponderance in
the face of Chinese military modernization, for as long as Beijing lacks the capability to project
power beyond its region, the United States will remain a preponderant power and the world
will continue to be unipolar. This does not, of course, mean that U.S.-China relations
will be always fully cooperative or even cordial. Chinese accommodation of a continued U.S.
role as a global preponderant power does not require that Beijing adopt the logic of the U.S.-led
liberal international order. To the contrary, it is possible and even likely that China will continue
to espouse different political principles and to orient its foreign policy in opposition to many
goals pursued by the United States. All my theory predicts is that, despite these opposing
interests at the margins, China will not engage in a militarized challenge to the
global status quo and will therefore allow the United States to remain in its unipolar
position.

China Expansionism 2nc

China isnt expansionistbest data shows they are investing less than would be necessary
and opt for small deterrent forces to avoid arms races which hurt its growththats
Montiero
China is defensive seek defensive posturing not offensive
Nuno P. Monteiro 2014 is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where
he teaches International Relations theory and security studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Political
Science from the University of Chicago in 2009. Theory of Unipolar Politics (Cambridge
University Press) April 2014 Chapter 5, p. 113--143
Beyond mere numbers, China pursues a national security policy that is defensive in nature and
regional in scope.61 China's geostrategic goals focus on "sustaining a security environment
conducive to China's national development."6' This aim requires avoiding a crisis over Taiwan
as well as furthering Chinese maritime territorial and economic interests in the South and East
China seas. China has implemented a strategy of "offshore active defense," assuming a
force posture aimed at regional anti-access area-denial (A2AD) goals, capable of denying U.S.
access to its region for a limited time in case of a conflict. Yet, U.S.-China relations, although
varying in tone, have consistently been positive, reflecting the high potential costs and
risks of a competitive relationship between them. During the first two-and-a-half decades of U.S.
power preponderance, Beijing's leadership has adopted an overall cooperative posture toward
U.S. global leadership.64
China is not aggressive US military power advances faster
Nuno P. Monteiro 2014 is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where
he teaches International Relations theory and security studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Political
Science from the University of Chicago in 2009. Theory of Unipolar Politics (Cambridge
University Press) April 2014 Chapter 5, p. 113--143
China's military efforts are geared toward fulfilling its core mission of naval A2/AD vis-a-vis the
United States, with no indication that Beijing will pursue more ambitious blue-water
expeditionary goals, to say nothing of global power-projection objectives.65 As Andrew
Erickson puts it, "China's naval development thus far has been focused largely on developing a
variant of regional anti-access to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence," while remaining
"far from supporting a substantial SLOC [sea lanes of communication] security posture."66
Furthermore, Chinese defense modernization efforts do not take place in a strategic vacuum. As
China modernizes its forces, so does the United States. Reacting to China's emerging A2/AD
capabilities, the U.S. military has decided to implement a new "air-sea battle" concept aimed at
maintaining U.S. supremacy even in China's region.67 In addition, the U.S. military is
implementing its "conventional prompt global strike" (CPGS) concept, which "calls for a U.S.
capability to deliver conventional strikes anywhere in the world in approximately an hour."68
When considered together, these developments may well ensure that the gap between U.S. and
Chinese power-projection capabilities beyond their respective regions is actually increasing,
reinforcing the United States' position as a unipole.

China SCS 1nc

Regional trade ties prevent conflict
Jenny 2015 contributor Global Risk Insights, 1/28/15 (Nicolas, Trade Goes on as Usual in the
South China Sea,
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2015/01/28/trade_goes_on_as_usual_in_the_south_china
_sea_110939.html)
China's various government agencies tasked with enforcing Beijing's claims in the South China
Sea progressively stepped up their actions over the course of 2014 in what has been termed
incremental assertiveness'. From eschewing legal challenges at the international tribunal to
creating new islands out of dredged sand, China has never seemed more determined to
effectively turn the South China Sea into a Chinese Lake'. International relations scholars and
journalists have intensely debated the reasons behind China's increased assertiveness in the
South China Sea. But Beijing's foreign policy actions in the region have made most countries
suspicious if not completely resentful of China. This has led some to claim that, China today
faces the worst regional environment since Tiananmen. Its relations with Japan are at a record
low; China-ASEAN ties have similarly deteriorated due to the South China Sea disputes and
China's heavy-handed use of its clout to divide ASEAN.' Despite this resentment, analysts have
largely overlooked the trade dynamics between China and other claimants in the South
China Sea dispute. One would naturally assume that deep suspicions or resentment of Beijing
would translate into diminishing trade ties, yet the opposite has taken place. For
example, Vietnam recorded an 18.9% increase in Chinese imports in 2014 despite Hanoi's
attempts to broaden its import partners. The issue became particularly relevant following China's
decision to place an oil rig in disputed waters earlier in 2014. The Philippines, no stranger to
Chinese pressure in the South China Sea, also reported a 12.4% increase of exports to China
during the first nine months of 2014. Coincidentally, China is also the Philippines' third largest,
and Vietnam's largest trading partner. While smaller East Asian states continue to hedge their
bets against China, there is a resounding pattern in their trade statistics - they all present a strong
trade deficit in China's favour. Vietnam's trade deficit with China reached a record high in 2014
while the Philippines' highest trade deficit is with China, representing 16% of imports, a 35%
increase from previous years. Herein lays the conundrum of the South China Sea dispute: while
claimant states rally against Beijing's nine-dash line, economically, they need China more
than China needs them. Access to China's market has forced foreign companies and their
governments to compromise on politics. While European companies have compromised on
issues such as internet censorship, Southeast Asia's governments have been forced to
compromise on sovereignty in the South China Sea. This economic fact of life for Southeast
Asian states has produced ripple effects across policy. For example, following the deadly antiChina riots in Vietnam, Hanoi promised to reimburse and rebuild China's factories damaged by
the protests. Similarly, the Philippines' economy suffered tremendously in 2012 when China
drastically cut banana imports. China will soon have successfully leveraged its economic power
to reach political ends - the consolidation of the South China Sea as Beijing's core interest. It
will not have primarily been through vast military expansion as many had predicted, but rather
through its economic might. Trade has arguably been China's most widely used foreign
policy tool and as China's wealth increases, this is only set to continue. As it should be
remembered, the South China Sea dispute is not all about potential energy deposits in the region.
It is a dispute over competing visions of the South China Sea and a weary China who sees itself
surrounded. Heightened trade flows between China and the claimant states can assure a

certain amount of stability in the region. And although many are quick to remind us that
trade cannot serve as a deterrent to conflict, today's globalised world stands in stark contrast
to the beginning of the 20th century. Even the Philippine president, Aquino, argued that
territorial disputes in the South China Sea were unlikely to lead to conflict because no one was
willing to sacrifice the huge trade flows in the region. Therefore, despite the issues over
sovereignty and the occasional flare-ups between various claimants, peace, no matter how
precarious, will prevail - no country is ready, particularly China, to sacrifice trade at the
expense of stability.
No conflict or escalation evidence is just hype and china will not risk it
Kania 13 The Harvard Political Review is a journal of politics and public policy published by
the Institute of Politics, cites Andrew Ring, a former Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs Fellow, and Peter Dutton, Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S.
Naval War College (Elsa, 01/11, The South China Sea: Flashpoints and the U.S. Pivot,
http://harvardpolitics.com/world/the-south-china-sea-flashpoints-and-the-u-s-pivot/)
Equilibrium and Interdependence? One paradox at the heart of the South China Sea is the uneasy
equilibrium that has largely been maintained. Despite the occasional confrontation and
frequent diplomatic squabbling, the situation has never escalated into fullblown physical conflict. The main stabilizing factor has been that the countries involved
have too much to lose from turmoil, and so much to gain from tranquility. Andrew Ring
former Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Fellowemphasized that With respect
to the South China Sea, we all have the same goals in terms of regional stability and
development. With regional trade flows and interdependence critical to the regions
growing economies, conflict could be devastating. Even for Chinathe actor with by far the
most to gain from such a disputetaking unilateral action would irreparably tarnish its
image in the eyes of the international community. With the predominant narrative of a rising
and assertive Chinareferred to as a potential adversary by President Obama in the third
presidential debateChinas behavior in the South China Sea may be sometimes
exaggerated or sensationalized. Dr. Auer, former Naval officer and currently Director of
the Center for U.S.-Japan Studies and Cooperation at the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy
Studies, told the HPR that China has not indicated any willingness to negotiate multilaterally
and remains very uncooperative. Across its maritime territorial disputesparticularly through
recent tensions with Japan in the East China SeaAuer sees China as having taken a very
aggressive stance, and he claims that Chinese behavior is not understandable or clear.
Nonetheless, in recent incidents, such as a standoff between China and the Philippines over the
Scarborough Shoal this past April, as Bonnie Glaser, Senior Adviser for Asia at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, emphasized, this is not an either or. Multiple parties are
responsible for the tensions, yet the cycle of action and reaction is often obscured.
Nonetheless, Glaser believes that The Chinese have in every one of these cases overreacted
they have sought to take advantage of the missteps of other countries, responding with
disproportionate coercion. In addition, China has begun to use methods of economic coercion
to assert its interests against trade partners. A Tipping Point? Has the dynamic in the South China
Sea shifted recently? Perhaps not in a fundamental sense. But with the regional military buildup,
governments have developed a greater capacity to pursue longstanding objectives. According to
Peter Dutton, Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College,
Chinas recent behavior in the East China Sea and assertive policy in the South China Sea is a
serious concern. He believes that Chinas willingness to resort to force in defense of its

territorial claims has been increasing over time, partially as a consequence of its rising power. As
such, Dutton sees the situation as reaching a tipping point in which China isno longer
satisfied with shelving the dispute. Is confrontation or resolution imminent? Worryingly, Dutton
observes, the international dynamic in the region is motivated largely by fear and anger.
However, the use of unilateral military force would be a lose-lose for China,
particularly in terms of its credibility, both among its neighbors and in the international
community. The Pivot in the South China Sea From a U.S. perspective, a sustained American
presence in the region has long been the underpinning of peace and stability. However, excessive
U.S. intervention could disrupt the delicate balance that has been established. Although the U.S.
has always sought to maintain a position of neutrality in territorial disputes, remarks by Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton that referred to the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea led
China to challenge U.S. impartiality. If the U.S. engages with its regional allies without seeking
enhanced engagement with China, then U.S. actions in the region may be perceived by China as
efforts at containment. Moreover, as the U.S. strengthens ties to partners in the region, there is
risk of entanglement if conflict were to break out. There has long been an undercurrent of tension
between the Philippines and Chinamost recently displayed in the standoff over the
Scarborough Shoal in May 2012. Shortly thereafter, in a visit to Washington D.C., President
Aquino sought U.S. commitment to military support of the Philippines in the event of conflict
with China on the basis of the 1952 Mutual Defense Treaty. However, despite providing further
military and naval support, the U.S. has refrained from making concrete commitments. Although
the U.S. would not necessarily be dragged into a dispute, if a confrontation did break out, it
might feel compelled to respond militarily to maintain the credibility of commitments to allies
and partners in the region. Strong ties to the U.S. and enhanced military capacity could also
provoke more confrontational behavior from U.S. partners. Yet, Ring emphasizes that the U.S.
navy and military are also unique in the ability to facilitate military cooperation and
communication among all of the claimants and particularly to be that bridgeuniquely
situated to build some flows of communication that could facilitate a peaceful
resolution to future incidents.

China SCS 2nc

No SCS war regional trade blocs assure cooperation and china will no risk image over the
islands thats Kania
No escalation or draw-in
Taylor 2014, Head of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center Australian National University,
Spring 14 (Brendan, The South China Sea is Not a Flashpoint,
https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/sites/twq.elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/Taylor_PDF.pdf)
History initially suggests that the South China Sea is not a flashpoint. The loss of life
resulting from the use of force there pales in comparison to those in East Asias traditional
flashpoints. For instance, in the unresolved Korean War (195053), which remains at the heart of
continuing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, an estimated two million military personnel were
either killed or unaccounted for.7 A comparable number of casualties occurred in the Chinese
Civil War (19461949), which left todays Taiwan flashpoint as a direct product.8 Further, at a
time when some analysts are talking up the prospects of war between China and Japan over the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, it is worth recalling that an estimated 1535 million perished during the
course of the second SinoJapanese War (193745).9 While history is not destiny, more recent
estimates suggest that the combustion of any one of these flashpoints today could prove equally
devastating. Richard Bush and Michael OHanlon of the Brookings Institution, for example,
predict that a conflict over Taiwan could spark a nuclear war involving 1.5 billion people and
produce a fundamental change in the international order.10 Similar estimates produced at the
time of the 199394 North Korean nuclear crisis suggested that war on the Korean Peninsula
could cost half a million lives and up to US$1 trillion in its first ninety days.11 Conflict between
Asias two most powerful navies in the East China Sea could prove equally devastating,
particularly given that China and Japan are also the worlds second- and third-largest economies,
respectively. Total trade between these two historical great powers of East Asia currently stands
at U.S. $345 billion.12 It is hard to envisage a credible scenario where a skirmish in the South
China Sea could erupt into a conflict of similar proportions. The nationalist foundations of these
disputes are fundamentally different from those underpinning East Asias traditional
flashpoints. By way of example, recent polling suggests that 87 percent of the Chinese public
view Japan negatively, whilst 50 percent anticipate a military dispute with Japan.13 Reflecting
this sentiment, when Tokyo announced its decision to purchase contested Islands in the East
China Sea from their private owner in September 2012, this sparked widespread anti-Japanese
protests across China that spread to more than 100 cities.14 Such public displays of nationalist
sentiment stand in marked contrast to June 2013 anti-China protests in Hanoi following
Vietnamese allegations that a Chinese vessel had rammed and damaged a Vietnamese fishing
boat. Subsequently, a mere 150 protesters gathered in the city center.15 Crowds of comparable
size have attended anti-Chinese protests in the Philippines. For instance, a March 2012 protest
outside the Chinese Embassy in Manila that organizers expected to draw 1,000 protesters
attracted barely half that number.16 The strategic geography of the South China Sea also
militates against it being a genuine flashpoint. Throughout history, large bodies of water have
tended to inhibit the willingness and ability of adversaries to wage war. In The Tragedy of Great
Power Politics, for instance, John Mearsheimer refers to the stopping power of water, writing
of the limits that large bodies of water place on the capacity of states to project military power
relative, at least, to when they share common land borders.17 Even when clashes at sea do occur,
history suggests that these generally afford statesmen greater time and space to find

diplomatic solutions. As Robert Ross observes, in such cases neither side has to fear that the
others provocative diplomacy or movement of troops is a prelude to attack and immediately
escalate to heightened military readiness. Tension can be slower to develop, allowing the
protagonists time to manage and avoid unnecessary escalation.18 Ross observation, in turn,
dovetails elegantly with the issue of proximity, which Hoyt regards as a defining feature of a
flashpoint. The antagonists in the South China Sea disputes are less proximate than in the case
of the Korean Peninsulawhere the two Koreas share a land border that remains the most
militarized on earth. The same can be said of the Taiwan flashpoint. Indeed, the proximity of
Taiwan to the mainland affords Beijing credible strategic options and arguably even incentives
involving the use of force that are not available to it in the South China Sea.19 Finally, and
related to the third of Hoyts criteria, the South China Sea cannot be said to engage the vital
interests of Asias great powers. To be sure, much has been made of Indias growing interests in
this part of the world particularly following reports of a July 2011 face-off between a Chinese
ship and an Indian naval vessel that was leaving Vietnamese waters.20 However, New Delhis
interests in the South China Sea remain overwhelmingly economic, not strategic, driven as they
are by the search for oil. Moreover, even if New Delhi had anything more than secondary
strategic interests at stake in the geographically distant South China Sea, it is widely accepted
that Indias armed forces will for some time lack the capacity to credibly defend these.21
Similarly, while much has been made of Tokyos willingness to assist Manila with improving its
maritime surveillance capabilities,22 for reasons of history and geography, Tokyos interests in
the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute, the Korean Peninsula, and even the Taiwan flashpoint
dwarf those which it has at stake in the more distant South China Sea. The extent to which
this body of water genuinely engages the vital interests of China and the United States
continues to be overstated.
No risk of escalation
Mirski 2015, third-year student Harvard Law School, Supreme Court Chair Harvard Law
Review, 2/4/15 (Sean, Crowded Waters: The South China Sea's Next Big Flashpoint?,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/crowded-waters-the-south-china-seas-next-big-flashpoint12184?page=4)
The South China Sea ranks high on any list of the worlds geopolitical hotspots. But though the
region has been volatile for centuries, the last two decades have witnessed a subtle shift in the
underlying drivers of conflict. Through most of the second half of the twentieth century, the
biggest threats to regional stability were claimant states angling to carve out their own slices of
the Sea. Today, states continue to covet islands controlled by their neighbors, but none is
willing to run a significant risk of war in order to improve its position vis--vis the others.
Unfortunately, this good news has been offset by the rise of a different risk factor. Propelled by a
combination of waning marine resources and misguided government policies, fishermen are
sailing further from their shores and into disputed areas. There, they are increasingly likely to
bump prows with either foreign competitors or antagonistic coast guards. The outcome in either
case could be disastrous. Accordingly, Washington has fallen short in its most recent proposal
asking states to freeze the status quo. Rather than focusing their diplomatic energies
exclusively on the behavior of foreign navies, American policy makers should recognize that the
next crisis could inadvertently start in the waters between a fishing trawler and a zealous coastguard cutter. Past Is Not Prologue In the last century, states wrote the most important chapters in
the South China Sea saga. The script was tense and sometimes even sanguinary: claimants raced
to consolidate control over unoccupied islands, and in extreme cases, they attempted to wrest

dominion from owners caught off-guard. These policies involved running a serious risk of
outright conflict, but it was a gamble that states were willing to take. Hostilities crested in 1988,
when Beijing and Hanoi battled over Johnson South Reef. China had trained for the landing
extensively, anticipating violence. It got what it expected: after killing over seventy Vietnamese
soldiers, China raised its flag over the barren rock. (Recommended: China's 50,000 Weapons in
the South China Sea?) Today, in contrast, the claimants have shown little appetite for
bloodshed. To be sure, each state is trying to shore up its claims through proactive strategies
that are, for the most part, premised on a negative-sum approach to the dispute. As a result, the
modern-day South China Sea story features high-strung states busy stockpiling arms and playing
at war at every available opportunity. But each nation has more to lose than to gain from a
violent confrontation. For China, any military clashno matter how briefcould torpedo the
permissive international environment that has assisted its rapid economic rise. And in an era
where growth is tapering, Beijing would suffer massive reputational costs from a conflict
costs that might imperil its future prosperity and expansion by pushing its neighbors into the
arms of Chinas strategic rival: the United States. (Recommended: 5 Chinese Weapons of War
America Should Fear) The other claimants have even more to lose from a violent confrontation.
Protracted infighting would undermine the united front necessary to effectively oppose the real
threat to their claims: Chinese encroachment. And if they tangled directly with China, then these
other states would almost certainly experience a quick and humiliating military defeat. Even as
China was capsizing their navies, it would also be playing havoc with their economies. And on
top of military losses and economic sanctions, these other claimants would also likely suffer
strategic setbacks as they surrendered hard-earned ground in the South China Sea. This dismal
calculus might come out differently if these nations could assure themselves of American
involvement, but no state is willing to rely entirely on the promise of American assistance.
(Recommended: 5 American Weapons of War China Should Fear) Accordingly, no state wants
to pick a fight in the South China Sea. This may change in a few years: Chinese policy makers
may move from an assertive grand strategy to an aggressive one, or a smaller player may reach
new levels of desperation. But at least for now, any crisis is unlikely to be state-engineered.
The SCS is utterly irrelevant
Goldstein, 2011, Lyle, associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S.
Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is co-editor of the recent volumes China, the United
States and 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership and Chinese
Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles. The South China Sea's Georgia Scenario,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/11/the_south_china_seas_georgia_scenario?
page=0,2
The brutal truth, however, is that Southeast Asia matters not a whit in the global balance of
power. Most of the region comprises small, poor countries of no consequence whatsoever,
but the medium powers in the region, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Australia will all naturally
and of their own accord stand up against a potentially more aggressive China. If China and
Vietnam go to war over some rocks in the ocean, they will inevitably both suffer a wide range of
deleterious consequences, but it will have only a marginal impact on U.S. national security.
True, these sea lanes are critical to the Japanese and South Korean economies, but both of these
states are endowed with large and capable fleets -- yet another check on Beijing's
ambitions. China, moreover, is all too aware of what happened to Georgia in 2008. In that
unfortunate case, the United States showered a new ally with high-level attention and military
advisors. But when Russian tanks rolled in, effectively annexing a large section of the country

and utterly destroying Tbilisi's armed forces, Washington's response amounted to a whimper:
There was, in the end, no appetite for risking a wider conflict with Moscow over a country of
marginal strategic interest. The lessons for Southeast Asia should be clear. Washington must
avoid the temptation -- despite local states cheering it on at every opportunity -- to overplay its
hand. The main principle guiding U.S. policy regarding the South China Sea has been and
should remain nonintervention. Resource disputes are inherently messy and will not likely
be decided by grand proclamations or multilateral summitry. Rather, progress will be a
combination of backroom diplomacy backed by the occasional show of force by one or more of
the claimants. In fact, Beijing's record of conflict resolution over the last 30 years is rather
encouraging: China has not resorted to a major use of force since 1979.
There is zero risk
Wang Shuo 12, managing editor of Caixin Media, "Closer Look: Why War Is Not an Option,"
September 12, Caixin Online, english.caixin.com/2012-09-12/100436770.html
There won't be a war in East Asia. The United States has five military alliances in the
western Pacific: with South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, and
American battleships are busy patrolling the seas. Without a go-ahead from
Washington, there is no possibility of a hot war between battleships of sovereign countries
here. As to conflicts between fishing boats and patrol boats, that's not really a big deal. The
Chinese have to ponder several questions: If the country has battleship wars with Japan, can it
win without using ground-based missiles? Will the war escalate if missiles are deployed? What
will happen if the war continues with no victory in sight? In the last few days, one country
bought islands, and the other announced the base points and the baselines of its territorial waters.
But look closely, China and Japan have at least two things in common in this hostile exchange:
At home they fan up nationalism, and in the international arena no activities have exceeded the
scope of previous, respective claims on sovereignty. This means there is no possibility of
a war in East Asia, not even remotely.
Threat of escalation deters conflict
Khanh Vu Duc 12, lawyer focusing on various areas of law with research in International
Relations and International Law, "Will the South China Sea Lead to War?" April 13, Asia
Sentinel, www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=4417&Itemid=390
As these disputes grow beyond territorial possessions to include the vast, untapped natural
resources of the sea, so too do the parties involved. Last year India ventured into the South China
Sea to explore resources alongside Vietnam, much to the chagrin of China. Now Russia has
joined the fray, adding to Beijings growing headache despite China's best efforts to limit the
number of nations involved in the region. OAO Gazprom, the worlds biggest natural-gas
producer, plans to develop two blocks with PetroVietnam, which takes 49 percent of a joint
venture project while PetroVietnam holds the majority share, according to Bloomberg, which
reported that PetroVietnam and Gazprom are already exploring for oil and gas together
offshore. With the inclusion of India, Russia, and, of course, the United States, it therefore
seems unlikely that the South China Sea disputes will lead to conflictat least with not any of
these countries listed. China will not so recklessly engage in armed conflict with
countries whose arsenal includes nuclear deterrence capabilities, never mind that they
are not claimant states in the maritime and territorial disputes themselves. They are simply not
worth the effort. China may, however, flex its muscles with a less capable nation.

China Senkakus
No war over the Senkakus
Panda 2015, foreign affairs analyst, writer, and editor The Diplomat, 3/16/15 (Ankit, JapanChina Maritime Crisis Management Talks Are On the Horizon,
http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/japan-china-maritime-crisis-management-talks-are-on-thehorizon/)
This month, Japan and China resumed their high-level security dialogue after a hiatus of about
four years a period of time in which tensions over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in
the East China Sea skyrocketed following Japans decision to nationalize them in 2012.
Representatives from the China, Japan, and South Korea were in Seoul to discuss regional issues
last week. Soon, the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister,Liu Jianchao, will travel to Tokyo to
meet his counterpart for security talks. Meanwhile, the Japan Times reports that senior officials
from Japan and China are planning on meeting in Singapore in May to continue talks on a
bilateral maritime crisis management mechanism, a device that would allow Tokyo and Beijing
to prevent any miscalculations in the East China Sea. Mays talks will continue an
important process of slow and steady rapprochement that began in November 2014 with the
Japan-China four point consensus document. Officials on both sides are eager to finalize a
consultative maritime crisis management hotline a crucial step toward stabilizing the air and
water over and around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. While the political issues relating to the
actual sovereignty dispute at hand are no closer to being addressed in a bilateral forum (Japan
still acknowledges no dispute), the consultative mechanism would increase confidence on
both sides of this major bilateral relationship. As The Diplomat noted earlier this month, one
Chinese general has indicated that the current state of China-Japan talks on this issue is
promising, with all the basic technical conditions in place. In Singapore, officials will
aim to agree on how the mechanism should operate, with an eye to putting it into practice by the
end of the year, according to sources that spoke to the Japan Times. Specifically, sources note
that the two sides will specify the scope of the new crisis management mechanism and the level
at which Japanese Defense Ministry and Chinese military officials will communicate. Currently,
Japanese and Chinese ships and planes use a common radio frequency to reduce the chance of a
misunderstanding. Japan, however, regularly continues to scramble jets from Okinawa to patrol
the skies over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. China, meanwhile, continues to enforce its East
China Sea air defense identification zone (ADIZ), demanding that Japanese civilian aircraft
contact Chinese authorities on entering the air space claimed by China. In any case, where
unilateralism was the norm in the East China Sea from late-2012 to mid-2014, bilateralism
seems to be making a slow comeback.

CHINA VS OTHERS

China-India war 1nc

No Sino-India conflictconventional and nuclear deterrence check
Richards 2015 Marine Engineer Officer who has served in the Royal Australian Navy for 26
Years (Commodore Katherine, February, China-India: An analysis of the Himalayan territorial
dispute, The Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies,
http://www.defence.gov.au/ADC/Publications/IndoPac/Richards%20final%20IPSD
%20paper.pdf)
However, Fravel counters this view and states that China has been less belligerent than leading
theories of international relations might have predicted for a state with its characteristics, further
noting that: For scholars of offensive realism, China has rarely exploited its military superiority
either to bargain hard territory that it claims or to seize it through force. China has likewise not
become increasingly aggressive in managing its territorial disputes as its relative military and
economic power has grown since 1990.199 Moreover, Jonathan Holslag surmises that the
overall strategy of both nations is to maintain the balance of power in the border area and that
this balance is nourished by small-scale incursions and the build-up of military
infrastructure.200 He further argues that both sides are not looking for military supremacy along
the border, although they are seeking to develop the capability to react flexibly on a wide
range of challenges.201 For China, such challenges include combating Tibetan separatism,
while for India, Pakistan continues to be a constant source of irritation. On balance, an all-out
conflict, although possible, appears improbable because it could spiral into nuclear war and
would upset the prevailing harmonious development model adopted by both sides.202 Hence a
combination of conventional and nuclear deterrence serves to keep
hostilities in check. Furthermore, as China and India are both vulnerable to potential acts
of hostility, a multi-level soft deterrence is now a feature of the relationship.203 In the border
dispute, Chinas key vulnerability is Tibet and Indias is Pakistan, which makes the potential cost
of conflict extremely high for both nations. Thus Indias and Chinas military modernisations
have created a stronger security interdependence, suggesting the current security dilemma will
not bring peace, but it will lead to a precarious form of stability as the costs of war rise
significantly on both sides of the Himalayas.204 In effect, the military power of both nations
will assist in perpetuating the stalemate, wherein the dispute will continue to fester, albeit within
bounds. In many ways, the Sino-Indian border dispute highlights the limitations of military
power. Yet today, China and India are also bound by the challenge of piloting a third of the
worlds population into the global economy.205 So what does this great economic endeavor
mean for their relationship and, more specifically, for the prospects of resolution of the dispute?
The next part of this paper examines the role of economic forces and whether or not these forces
could aid in breaking the deadlock.
No confrontation multiple checks
---diplomatic relations ease tensions,
---incidents dont spillover,
---Indian officials are committed to the relationship,
---China doesnt worry about Indias pro-American stance,
---mechanisms for dispute resolution in place
Gupta 2013 (Sourabh Gupta Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates,
Inc., 5/19, ChinaIndia ties: lessons from a Himalayan standoff, East Asia Forum,
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013 /05/19/china-india-ties-lessons-from-a-himalayan-standoff/)
It is remarkable the sort of anxiety that a handful of lightly armed Peoples Liberation Army

(PLA) soldiers and their dog can educe on a disputed frontier. On 15 April three dozen or so such
soldiers, many miles removed from reinforcement or logistical support, pitched their tents in a
demonstrative assertion of presence at a barren albeit sensitive frontier point a dozen miles
inside what New Delhi considers to be the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on their disputed
border. Alarmist commentary immediately latched on to familiar tropes of Chinese assertiveness,
territorial revisionism and the need for President Xi to establish his hard-line credentials, among
others. Just as opinion was being softened to contemplate a prolonged occupation along
supposedly the most dangerous border in the world, a telephone call from National Security
Advisor Shivshankar Menon to his counterpart in Beijing, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, wound
down the three-week-long impasse to the satisfaction of both sides. Crisis communications
channels institutionalised during a recent warming trend in relations a foreign ministry
director general-level border mechanism, special representatives-level links functioned as
intended. Activation of the prime ministers-level hotline was not required. By comparison,
Chinas months-long control of the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and its
law enforcement assertions in Senkaku territorial waters continue unabated with institutional
mechanisms to manage such crises practically non-existent. Frosty bilateral relations make this
state of affairs unlikely to be reversed. A code of conduct in the South China Sea and a maritime
communication mechanism in the East China Sea will first require that Manila and Tokyo
engender an element of political quiet and trust in their respective relationships with Beijing. The
origins of the stand-off in the Ladakh Himalayas are in the recent construction of permanent
structures by the Indian side at a (separate but) similarly sensitive forward observation point in
the disputed western sector a violation, for the Chinese side, of long-standing border
protocols. That the Indian post abuts an arterial road link (Aksai Chin highway) that connects
Xinjiang to Tibet prompted Beijing to establish its own skeletal presence barely two-dozen miles
removed from the strategic China-India-Pakistan border tri-junction area. With both sides having
telegraphed their respective strengths and sensitivities, the PLA presence and the Indian
construction activity were thereafter withdrawn. Provocative probes and presence-marking
operations that were implicitly directed at undermining Chinas control of the strategic Aksai
Chin highway, a core strategic interest, at a time when Tibet was in ferment, had been a key
precipitating cause of the Sino-Indian war of 1962. Rather than submit to the errors of the past,
as some quarters short-sightedly counselled, the Manmohan Singh government displayed
exemplary patience and sensitivity in acknowledging the shared nature of the strategic
vulnerabilities along the Sino-Indian frontier. That Indias boundary policy is framed within a
long-standing context of strict bilateralism with no scope for third-party interference or
instigation despite the asymmetry in power was surely a helpful factor too. Both China and
India have sought to minimise the incident as an isolated case. Beijings known irritation for
some time though over the Indian forward observation post in eastern Ladakh suggests that the
timing of the stand-off coming in the advent of Premier Li Keqiangs inaugural visit to India
was anything but accidental. Rather it was intended to politically test and establish the Singh
governments commitment at its highest reaches to Sino-Indian relationship management as well
as anticipate the degree of reciprocity that Beijing can expect as it embarks on what is likely to
be an active and favourable phase in Sino-Indian boundary negotiations. In Shivshankar
Menon, New Delhis Special Representative (SR) on the boundary talks, Beijing will find a
willing counterpart consummately versed in resolving the dispute from a principles-based,
strategic perspective and wholly committed to fashioning a productive equation with rising
Chinese power. As Beijings earlier misgivings of a pro-American tilt in Indias strategic

orientation have eased, a horizon of opportunity to reach workable transitional solutions to

the boundary dispute has also opened up. New Delhis reluctance to be appended to a revised
Quadrilateral Initiative in any way, shape or form suggests that it too shares a similar view of the
opportunity at hand. New Delhis casual flirtation with the Quad and its China-encirclement
connotations in May 2007, it bears remembering, was a key trigger for the cyclical downturn in
ties. In January 2012, a Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China
Border Affairs was finalised following an in-principle understanding reached at the 2011 Sanya
BRICS Summit. When Prime Minister Singh pays a return visit to China later this year a rare
instance of back-to-back premier-level visits that has not occurred since 1954 a
Beijing-prompted Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA), which does away with the
most persistent day-to-day irritants along the LAC, is expected to be signed. A joint agreed
record of the SR-level boundary deliberations, serving as a guidepost for future negotiations and
a basis for working out an understanding on the alignment of the LAC, is also expected to be
finalised.

China-India war 2nc

No Sino/Indian conflict - self-interest prevents it
Malik 9 (Mohan Malik, professor of Asian Security at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security
Studies in Honolulu, 10/15/09, Bordering on Danger, WSJ,
However, all this misses the fact that China and India are both nuclear-armed nations with
enormous stakes in maintaining peace. Burgeoning trade ties and collaboration on issues like
climate change have shown both capitals the benefits of cooperation even as border tensions rise.
For Beijing, a hardline approach to India could backfire and drive India and its other Asian
neighbors into stronger opposition to China and deeper alignment with Washington and Tokyo.
The pursuit of aggressive foreign adventures would destroy the benign "peaceful rise" image that
China is so assiduously striving to achieve. A conflict will cost India dearly in terms of economic
developmental objectives and political ambition of emerging as a great power in a multipolar
Asia. Other countries, particularly the U.S., can play a vital role in preventing escalation.
Washington enjoys close ties with both China and India and could exert diplomatic pressure on
both sides to reach a settlement. But ultimately this is a border dispute between two large
countries, and they alone have it in their combined power to resolve their differences peacefully.
It's in both their interests to do so.
Diplomacy and CBMs check
The Hindu, 1-8-2010, Ties with china on even keel,
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article77301.ece
While maintaining that ties with China were on an even keel, India on Thursday was hopeful of
amicably settling the border dispute through dialogue. We have a long border with China and talks are being held between the Special
Representatives. We are looking forward to an amicable settlement, said External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna here on Thursday. The complicated issue was being handled by seasoned

intrusions in the eastern and

western sections of the Sino-India border. Dialogue with China had helped preserve peace and
tranquillity on the border for over two decades and the confidence building measures intended to
reduce or eliminate the perception of threat from each other had worked satisfactorily well. Let me
diplomats proficient in issues relating to national security, he said in response to a spate of media questions on alleged Chinese

reiterate that India does not view China or its development as a threat. That said, however, we recognise that cooperation and competition can overlap, as it is not possible to have a perfect

congruence of interests between two nations as vast and diverse as India and China. Such
competition or lack of cooperation must not be misunderstood as antagonism. Our differences,
when they exist, must be handled with dialogue and diplomacy, he said. As the border is not marked, both sides go by
perceptions. And there are differences in this, he said, while agreeing with a questioner on the lack of understanding in India about the contours of the relationship.

China-Russia War 1nc

No China-Russia war
Ruan Zongze 14, China Institute of International Studies, What Kind of Neighborhood Will
China Build?, http://www.ciis.org.cn/english/2014-05/28/content_6942279.htm
2. Benevolent interactions with major countries China is actively exploring the path of majorcountry diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, and it will actively build a new model of majorcountry relations and work relentlessly for a sustainable world peace. At the invitation of Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping flew to Sochi on February 6, 2014 to
attend the opening ceremony of the 22nd Winter Olympics. It was the first attendance by a
Chinese Head of State at the opening ceremony of a major overseas sporting event. Xi's visit
demonstrates the high level and uniqueness of Sino-Russian ties, as well as the good
working relationship and friendship between the leaders of the two countries. In 2013, President
Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang undertook their diplomatic debuts in Chinas
neighborhood. President Xi Jinping chose Russia as his first foreign destination, firmly
cementing the Sino-Russian comprehensive strategic partnership. The two
countries signed the Joint Statement of the People's Republic of China and the Russian
Federation on Win-Win Cooperation and the Deepening of the Comprehensive Strategic
Partnership. Politically speaking, both Russia and China share mutual respect and treat
each other equally. Economically, they seek mutual benefit and win-win results. In terms of
security, they share responsibility and they accommodate and learn from each other culturally.
No China-Russia war
Spears 2009, chief foreign policy writer Brooks Foreign Policy Review, 5/1/9 (Collin,
http://brooksreview.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/leery-bear-rising-dragon-life-along-the-sinorussian-border/)
Although China is facing water shortages and will need inordinate amounts of resources to keep
its economy growing, there is no evidence the Chinese government is purposefully moving
settler populations into Russia to prepare for impending annexation of the Far East or Siberia.
In addition, China has shown no interest in territorial expansion since the Qing Dynasty. For the
last decade, Chinas primary interest has been to secure a stable border to its West and North,
where it can gain access to energy supplies and expand its political and economic reach into East
and Southeast Asia. Any move at colonization by China could result in a very destruction war
that could become nuclear. In fact, Russias vast nuclear deterrent is its security guarantee for the
region, as China has proved to be a rational actor.

China-Russia War 2nc

Deterrence checks and no extinction
Karlin 10 (8/17/10, Anatoly Karlin is a San Francisco based independent writer, political analyst
and media critic. He is the author of the blog Sublime Oblivion focusing on the Russia,
geopolitics and future global trends. Why China and Russia wont fight
http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2010/10/17/russia-china-no-war/)
Every so often there appear claims, not only in the Western press but the Russian one, that
(rising but overpopulated) China is destined to fight an (ailing and creaking) Russia for
possession of its resources in the Far East*. For reasons that should be obvious, this is almost
completely implausible for the next few decades. But lets spell them out nonetheless. 1.
China regards India, Japan, and above all the USA as its prime potential enemies. This is tied
in to its three geopolitical goals: (1) keep the country together and under CCP hegemony an
enterprise most threatened by its adversaries stirring up ethnic nationalism (India Tibetans,
Turkey Uyghurs) or buying the loyalties of the seaboard commercial elites (Japan, USA),
(2) returning Taiwan into the fold and (3) acquiring hegemony over the South China Sea and
ensuring the security of the sea routes supplying it with natural resources. The major obstacles
to the latter two are the dangerous democracies of Japan and India, with the US hovering in
the background. In contrast, the northern border is considered secure, and more generally,
Russia and Central Asia are seen as sources of natural resource supplies that are more secure
than the oceanic routes. 2. But lets ignore all that. Its true that in a purely conventional war,
it is now very likely that Russia will not be able to defend its Far East possessions thanks to
Chinas (mostly complete) qualitative equalization, (very substantial) quantitative superiority,
and (huge) positional advantage. Short of the US and Japan interfering which is unlikely, if
not impossible if Russia were to make big concessions (e.g. on Kuriles ownership, rights to
the Siberian resource base) defeat and occupation are assured. BUT This ignores the allimportant nuclear dimension. In the wake of post-Soviet demilitarization, it has become clear
that any war with either NATO or China would likely end up going nuclear. The official
military doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear powers in
defense against conventional attack; post-Soviet military exercises explicitly model usage of
tactical nukes to blunt enemy spearheads as Russian military formations beat a scorched-earth
retreat. Though the quantity of Russias tactical nukes is now substantially smaller than their
16,000 peak, there are still probably thousands of them remaining (unlike strategic platforms
these are not subject to inspection and verification procedures), and its difficult to see how a
Chinese invasion could effectively counter them. (But why would the Russians use nukes on
their own territory, one might ask? The Russian Far East is very lightly populated, and in any
case air bursts which is presumably what theyll be using against the enemy divisions
produce little radioactive fallout). 3. Aleksandr Khramchikhin goes on to argue that:
Unfortunately, nuclear weapons dont guarantee salvation either, since China also has them.
Yes, at the time we have superiority in strategic forces, but its rapidly diminishing.
Furthermore we dont have medium range missiles, but China has them, which almost makes
null their inferiority in ICBMs What concerns a strategic nuclear exchange, then the
Chinese potential is more than enough to destroy the main cities of European Russia, which
they dont need anyway (it has a lot of people and few resources). Theres a strong argument
to be made that, understanding this, the Kremlin will not use nuclear weapons.Therefore
nuclear deterrenece with respect to China is a complete myth. This is wrong on most points:
(A) As far as is known, China maintains a position of limited deterrence, its nuclear forces

being constantly modernized but remaining small in comparison with those of the US and
Russia (this may or may not change in the future). The big post-Soviet decline in Russias
arsenal has largely run itself out and on recent trends is unlikely to resume. This shouldnt be
surprising, since Russia no doubt realizes that it is precisely its nuclear forces that do most to
guarantee its current day security. (B) Apart from the fact that Chinas medium-range rocket
forces still cant reach deep into European Russia, even accounting for them it is still very
much inferior to Russia: In July 2010 the Russian strategic forces were estimated to have 605
strategic delivery platforms, which can carry up to 2667 nuclear warheads. As of 2010,
China is estimated to have (non-MIRVed) 90 intercontinental ballistic missiles (i.e. can reach
European Russian cities) and a few hundreds of medium and short range ballistic missiles.
The latter will comprehensively devastate the populated regions of the Russian Far East, and
to a lesser extent east of the Urals, but these arent core Russian territories and have relatively
small concentrations of population and industry. In any case, if anything these are likely to be
used not against Siberian cities, but against Russian military and strategic objects. (C) One
must also include ballistic missile defense, civil defense and geography into the equation.
Though China has more S-300 type missile systems and has recently demonstrated an ability
to shoot down ballistic missiles in controlled tests, there is little doubt that Russia is still
ahead in this sphere. The S-400 now replacing the S-300 has intrinsic anti-ICBM capabilities,
and the A-135 system around Moscow with its nuclear-tipped interceptor missiles makes
it better than even odds that the capital would survive intact. Both China and Russia have
substantial civil defense measures. The USSR in 1986 had shelter space for around 11.2% of
its urban population, according to CIA estimates. As of 2001, it was estimated to be 50% in
Moscow, and construction of bunkers continues. China too has a large-scale civil defense plan
of building bunkers in its larger cities. At first glance, it would appear that geography-wise,
China has an advantage in its huge population, large size, and greater rural population as a
percentage of the whole. In contrast, Russias population is largely urban, and seemingly more
vulnerable. This however is misleading. Most of Chinas population, fertile land and industry
is concentrated on its eastern seaboard and along its great river valleys. Agricultural
productivity will plummet in the years following a large-scale exchange, resulting in famine,
and as so often in Chinese history, perhaps anarchy and the end of political dynasties in this
case the CCP. Even if the Russian Far East is won in time, it is unlikely that it could
alleviate the suddenly critical population pressures, for building up the infrastructure for mass
human accommodation in that cold, barren and mountainous will take decades. Since Russian
agriculture happens over a greater area, is less intensive / reliant on machinery and fertilizer
inputs, and generates a substantial export surplus in most year, it isnt as likely as China to dip
into all out famine. (D) As things stand, the real result of a nuclear war between Russia and
China would be (1) a crippled Russia with 20-30 million fewer people, with many tens of
millions more at the edge of subsistence, shorn of its Far East territories, but with an intact
state still endowed with a nuclear deterrent, and (2) a collapsed and c.90% deindustrialized
China rapidly descending into mass famine and anarchy and knocked out of the Great Power
game for the foreseeable future. Two tragic, but nonetheless distinguishable, postwar
environments, as Herman Kahn would have said. 4. Obviously Chinese strategists
comprehend these arguments, and as such cannot have any serious medium-term designs on
Russian territory. This is not the case for Taiwan and the South China Sea, where Chinese
interests are greater, and dont fundamentally infringe on US security to the extent that it will
contemplate using its far superior nuclear arsenal against China, as that would risk Los

Angeles and San Francisco and a dozen other cities on the West Coast getting annihilated.
This fulfills the main purpose of Chinas long-range minimal deterrence strategy. 5. The
strategic balance isnt fixed in stone, and future developments may make the situation more
precarious by 2030-50: (1) The development of truly effective ABM systems, (2) growing
sustanance pressures in China due to climate change and the depletion of coal reserves, and
(3) the opening of the Russian Far East and Siberian interiors to intensive settlement thanks to
global warming. But this remains speculation, and the facts are that since both Chinese and
Russians are more or less rational actors, the chances of large-scale war between them in the
next few decades is very close to zero no matter what the sensationalists claim.

Japan China War 1nc

No China-Japan war
Carlson 13 Associate Professor in the Government Department of Cornell University. (Allan, China Keeps the Peace at Sea
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139024/allen-carlson/china-keeps-the-peace-at-sea) Jacome

In the past few months, China and Japan have appeared to come close to blows over disputed
islands in the East China Sea. Yet an outbreak of fighting is unlikely. War would run counter to
Beijing's two most fundamental national interests: promoting stability in Asia to foster China's
economic growth, and preventing the escalation of radical nationalist sentiment at home. So don't
expect China to unsheathe its sword any time soon.
Until recently, Asian countries' competing claims in the seas around China did not cause outright conflict. But now that drilling technology can tap gas and oil beds
there, Asia capitals are stepping up their games.

Beijing has recently taken an unusually moderate approach in the seas surrounding its
territory. With the friendlier policy, the country hopes to restore its tarnished image in East Asia
and reduce the temptation for Washington to take a more active role there.
With little fanfare,

At times in the past few months, China and Japan have appeared almost ready to do battle over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands --which are administered by Tokyo but

Tokyo and Beijing have been

shadowboxing over the territory for years, the standoff reached a new low in the fall, when the Japanese government nationalized some of
claimed by both countries -- and to ignite a war that could be bigger than any since World War II. Although

the islands by purchasing them from a private owner. The decision set off a wave of violent anti-Japanese demonstrations across China.
In the wake of these events, the conflict quickly reached what political scientists call a state of equivalent retaliation -- a situation in which both countries believe that

Yet, months later,

nothing has happened. And despite their aggressive posturing in the disputed territory, both sides
now show glimmers of willingness to dial down hostilities and to reestablish stability.
Some analysts have cited North Korea's recent nuclear test as a factor in the countries' reluctance
to engage in military conflict. They argue that the detonation, and Kim Jong Un's belligerence,
brought China and Japan together, unsettling them and placing their differences in a scarier
context. Rory Medcalf, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, explained that "the nuclear test gives the leadership in both Beijing and Tokyo a chance to
it is imperative to respond in kind to any and all perceived slights. As a result, it may have seemed that armed engagement was imminent.

focus on a foreign and security policy challenge where their interests are not diametrically at odds."
The nuclear test, though, is a red herring in terms of the conflict over the disputed islands. In truth, the roots of the conflict -- and the reasons it has not yet exploded --

China cannot afford military conflict with any of its Asian neighbors.
It is not that China believes it would lose such a spat ; the country increasingly enjoys strategic superiority over the entire region,
are much deeper. Put simply,

and it is difficult to imagine that its forces would be beaten in a direct engagement over the islands, in the South China Sea or in the disputed regions along the Sino-

Chinese officials see that even the most pronounced victory would be outweighed
by the collateral damage that such a use of force would cause to Beijing's two most fundamental
national interests -- economic growth and preventing the escalation of radical nationalist
sentiment at home. These constraints, rather than any external deterrent, will keep Xi Jinping, China's new leader,
from authorizing the use of deadly force in the Diaoyu Islands theater.
For over three decades, Beijing has promoted peace and stability in Asia to facilitate conditions
amenable to China's economic development. The origins of the policy can be traced back to the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping
Indian border. However,

repeatedly contended that to move beyond the economically debilitating Maoist period, China would have to seek a common ground with its neighbors.

Promoting cooperation in the region would allow China to spend less on military preparedness,
focus on making the country a more welcoming destination for foreign investment, and foster
better trade relations. All of this would strengthen the Chinese economy. Deng was right. Today, China's economy
is second only to that of the United States.

any war in the region would erode the hardwon, and precariously held, political capital that China has gained in the last several decades. It
The fundamentals of Deng's grand economic strategy are still revered in Beijing. But

would also disrupt trade relations, complicate efforts to promote the yuan as an international currency, and send shock waves through the country's economic system at

There is thus little reason to think that China is readying for war with Japan.
At the same time, the specter of rising Chinese nationalism, although often seen as a promoter of conflict, further limits the
prospects for armed engagement. This is because Beijing will try to discourage nationalism if it fears it
may lose control or be forced by popular sentiment to take an action it deems unwise . Ever since the
a time when it can ill afford them.

Tiananmen Square massacre put questions about the C hinese Communist Party's right to govern
before the population, successive generations of Chinese leaders have carefully negotiated a balance between
promoting nationalist sentiment and preventing it from boiling over . In the process, they cemented the legitimacy of
their rule. A war with Japan could easily upset that balance by inflaming nationalism that could blow
back against China's leaders. Consider a hypothetical scenario in which a uniformed Chinese military member is killed during a firefight with
Japanese soldiers. Regardless of the specific circumstances, the casualty would create a new martyr in China and, almost as quickly, catalyze popular protests against
Japan.

citizens would agitate against

Beijing itself. Those in Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing, would find themselves between a rock and a hard place.
Demonstrators would call for blood, and if the government (fearing economic instability) did not extract enough,

It is possible that Xi lost track of these basic facts during the fanfare of his rise to power and in the face of renewed Japanese assertiveness. It is also possible that the
Chinese state is more rotten at the core than is understood. That is, party elites believe that a diversionary war is the only way to hold on to power -- damn the
economic and social consequences.

Xi does not seem blind to the principles that have served Beijing so well over the last few
decades. Indeed, although he recently warned unnamed others about infringing upon China's "national core interests" during a foreign policy speech to members
of the Politburo, he also underscored China's commitment to "never pursue development at the cost of
sacrificing other country's interests" and to never "benefit ourselves at others' expense or do
harm to any neighbor."
But

China-Japan War 2nc

Theyve worked out their differences
Tweed and Reynolds 15 [David and Isabel, China and Japan Are Getting on Better. Will It
Last? July 1, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-01/china-and-japan-aregetting-on-better-how-long-will-it-lastMoney and power are combining to create a tentative thaw in the relationship between Asias
two biggest economies.
After more than two years of tensions, Chinese President Xi Jinping is making a careful
rapprochement with Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, who has long called for
improved ties. Whether it lasts depends much on what Abe says in August about his
countrys wartime past.
A number of factors have spurred the shift. Chinas economic growth is slowing while Japan, a
big investor, is sending less money in. And Xi has consolidated enough power within the
Communist Party and military to take a softer stance on a long-time foe with less risk of a
backlash at home.
The ramifications are potentially significant. Lowering tensions will provide room for a pickup
in trade and investment. China and Japan may work more closely to contain the rogue
regime of North Korea. It could also limit the friction between China and the U.S. -- a key ally of
Japan thats obliged to defend it in the event of a conflict.
The next test will come in August when Abe issues a statement to mark the 70th anniversary of
World War II. He has said he stands by, but wont repeat, past apologies. Whether that is enough
for China -- a country Japan invaded -- is open for debate, though Abe also avoided a direct
apology in a speech in Jakarta and still sat down with Xi shortly afterward.
Things have got considerably better, said Wang Xueping, an associate professor at
Toyo University in Tokyo. In particular, rather than the Japanese side, we can see a softening of
the Xi administrations policy toward the Japanese government, she said. The Xi
administrations policy toward Japan had been rigid, but recently they have begun to treat the
Japanese government and the people separately.

SCS CONFLICT

1NC
Military management drills in the SCS solve miscalc and
escalation, even if tension rises

Vien 7/8/16 --- an East Asia analyst at Stratfor, where he has written on
everything from China's anti-corruption campaign to Japanese intelligence
reforms. Prior to joining Stratfor, he worked as a researcher at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. He holds a bachelor's degree in
economics and a master's in international affairs from Texas A&M University.
(As Frictions Rise, China and U.S. Cultivate Deeper Naval Ties, Thomas
Vien, Stratfor, July 8, 2016, https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/frictions-risechina-and-us-cultivate-deeper-naval-ties)//chiragjain
Forecast Though tension is rising in the South China Sea, it will not lead to a break in
military ties between the United States and China. Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2016 will serve as
a crucial venue for the U.S. and Chinese navies to practice common operational procedures and build relationships among
personnel. China's military reform will somewhat disrupt the institutionalized channels of communication between the two as the
organizational structure of the People's Liberation Army changes. Analysis The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) biennial naval exercise is
in full swing, and this year's has already proved to be an occasion of many firsts. Not only is RIMPAC 2016 the largest of its kind to
date, but the navies of Denmark, Italy and Germany none traditionally considered a Pacific power are also making initial
appearances in the exercise. Moreover, for the first time in RIMPAC's history, a non-American ship (in this case, a Singaporean
frigate) led the multinational group comprising vessels from the United States, Japan, Indonesia and India from the Western Pacific to

Washington that it wants its Asian

partners to take the lead in securing the region. Yet despite these notable firsts, it is China's
second showing at the exercise that is attracting the most attention. The relationship between Beijing and
Washington has come under increasing strain in recent months amid Chinese
displays of force and U.S. naval activity near Beijing's claims in the South
China Sea. As tension between the two countries continues to mount, both will search for ways to
avoid crises while managing those that do arise. Joint exercises such as
RIMPAC 2016 may be just the answer they are looking for. Lasting Imperatives Outweigh
Temporary Friction During the past few months, Beijing has heatedly opposed the U.S. role in the
South China Sea, and in April it symbolically snubbed Washington by denying the USS John C. Stennis a visit to Hong
Hawaii, the site of the exercises. The move was a subtle message from

Kong. In the lead-up to the June 3-5 Shangri-La Dialogue, one of Asia's biggest security summits, it was clear that the relationship
between the two countries was on the rocks. Though Chinese state media outlets enthusiastically reported on meetings between
lead Chinese delegate Adm. Sun Jianguo and dignitaries from at least eight other countries, they made no mention of talks between

it was far from

certain whether China would even be asked to attend RIMPAC 2016. In response to
deteriorating ties, members of Congress and many U.S. think tanks pressured President
Barack Obama to withdraw Beijing's invitation . But ultimately, Obama chose to
prioritize maintaining close military ties with China, and Carter eventually announced that two
U.S. Navy ships would sail from Guam alongside five Chinese warships on their way to the RIMPAC exercise. Despite the
diplomatic jabs the two countries have traded, they appear to have reached
an understanding of sorts. Although each has immutable strategic goals that conflict with the other's, China
and the United States agree that they need to manage their differences as well
as they can to avoid a complete breakdown in ties a development that, for two nuclear powers, would
him and U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter or U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris. In fact,

be disastrous. This mutual arrangement has been made possible in part by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has shown greater
receptiveness than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, to the idea of normalizing his country's military relationship with the United States.
His positive approach was made clear in December 2015, when Washington's approval of a $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan
provoked a pro forma response from Xi's administration, rather than the cutoff in military cooperation that was customary under Hu.

the past year marked many milestones in confidence building between

the U.S. and Chinese militaries. In September 2015, Washington and Beijing signed
two annexes to a 2014 memorandum of understanding on safe conduct in air
and maritime encounters, one of which set procedures for the use of a defense telephone link between U.S. and
Indeed,

Chinese officials. A month later, Chinese Adm. Wu Shengli used the hotline to contact U.S. Adm. John Richardson three days after the
USS Lassen conducted a freedom of navigation operation within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands' Subi Reef, which Beijing
claims. Though the incident did not demonstrate the hotline's real-time use during a crisis, it did show China's initiative in using the
new tools available to communicate with the United States. This year's

RIMPAC exercise will smooth their

interactions even more. It took the U.S. and Chinese naval ships several days to reach Hawaii from Guam, affording
plenty of opportunities to practice joint maneuvering drills and implement the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea. The code, a
set of protocols signed in 2014 that governs the communications and conduct of naval ships to minimize the risk of accidents, is
particularly important as U.S. and Chinese vessels encounter one another more frequently in the South China Sea. At the exercise
itself, which began on June 30 and will last until Aug. 4, the U.S. and Chinese navies will participate in several drills on anti-piracy,
gunnery, and search and rescue operations. Sailors and officers will also have the chance to work with one another and with their
foreign peers in structured and unstructured activities onshore. Though such interaction is undoubtedly meant to generate positive
publicity, it also speaks to one of RIMPAC's lesser-known functions: promoting personal relationships between sailors and officers of

primary value of joint

exercises familiarizing working-level military officials with one another and
with the protocols that streamline communication makes military
interactions more predictable. This will be crucial in the coming years as the United States and China enter
different navies that will endure as they move up through the ranks. Putting It Into Practice The

periods of political transition. The United States, for its part, is preparing to hold its presidential election, while China is readying
itself for the 19th Communist Party Congress in 2017, when many senior military leaders are likely to be replaced. The

cultivation of stable ties between the militaries' lower ranks will ensure that
relations continue to be well regulated in the face of what could be a politically delicate time.

2NC
A litany of checks prevent a war in the SCS
Wang 2016 - Exec Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies,

Renmin University
Wen and Chen Xiaochen, "The South China Sea Won't Stop China-ASEAN
Economic Ties," Jul 7, thediplomat.com/2016/07/the-south-china-sea-wontstop-china-asean-economic-ties/
Although the South China Sea issue may have some negative effects on OBOR, these
impacts are limited and manageable, and ultimately will not radically hinder the initiative.
First, the South China Sea dispute is an issue of a temporary nature. Though
tensions may seem to rise, the possibility of an armed conflict in the region
remains relatively low. The U.S. military and political elites understand perfectly well the risk of
military intervention in the political realm, and thus are not willing to spark military conflict with China.
In fact, both the military budget and presidential election campaign are affecting U.S. military activities
in the region, but the South China Sea should not be an area for Sino-American

confrontation. That means tensions are likely to fall again from their current
peak. Moreover, tensions in the South China Sea are manageable. While the
temporary nature of the South China Sea issue may not guarantee an ultimate solution to solve the
dispute, the issue itself is nevertheless relatively stable in the sense that none

of the parties concerned can easily change the structure of the problem.
Given this, the concerned parties would either tend to extend the dimensions of the issue by
strengthening communication and dialogue to avoid conflict (such as holding think tank dialogues and
routine joint exercises), or develop new connections by expanding economic and trade cooperation for
mutual benefit, and backing peaceful solutions to the South China Sea issue. Furthermore, tensions

in the South China Sea are localized. Focusing on territorial disputes and
geopolitical issues in the South China Sea would only lead to a zero sum
game. Meanwhile, economic cooperation under the framework of an institutional
design of regional integration could best serve the interest of all parties a positive
sum game. Nevertheless, if the negative spillover effects of security issues come to undermine the
basis of economic and trade cooperation in the region, ASEAN would obviously be the first to be
affected. The China-proposed OBOR initiative shows the exactly right solution to all the problems
above. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi considers ASEAN as the priority

cooperation partner in the following four areas: the priority area for the
construction of OBOR, which includes the construction of the China-Laos railway, China-Thailand
railway and Jakarta-Bandung high speed railway in Indonesia.; the priority cooperation
partner for free trade agreements, as the both sides have agreed to upgrade the ChinaASEAN FTA to boost greater trade and investment ties, while RCEP is being negotiated; the priority
partner for regional cooperation, including the Lancang-Mekong sub-regional development; and the

priority partner for maritime cooperation, including maritime security

cooperation and marine environmental cooperation. All these indicate that
cooperation is still the mainstream in the region and provides an alternative approach to ease the
tensions. Based on the analysis above, we have every reason to believe that the South China Sea issue
should not and will not radically hinder the progress of OBOR in Southeast Asia. On the contrary, the
initiaitve

will fundamentally promote peace and stability in the region.