CHINA THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

IN WASHINGTON, A ROUGH CONSENSUS has formed that China needs some containing. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken baulks at the word, preferring the catechism of a “rules-based order”. Containment, though, does not mean literally bottling China behind its borders, nor does it mean suspending any cooperation.

It means America balancing against China’s ability to dominate in areas that matter to it, and the US is increasingly practising just this strategy. However, alongside this broad consensus, there is disagreement over what historian John Lewis Gaddis has called “strategies of containment”.

Observers differ over how, how much, where, and even why to contain. The issue is fraught. The US is seeking to preserve its liberty, and therefore to prevent one hostile power’s domination. And in so doing it aims to maintain enough of a favourable balance of power abroad. Therefore it seeks peace, or at least an absence of major war, which could destroy the very position it wishes to preserve. Checking China’s expansionism is important, but it’s not all-important. As with all security competition, trying to consciously execute a policy