Balancing Without Containment—Dealing with China as an Emerging Challenger
Dr. Ashley J. Tellis

April 22, 2015

China is poised to become a major strategic rival to the United States. Whether or not Beijing intends to challenge Washington’s primacy, its economic boom and growing national ambitions make competition inevitable. And as China rises, American power will diminish in relative terms, threatening the foundations of the U.S.-backed global order that has engendered unprecedented prosperity worldwide. To avoid this costly outcome, Washington needs a novel strategy to balance China without containing it. Such an approach is essential because the containment strategy that the United States used to great effect during the Cold War cannot succeed today: cutting off ties with Beijing and urging China’s neighbors to do the same is politically, economically, and practically unthinkable. Consequently, the new balancing strategy must integrate several diverse elements to include bolstering critical regional states on China's periphery, selectively deepening globalization, revitalizing U.S. power projection capabilities, and reinvigorating the U.S. economy.

The talk is based on a report he published last year. The report can be found at: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/balancing_without_containment.pdf

Ashley J. Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. While on assignment to the U.S. Department of State as senior adviser to the under secretary of state for political affairs, he was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India. Previously, he was commissioned into the Foreign Service and served as senior adviser to the ambassador at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi. He also served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia.

Balancing Without Containment—Dealing with China as an Emerging Challenger

The Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) sponsored this talk by Ashley J. Tellis, entitled “Balancing Without Containment—Dealing with China as an Emerging Challenger” on April 22, 2015, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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