"Chinese Perspectives On US Strategy In Asia, 2017–2021" By CWP Alum Joel Wuthnow

July 29, 2022
restricted access Chinese Perspectives on US Strategy in Asia, 2017–2021

The architects of US strategy in Asia have advanced a bold vision for a "free and open Indo-Pacific" but have paid less attention to China's views and responses. This article surveys perceptions of Chinese strategists toward the Trump administration's regional approach, arguing that China's analytic community came to see US strategy as largely focused on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. The most frequent Chinese prescription was a wedge strategy to weaken support for the United States among the other three Quad states: Japan, India, and Australia. Evidence from Chinese public diplomacy during the Trump years is consistent with such an approach. Yet the increase in assertive actions targeting the Quad partners revealed other impulses guiding policymakers and ultimately brought the four states more closely together. The Biden administration has an opportunity to leverage China's inability to successfully execute a wedge strategy to strengthen support for US influence and goals in the region.

Joel Wuthnow - Asian Perspective - Johns Hopkins University Press - Volume 46, Number 3, Summer 2022 - pp. 401-422

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/860744/summary

 

Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs within the Institute for National for Strategic Studies at NDU. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, U.S.-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. In addition to his duties in INSS, he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. 

His recent books and monographs, all from NDU Press, include The PLA Beyond Borders: Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context (2021, lead editor), System Overload: Can China's Military Be Distracted in a War over Taiwan? (2020), Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms (2019, co-editor), and China's Other Army: The People's Armed Police in an Era of Reform (2019). His research has also appeared in journals such as Asian Perspective, Asia Policy, Asian Security, The China Quarterly, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Joint Force Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Strategic Studies, and in edited volumes.

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Joel Wuthnow