The United States must confront the uncomfortable reality that China’s economic and military might may eventually rival or even surpass its own. This prospect is particularly ironic because China has risen as a result of benefiting disproportionately from American investments in sustaining a liberal international economic order. Washington needs a new strategy to meet this challenge—the containment policies that helped defeat the Soviet Union are unlikely to work today given China’s deep integration into the global economy. This event launched Balancing Without Containment: An American Strategy for Managing China, a new report by Carnegie’s Ashley J. Tellis that explains how the United States can bolster its position at home and abroad to ensure its continued prosperity and global leadership.
Eric Edelman, Arvind Subramanian, and Nicholas Eberstadt joined Tellis for the discussion. Carnegie’s Michael D. Swaine moderated.
Nicholas Eberstadt
Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. A political economist and a demographer by training, he is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research.
Eric Edelman
Ambassador Eric Edelman is a distinguished fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where he specializes in diplomatic practice and grand strategy. He retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service on May 1, 2009.
Arvind Subramanian
Arvind Subramanian is the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His book Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance was published in September 2011.
Michael D. Swaine
Michael D. Swaine is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the most prominent American analysts in Chinese security studies. Formerly a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, he is a specialist in Chinese defense and foreign policy, U.S.–China relations, and East Asian international relations.
Ashley J. Tellis
Ashley J. Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues.
