Explaining the lack of a war over China’s quantitative naval overtake, 2008–2022

• In Event: Chinese Naval Power

Abstract

What explains the lack of a war between the U.S. and China in the period of China's quantitative naval overtake from 2008-2022? China has already surpassed the U.S. in terms of the number of battle force ships particularly during the years between 2015 and 2020. (O’Rourke, 2023) Numerically, Beijing now boasts the largest navy in the world and continues to construct and commission new cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and amphibious assault ships, widening the quantitative naval gap with the U.S. (Department of Defense, 2023) Contrary to expectations of a range of power transition theories, there was no armed conflict or war between China and the U.S. during these years. In spite of the balance of power theory’s relevance to this case, both hegemonic theories and balance of power theory are inherently probabilistic and do not clarify the immediate conditions of war and peace during a challenger's naval overtake or internal balancing. The liberal-rationalist framework based on regime type and audience costs does not directly address the relative shifts in naval capabilities and the trade expectations theory also falls short of explaining this case given negative trade expectations that stemmed from the U.S.-China trade war and following decoupling of global supply chains during this period. Drawing on my novel mid-range theory, An Interactive Theory of Power Projection, I argue that there was no armed conflict between the U.S. and China despite China’s quantitative naval overtake because (1) China’s power projection was largely concentrated in the peripheral theaters of the U.S.; and more importantly, (2) China’s power projection did not cause high expectations about the contagion effect on the first line of maritime defense of the U.S. even in the peripheral theaters over this period. As such, the preventive war motivation was deactivated by these two immediate conditions of a war and the intensified conflict between the U.S. and China did not result in a war during China's naval overtake. Specifically, the contagion effect refers to three kinds of possibilities in the event of a challenger’s occupation: (1) an occupation will become a stepping-stone on which a challenger further expands into the adjacent first line of maritime defense; (2) an occupation will produce a negative second-order effect on other lines of maritime defense; or (3) an occupation will undermine or remove one’s local allies on the first line of naval defense. To support my argument, I process trace the direction of China’s naval forces and American policymakers’ public remarks that show their expectations about the contagion effect on the first line of maritime defense, including Taiwan, from 2008-2022. Admittedly, the relative balance of resource-extraction capacities for naval buildup generates different levels of the preventive war motivation in conjunction with the geographical dispersion of naval forces in the theater of the power transition. However, I argue that it is the interactive dynamics between the direction of a challenger’s power projection and the leading sea power’s expectation about its contagion effect as well as alignment opportunity in the theater of the naval challenge that activate or deactivate such preventive motivation and determine the outcome of naval power shifts. My theory implies that while the Taiwan question is the pivotal issue where China’s power projection and the U.S. expectation about contagion effect may meet, amplifying the belief that China will invade Taiwan and not stop at Taiwan would likely feed into a more counterproductive dynamic and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Author

• Inhwan Oh, William & Mary