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ANALYSIS:
The Trump administration is seeking to rebuild American military power while engaging with China to avoid a conflict in the near term, a review of strategy and policy statements says.
Two months into President Trump’s second term, signs of the administration’s approach to Beijing are emerging: China remains the most dangerous flash point for war, and the U.S. defense and industrial base is inadequate to support a conflict.
The key to a successful U.S. strategy is to thwart Chinese military and diplomatic power and prevent Beijing from becoming the dominant regional force.
The administration is working to prevent Chinese control over northeast and southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Bolstering regional alliances and allied defense capabilities will be a key element of the strategy.
Mr. Trump said he does not plan to cut defense spending. He is seeking good relations with China despite tensions over Taiwan and tariffs. On Monday, Mr. Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping could visit the United States soon for talks over rising tariffs that the two governments have placed on each other’s exports in recent weeks.
Mr. Trump has already brought some changes and course adjustments to U.S.-China relations. The defense of Taiwan, once regarded as essential to maintaining freedom and democracy throughout the region, is still considered important but is no longer the linchpin of American strategy.
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During a Senate confirmation hearing, Elbridge Colby, Mr. Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, discussed elements of the administration’s China approach.
Mr. Colby is on track to be approved by the Senate for the No. 3 Pentagon position in the coming days.
“President Trump is pursuing the right approach to Beijing, which is a combination of peace — an openness to dialogue and negotiations, cabining the rivalry rather than unnecessarily intensifying it, and … restoring and focusing our military on deterring China and strengthening our economy, including by diminishing China’s leverage over it,” Mr. Colby said in written answers to policy questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee.
More important than the status of Taiwan is preventing Chinese hegemony over the larger Asia-Pacific region, replacing the U.S. as the dominant security and economic power.
Other administration officials say Mr. Trump’s conciliatory approach to Russia and outreach to President Vladimir Putin are elements of a strategic gambit to wean Moscow away from its growing alliance with China, analogous to Henry Kissinger’s efforts to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow during the Nixon administration.
Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Russia-Ukraine war, said in Munich last month that the administration is working to “break the alliance” between Russia and China, as well as alliances with Iran and North Korea, through its efforts to the conflict.
In an interview this week with Fox News, Mr. Trump said the U.S. holds leverage because it has assets and capabilities that Russia and China seek.
“China needs us in terms of trade very badly, but we have to straighten out the deficit,” Mr. Trump said. “And with Russia, they would like to have some of our economic power.”
Denying hegemony
Mr. Colby said China’s large nuclear program buildup is part of a strategy to achieve hegemony over Asia first and ultimately challenge the United States in global dominance.
Michael Anton, the State Department’s director of policy planning, favors continuing the U.S. “strategic ambiguity” policy regarding whether Washington would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.
Writing in The Federalist in 2021, Mr. Anton stated that “there is no core American national interest that would compel us to go to war over Taiwan.”
Mr. Colby testified that the fall of Taiwan to China would be a disaster but warned that the balance of military power has shifted so sharply in Beijing’s favor that defending Taiwan can no longer be considered an “existential interest” for the U.S.
Mr. Colby said a cardinal goal if he is confirmed for the Pentagon post would be to ensure the success of Mr. Trump’s policy of preventing China from attacking Taiwan during his presidency.
Instead of declaring that U.S. and allied forces would counter a Chinese military attack on Taiwan, the administration will seek to have Taipei develop an indigenous “denial defense,” he said.
“Restoring our military edge for a denial defense along the First Island Chain must be the top priority for U.S. and Asian allied conventional forces,” Mr. Colby stated.
The administration wants Taipei, a regional economic powerhouse, to sharply increase its defense spending to 10% of gross domestic product, up from 2.5%.
Mr. Colby stated that the United States faces a “perilous mismatch” of global goals and a shortage of resources and political will to achieve them.
The nominee described the imbalance as a “Lippmann Gap,” after influential 1940s columnist Walter Lippman, who warned against allowing a nation’s power and resources to fall below the level needed to support foreign policy and security goals. The imbalance creates domestic political dissension and requires redefining interests or scaling back commitments.
“Allowing this to go on is a recipe for disaster,” Mr. Colby stated. “We and our allies face the potential for multi-front conflict in the coming years, yet we are not as prepared as we should be for such an eventuality.”
He said a war with China is “very possible” and that stronger defenses and an improved defense industrial base are needed to prevent it.
The Pentagon’s problem is that fixing shortfalls will take many years while the threat of war is far more immediate, Mr. Colby said.
Focusing closer to home
Mr. Trump and his team are pushing back the need to counter China as they prioritize securing the U.S. homeland and American borders.
That has translated into a renewed focus on theaters in the Western Hemisphere and military forces at the southern border.
The president has openly discussed retaking control of the Panama Canal because of concerns over Chinese influence, annexing Greenland, a mineral-rich springboard to the increasingly strategic Arctic region, and even making Canada a U.S. territory.
China, however, remains the most serious national security danger for the administration, along with Russia, Iran, North Korea and Islamic terrorism. The four nations have increased collaboration in what is an emerging anti-U.S. entente.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has spoken out about the mounting risks of a conflict with China, specifically over Taiwan. In a speech in February, he said large-scale Chinese military operations around the island democracy were not exercises but “rehearsals” for an attack.
“Beijing’s military buildup, their gray zone operations, their military coercion against Taiwan grow concerning every day,” Adm. Paparo said. “The People’s Liberation Army’s increasingly complex, multidomain operations demonstrate clear intent and improving capability.”
Despite the daunting challenges, the Trump administration will not seek international withdrawal or isolationism, Mr. Colby said.
The policy is dubbed “peace through strength, America first,” he said. Defense policy calls for rebuilding military capabilities and increasing readiness.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this week that a “historic” military buildup, including new weapons, is planned despite Mr. Trump’s push to pare the Pentagon’s workforce. The new weapons include warships, long-range munitions, hypersonic missiles, the “Golden Dome” national missile defense and long-range drones.
“We have revived the warrior ethos inside the military, we are reestablishing deterrence, and per the president’s direction, we are going to rebuild the military,” Mr. Hegseth said on Fox Business Network.
Favoring ambiguity
Mr. Colby, like Mr. Anton, opposes the Biden administration policy of stating clearly that the U.S. military would respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. He said the costs of such an explicit declaratory policy outweigh the benefits: “Such a move could inflame relations with Beijing and even offer a pretext for military action.
“It also risks sending a signal of approval for Taiwan’s laggardly efforts on its defense, with dire implications for our collective efforts to rapidly strengthen deterrence and reduce operational risk to U.S. forces,” he said.
Mr. Colby said he would give the president and the defense secretary military options to support deterring and, if necessary, denying a Chinese invasion “at a reasonable level of cost and risk for the American people.”
U.S. policy toward Taiwan’s defense is outlined in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, approved by Congress after Beijing was officially recognized and Taipei was de-recognized. The act calls for weapons to help Taiwan defend itself but stops short of a U.S. defense commitment to the island democracy.
Mr. Anton said in a recent podcast interview that he does not support the Chinese communist system and opposes its repressive social credit system used for population control and its omnipresent spying. He said he opposes any U.S. policies seeking to change the system in China because it could lead to a major war.
As a result, the United States should not seek to promote democracy in China, Mr. Anton said on the “Lawfare Daily” podcast in November.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “America First” policies focused on countering China’s growing influence in South America and on the Panama Canal. Mr. Rubio sees China’s power as a reality the United States must face.
“What we cannot have is a world where China is so powerful, we depend on them,” he said on Fox News on Feb. 27. “And that’s right now where we’re headed, unfortunately. That’s going to change. That’s going to change under President Trump.”
To deal with China, the United States needs greater domestic production capabilities free from reliance on Chinese suppliers, he said.
A second priority will be continuing U.S. presence and support for allies in the Indo-Pacific, Mr. Rubio said.
On Taiwan, the secretary of state said that long-standing relations would continue. “We are against any forced, compelled, coercive change in the status of Taiwan. That’s been our position since the late 1970s, which continues to be our position, and that’s not going to change,” he said.
Mr. Rubio said the U.S. needs greater defense industrial capacity to manufacture aircraft and ships because China can produce 10 times as many.
“That’s a very serious vulnerability that cannot continue,” he said.
During his nomination hearing in January, Mr. Rubio described the ruling Chinese Communist Party as “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” Reflecting on Mr. Trump’s domestic priorities, Mr. Rubio said much of what is needed to confront China can be achieved at home.
“It’s not just abroad; it’s also here at home,” he said on Jan. 15. “We have to rebuild our domestic industrial capacity, and we have to make sure that the United States is not reliant on any single other nation for any of our critical supply chains.”
Rush Doshi, a former White House official and China expert, said the Trump administration’s approach to China combines competitive and transactional impulses. He said the administration talked about a deal to permit China-owned TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. but then imposed tough actions such as tariffs and pushed for “America First” investment policies.
“It’s good that the Trump team wants to keep the region free from hegemony,” said Mr. Doshi, a Georgetown University professor and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That’s a long-standing U.S. goal. But some seem to think that can be accomplished even if the PRC successfully invades Taiwan. I worry that’s misguided.”
Mr. Doshi said the Trump foreign policy team has challenges with allies across the Atlantic but has improved in the Pacific.
“They’re trying to build on the Biden team’s efforts — just as the Biden team tried to build on the first Trump team’s work,” he said.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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