Rethinking Strategic Stability with China: From Coercion to Constructivism

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The article argues for rethinking U.S. strategic stability policy toward China, moving beyond coercion toward a more constructivist approach. It situates the debate amid China's expanding nuclear capabilities, authoritarian leadership, and limited progress in past U.S. efforts to shape its role in the international order.

Every administration since the Cold War has been looking for a significant foreign policy breakthrough with China. Spanning containment and normalization to opening and reform, U.S. policymakers have long hoped that China would fulfill its place in the international order and transform itself into a “responsible stakeholder.” Despite years of pivots, new visions, trade arguments and agreements, and other policy swings, the lack of transformational progress is now set against the backdrop of rapidly expanding nuclear capabilities under the leadership of a Chinese general secretary doubling down on authoritarianism and revisionist history. Here, I examine a different factor that generates The post Rethinking Strategic Stability with China: From Coercion to Constructivism appeared first on War on the Rocks.