NEG

South China Seas Advantage

1nc – SCS

1. South China Sea will remain peaceful – interdependence, desire to avoid war, accidents and miscalc are unlikely to escalateKim 16 - Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Studies, Bradley University [Kim, Jihyun. "Possible Future of the Contest in the South China Sea." The Chinese Journal of International Politics (2016)] doa 5-11-16

In this research, China’s rise per se is not considered to pose a threat to regional security or directly challenge America’s interests in Asia. Also, the peace-inducing aspects of China’s relations with its neighbours and the United States, in line with pragmatic realism, would continue to prevail over the conflict-producing ones in the foreseeable future.6 As aptly pointed out by Richard Rosecrance, however, ‘there is as yet no clear answer as to how’ the United States and the rest of the world will take the rise in China’s power and astutely react to it.7 What’s more, whether their shared interests would continue to be a foundation for cooperation and self-restraint in both the medium and the longer term is not predetermined, hence this call for the states to choose ‘the right policy’, one that has ‘more cooperative than conflictual elements to it, thereby avoiding the doom-and-gloom scenario that too many of today’s analysts portray’.8 Among other issues, China’s territorial disputes with its neighbours are considered as constituting a potential source of its dissatisfaction, of the breakdown of the status quo, and even of war.Nonetheless, one cannot automatically assume that China will indeed adopt an unequivocally expansionist stance in the future, given that taking such a measure would be unrewarding, as the potential political, diplomatic, military, and economic costs of controversial territorial expansion far outweigh any benefits to be gained from it.9 In other words, a cost-benefit analysis makes conflict over territory less than desirable, and gives China greater incentive to maximize its interests other than through blatant territorial expansion. Besides, it is hard to imagine a war scenario between China on the one side and the United States (and its Asian allies and friends) on the other, bearing in mind the absence of any intense ideological competition between them, as well as their complex interdependence, which tends to have ‘the pacific effects induced by the condition of mutual assured destruction’ as regards economic damage and security costs.10 As Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye assert, complex interdependence refers to a situation in which a number of countries and their fortunes are inextricably connected through multiple channels and various issue linkages. This is how increases in economic and other types of interdependence facilitate cooperation among states; thus military force as a policy tool is less likely to be ‘used by governments towards one another’.11 China’s intensifying relations with its Southeast Asian neighbours as well as with the United States in the realm of economics and other issue areas appear to approximate this ideal type of international systemGiven the continuing tensions in the region, one must not completely rule out the possibility of conflict flare-ups due to accident or miscalculation. However, the chances of Beijing’s deliberately initiating an armed conflict are still limited, not necessarily because it is genuinely risk-averse or peace-seeking for peace’s sake, but because the benefits to be accrued through relatively stable coexistence with other states due to complex interdependence would outweigh the expected military and diplomatic costs of a war that overt territorial expansion would risk. Despite Beijing’s unswerving sovereignty claims, encompassing virtually the entire South China Sea, and buttressed by its reclaiming of land and building of infrastructure, Chinese leaders have so far known, as evident in their peculiarly shrewd way of dealing with these maritime territorial disputes, how to avoid crossing the red line while assiduously publicizing their core interest and views on how to prevent tensions from escalating into a full-scale war.Moreover, both China and the United States have shared interests as regards cooperating on major global problems that have regional implications, including nuclear proliferation, terrorism and other transnationally organized crimes, along with natural disasters, infectious diseases, energy security, and environmental issues. Additionally, despite China’s anxiety over America’s military superiority and continuing political influence in Asia, what the United States considers as its strategic goal of upholding freedom of navigation (FON) is not incompatible with China’s interest in keeping regional stability, given their mutual stake in preserving an environment conducive to international commerce. Thus, it is less likely that China would rashly challenge US interests, including navigational freedom, or cite the South China Sea disputes as a case confirming Beijing’s expansionist ambitions. Accordingly, one can be cautiously optimistic about a relatively stable future—though not in the form of ‘positive peace’12—even in the midst of China’s increasing assertiveness, its territorial disputes with neighbours, and its rivalry with the United States for regional supremacy.

2. Miscalc is highly unlikelyStashwick 9 – 25 – 15 - graduate studies in international relations at the University of Chicago, Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve [Steven Stashwick, South China Sea: Conflict Escalation and ‘Miscalculation’ Myths, http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/south-china-sea-conflict-escalation-and-miscalculation-myths/] doa 4-20-16

The threat of “miscalculation” is again in vogue. What was once a preoccupation of accidental war theorists has resurfaced in discussions about maritime disputes in Southeast Asia and Sino-U.S. relations. During the Cold War, policymakers and scholars worried about nuclear annihilation sparked by misinterpreted warnings, rogue officers, technical glitches in command and control systems, or a lower-level confrontation spiraling out of control. Absent the Cold War’s looming nuclear threat, today’s oft-repeated concerns focus on “miscalculation” causing a local or tactical-level incident between individual ships or aircraft (harassment, collision, interdiction, and so on) to lead to broader military confrontation. Some variation of this theme has been featured in public remarks by former U.S. Defense Secretaries Gates, Panetta, Hagel, and current Defense Secretary Carter, as well as Commanders of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the U.S. Pacific Command, and was a topic of policymaker discussion going back at least to the 1996 Taiwan Strait incident. These concerns are likewise found in too many op-eds, reports, interviews, commentaries, and articles to count (see also here, here, here, and here, etc.) However, while history shows that strategic miscalculations can lead states to war, or dangerously close to it, evidence does not support the worry that miscalculation may cause a local or tactical-level incident to spiral out of control.To understand the risks associated with miscalculation, we must distinguish between miscalculation at the strategic level and miscalculation stemming from a localized incident between naval or air forces. At the strategic level – that is, a nation’s a priori willingness to escalate a conflict and use military force to achieve its objectives – no country starts a war expecting to lose. Yet, “most wars…end in the defeat of at least one nation which had expected victory,” implying all wars result from some degree of strategic miscalculation. That may be a plausible danger in Southeast Asia, but a distinct one. Instead, much of the discourse about localized maritime incidents in the South China Sea conflates strategic and local miscalculation risks, focusing on the latter’s potential to lead to a wider conflict.This concern over local miscalculation nonetheless reflects a longstanding view of the danger “incidents at sea” poses to peace stretching back to the Cold War. Both U.S. and Soviet leaderships were concerned that an incident between “peppery young ship captains” could “lead people to shoot at each other with results that might…be impossible to control,” in the words of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations in the 1970s. Back then, the U.S. and Soviets were openly adversarial and serious incidents between their ships and aircraft were almost commonplace. Yet despite explicit mutual, strategic, and existential antagonism between the U.S. and U.S.SR, none of the hundreds of maritime incidents that occurred over the four decades of the Cold War escalated into anything beyond a short diplomatic crisis. It is possible that they avoided a nuclear spiral in these incidents through diligent diplomacy and luck. But more likely, it suggests that this type of maritime incident is insufficient on its own to lead to the worst-case scenarios envisioned.

3. No impact to economic decline – prefer new dataDrezner 14 - professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University [Daniel W. DREZNER, “The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession,” World Politics, Vol. 66, No. 1 (January 2014), p. 123-164]

The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder.The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however . The Institute for Economics and Peace has concluded that "the average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not triggered any increase in violent conflict , as Lotta Themner and

Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been expected."43

4. Economic interdependence checks conflictIkenberry 14 - Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and George Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College [G. John Ikenberry, , “From Hegemony to the Balance of Power: The Rise of China and American Grand Strategy in East Asia”, International Journal of Korean Unification Studies Vol. 23, No. 2, 2014, 41–63]

Finally, the United States and China are not simply poised on a geopolitical playing field . The two countries also occupy key positions in the world economy, the world environment, and the world society. In all these areas, China and the United States are increasingly interdependent. They are not simply pitted in zero-sum geopolitical competition. They are also tied together in deep and complex interdependent ways. In various areas related to the world economy, global warming, transnational crime, energy security, and so forth, they cannot realize their objectives without the help of the other. These are problems of economic and security interdependence. These circumstances of interdependence create incentives for the two countries to bargain and moderate disputes. They cannot be secure and stable alone; they can only be secure

and stable together. To the extent that this is true, the two countries will find powerful reasons not to go all the way down the path to balance of power rivalry and security competition. They will grudgingly look for ways to moderate and manage their contest for supremacy.

Ext – No War

Conflict unlikely – tensions won’t escalateThayer 13 - Emeritus Professor at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra [Carlyle A. Thayer, Why China and the US won’t go to war over the South China Sea, 13 May 2013, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/05/13/why-china-and-the-us-wont-go-to-war-over-the-south-china-sea/]

Even before Washington announced its official policy of rebalancing its force posture to the Asia Pacific, the United States had undertaken steps to strengthen its military posture by deploying more nuclear attack submarines to the region and negotiating arrangements with Australia to rotate Marines through Darwin.Since then, the United States has deployed Combat Littoral Ships to Singapore and is negotiating new arrangements for greater military access to the Philippines.But these developments do not presage armed conflict between China and the United States. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has been circumspect in its involvement in South China Sea territorial disputes, and the United States has been careful to avoid being entrapped by regional allies in their territorial disputes with China. Armed conflict between China and the United States in the South China Sea appears unlikely.Another, more probable, scenario is that both countries will find a modus vivendi enabling them to collaborate to maintain security in the South China Sea. The Obama administration has repeatedly emphasised that its policy of rebalancing to Asia is not directed at containing China. For example, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Commander of the US Pacific Command, recently stated, ‘there has also been criticism that the Rebalance is a strategy of containment. This is not the case … it is a strategy of collaboration and cooperation’.However, a review of past US–China military-to-military interaction indicates that an agreement to jointly manage security in the South China Sea is unlikely because of continuing strategic mistrust between the two countries. This is also because the currents of regionalism are growing stronger.As such, a third scenario is more likely than the previous two: that China and the United States will maintain a relationship of cooperation and friction. In this scenario, both countries work separately to secure their interests through multilateral institutions such as the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus and the Enlarged ASEAN Maritime Forum. But they also continue to engage each other on points of mutual interest. The Pentagon has consistently sought to keep channels of communication open with China through three established bilateral mechanisms: Defense Consultative Talks, the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA), and the Defense Policy Coordination Talks.On the one hand, these multilateral mechanisms reveal very little about US–China military relations. Military-to-military contacts between the two countries have gone through repeated cycles of cooperation and suspension , meaning that it has not been possible to isolate purely military-to-military contacts from their political and strategic settings.On the other hand, the channels have accomplished the following: continuing exchange visits by high-level defence officials; regular Defense Consultation Talks; continuing working-level discussions under the MMCA; agreement on the ‘7-point consensus’; and no serious naval incidents since the 2009 USNS Impeccable affair. They have also helped to ensure continuing exchange visits by senior military officers; the initiation of a Strategic Security Dialogue as part of the ministerial-level Strategic & Economic Dialogue process; agreement to hold meetings between coast guards; and agreement on a new working group to draft principles to establish a framework for military-to-military cooperation.So the bottom line is that, despite ongoing frictions in their relationship, the United States and China will continue engaging with each other. Both sides understand that military-to-military contacts are a critical component of bilateral engagement. Without such interaction there is a risk that mistrust between the two militaries could spill over and have a major negative impact on bilateral relations in general. But strategic mistrust will probably persist in the absence of greater transparency in military-to-military relations. In sum, Sino-American relations in the South China Sea are more likely to be characterised by cooperation and friction than a modus vivendi of collaboration or, a worst-case scenario, armed conflict.

No SCS war – balance of power insures it. Li & Yanzhuo 6 – 19 – 15 – Director of the Department of International Strategy @ the Institute of World Economics and Politics & PhD in Chinese Foreign Policy [Dr. Xue Li and Dr. Xu Yanzhuo, “The US and China Won't See Military Conflict Over the South China Sea”, June 19th, 2015, http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/the-us-and-china-wont-see-military-conflict-over-the-south-china-sea/]

In a recent piece on the South China Sea disputes, I argued that “the ASEAN claimants are largely staying behind the scenes while external powers take center stage.” Based on recent developments on the South China Sea issue, it seems the U.S. will not only be a ‘director’ but an actor. We saw this clearly on May 20, when the U.S. military sent surveillance aircraft over three islands controlled by Beijing.However, this does not necessary mean the South China Sea will spark a U.S.-China military conflict.As a global hegemon, the United States’ main interest lies in maintaining the current international order as well as peace and stability. Regarding the South China Sea, U.S. interests include ensuring peace and stability, freedom of commercial navigation, and military activities in exclusive economic zones. Maintaining the current balance of power is considered to be a key condition for securing these interests—and a rising China determined to strengthen its hold on South China Sea territory is viewed as a threat to the current balance of power. In response, the U.S. launched its “rebalance to Asia” strategy. In practice, the U.S. has on the one hand strengthened its military presence in Asia-Pacific, while on the other hand supporting ASEAN countries, particularly ASEAN claimants to South China Sea territories.This position has included high-profile rhetoric by U.S. officials. In 2010, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spoke at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi about the South China Sea, remarks that aligned the U.S. with Southeast Asia’s approach to the disputes. At the 2012 Shangri-La Dialogue, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta explained how the United States will rebalance its force posture as part of playing a “deeper and more enduring partnership role” in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2014, then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called out China’s “destabilizing, unilateral activities asserting its claims in the South China Sea.” His remarks also came at the Shangri-La dialogue, while China’s HY-981 oil rig was deployed in the waters around the Paracel Islands. In 2015, U.S. officials have openly pressured China to scale back its construction work in the Spratly islands and have sent aircraft to patrol over islands in the Spratly that are controlled by China. These measures have brought global attention to the South China Sea.However, if we look at the practical significance of the remarks, there are several limiting factors . The interests at stake in the South China Sea are not core national interests for the United States . Meanwhile, the U.S.-Philippine alliance is not as important as the U.S.-Japan alliance, and U.S. ties with other ASEAN countries are even weaker. Given U.S.-China mutual economic dependence and China’s comprehensive national strength, the United States is unlikely to go so far as having a military confrontation with China over the South China Sea. Barack Obama, the ‘peace president’ who withdrew the U.S. military from Iraq and Afghanistan, is even less likely to fight with China for the South China Sea.As for the U.S. interests in the region, Washington is surely aware that China has not affected the freedom of commercial navigation in these waters so far. And as I noted in my earlier piece, Beijing is developing its stance and could eventually recognize the legality of military activities in another country’s EEZ (see, for example, the China-Russia joint military exercise in the Mediterranean).Yet when it comes to China’s large-scale land reclamation in the Spratly Islands (and on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands), Washington worries that Beijing will conduct a series of activities to strengthen its claims on the South China Sea, such as establishing an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) or advocating that others respect a 200-nautical mile (370 km) EEZ from its islands. Meanwhile, the 2014 oil rig incident taught Washington that ASEAN claimants and even ASEAN as a whole could hardly play any effective role in dealing with China’s land reclamation. Hence, the U.S. has no better choice than to become directly involved in this issue.At the beginning, the United States tried to stop China through private diplomatic mediation, yet it soon realized that this approach was not effective in persuading China. So Washington started to tackle the issue in a more aggressive way, such as encouraging India, Japan, ASEAN, the G7, and the European Union to pressure Beijing internationally. Domestically, U.S. officials from different departments and different levels have opposed China’s ‘changing the status quo’ in this area.Since 2015, Washington has increased its pressure on China. It sent the USS Fort Worth, a littoral combat ship, to sail in waters near the Spratly area controlled by Vietnam in early May. U.S. official are also considering sending naval and air patrols within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands controlled by China.Washington has recognized that it could hardly stop China’s construction in Spratly Islands. Therefore, it has opted to portray Beijing as a challenger to the status quo, at the same time moving to prevent China from establishing a South China Sea ADIZ and an EEZ of 200 nautical miles around its artificial islands. This was the logic behind the U.S. sending a P-8A surveillance plane with reporters on board to approach three artificial island built by China. China issued eight warnings to the plane; the U.S. responded by saying the plane was flying through international airspace.Afterwards, U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, said there could be a potential “freedom of navigation” exercise within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands. If this approach were adopted, it would back China into a corner; hence it’s a unlikely the Obama administration will make that move.As the U.S. involvement in the South China Sea becomes more aggressive and high-profile, the dynamic relationship between China and the United States comes to affect other layers of the dispute (for example, relations between China and ASEAN claimants or China and ASEAN in general). To some extent, the South China Sea dispute has developed into a balance of power tug-of-war between the U.S. and China, yet both sides will not take the risk of military confrontation. As Foreign Minister Wang Yi put it in a recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, “as for the differences, our attitude is it is okay to have differences as long as we could avoid misunderstanding, and even more importantly, avoid miscalculation.”

Ext – Sea Miscalc Unlikely

Miscalc unlikely – treaties mean incentive is to de-escalateStashwick 9 – 25 – 15 - graduate studies in international relations at the University of Chicago, Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve [Steven Stashwick, South China Sea: Conflict Escalation and ‘Miscalculation’ Myths, http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/south-china-sea-conflict-escalation-and-miscalculation-myths/] doa 4-20-16

Nonetheless, concerns over maritime incidents, miscalculation, and spiraling conflict contain enough intuitive logic to have endured. A shared Cold War concern over miscalculations led to accords that are still in effect, such as the Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents on and Over the High Seas (INCSEA) and Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities (DMA) agreement, and may be credited with helping keep incidents between the U.S. and U.S.SR under “control.” However, the fact that agreements were reached at all is likely more significant than their content. Such agreements indicated a shared belief between U.S. and Soviet military leaderships that despite their feverish preparations for war against one another, neither wanted war to come as the result of a tactical-level incident between individual ships and aircraft. This suggests neither would let an incident, however serious, become an independent casus belli.The substance of these accords (and those reached in the South China Sea) further strengthens this thesis. While INCSEA and DMA contained rules of behavior, these were, again in Zumwalt’s words, “little more than a reaffirmation of the [maritime] Rules of the Road” (international rules that direct how ships stay safe around each other at sea). What was groundbreaking was that in concluding the accords, the U.S. and U.S.SR implicitly recognized their intentions to violate those rules and practices when advantageous (consider the Yorktown and Caron). The accords created new parallel rules by which each could do so “safely,” as well as new communications protocols to inform one another of their intentions. Together, this affirms that both sides were playing a (serious) game to establish positions and assert rights more than they were interested in war. Of course, incidents intended to reinforce maritime claims and hostile actions can look the same right up until ordnance is exchanged, but now both sides could be more confident that if shooting did start, it was an intentional act of war .

Ext - No Asia Miscalc

No miscalc escalation in Asia – precedent for restraintStashwick 9 – 25 – 15 - graduate studies in international relations at the University of Chicago, Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve [Steven Stashwick, South China Sea: Conflict Escalation and ‘Miscalculation’ Myths, http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/south-china-sea-conflict-escalation-and-miscalculation-myths/] doa 4-20-16

In Asia, there is recent and dramatic precedent for restraint, even after an unambiguously hostile local event, which belies theoretical arguments about the risk of miscalculation and unintended escalation . When the South Korean warship Cheonan was sunk in 2010, South Korea determined that North Korea was responsible. Far from a mere ‘incident’ of the sort worried over in the South China Sea, this was a belligerent act against South Korea’s armed forces. And yet, there was no miscalculation-fueled conflict spiral, and instead a strategically calibrated response.It remains unknown whether the sinking of the Cheonan was ordered by the North Koreans (they continue to deny any responsibility), the act of a renegade, or, perhaps least plausibly, an accident. What is clear is that despite a sunken ship and 46 sailors killed, the incident did not spiral out of control. This suggests that South Korea’s political calculus did not view militarily punishing North Korea worth the risk of a renewed – and potentially nuclear – war, which is to say that an extraordinary but tactical-level event did not trump strategic preferences.Even so, some take the miscalculation-escalation dynamic so far as to suggest that incidents between fishing vessels and coast guards in the South China Sea might lead to war. In view of the Cold War record and the recent Cheonan example, such propositions are drastically overstated . It is conceivable that a state already resolved to escalate a dispute militarily might view a local maritime incident as a convenient casus belli. But in that emphatically calculated case, no institutional impediments to such incidents would prevent the hostility.On the contrary, the prevalence of coast guards and fishing vessels is actually a sign of restraint . For a front so often considered a “flashpoint,” it is notable how few incidents in the South China Sea are between naval assets. This is not accident or luck, but instead suggests that regional players deliberately use lightly armed coast guard and other para-military “white hull” vessels to enforce their claims. Because these units do not have the ability to escalate force the way warships do, it in fact signals their desire to avoid escalation. And while “gray hull” naval vessels may be just over the horizon providing an implicit threat of force, they can also provide a further constraint on potential incidents; their very presence compels parties to consider how far to escalate without inviting more serious responses.

Ext – Asian Miscalc Gets Resolved

Asian miscalc incidents get resolvedStashwick 9 – 25 – 15 - graduate studies in international relations at the University of Chicago, Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve [Steven Stashwick, South China Sea: Conflict Escalation and ‘Miscalculation’ Myths, http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/south-china-sea-conflict-escalation-and-miscalculation-myths/] doa 4-20-16

As in the Cold War, parties in the South China Sea have sought diplomatic mitigation of maritime incidents, principally through the perennially-stalled Code of Conduct, the year-old Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), and the bilateral Military Maritime Consultative Agreement between the U.S. and China . But underpinning concerns about miscalculation and escalation , and mitigation efforts like CUES, is the idea that by avoiding incidents the region will avoid war. This belief is dangerous insofar as it conflates the symptoms of the disputes (incidents at sea) with the terms of the dispute itself (maritime rights and sovereignty). Incidents and the activities that precipitate them help establish new and accepted regional norms and “facts on the ground” (bloodlessly, if inelegantly). In that sense, avoiding incidents sets back the de facto resolution of the disputes. Since the balance of these evolving norms and facts on the ground appears to favor China’s efforts (e.g., using its coast guard to eject fishing vessels from disputed waters and island reclamation projects), it is neither surprising that China’s regional rivals propose institutional remedies like CUES and the Code of Conduct, nor that China only agrees to them after negotiating away any legally binding provisions.The record suggests that miscalculation concerns over incidents in the maritime realm are exaggerated and can artificially increase tensions, raise threat perceptions, and justify arms build-ups . Whether an incident is deliberate, or a true organic accident, if it occurs within a dispute context where neither side desires armed conflict, it will not escalate at the strategic level. However, because of the very seriousness of that perceived escalation threat, the miscalculation narrative can also motivate positive diplomatic efforts like INCSEA, DMA, and now CUES (not to overstate their realistic contribution to resolving disputes).Further, for all its conceptual and historical problems, and not least its potential to feed narratives of aggression, another possible advantage of focusing on “miscalculation” in the South China Sea is that it allows countries to maintain ambiguity about the real terms of dispute. Avoiding war is a distinct objective from “solving” disputes; war is a dispute resolution mechanism after all. But if peace is the priority, ambiguity may be preferable if all that clarity reveals is just how intractable those disputes may be. Clarity can rob governments of the flexibility to equivocate to their domestic audiences (and competitors) and force a choice between escalating a conflict and backing down from their claims. Then open conflict might become more realistic. Conversely, if all parties are more or less content to live with ambiguity in the region’s maritime claims, then a somewhat mutually dissatisfying peace prevails, but peace nonetheless. Everyone wants to win, but as long as everyone also wants to avoid losing even more, occasional incidents do not have to fuel strategic tension.

Ext – No Economy Impact

There is no causal relationship between the economy and conflict—the best study proves.Brandt and Ulfelder 11—*Patrick T. Brandt, Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University, is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. **Jay Ulfelder, Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University, is an American political scientist whose research interests include democratization, civil unrest, and violent conflict. [April, 2011, “Economic Growth and Political Instability,” Social Science Research Network]

These statements anticipating political fallout from the global economic crisis of 2008–2010 reflect a widely held view that economic growth has rapid and profound effects on countries’ political stability. When economies grow at a healthy clip, citizens are presumed to be too busy and too content to engage in protest or rebellion, and governments are thought to be flush with revenues they can use to enhance their own stability by producing public goods or rewarding cronies, depending on the type of regime they inhabit. When growth slows, however, citizens and cronies alike are presumed to grow frustrated with their governments, and the leaders at the receiving end of that frustration are thought to lack the financial resources to respond effectively. The expected result is an increase in the risks of social unrest, civil war, coup attempts, and regime breakdown.Although it is pervasive, the assumption that countries’ economic growth rates strongly affect their political stability has not been subjected to a great deal of careful empirical analysis, and evidence from social science research to date does not unambiguously support it. Theoretical models of civil wars, coups d’etat, and transitions to and from democracy often specify slow economic growth as an important cause or catalyst of those events, but empirical studies on the effects of economic growth on these phenomena have produced mixed results. Meanwhile, the effects of economic growth on the occurrence or incidence of social unrest seem to have hardly been studied in recent years, as empirical analysis of contentious collective action has concentrated on political opportunity structures and dynamics of protest and repression.This paper helps fill that gap by rigorously re-examining the effects of short-term variations in economic growth on the occurrence of several forms of political instability in countries worldwide over the past few decades. In this paper, we do not seek to develop and test new theories of political instability. Instead, we aim to subject a hypothesis common to many prior theories of political instability to more careful empirical scrutiny. The goal is to provide a detailed empirical characterization of the relationship between economic growth and political instability in a broad sense. In effect, we describe the conventional wisdom as seen in the data. We do so with statistical models that use smoothing splines and multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and dynamic effects from economic growth on political stability. We also do so with an instrumented measure of growth that explicitly accounts for endogeneity in the relationship between political instability and economic growth. To our knowledge, ours is the first statistical study of this relationship to simultaneously address the possibility of nonlinearity and problems of endogeneity. As such, we believe this paper offers what is probably the most rigorous general evaluation of this argument to date.As the results show, some of our findings are surprising. Consistent with conventional assumptions, we find that social unrest and civil violence are more likely to occur and democratic regimes are more susceptible to coup attempts around periods of slow economic growth. At the same time, our analysis shows no significant relationship between variation in growth and the risk of civil-war onset, and results from our analysis of regime changes contradict the widely accepted claim that economic crises cause transitions from autocracy to democracy. While we would hardly pretend to have the last word on any of these relationships, our findings do suggest that the relationship between economic growth and political stability is neither as uniform nor as strong as the conventional wisdom(s) presume(s). We think these findings also help explain why the global recession of 2008–2010 has failed thus far to produce the wave of coups and regime failures that some observers had anticipated, in spite of the expected and apparent uptick in social unrest associated with the crisis.

Military-Military Advantage

1nc – Mil-Mil

1. Economics make relations inevitableGoh 14 - Professor of Strategic Policy Studies at the Australian National University [Shedden. “The Modes of China’s Influence Cases from Southeast Asia” Asian Survey, Vol. 54, Number 5, pp. 825–848. ISSN 0004-4687, electronic ISSN 1533-838X. © 2014 by the Regents of the University of California. http://www.ou.edu/uschina/gries/articles/texts/Goh.2014.AS.Influence.pdf]

Beijing has used policy action to substantiate its claims of being a benign status quo state , including efforts to negotiate outstanding border disputes; increasingly adept diplomacy; highly publicized restraint during the Asian financial crisis; disaster relief; and promises of large investment and aid packages to East Asian neighbors during the global financial crisis. Furthermore, Beijing has tried to persuade the world that it will not disrupt the existing international order, by signing onto key international norms of arms control and disarmament.46 Similarly, Chinese officials worked to gain entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, partly to consolidate the notion of China as a huge economic opportunity.47 Beijing has successfully used ASEAN forums as a demonstration precinct for its socialization, and Southeast Asia’s reciprocal responses to Chinese participation and proposals such as ACFTA, a defense ministers’ dialogue, and a regional bond market have all boosted China’s claims of peaceful development.48 Leading Chinese scholars have drawn on China’s participation in ASEAN institutions to develop constructivist theories of socialization with Chinese characteristics, emphasizing ‘‘power as relationships’’ and the importance of ‘‘process for the sake of process.’’49 Be that as it may, normative persuasion and material inducement are often co-instruments of influence, and China’s reassurance drive has included selective easing of barriers to trade and investment, using the promise of access to the China market to induce policy change . For instance, Beijing used the prospect of bilateral free trade negotiations to gain formal recognition from individual countries as a ‘‘market economy,’’ gradually challenging its WTO status as an ‘‘economy in transition.’’ China has concluded trade agreements with ASEAN, Pakistan, and New Zealand, and is in negotiation with Australia, India, and South Korea. Its ‘‘Early Harvest Programs’’ with some ASEAN countries—the partial lifting of trade barriers on selected goods—have been portrayed as favorable treatment whereby China ‘‘gave more and took less.’’50 Such policies that combine inducement and persuasion amount to a strategy of ‘‘pacification, harmony and enrichment’’ toward neighboring countries.51 Bilateral economic inducement is also a placatory tool that Beijing uses selectively vis-a`-vis Southeast Asian states at important junctures, most recently toward Indonesia and Malaysia in 2013, in the midst of the government shutdown in Washington and renewed tensions with the Philippines over the South China Sea territorial disputes.52

2. Benefits are small – need larger structural changesKamphausen & Drun 16 – a. Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the, D.C., office at the National Bureau of Asian Research, b. Bridge Award Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research [Roy D. Kamphausen & Jessica Drun, Sino-U.S. Military-to-Military Relations, The national bureau of asian research, nbr special report #57 | april 2016, Edited by Travis Tanner and Wang Dong, http://nbr.org/publications/specialreport/pdf/Free/06192016/SR57_US-China_April2016.pdf] doa 5-11-16

In some respects, the agreements on mil-mil CBMs reached during the last two presidential visits are a template for the way ahead in finding the right set of mil-mil activities. These CBMs address major concerns on each side, including China’s concerns about the U.S. military’s close proximity to the Chinese coast and the United States’ concerns about the safe operations of its aircraft and ships anywhere, but especially when they are close to those of the PLA. They also address both countries’ desire to know more about the policy and operations of the other.However, these are really just very basic first steps. Indeed, the CBM agreements indicatethat each country still judges success by the limited ways in which it “gets what it wants”—theepitome of a self-referential relationship—and not by whether some greater good is accomplished.

Ultimately, effective mil-mil relations may have only a limited effect on resolving the core politicaland security concerns that the United States and China have with one another—and this might bethe wrong metric by which to judge the relationship anyway. The structural challenge embeddedin the engagement of a rising and an established power simply cannot be solved through mil-milactivities alone. The quality and improvements in the trading relationship, the development of evenmore enhanced diplomatic collaboration on global foreign policy challenges, and the deepening ofpeople-to-people ties also play important roles in managing this process of power transition.

3. They have it backwards – good relations cause military ties, not the other wayKamphausen & Drun 16 – a. Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the, D.C., office at the National Bureau of Asian Research, b. Bridge Award Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research [Roy D. Kamphausen & Jessica Drun, Sino-U.S. Military-to-Military Relations, The national bureau of asian research, nbr special report #57 | april 2016, Edited by Travis Tanner and Wang Dong, http://nbr.org/publications/specialreport/pdf/Free/06192016/SR57_US-China_April2016.pdf] doa 5-11-16

The dimension of military-to-military (mil-mil) relations is one of the long-standing components of the Sino-U.S. bilateral relationship. In recent years, the relationship between Washington and Beijing has been marked by not only growing cooperation but also increasing competition. Mitigating the effects of spillover from the latter into the former is a key factor in advancing the overall U.S.-China relationship. Consequently, the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), in partnership with the Institute for China-U.S. People-to-People Exchange at Peking University, has undertaken a two-year project that seeks to identify challenges within key strategic domains and put forth pragmatic policy recommendations on how to best manage tensions and enhance bilateral relations. The mil-mil domain is growing ever more consequential in light of recent developments in the Asia-Pacific. Increasing militarization in the region and China’s assertion of its claims in the South China Sea through island-building and patrols by military and paramilitary vessels heighten the need for mil-mil contacts as a means of defusing tensions, ensuring stability, and communicating each sides’ respective objectives and interests to avoid miscalculations. As China’s military expands its breadth and reach in the region, and increasingly beyond, addressing the disconnects between the two militaries will become all the more critical in the years to come.This essay contributes to the debate over the optimal formulation for a bilateral U.S.-China mil-mil relationship. The topic has been addressed from a variety of perspectives to date. An examination of the existing literature on mil-mil relations finds that there is agreement on the utility of this dimension of the bilateral relationship for risk reduction and conflict management, but that barriers exist and certain limitations are necessary in order to safeguard U.S. capabilities and interests. For instance, Kurt Campbell and Richard Weitz stress—reflecting a general consensus among experts—that conditions for mil-mil exchanges lie largely in the state of the overall bilateral relationship, and thus any expected progress on the mil-mil front must be preceded by improvements in the broader U.S.-China relationship. James Nolan finds that personnel exchanges neither have much operational value nor contribute to trust-building, but nonetheless have benefits for diplomacy and deterrence. Kevin Pollpeter argues for a security management approach to mil-mil relations over a security cooperation one, which would mitigate risks associated with imbalances in transparency and reciprocity in the relationship.1Scholars also note that there are inherent structural and cultural constraints—particularly divergent worldviews and institutional barriers—that must be recognized in order to manage expectations of the relationship and focus on areas with the most room for cooperation. Scott Harold suggests a dual-directional approach to engagement, both top-down and bottom-up, in order to address challenges and raise the cost for China of severing mil-mil ties—as Beijing is wont to do when expressing its discontent with elements of the bilateral relationship. Finally, Christopher Yung calls for increased cooperation on nontraditional security threats as a way of expanding the relationship even further.2

Ext – Relations Inevitable

China will continue to cooperateMonteiro 14 - Dept. of Political Science, Yale University [Nuno Moneiro, Theory of Unipolar Politics, “Cambridge Studies in International Relations”, pp. 130-132, Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition]

Beyond mere numbers, China pursues a national security policy that is defensive in nature and regional in scope. 61 China's geostrategic goals focus on “sustaining a security environment conducive to China's national development.” 63 This aim requires avoiding a crisis over Taiwan as well as furthering Chinese maritime territorial and economic interests in the South and East China seas. China has implemented a strategy of “offshore active defense,” assuming a force posture aimed at regional anti-access area-denial (A2/ AD) goals, capable of denying U.S. access to its region for a limited time in case of a conflict. Yet, U.S.-China relations, although varying in tone, have consistently been positive, reflecting the high potential costs and risks of a competitive relationship between them. During the first two-and-a-half decades of U.S. power preponderance, Beijing's leadership has adopted an overall cooperative posture toward U.S. global leadership. 64

Ext – Need Larger Changes

Mil-mil is only a part of the larger dynamicKamphausen & Drun 16 – a. Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the, D.C., office at the National Bureau of Asian Research, b. Bridge Award Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research [Roy D. Kamphausen & Jessica Drun, Sino-U.S. Military-to-Military Relations, The national bureau of asian research, nbr special report #57 | april 2016, Edited by Travis Tanner and Wang Dong, http://nbr.org/publications/specialreport/pdf/Free/06192016/SR57_US-China_April2016.pdf] doa 5-11-16

ConclusionElements of cooperation and competition have been inherent in the Sino-U.S. relationship since its inception in the early 1980s. Moreover, the history of the relationship reveals that political dimensions have all along interacted with military operational dimensions in ways that complicate the effective implementation of a mil-mil program. In part, this reflects the natural dynamic of two great powers that do not always have common interests but are not committed adversaries. And to be sure, suggesting that “all would be well” if only the political constraints were to be removed is wishful thinking; rather, the complexities of the Sino-U.S. mil-mil relationship are what make it challenging, but what also introduce opportunities.

Solvency

1nc Solvency

1. Military to Military engagement happening now and will continueKamphausen & Drun 16 – a. Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the, D.C., office at the National Bureau of Asian Research, b. Bridge Award Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research [Roy D. Kamphausen & Jessica Drun, Sino-U.S. Military-to-Military Relations, The national bureau of asian research, nbr special report #57 | april 2016, Edited by Travis Tanner and Wang Dong, http://nbr.org/publications/specialreport/pdf/Free/06192016/SR57_US-China_April2016.pdf] doa 5-11-16

Recent DevelopmentsSince mil-mil relations were restarted several months after their suspension in January 2010,15 the type and sophistication of ties have markedly increased. New types of cooperation include Chinese participation in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2014 naval exercise, with an invitation to attend RIMPAC 2016; a first-ever naval exercise involving cross-deck helicopter landings (2013); and army-army collective training for disaster management in Hawaii (2014), with follow-on reciprocal humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises in Haikou and Seattle in 2015. Significantly, the mechanism for notification of major military activities was strengthened in 2015, and an air annex for the rules of behavior for the safety of maritime and air encounters was completed.16 Moreover, the institution of bilateral army staff talks in June 2015 offers promise of a new mechanism for high-level and strategic dialogue, perhaps taking on more importance with the establishment of a new ground force service in the PLA in January 2016.17 The number of high-level exchanges in both directions are also at or near an all-time high, perhaps epitomized by the fact that before his retirement in September 2015, U.S. chief of naval operations Jonathan Greenert had met with his counterpart, PLA admiral Wu Shengli, five times in the previous three years.18 And perhaps portending well for future relations, the two sides have found ways to continue their bilateral relationship, despite existing tensions. For instance, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), Admiral Harry Harris, visited Beijing in November 2015, just days after the USS Lassen conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea and held high-level meetings with PLA leadership, including the chief of General Staff, General Fang Fenghui, and the Central Military Commission vice chairman, General Fan Changlong.19 In previous years, such a visit would have been “postponed” at such a point of tension, which suggests a level of maturity or a new learned ability to manage the tensions in bilateral mil-mil relations.However, the specter of unpredicted interruptions in the bilateral mil-mil relationship still looms, and a concern about this “go-stop-go” history reflects a number of factors. First, mil-mil engagement has always been closely linked to the overall quality of the bilateral relationship, which has included varying amounts of cooperation and confrontation. Mil-mil relations have not been immune from these broader trends, and indeed in some cases military interactions have themselves been the source of broader bilateral tension. Second, as noted earlier, the institutions in each country that are asked to carry out meaningful mil-mil activities are also the institutions that must, at some level, prepare to conduct military operations against the other if so ordered by national command authorities. This too is not an entirely new phenomenon; certainly in the latter days of the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet forces faced a similar conundrum. But it is worth remembering that both militaries know this problem, and this awareness inevitably affects their interactions. Finally, despite the uncertainties in the political dimensions of the relationship, both sides have shown the ability to adjust. For instance, they eventually adapted to a new environment after Tiananmen in 1989. In addition, the tensions arising from the cross-strait crisis in 1995–96, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the EP-3 crisis of 2001 were mitigated over time, and mil-mil relations moved forward after arms sales announcements without fundamental adjustments to policy in either capital. This suggests a level of durability in the relationship and the promise that current obstacles have at least some possibility of being managed. That a similar go-stop-go pattern can be observed in the U.S. mil-mil relationship with other countries as well (for example, the Philippines and Indonesia), which halt and then later return to productive and consistent relations, further supports the notion that this pattern in the U.S.-China mil-mil relationship can transition to a more consistent approach.

2. The aff appeases China—encourages aggressive behaviorNewsham, 14 – Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies (Grant, 9/8. “China, America and the "Appeasement" Question.” http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/china-america-the-appeasement-question-11226?page=1)

US policy towards China over the last 30 years, and particularly in recent times, seems familiar. The United States does its best to understand the PRC’s concerns and its resentments going back to the Opium Wars and the ‘century of humiliation’, to

accommodate these resentments, and to ensure China does not feel threatened. Defense and State Department officials enthusiastically seek greater transparency and openness – especially in the military realm – as such openness is perceived as inherently good.In return, the PRC is expected to change, to show more respect for human rights and international law and to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community.

We now have several decades of empirical evidence to assess this concessionary approach . It has not resulted in improved, less aggressive PRC behavior in the South China Sea or the East China Sea, or even in outer space. Indeed, it seems to have encouraged Chinese assertiveness as manifest in threatening language and behavior towards its neighbors.Nor has the PRC regime shown more respect for human rights, rule of law, consensual government or freedom of expression for its citizens. Serial intellectual property theft continues unabated, as does support for unsavory dictators.

Nonetheless, we invite the PRC to military exercises and repeat the “engagement” mantra – expecting that one day things will magically improve. Some argue that letting the PRC see US military power will dissuade it from challenging us. Perhaps, but we are just as likely to be seen as naïve or weak . From the Chinese perspective, there is no reason to change since they have done very well without transforming and the PRC has never been stronger. Indeed, the PRC frequently claims that human rights, democracy, and the like are outmoded Western values having nothing to do with China.This is also demoralizing our allies, who at some point may wonder if they should cut their own deals with the PRC.Some revisionist historians argue that Neville Chamberlain’s 1930’s era appeasement was in fact a wise stratagem to buy time to rearm. This overlooks that even as late as 1939 when Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies still had the military advantage. One can appease oneself into a corner. And the beneficiary of the appeasement usually strengthens to the point it is too hard to restrain without great sacrifice.One worries that the Chinese seizure of Philippine territory at Scarborough Shoal in 2012 – and the US Government’s unwillingness to even verbally challenge the PRC - might turn out to be this generation’s “Rhineland”. Had the West resisted Hitler in 1936 when he made this first major demand, there would have been no World War II, no Holocaust, and no Cold War.Our choice about how to deal with the PRC is not simply between either appeasement or treating China as an enemy. Our policy must accommodate options ranging from engagement to forceful confrontation.Who would not be delighted with a China that stopped threatening its neighbors and followed the civilized world’s rules? While ensuring we and our allies have a resolute defense – both in terms of military capability and the willingness to employ it – it is important to maintain ties and dialogue with the PRC and to provide encouragement and support when it shows clear signs of transforming to a freer, less repressive society.We should constantly stress that China is welcome as a key player in the international order – but only under certain conditions. The US and other democratic nations have not done enough to require China to adhere to established standards of behavior in exchange for the benefits of joining the global system that has allowed the PRC to prosper.Human nature and history are a useful guide to where appeasement (by whatever name) leads. And they also show that a strong defense and resolutely standing up for one’s principles is more likely to preserve peace .

Ext – Mil-Mil ties now

Mil-Mil ties nowKamphausen & Drun 16 – a. Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the, D.C., office at the National Bureau of Asian Research, b. Bridge Award Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research [Roy D. Kamphausen & Jessica Drun, Sino-U.S. Military-to-Military Relations, The national bureau of asian research, nbr special report #57 | april 2016, Edited by Travis Tanner and Wang Dong, http://nbr.org/publications/specialreport/pdf/Free/06192016/SR57_US-China_April2016.pdf] doa 5-11-16

Both Washington and Beijing have acknowledged the importance of the U.S.-China relationship for maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific. Indeed, some have argued that it is the most important bilateral relationship for the 21st century.20 To that end, stability in the mil-mil dimension is critical for providing crisis stability between the two militaries—clearly both sides want to avoid military tensions or armed conflict because they recognize that conflict would be disastrous for both countries and catastrophic for the region. In order to achieve this end, the United States and China need to mitigate the likelihood of any strategic miscalculations and establish means of de-escalation if a conflict were to arise. Simply put, an effective mil-mil program could contribute to conflict avoidance.As such, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping have jointly advocated for a more mature and robust mil-mil relationship between the United States and China. Indeed, at the state visit of President Obama to China in November 2014, the two sides agreed to an agenda of increasing mil-mil confidence-building mechanisms (CBM), including notification of major military activities (with annexes on notification of policy and strategy developments and observation of military exercises) and rules of behavior for the safety of air and maritime encounters (with annexes on terms of reference and rules of behavior for encounters between naval surface vessels).21 When President Xi visited Washington ten months later in September 2015, the CBM agreements were further enhanced, with new annexes on air-to-air safety and crisis communications, and new work was done on the major military activities agreement. Moreover, Presidents Obama and Xi made friendly statements about each side’s contribution to international peacekeeping, suggesting new areas for cooperation.22

Ext – Appeasement Bad

Appeasement guarantees larger conflictsJacobs, 15 – emeritus professor of Asian Languages and Studies at Monash University (Bruce, 11/1. “Appeasement will only encourage China.” http://www.theage.com.au/comment/appeasement-will-only-encourage-expansionist-china-20151101-gknz2l.html)

World attention has again focused on our region of the globe, with the American navy asserting its "freedom of navigation" near Chinese-constructed artificial islands in the so-called South China Sea.In less than 80 days, in the midst of threats from China, Taiwan's voters will vote for their president and legislature. Polls suggest the opposition will win, thus giving Taiwan its third transition of power from opposition to government in the six presidential elections since democratisation.The tensions in Asia today have only one cause: China. On the basis of false "history", China claims the South China Sea, the East China Sea and Taiwan. Yet China has no historical claims to the South and East China seas.Historically, south-east Asian states conducted the great trade in the South China Sea. China had almost no role. Furthermore, geographically, the contested areas are close to Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines, while they are more than 1000 kilometres south of China. China's claims for sovereignty in these areas have no historical basis and its constructing of "islands" on submerged reefs only demonstrates China's expansionism.Similarly, in the East China Sea, China's claims to the Senkaku Islands (which China calls the Diaoyutai) have no historical foundation. The People's Daily of January 8, 1953, stated that the "Senkaku" Islands belonged to the Ryukyu Archipelago, and a World Atlas published in China in 1958 showed that these islands belong to Japan.China's claims that Taiwan belongs to it also have no historical basis. Mao Zedong, in his famous 1936 interview with Edgar Snow, stated that Taiwan should be independent. Only in 1942 did the Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party separately claim that Taiwan was Chinese.In Taiwan's history, a Han Chinese regime based in China has only controlled Taiwan for four years, from 1945 to 1949. These four years were perhaps the saddest in all of Taiwan's history because Chiang Kai-shek's government killed tens of thousands of Taiwanese in the infamous 2.28 (February 28, 1947) massacres.The dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek and his son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo, ruled Taiwan from 1945 until the latter's death in early 1988. Their rule was a Chinese colonial project that privileged Chinese who had come with Chiang Kai-shek and systematically discriminated against native Taiwanese.Only with the accession of Lee Teng-hui to the presidency after the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in 1988 could Taiwan begin its democratisation process. Now Taiwan, a country with a population the size of Australia, has become a democratic middle power.The so-called "one China" policy of many countries including the United States and Australia is a relic of the old Chiang Kai-shek/Chiang Ching-kuo dictatorship, which pushed a "one China" policy without consulting Taiwan's population.All the major Western democracies, as well as Japan and India, now have substantial if unofficial diplomatic offices in Taiwan. And, although these nations do not publicise the point, all have de facto "One China, one Taiwan" policies.The arguments of people such as Age columnist Hugh White are dangerous. They ignore the cause of tension in Asia and say we have to be careful about becoming

involved in a war. History has taught us that "appeasement" of such expansionist powers as China does not stop war. Rather, it only temporarily postpones armed conflict and ultimately leads to a much larger war later .

Appeasement of China only enhances Chinese perceptions that the US is a toothless paper tiger. It creates a sense among China's generals and political leaders that they can pursue expansionist policies without international protest.The pretence that Taiwan's vote for its own president and legislature can lead to war is false. Both main candidates, Tsai Ing-wen and Eric Chu, want to maintain the status quo – that Taiwan is de facto an independent state but that it will not announce this. Australians would be appalled if we were told by a foreign power that voting for either Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten would lead to war and that we should vote accordingly.We must be clear that China is the only country threatening anyone else in Asia. The close talks between leaders of such countries as the US, Japan, India and Australia demonstrate that Asia's democratic countries have become aware of the risks.In classical balance-of-power theory, the rise of one expansionist power creates a coalition among other powers. China's expansionist actions have already created a substantial democratic coalition in Asia prepared to prevent China from starting a major war.

China seizes on weaknessBranigan, 15 – China correspondent for the Guardian (Tania, 3/19. “China crisis: west riven by age-old question - to appease or oppose?” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/china-bind-is-the-uk-accommodating-or-ceding-too-much-to-superpower)

“China assumes any accommodation from a foreign country comes from weakness – and they do not respect weakness. They will bully those who let themselves be bullied,” says Jorge Guajardo, formerly the Mexican ambassador to Beijing and now senior director at McLarty Associates in Washington.“You acquiesce on human rights and China assumes you do it for economic reasons; they make more demands and you start acquiescing in other areas.“India is probably one of the last countries to accommodate China on anything – and at the end of the day, they work very well together.”Some go further, suggesting complaints about meetings with the Dalai Lama are strategic attempts to exert power through a symbolic issue in the first place.It is easier for some countries to take a tough stance than others. While Angela Merkel has in some ways been firmer than her predecessors, that is also possible because of the strength of the German economy, Kinzelbach points out.“If you accept only sticks and carrots work on human rights, what sticks and carrots can we use? We don’t have any left that are attractive or impressive enough for China any more, unfortunately,” she said.She argues that the US itself has given ground on human rights issues, particularly at the beginning of the Obama administration.“There was a real desire for partnership and China didn’t step up and deliver; it took advantage,” said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Sino-US relations at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies , in a more generous assessment. “It was the time of the financial crisis and China saw the US as weak.”