Imposing Costs On China – What Will That Look Like?

One China scholar notes that Chinese military medical people have expressed great concern in journals and books on military psychology.  For example, how will the fact that China’s military is largely comprised of single children (i.e., no siblings), many of whom have been spoiled, affect their ability to operate in the face of overwhelming firepower and death?  This is a real concern, which probably isn’t talked about with the public but is talked about within the PLA.

And suffer high enough casualties; particularly deaths, and that just might provoke a response from the parents and families, who will no longer have old age support, as well as an end to their genetic line.

So when thinking about imposing costs, the U.S. should think about ‘maximizing’ Chinese casualties in the event of a conflict.

You can bet the Chinese are thinking about maximizing costs – and casualties – on the Americans.  The Chinese may have to worry about losing ‘only children’ in a fight, but America also had better get used to the idea of losing 5,000 men and women in an afternoon.

Considering that losing a 4-man Special Forces team in Niger in 2017 was considered a catastrophe – and prompted congressional inquiries – Beijing might think today’s Americans can’t eat nearly as much bitterness as today’s Chinese.

But imposing costs isn’t only a military calculation – even if that is important, especially when dealing with an expansionist, rapidly militarizing nation such as the PRC.

Making ‘costs’ personal

While Chinese Communist Party leadership may be willing to have their citizens absorb punishment, and a lot of it, they may not have such a high tolerance if ‘costs’ are imposed directly on them and their families.

And the Biden administration has plenty of non-kinetic, non-military options for imposing such costs – and in peacetime.

Target CCP elites and their overseas wealth, expose it and seize it. Go after foreign bank accounts, real estate, and the bolt-holes in New York, Vancouver, London, Sydney and elsewhere.  And no more ‘green cards.’  No more of the good life for Chinese elites – who are already on the verge of becoming pariahs – owing to Xinjiang genocide and snuffing out Hong Kong peoples’ freedom.  And Covid-19 has made China far more enemies than friends around the world.

But to impose the one ‘non-kinetic’ cost that really matters to Chinese communist leadership, cut off the flow of foreign exchange – convertible currency – into the PRC. This is the ‘juice’ that keeps the CCP and its economy and  ‘international operations’ going.

Here’s the test, however.

Is the Biden administration willing to impose costs in a way that actually hurts the other side?  Or will it be done in a McNamara-esque fashion – with costs and pressure lovingly calibrated and applied in a way that makes sense in Washington (and that doesn’t inconvenience Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce?)

If so, the PRC can handle it all.

The Chinese can practically smell weakness.  And if the other guy thinks you are inclined to pull your punches and not willing to ‘go all the way’, he’ll just wait for you to tire and eventually give in.

In fairness, the Biden administration is just getting started and deserves both a chance and support.

Mr. Biden’s new foreign policy team – many of whom had earlier turns at the plate without distinguishing themselves – hopefully, learned their lessons about what works and what doesn’t with China.

And maybe Jake Sullivan remembers what ‘imposing costs’ meant and led to in the Asia-Pacific during the Obama administration.  And it’s even better if he is now inclined to give the expression a new meaning.