Rethinking Strategic Stability with China: From Coercion to Constructivism

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 d