A certain form of engagement consists of quoting opponents of one’s viewpoint and shaking one’s head sadly.
However, Ted Galen Carpenter has a reason for limiting the amount of ratiocination in a recent post. His main concern is only to inquire: “Can Trump Repel Anti-China Hawks in His Own Party?”
He notes that anti-China or anti-CCP hawks still exist in the Trump administration and in Congress, perhaps also elsewhere in the land. This makes it harder for President Trump to “maintain stable U.S.-China relations.”
Carpenter’s conclusion: “Such attitudes”—“attitudes” like Senator Tom Cotton’s recognition of Beijing’s piling up of nuclear warheads—“raise severe doubts about whether Trump’s conciliatory policy toward Beijing can last even throughout the remainder of his presidency. The prospects for continued détente are even dimmer once Trump leaves office—especially if his successor is a GOP anti-China hawk. Unfortunately, several of the most likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028 warrant that label.”
There are wisps of other arguments in the post.
Nukes
What is it that the hawks object to? Pretending that the party-state is not compiling nukes is one thing. Tom Cotton “seems even more worried about Beijing’s alleged [!] ambitions with respect to nuclear weapons than he does about Moscow’s moves. Indeed, he states so explicitly: ‘China’s nuclear stockpile has surpassed 600 operational warheads as of mid-2024, and it remains on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030. This isn’t incremental modernization. This is a fundamental transformation from a minimal deterrent to strategic parity with America and Russia in both quality and quantity.’ ”
In response to Cotton, Carpenter allows that the “lack of treaty limits on the size of Beijing’s strategic arsenal is a legitimate concern.” So just include China in any new nuclear arms treaty. Boom, problem solved. Even though Beijing doesn’t particular want to negotiate about how to limit its nuke build-up. (Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian in February 2026: “China’s nuclear strength is by no means at the same level with that of the U.S. or Russia. Thus, China will not take part in nuclear disarmament negotiations for the time being.”)
Carpenter: “But Cotton’s real focus has little to do with genuine strategic arms control. His goal is to justify an extensive increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal under the label of ‘modernization.’ ”
Has that been the whole problem all along, too great a focus on adequate defense of the United States and the West? Plus too little focus on diplomacy with the Chinese Communist Party?
The author does not here (he may elsewhere) acknowledge a history of American diplomacy with Beijing that has resulted in enabling and strengthening it. We might, for one thing, ponder how the People’s Republic of China ended up in the United Nations as the Republic of China was being expelled from the United Nations.
Influence
Carpenter alerts us that the China hawks fear something called China’s “growing global influence.”
Which consists of what? Are we talking only about Chinese soap operas popping up more often on U.S. or Paraguay cable stations or about less anodyne forms of influence?
Would the growing global influence include incessant harassment of the sailors and fishermen of the Philippines? Local and international threats against the Taiwanese? United Front operations? Espionage? Attempts to influence foreign elections by intimidating candidates and voters? Forcibly returning Chinese nationals living overseas to China and other forms of transnational repression? Pressuring foreign universities, sports leagues, galleries and museums, film festivals, to impose censorship? Distributing products made with slave labor? Spreading propaganda through Confucius Institutes and other foreign-based Chinese organizations? Gaining influence over other countries by debt diplomacy? Perpetrating massive intellectual property theft? Perpetrating massive cyberattacks? Selling cars and baby monitors set up to send data to China? Selling mass surveillance and mass censorship technology to other governments and teaching them how to use it? Arbitrarily detaining foreigners? Militarily cooperating with Iran, Russia, other hostile regimes? Working with overseas Chinese crime syndicates? Promoting transplant tourism by routinely killing people for their organs?
If you notice and oppose these and other tyrannical and tyranny-promoting things done by the Chinese Communist Party domestically and internationally—if you regard the CCP’s wolf warrior diplomacy as dishonest and manipulative rather than as honest and conducted in good faith—you are a “China hawk.” You are someone who just doesn’t want to get along with a supposedly congenial and accommodating totalitarian regime. You are someone scrounging for excuses to go so low as to see things as they are. And the Ted Galen Carpenters will note your existence and persistence with regret.
