BEST OF: Hal Brands on Potential of Future Conflict with China

December 28, 2022·41 min·2 clips

Hal Brands argues China is a peaking power, not a rising one, making it more prone to aggression as its window closes.

The premise is severe. Michael Morrell lays out Hal Brands' argument: China is no longer just rising relative to the United States, and that may make it more dangerous. Morrell gives Hal real weight, identifying him as a professor of global affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former Pentagon official before calling the book and the episode unusually important. The conversation is about timing. If Beijing thinks its best chances are about to shrink, it may be more willing to move aggressively now. Technology is one front. Hal talks through Huawei's push to dominate 5G telecommunications networks, China's investment in information systems, and Beijing's push to lead technologies tied to economic growth and military power. The aim is leverage. In Hal's telling, Beijing wants a geopolitical preserve where Chinese power is harder to challenge. Then comes the darker piece: force. Hal says China may try to reorder the Western Pacific by force, especially where sovereignty claims and territorial disputes remain unsettled. Taiwan sits at the center of that risk. Xi Jinping is described as rejecting the older idea that the Taiwan question can wait across generations, which changes the timetable. Hal sees the Taiwan Strait as China's best military window during this decade. The PLA is part of the clock. Reforms built around conquering Taiwan and deterring or defeating American intervention are described as nearly complete. The United States has its own timing problem, with Hal warning that American military power could dip later in the decade as older ships and planes retire. The episode is careful, which is the point. It does not treat war as baked in. It treats it as a risk made worse by ambition, relative power, and a window that may be closing.

As heard by us

A clear China strategy conversation on why Taiwan and the Western Pacific may be especially dangerous this decade.

China's danger zone is presented as a timing problem: a powerful state that may believe its best opportunities are narrowing. Michael Morrell lets Hal Brands lay out the argument behind The Danger Zone, written with Mike Beckley, linking Beijing's technology ambitions, Huawei's…

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Why you'd press play

If you want a sober case for why China as a peaking power may be the more dangerous phase to watch.

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