As its strategic competition with China intensifies, the United States should reprioritize relationships with allies across East Asia, leading China scholar and former diplomat Thomas J. Christensen said during a talk at the University of Notre Dame.
Christensen, the James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations and director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Pritzker Chair at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, called for the United States to recommit to a pragmatic approach to great power competition. He said this means prioritizing partners, avoiding maximalist gestures and better understanding China as a rising power.
“I think we need to manage our allies and partners more carefully than we have, precisely because we're in a strategic competition with China, and precisely because our allies and partners are becoming more important, not less important, in that struggle,” said Christensen, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Economic relationships support stability
During a conversation with Keough School Professor of Politics Joshua Eisenman, Christensen urged his audience to think holistically about the effects of U.S. trade policies toward allies in East Asia, which he said are now at odds with U.S. military policy in the region.
“Our military strategy in East Asia, I think, has very intelligently shifted from relying on very large fixed bases in places like Japan to creating a more mobile, distributed force that’s harder for Chinese strike weapons to attack,” Christensen said.
That strategy relies upon working with democratic allies across the region, Christensen said: “The American ability to get a coalition together is one of the great deterrent assets that the United States has in dealing with the rise of China.”
But recent policies risk undercutting these relationships, he said.
“If we are upsetting the domestic politics of our allies and partners through tariffs and through other types of economic pressure, I think it makes it harder for us to coalesce a group of countries to stand up to China economically if it were to do something aggressive,” Christensen said. “And I think China will notice that over time if that continues.”
More broadly, Christensen lamented the United States’ increasing economic isolationism in East Asia, which he said was a troubling bipartisan trend; the United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific partnership in January 2017 and is not a party to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which went into effect in January 2022.
“We're absent from all of these multilateral agreements, and China’s there and is a member or is applying to be a member,” Christensen said. “How is that to our advantage?”
Strategic continuity
Christensen called for a pragmatic, measured approach to China and a strong U.S. military presence in East Asia — an investment in a continuity that he said has worked, despite growing criticism of U.S. policy from both sides of the political aisle.
“I would say that the policies that have been put in place have been a fantastic success,” Christensen said. “One of the things that bothers me is that in Washington, there’s a kind of bipartisan consensus that the policies in Asia have failed. And I don't know by what historical standard you can say that that record is unsuccessful.”
Much of the dissatisfaction misses the point, Christensen said: the United States’ China policy has been an astounding success, and East Asia has not had an interstate conflict since the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979. A combination of deterrence, buttressed by U.S. military alliances and economic interdependence, have made that possible, he said.
Christensen said one of the biggest dangers is that maximalist gestures, intended as a deterrent, might instead spark a conflict.
China has real leverage in supply chains, a near monopoly on rare earth minerals and magnets and significant military power in East Asia, Christensen said. But it remains less powerful than the United States around the world, relying on a “rogue’s gallery of partners" like North Korea, Russia and Iran, whose geopolitical interests sometimes cause complications. In contrast, he said, the United States enjoys a robust network of more than 60 alliances and security partners.
Given the United States’ military strength and global standing, he said, one of the biggest dangers is that maximalist gestures, intended as a deterrent, might instead spark a conflict.
“I've said many times that most Americans love Taiwan,” Christensen said. “Some Americans want to love Taiwan to death.”
Christensen cited former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan as an example. The visit was seen as a departure from recent U.S. protocol, where high-level government officials have avoided traveling to Taiwan. It raised tensions and gave China the opportunity to conduct military exercises that simulated a blockade of Taiwan, he said. It also gave China an opening to blame the United States for increased tensions, he said, while not making Taiwan stronger in any appreciable way.
In contrast, Christensen advocated for a continuation of the United States’ traditional one China policy, which includes strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan. Under this policy, the United States avoids committing unconditionally to a specific course of action if China were to attack Taiwan. The idea is to discourage both China from attacking Taiwan and Taiwan from asserting sovereign legal independence from the Chinese nation, ultimately maintaining peace.
And while policymakers are increasingly concerned about China’s territorial claims, Christensen emphasized that these claims, while expansive, are not new: “One of the big misperceptions that Americans have is that China has expanding territorial claims,” he said. “You’ll hear it in Congress all the time.”
The problem, Christiansen said, is that China has expansive territorial claims rooted in history and China’s neighbors do not accept those claims. One danger is that all the actors believe their claims are legitimate and therefore are more likely to take risks to protect them. This dynamic, he said, means it is harder to dissuade China from acting militarily on longstanding claims than it would to deter it from expanding those claims into new areas.
Understanding the broader competition
Christensen's talk was part of the Dean's Forum on Global Affairs, designed to bring world leaders into conversation with Notre Dame students, faculty and the broader community. Students used the opportunity to ask questions on issues ranging from isolationism and misunderstood aspects of China’s strategy to artificial intelligence and semiconductors as well as the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong.
During the discussion, Christensen urged students to study abroad.
“I wish more Americans would go to see China,” he said. “The big drop has not been in Chinese students in America. The big drop has been in American students in China. And I was one. I think it's a great experience. Even if you don’t like the place, even if the place worries you, try to understand it. Ignorance is rarely a strategic asset.”
Maggie Matvey, a sophomore global affairs student who is taking a course on global politics and policy with Keough School scholar Joshua Eisenman, said she appreciated the opportunity to hear Christensen’s perspective.
“In Professor Eisenman’s class, we discussed how the ‘century of humiliation’ has led to the formation of modern Chinese foreign policy,” she said. “Having Professor Christensen come and give a very modern take about what's going on, especially in the uncertain foreign policy times that we're in right now, was really interesting. I think it provides room for hope, highlighting what the United States has been doing well and the areas in which it can improve.”
Watch: Thomas J. Christensen on U.S.-China Rivalry and East Asia’s Future
Originally published by at keough.nd.edu on November 25, 2025.