Why Mearsheimer is wrong on China

I know many people are puzzled by Mearsheimer's apparent inconsistency between his positions on Russia and on China.

He has long argued that NATO expansion was a major mistake that would provoke Russia and start a war in Ukraine, yet he simultaneously argues in favor of similar actions in Asia to "contain" China. Why be so careful about not provoking one whilst actively seeking to provoke the other? All the more when China is vastly more powerful than Russia and doesn't have the history of military interventions that Russia does.

To be fair to him, he acknowledges that there's a form of double standard in his position. In his words: “Several people – including Mr. Bertrand [that’s me!] – have been struck by the fact that I think differently about US policy toward Ukraine/Russia than Taiwan/China.”

In a message to me back in December 2022, he laid out his thinking on this matter:

First, China is a peer competitor of the US and is a threat to establish regional hegemony in Asia, which is not in the American national interest. Therefore, China must be contained, and Taiwan is a key element in a sound US containment strategy.

Russia, on the other hand, is a weak great power and no threat to dominate Europe. It is much less powerful than the Soviet Union or contemporary China. Thus, I believe that the US does not even have to be in Europe today to counter Russia, much less pushing to expand NATO eastward to include Ukraine. Second, even if the US faced a very powerful Russia that needed to be contained, it would be foolish to move to incorporate Ukraine into NATO. The reason is simple: it would involve the US and its allies marching eastward into Ukraine, which almost certainly would precipitate a great-power war that might escalate to the nuclear level. Such behavior is hardly consistent with a smart containment strategy.

The situation regarding Taiwan is fundamentally different. The US is already firmly ensconced in East Asia and has a rich history of close military (as well as economic & political) ties with Taiwan. In other words, the US does not have to move westward into China’s backyard to establish military ties with Taiwan, which would likely precipitate a great-power war. None of this is to deny that the situation today involving Taiwan is dangerous and needs to be carefully managed to avoid a Sino-American war that runs the risk of turning nuclear.

Basically his position stems from his "offensive realism" theory that posits that great powers are inherently driven to maximize their power and seek regional hegemony.

At heart he thinks that by far the greatest "threat" to US power is China, not Russia, because China is “a peer competitor of the US and is a threat to establish regional hegemony in Asia, which is not in the American national interest.” As such, or so goes his theory, the US must prioritize containing China's rise over all other considerations, including the risk of military confrontation that he deems unacceptable when it comes to Russia.

In short, his view is that the US should focus its containment efforts on genuine peer competitors while avoiding unnecessary provocations of weaker states that pose no fundamental challenge to the US.

Sounds reasonable? At first glance, you could say so: in theory, it makes strategic sense to allocate your limited resources toward countering your most capable rival while avoiding costly distractions with lesser powers.

Yet, when one digs into his position in a bit more details, there are actually a number of incoherencies and contradictions that make his approach both theoretically incoherent and practically dangerous.

Here are the 4 key arguments that expose the flaws in Mearsheimer’s reasoning on China.