The China Question: Competing Without Catastrophe

Every strategy for American engagement in Eurasia eventually runs into the same constraint: China is already there, deeply embedded in the economic architecture of most countries on the board, and is not going anywhere. This is not a problem with a simple solution. It requires a framework for navigating competition that is sharp enough to be effective and disciplined enough to avoid escalation into confrontation that would damage the global economy, destabilize American alliances, and produce outcomes far worse than the status quo of managed rivalry.

The framing matters enormously. The United States is not at war with China. The two economies are deeply intertwined; China remains America's second-largest trading partner, and their financial and commercial ties involve trillions of dollars in mutual exposure. The goal is not comprehensive decoupling, as some American voices advocate. That would mean trying to sever economic relationships that have generated substantial wealth on both sides and that hundreds of millions of ordinary people depend on. The goal is de-risking: reducing the specific vulnerabilities that China's market position creates in strategic technology sectors while maintaining the broader commercial relationship that benefits both economies.

BRI's Real Record

The Belt and Road Initiative has invested roughly $1 trillion in projects across 150 countries in its first decade, addressing real and urgent infrastructure gaps. This is not propaganda; it is fact, and dismissing it allows China to occupy the space between what countries genuinely need and what the U.S. is offering. American strategy has to acknowledge the need before making the case for a better way to meet it. Countries that feel lectured about Chinese debt traps by an American government that did not show up with its own infrastructure proposal will make their own calculations about who is offering a genuine partnership.

China's model has documented weaknesses that American diplomacy has systematically underused. Debt sustainability is the most prominent. Multiple smaller BRI partners, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Zambia, and others, have ended up with debt levels that create serious fiscal distress and, in some cases, pressure to cede commercial or strategic assets to Chinese creditors when payments cannot be serviced. The pattern is consistent enough that it has become a political liability for Beijing across parts of Africa and South Asia, where enthusiasm for the BRI has cooled considerably as the terms have become apparent to publics and parliaments.

The U.S. counter-narrative needs to be specific and evidence-based rather than abstract. Compare a U.S.-backed solar project in Jordan that came in on budget, created local jobs, and transferred technical capacity to Jordanian engineers against a delayed BRI coal plant in Southeast Asia that used imported Chinese labor and left the host country with an oversized loan and an electricity plant it struggles to maintain. These comparisons exist and are documented. They should be promoted as central to how American development agencies communicate their model to prospective partners.

The Standards Competition

Standards competition is where the next decade of U.S.-China competition in Eurasia will be most consequential and least visible to general audiences. International standards bodies, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Organization for Standardization, and the IEEE set the technical specifications that determine which technologies are compatible, which products can be sold in which markets, and whose intellectual property is embedded in globally adopted systems.

China has dramatically increased its participation in these bodies over the past decade and has succeeded in advancing Chinese technical standards in areas like smart cities, facial recognition, and 5G network architecture. If Chinese-proposed standards become the global default in AI governance, 6G telecommunications, or digital identity systems, every country that implements those standards will be deploying Chinese-designed architecture in its most sensitive infrastructure. The United States and its allies need to engage these bodies with equivalent seriousness and bring Eurasian partners into the coalition, shaping open, interoperable, privacy-respecting standards before Chinese alternatives become the path of least resistance.

This is not a visible competition. It happens in technical committee meetings with dozens of attendees, producing standards documents that almost no one outside the relevant engineering communities reads. But its effects are enormous and long-lasting. The standards set today for AI model governance, quantum encryption protocols, and 6G network architecture will shape how these technologies are deployed globally for decades. Getting those standards right, and ensuring that countries across Eurasia are represented in setting them alongside American and allied voices, is a strategic priority that requires sustained attention and institutional investment.

Export Controls and Alliance Cohesion

Export controls on advanced semiconductor technology require careful calibration. The restrictions implemented since 2022 are strategically justified, preventing China from acquiring the most advanced AI chips and chip manufacturing equipment is a legitimate national security priority that serves American interests. But export controls have real costs: they push China to accelerate its semiconductor development, disadvantage American chip companies in the Chinese market, and create pressure on allied countries to choose sides in ways that are commercially painful. Controls should be maintained where genuinely necessary and should be as surgically precise as possible to avoid imposing broader economic costs on the alliance network that makes American strategy viable.

The coalition question is critical. Export controls that the United States imposes unilaterally and that allied countries do not implement create arbitrage opportunities for Chinese buyers and create friction in alliances that American strategy depends on. Getting Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands to align their export control regimes with American restrictions has been a significant diplomatic achievement. Maintaining that alignment as the commercial costs become apparent will require continued attention and reciprocal commitments.

People-to-People as Long-Game Asset

People-to-people connections deserve protection as a strategic asset. Chinese students at American universities, researchers in American labs, and entrepreneurs building companies with American venture capital create understanding and lasting ties that persist even when governments are at odds. The instinct to restrict Chinese academic exchange in the name of technology security should be resisted, except where specific, documented transfer risks can be demonstrated on a case-by-case basis. Blanket restrictions would damage American science, alienate a generation of Chinese professionals who might otherwise become advocates for engagement, and foreclose civilian-level connections that may eventually matter.

The goal in managing China's competition is to create a Eurasian environment where countries have genuine alternatives and exercise genuine choice. China will not stop competing. The question is whether the United States decides not to, and whether it competes with the consistency and strategic coherence that the contest requires.

The Innovation Advantage

There is one dimension of American competition with China that rarely gets articulated as forcefully as it deserves: the innovation edge. The United States leads the world in fundamental research, the density and quality of its venture capital ecosystem, the breadth of its technology company landscape, and the attractiveness of its innovation hubs to global talent. These are not permanent advantages; they require sustained investment and openness to maintain, but they are real and substantial today.

For Eurasian countries making technology partnership decisions, alignment with the American innovation ecosystem offers something the Chinese model does not: access to the cutting edge of commercial technology development, not just the previous generation's infrastructure. Countries that anchor their research universities in partnerships with MIT, Stanford, and Caltech are positioned differently from countries that adopt Chinese technology standards developed in a closed innovation system. The U.S. should make this case explicitly and back it with the research partnership programs, talent mobility frameworks, and co-investment mechanisms that make the argument concrete.

The competition with China in Eurasia will not be decided by a single policy, a single investment, or a single corridor. It will be decided by the cumulative weight of thousands of decisions made by governments, businesses, and individuals across the region over the next decade, decisions about which technology to adopt, which financing to accept, which standards to implement, and which model of governance to emulate. American strategy is about shaping the environment in which those decisions are made so that the free, open, high-quality option is genuinely available and genuinely attractive. That is achievable. It requires consistency, competitiveness, and the strategic patience to let the results compound.