Stabilizing the U.S.-China Rivalry Michael J. Mazarr, Amanda Kerrigan, Benjamin Lenain Research Repor t For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RRA4107-1 About RAND RAND is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. To learn more about RAND, visit www.rand.org. Research Integrity Our mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our core values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior. To help ensure our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and nonpartisan, we subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process; avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure; and pursue transparency in our research engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure intellectual independence. For more information, visit www.rand.org/about/research-integrity. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © 2025 RAND Corporation is a registered trademark. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This publication and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to its webpage on rand.org is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research products for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, visit www.rand.org/about/publishing/permissions. RR-A4107-1 iii About This Report This report assesses possible means of stabilizing the U.S.-China rivalry. It reflects the findings of a study in which we first examined the challenge of stabilizing strategic rivalries and the principles for doing so. We then assessed Chinese strategic intent, evaluating several recent analyses of Chinese-language documents, to determine the scope for stabilization. Finally, the study involved pairs of U.S. and Chinese scholars outlining the potential for stabilization in three issue areas: Taiwan, the South China Sea, and competition in science and technology. The report concludes with specific recommendations both for general stabilization of the rivalry as well as initiatives in each of those three areas. Funding Funding for this research was made possible by a generous gift from Peter Richards, a longtime RAND supporter and member of the RAND Global and Emerging Risks advisory board. RAND National Security Research Division This research was conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD). NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the U.S. Intelligence Community, the U.S. State Department, allied foreign governments, and foundations. For more information on the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center, see www.rand.org/nsrd/isdp, or contact the director (contact information is provided on the webpage). Acknowledgments We are grateful first and foremost to Peter Richards for his generous support of this research. We are thankful to the five outside authors—Gregory Poling, Rorry Daniels, Jie Dalei, Feng Zhang, and Lu Chuanying—for their detailed analyses and discussions that contributed so much to the analysis. Finally, we are grateful to Michael Chase and Shanshan Mei for their initial reviews of sections of this paper. We thank Ryan Hass and Matan Chorev, who provided insightful peer reviews that helped substantially improve the report. iv Summary The geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China—with its overlapping economic, technological, military, political, and ideological components—has become the leading national security concern for both sides. The rivalry embodies many risks, not only for the two contestants but also for the world community—risks of outright military conflict, economic warfare, and political subversion, as well as the danger that tensions between the world’s two leading powers will destroy the potential for global consensus on such issues as climate and artificial intelligence. Moderating this rivalry therefore emerges as a critical goal, both for the United States and China and the wider world. Yet, as happened during the Cold War, a pointed debate has emerged about whether stabilizing this rivalry—via norms that govern behavior, guardrails in the competition, mutual understanding and relationships, collaboration on select issues, and other elements of a geostrategic equilibrium—is even possible. Emphasizing accommodation and stability can be perceived as weakness, some suggest, arguing that the only appropriate U.S. strategy is to ratchet up the pressure as high as it can reasonably be pushed. We began this project with a very different assumption: that stabilizing an ongoing rivalry is not only possible but can serve the interests of both sides—indeed, it is essential if conflict is to be avoided in a bitter global rivalry. The RAND project staff and other U.S. participants are deeply aware of China’s hostile, predatory, and sometimes aggressive actions, and that it is imperative for the United States to stand up to specific forms of bullying and manipulation. Our focus is not on ways to transcend or overcome the essential geopolitical disagreement at the core of the rivalry. Even short of transformation, we did not assume that a comprehensive agenda for coexistence—shifting the rivalry to a much less intense form of competition—was plausible at this stage. We sought in this analysis to assess a much more limited proposition: that even in the context of intense competition, it might be possible to find limited mechanisms of stabilization across several specific issue areas. Approach We first examined the challenge of stabilizing strategic rivalries and the principles for doing so. We then assessed Chinese strategic intent, evaluating several recent analyses of Chinese- language documents, to determine the scope for stabilization. Finally, the study involved pairs of U.S. and Chinese scholars outlining the potential for stabilization in three issue areas: Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the competition in science and technology. We also conducted literature reviews in two of those areas (Taiwan and the South China Sea) to uncover similar proposals made in other studies, and we list those in the relevant sections of Chapter 4. The v report concludes with specific recommendations both for general stabilization of the rivalry as well as initiatives in each of those three areas. Findings and Recommendations As noted above, we began this analysis from the proposition that the U.S.-China rivalry is not the product of misunderstanding or misperceptions: It is driven by conflicting interests, deep mistrust, and a mutual perception by both the United States and China that the other has the goal of disrupting and undermining their power. From the U.S. side, the contest is fueled by concerns about China’s authoritarian governing system and clear evidence of predatory and aggressive behavior across many domains of competition. An effort to stabilize this rivalry does not imply that the United States should downplay the effort to compete and defend its interests or make dangerous concessions in the name of easing the rivalry. China harbors goals and intentions that are inimical to U.S. interests. The Chinese government’s approach to governance, to the extent that it is internationalized, could threaten U.S. values both at home and abroad. Beijing is seeking predominance across many areas of science and technology research and development in ways that could undermine the position of many U.S. business sectors—as has already occurred in such areas as solar cells and batteries— and leave the United States economically and technologically dependent on its greatest rival. Beijing appears determined to claim a coercive and overbearing degree of control over the internal political and economic choices of other countries. The United States must take steps to head off the most dangerous Chinese ambitions and safeguard U.S. interests. Even as it does so, however, the United States must, as it did during the Cold War, also seek to keep the rivalry from descending into extreme and dangerous levels of tension. This analysis identified several broad principles that can guide efforts to stabilize intense rivalries: 1. Each side accepts, in ways that are deeply ingrained and broadly shared among decisionmaking officials, that some degree of modus vivendi must necessarily be part of the relationship. 2. Each side accepts the essential political legitimacy of the other. 3. In specific issue areas, especially those in dispute between the two sides, each side works to develop sets of shared rules, norms, institutions, and other tools that create lasting conditions of a stable modus vivendi within that domain over a specific period (such as three to five years). 4. Each side practices restraint in the development of capabilities explicitly designed to undermine the deterrent and defensive capabilities of the other in ways that would create an existential risk to its homeland. 5. Each side accepts some essential list of characteristics of a shared vision of organizing principles for world politics that can provide at least a baseline for an agreed status quo. vi 6. There are mechanisms and institutions in place—from long-term personal ties to physical communication links to agreed norms and rules of engagement for crises and risky situations—that help provide a moderating or return-to-stable-equilibrium function. Drawing on those principles, we propose six broad-based initiatives to help moderate the intensity of the rivalry: 1. Clarify U.S. objectives in the rivalry with language that explicitly rejects absolute versions of victory and accepts the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. 2. Reestablish several trusted lines of communication between senior officials. 3. Improve crisis-management practices, links, and agreements between the two sides. 4. Seek specific new agreements—a combination of formal public accords and private understandings—to limit the U.S.-China cyber competition. 5. Declare mutual acceptance of strategic nuclear deterrence and a willingness to forswear technologies and doctrines that would place the other side’s nuclear deterrent at risk. 6. Seek modest cooperative ventures on issues of shared interests or humanitarian concern. Beyond those very broad stabilizing measures, we investigated three of the most perilous issues in the rivalry—Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the burgeoning competition in science and technology. In each, we assessed U.S. and Chinese interests and goals and attempted to discover possible elements of a stable equilibrium, at least in the medium-term—roughly the next five to seven years. Chapter 4 describes this analysis in detail; below, we list only the main recommendations. For each issue, we describe a theory of success guiding our proposed strategy and offer recommendations in three categories: overarching political or strategic messaging initiatives; near-term steps; and bolder initiatives that would promote stability but must await some thawing of the relationship. In each of those sections, we emphasize the role that the credibility of U.S. commitments and deterrent power can play, alongside initiatives to reassure the other side and stabilize the relationship, in promoting stability. Drawing firm lines on unacceptable coercive behavior, for example, can pair effectively with specific stabilizing mechanisms to reduce the chances of escalatory moves. Seeking stability is not an alternative to calculated firmness: They are two sides of the same strategic approach. Taiwan Our theory of success for stabilizing the Taiwan issue focuses on creating the maximum incentive for Beijing to pursue gradual approaches to realizing its ultimate goal. Under such a theory, the focus of short- and medium-term stabilization efforts must be to (1) keep the prospect of war as hazardous and uncertain as possible for China, (2) avoid obvious provocations that would force Beijing’s hand, (3) generate as many political reassurances as possible to leave Beijing comfortable with a patient approach, (4) reduce the risks of unplanned military vii confrontations or accidents, and (5) create political and military mechanisms of communication to address ongoing disagreements and crisis dangers. Using that theory of success as a guide, we propose ideas in three categories to help stabilize the U.S.-China rivalry on the Taiwan issue: political statements and reassurances, short-term measures, and bolder steps for later implementation. Because the Taiwan issue is fundamentally political, implementing the recommendations in the first category may be essential to facilitating the actions outlined in the other two categories. In the area of broad political and strategic signaling, we offer the following three suggestions: 1. The United States and China should exchange a mutual set of signals designed to build confidence that neither side harbors an intent to radically overturn the status quo in the near future. This step would include mutual statements of visions required to avoid conflict, as well as agreements on broad principles of stability on the issue to which each side commits. Examples could include U.S. statements that it does not support Taiwan independence, seek a permanent separation across the Straits, or oppose peaceful unification. China could reaffirm that peaceful reunification is the preferred approach, describe persuasive ways that could happen, and clarify that the use of force is only an option under the most extreme circumstances stipulated in the Anti-Secession Law. 2. Both sides could work to sustain a strong, ongoing dialogue between high-level officials on the Taiwan issue to avoid surprises. Building on the messaging involved in our first suggestion, the United States and China could establish a regular dialogue on the issue involving senior officials to communicate concerns and help avoid crisis- generating surprises. For example, the United States and China could seek to increase the transparency of each other’s moves, informing the other side about upcoming military maneuvering, arms sales, or major policy announcements to avoid surprises. 3. Each side—in the U.S. case in cooperation with allies and partners—should continue to reinforce deterrence of destabilizing actions. China can do this by clearly articulating its red lines in terms of statements and actions by the United States and Taiwan and specifying the type of responses crossing such red lines may elicit. The United States can continue to work with others to send multilateral signals that outright aggression—or extreme coercive moves, such as blockades and quarantines— will cause China to become an international pariah. If the political reassurances proposed in the first category are sufficient for Beijing and Washington, there are some steps that could be achieved in the short term. We offer the following two: 1. Empower a Track 2 process connected to high-level officials and military leaders that addresses strategic- and operational-level issues, while serving as a reliable backchannel for official communications in case formal channels break down. Official communications on the Taiwan issue between the United States and China are restrained by official policy positions. A series of Track 2 dialogues could thus generate more understanding and potential solutions between the United States and China on the issue that would not be possible through official interactions. viii 2. The United States and China should maintain existing and seek new ways to strengthen military-to-military communications and crisis communications links. There are already military-to-military communications, protocols, and crisis communications channels in place. However, they often do not work, and Beijing has a tendency to cut them off in times of crisis. Nevertheless, these channels should be maintained and further strengthened based on results from an effective Track 2 process. Finally, we offer one bolder option: The United States could balance its commitments to Taiwan with leveraging its influence to ensure that Taiwan’s actions do not escalate tensions with China and destabilize cross-Strait security. Although the United States is not responsible for and cannot completely control the activities of Taiwan, it provides military support and de facto extended deterrence to Taiwan. Because of this, it has potential leverage over Taiwan to limit its activities that upset the status quo championed by the United States. South China Sea Our theory of success for a stabilization strategy in the South China Sea combines deterrence of military escalation with intensified multilateral and bilateral diplomacy to create a medium- term route to a peaceful solution as the default international process and expectation. Under such a theory, the focus of short- and medium-term stabilization efforts would be to (1) deter any claimants or other actors in the region from undertaking direct military aggression to achieve their goals, through a combination of military power and multilateral signaling; (2) discourage other claimants from taking provocative actions on secondary issues that would force Beijing’s hand and produce crises; (3) initiate new processes of multilateral and bilateral diplomacy to create a default and required route to peaceful unification of disputes; (4) create new multilateral cooperative bodies on shared threats and issues, whether or not China will join them; and (5) rally broad-based international support for these processes, including signaling about the unacceptability of the use of force to resolve disputes or threaten free maritime transit. Using that theory of success as a guide, we developed ideas in all three categories: political statements and reassurances, short-term measures, and bolder steps for later implementation. In the area of broad political and strategic signaling, we suggest three steps: 1. The United States and the Philippines should continue to clarify, in coordination, the specific types of Chinese actions that would invoke obligations under the U.S.- Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. This should not be done unilaterally by Washington, but rather in close consultation with Manila to preserve alliance cohesion and avoid overcommitment. 2. Similarly, China can clarify its own red lines on very specific actions by the Philippines or other claimants that would require enhanced Chinese responses. The United States can then employ its influence to persuade friends and allies in the region to respect those lines. The critical ingredient to this action will be the limited scope of the Chinese demands: If they are dramatic and continue to escalate, it will appear to ix the United States and others that this avenue is being used as a cover to achieve larger Chinese objectives. 3. The United States and China could issue coordinated political statements that signal mutual intent to keep the South China Sea competition within defined parameters. The credibility of such statements would depend on modest expectations, mutuality of commitments, and follow-through over time. These would include more explicit U.S. statements that it recognizes China’s interests in maintaining security relative to foreign military presence, and Chinese commitments to respect the freedom of maritime passage. In the area of modest near-term steps, we propose three ideas: 1. Strengthen mutual restraint between Beijing, Manila, and Washington over specific disputes around the Second Thomas Shoal, the Scarborough Shoal, and other features prone to incidents . This can be built on mutual statements of actions that each side forswears outside extreme cases. Each side can contribute to this step through restraint in military activities, including selected limitations on patrols and navigation operations. 2. Seek to develop a bilateral code of conduct for incidents in the region , building upon the provisional agreement reached in July 2024. This process could build on existing agreements including the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Rules of Behavior for Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters, and the Memorandum of Understanding on Notification of Major Military Activities Confidence-Building Measures Mechanism. 3. Without scaling back legal or operational presence, the United States could selectively reduce the publicity surrounding certain intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) flights or freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs). This would avoid undermining legal principles or alliance confidence while testing whether a less visible posture yields reciprocal restraint. Finally, in the category of bolder ideas that can be developed for later possible implementation, we suggest two possibilities: 1. China and the United States could modify their military doctrines and force structures to maintain a peaceful military relationship in the South China Sea. Both sides could adopt a military strategy that combines defense and access, rather than one emphasizing offense and control. While doctrinal change is difficult, credible signals, such as force deployment patterns, operational narratives, and authoritative white paper language, could demonstrate a strategic shift away from control-seeking behavior. 2. The United States could signal privately that some ISR or FONOP activity might be open to negotiation, conditional on China shifting away from its maximalist historical rights claims or demonstrating flexibility in code of conduct negotiations. A credible but conditional willingness to scale back the most visible elements of U.S. military signaling could serve as a valuable confidence-building measure, especially if sequenced alongside visible Chinese restraint. Care must be taken to avoid undermining the confidence of allies or weakening normative commitments to freedom of navigation. x Science and Technology Competition Our theory of success for stabilizing the science and technology rivalry can be described as managing the worst aspects of emerging technologies for mutual security and the condition of the rivalry while stepping back from the most extreme versions of efforts to undermine the other side’s progress. Under such a theory, the focus of short- and medium-term stabilization efforts would be to (1) identify and mitigate a small number of the most dangerous possible competitive uses of emerging technologies, through a combination of deterrence and bilateral (or multilateral) agreements; (2) agree on limits to efforts to undermine the rival’s scientific and technological progress; and (3) identify limited, nonthreatening areas where actual collaboration remains possible. Using that theory of success as a guide, we developed ideas in all three categories: political statements and reassurances, short-term measures, and bolder steps for later implementation. In the area of broad political and strategic signaling, we suggest two steps: 1. The United States and China should offer general political reassurances about their intentions in this competition, combined with selected commitments on the limits of the competitive space . These statements would involve, for example, U.S. statements that it does not seek to retard China’s general economic development, that it welcomes cooperation and trade in many high-tech areas, and that it will not impose constraints on the relationship in selected areas of science and technology. 2. The United States and China could initiate Track 1.5 dialogues to expand mutual understanding on emerging areas of technology . The goal would be to establish a forum in which mutual concerns could be raised, definitional issues discussed, and frameworks for assessing risk could be developed. In the area of modest near-term steps, we propose five ideas: 1. Both sides could make careful deterrent commitments to rule out the most destabilizing actions in this competition. They could, for example, clarify that direct interference with critical science and technology assets in their homelands—including research labs, data centers, and semiconductor production facilities—would generate immediate and proportional responses. 2. Each side could make selected, reciprocal promises of restraint in the pursuit and use of specific technologies. These could include limits on gain-of-function research on biology and the use of artificial intelligence (AI)–empowered cyber capabilities in peacetime. The two sides could also formalize the agreement made between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping not to use AI for the command and control of nuclear weapons. 3. The United States and China could attempt to deepen their dialogue on the trajectory and risks of AI, building on the single major intergovernmental dialogue held so far The time may be right to make another effort to significantly deepen the existing channel. 4. The two countries could expand basic science collaboration under the U.S.-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement in areas of limited security concern. xi This could include investments by both sides in joint basic science research in several carefully selected areas deemed to be of limited security concerns. 5. The United States and China could seek greater cooperation in specific limited areas of non-threatening technology , including an “AI for Good” initiative and collaboration on clean energy technology. Finally, in the category of bolder ideas that can be developed for later possible implementation, we suggest two possibilities: 1. Undertake deeper cooperation and development of mitigation measures for potential AI loss of control events. Beyond the AI dialogue suggested above, the United States and China—perhaps in concert with several other countries leading the development of AI—could undertake more detailed and focused assessment of possible misalignment dangers, identifying specific loss-of-control events and how the two sides could collaborate in preserving state control of AI systems and avoiding the worst outcomes. 2. Identify limited areas for a return to deep and regular U.S.-China collaboration in basic science, including joint research between U.S. and Chinese universities and exchanges of students and researchers . This would build on the more limited, near- term search for areas of possible research noted above and aspire to a time when the constraints on mutual scientific collaboration are significantly eased. xii Contents About This Report ......................................................................................................................... iii Summary.........................................................................................................................................iv Figure and Tables ........................................................................................................................ xiii 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 The Urgent Need to Stabilize a Dangerous Rivalry ..................................................................................2 Goals of the Project ...................................................................................................................................3 Approach ...................................................................................................................................................6 2. The Problem of Coexistence in the U.S.-China Rivalry ............................................................. 8 Stable Rivalries: The Idea of Coexistence in Historical Context ..............................................................8 Détente in the Cold War ..........................................................................................................................12 Détente’s Effects: Not a Lifeline to Moscow ..........................................................................................14 An Approach to a Modus Vivendi : Stable Rivalries ................................................................................18 Conclusion: The Urgent Importance of a Modus Vivendi .......................................................................24 3. Can the CCP Coexist with the United States? ........................................................................... 28 Interpreting Strategic Phrases: Debates on Chinese Leadership Rhetoric ..............................................31 Questionable Extrapolation of Externally Focused Insights from Internally Focused Documents and Concepts .....................................................................................................................................34 Omitting Surrounding Context for Interpretation ...................................................................................35 Exploring Alternative Translations of Chinese Terminology .................................................................36 The Background and Context of Source Documents ..............................................................................41 The Nuance Offered by Chinese Authors on Strategic Space.................................................................44 Downplaying Calls for Stability ..............................................................................................................46 Chinese Geopolitical Ambitions and the Potential for Stabilizing the Rivalry.......................................46 Conclusion: An Opening for Coexistence? .............................................................................................53 4. Issue Assessments: Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the U.S.-China Technology Competition ............................................................................................................................. 54 Stabilizing the Rivalry: General Initiatives .............................................................................................57 Assessment Summaries: Taiwan .............................................................................................................59 Assessment Summaries: South China Sea ..............................................................................................63 Assessment Summaries: Science and Technology Competition.............................................................67 Review of Stabilization Proposals...........................................................................................................72 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................................85 Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ 87 References ..................................................................................................................................... 88 xiii Figure and Tables Figure Figure 1. Variables Determining the Stability of a Strategic Rivalry ........................................... 22 Tables Table 4.1. Summary of Taiwan Stabilization Proposals from Literature Review......................... 73 Table 4.2. Summary of South China Sea Stabilization Proposals from Literature Review .......... 79 1 1. Introduction The geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—with its overlapping economic, technological, military, political, and ideological components—has become the leading national security concern for both sides. It is emerging as the fulcrum of world politics in the early 21st century, the most essential dynamic around which other international events and national choices revolve. The rivalry embodies many risks, not only for the two contestants but also for the world community—risks of outright military conflict, economic warfare, and political subversion, but also the danger that tensions between the world’s two leading powers will destroy the potential for global consensus on such issues as climate and artificial intelligence (AI). On the U.S. side of the relationship, the emphasis on finding an avenue to engagement and coexistence under a shared international framework, which had characterized U.S. policy for 30 years, has largely ended, and U.S. policies—as the scholar Hal Brands has put it—now focuses “on penalizing Beijing’s revisionist behavior.” Meanwhile “Today, far from preparing for détente, Xi’s government is hoarding food and fuel, churning out weapons, and making moves that suggest it may be preparing for war.” 1 Both the United States and China are taking broad ranges of actions—in domains such as trade, technology, diplomacy, export controls, military posture, and cyber operations—designed to disrupt the strategies and interests of the other side. China has some goals that are inimical to U.S. interests. Beijing’s current approach to governance, to the extent that it is internationalized, could threaten U.S. values both at home and abroad. Beijing is seeking predominance across many areas of science and technology research and development in ways that could undermine the position of many U.S. business sectors—as has already occurred in such areas a as solar cells and batteries—and leave the United States economically and technologically dependent on its greatest rival. The United States must take steps to head off the most dangerous Chinese ambitions and safeguard U.S. interests. Even as it does so, however, the United States must, as it did during the Cold War, also seek to keep the rivalry from descending into extreme and dangerous levels of tension. The immense risks of a completely destabilized, out-of-control rivalry mean that creating a stable equilibrium in the rivalry is as critical to long-term U.S. interests as competing effectively. 1 Brands, “How Does This End? The Future of U.S.-China Competition,” pp. 4, 7. 2 The Urgent Need to Stabilize a Dangerous Rivalry Moderating this rivalry therefore emerges as a critical goal, both for the United States and China and the wider world. Yet, as happened during the Cold War, a pointed debate has emerged about whether stabilizing this rivalry—via high-level political reassurances and commitments, norms that govern behavior, guardrails in the competition, deeply-grounded relationships among senior officials, collaboration on select issues, and other elements of a geostrategic equilibrium— is even possible. Some skeptics emphasize the natural trajectory of severe bilateral rivalries between great powers, suggesting that they are very difficult to control and that some specific factors (such as power transitions) pose high risks of war. Others who downplay the potential for stabilizing the contest focus on China’s ambitions, arguing that, like prior aggressive revisionists, the current Chinese regime is uninterested in peaceful coexistence. In either case, some observers suggest that emphasizing accommodation and stability can be perceived as weakness. A persistent effort to seek dialogue with Beijing in contrast to containment, argued former congressman Mike Gallagher, risks “creating a permissive environment that feeds Xi Jinping’s appetite for conquest and invites war.” 2 What we are beginning to see is in many ways a replay of the Cold War debate about détente. Recurrently during the U.S.-Soviet contest, American presidents, in some cases long before the paradigmatic era of détente in the 1970s, sought to bring predictability and mutual restraint to the competition, in part to reduce the risk of war but also for other purposes—to signal to allies and friends that the United States was responsible, to reduce U.S. defense and foreign policy commitments, to address domestic opposition, or for other purposes. Critics at the time and since have branded such efforts as foolish and indeed dangerous. They contend that with an ideologically irreconcilable, implacably hostile and potentially adventuristic government like the former Soviet Union, the only appropriate U.S. strategy is to ratchet up the pressure as high as it can reasonably be pushed, to put the rival under maximum geopolitical and economic pressure. 3 We began this project with a very different assumption: that stabilizing even an intense ongoing rivalry is not only possible but can serve the interests of both sides—indeed, is essential if conflict is to be avoided. The RAND project staff and other U.S. participants are deeply aware of China’s hostile, predatory, and sometimes aggressive actions, and that it is imperative for the United States to stand up to specific forms of bullying and manipulation. We take seriously the normative issues surrounding China’s governing system, and the ways in which Beijing sometimes attempts to export its enforcement of orthodoxy and limits on free speech. We also recognize that Chinese officials see the U.S. emphasis on democracy as a means of destabilizing 2 Gallagher, “America Needs a Strategy for China.” 3 Mike Gallagher and Matthew Pottinger specifically apply the lesson of failed détente to current China policy in “No Substitute for Victory,” Foreign Affairs , May/June 2024. 3 their system, and some elements of U.S. Indo-Pacific presence as designed to forcibly contain Chinese power. One implication of these facts is that the rivalry is not some sort of grand misunderstanding that could be cured if only the two sides would comprehend each other better. Some of China’s apparent ambitions, and the means it employs to realize them, are unacceptable to the United States and to many other countries. The United States is determined—in the view of U.S. participants in this project, rightly so—to uphold critical norms and to sustain its role as a security balancer in the region in ways that China views as unwarranted interference in its rightful interests and place in world politics. The United States and China have some conflicting interests and view each other’s actions with significant mistrust and even paranoia. Our focus here is not on ways to transcend or overcome the essential geopolitical disagreement at the core of the rivalry. Such a radical step is simply not plausible today, given the contrasting views of the world and mutual suspicion that pervades the U.S.-China relationship. We are seeing worsening manifestations of a dangerous fact: An extreme level of mistrust bordering at times on paranoia lies at the very roots of the current Sino-American relationship. We therefore did not assume that a comprehensive agenda for coexistence—shifting the rivalry to a much less intense form of competition—was plausible at this stage. We sought in this analysis to assess a much more limited proposition: that even in the context of an intense competition, it might be possible to find limited mechanisms of stabilization across several specific issue areas. This analysis aims to discov