Zbigniew brzezinski

AMERICA'S GEOSTRATEGIC ADJUSTMENT 
It should be the task of American policy to make certain that Japan pursues such a choice and that China's rise 
to regional preeminence does not preclude a stable triangular balance of East Asian power. The effort to 
manage both Japan and China and to maintain a stable three-way interaction that also involves America will 
severely tax American diplomatic skills and political imagination. Shedding past fixation on the threat allegedly 
posed by Japan's economic ascension and eschewing fears of Chinese political muscle could help to infuse cool 
realism into a policy that must be based on careful strategic calculus: how to channel Japanese energy in the 
international direction and how to steer Chinese power into a regional accommodation. 
Only in this manner will America be able to forge on the eastern mainland of Eurasia a geopolitically 
congenial equivalent to Europe's role on the western periphery of Eurasia, that is, a structure of regional power 
based on shared interests. However, unlike the European case, a democratic bridgehead on the eastern mainland 
will not soon emerge. Instead, in the Far East the redirected alliance with Japan must also serve as the basis for 
an American accommodation with a regionally preeminent China. 
For America, several important geostrategic conclusions flow from the analysis contained in the preceding 
two sections of this chapter: 

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The prevailing wisdom that China is the next global power is breeding paranoia abonl China and fostering 
megalomania within China. Fears of an aggressive and antagonistic China that before long is destined to be the 
next global power are, at best, premature; and, at worst, they can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It follows 
that it would be counterproductive to organize a coalition designed to contain China's rise to global power. That 
would only ensure that a regionally influential China would be hostile. At the same time, any such effort would 
strain the American-Japanese relationship, since most Japanese would be likely to oppose such a coalition. 
Accordingly, the United States should desist from pressing Japan to assume larger defense responsibilities in 
the Asia-Pacific region. Efforts to that effect will merely hinder the emergence of a stable relationship between 
Japan and China, while also further isolating Japan in the region. 
But precisely because China is in fact not likely to emerge soon as a global power—and because for that very 
reason it would be unwise to pursue a policy of China's regional containment—it is desirable to treat China as a 
globally significant player. Drawing China into wider international cooperation and granting it the status it 
craves can have the effect of dulling the sharper edges of China's national ambitions. An important step in that 
direction would be to include China in the annual summit of the world's leading countries, the so-called G-7 
(Group of Seven), especially since Russia has also been invited to it. 
Despite appearances, China does not in fact have grand strategic options. China's continued economic 
success remains heavily dependent on the inflow of Western capital and technology and on access to foreign 
markets, and that severely limits China's options. An alliance with an unstable and impoverished Russia would 
not enhance China's economic or geopolitical prospects (and for Russia it would mean subordination to China). 
It is thus not a viable geostrategic option, even if it is tactically tempting for both China and Russia to toy with 
the idea. Chinese aid to Iran and Pakistan is of more immediate regional and geopolitical significance to China, 
but that also does not provide the point of departure for a serious quest for global power status. An 
"antihegemonic" coalition could become a last-resort option if China came to feel that its national or regional 
aspirations were being blocked by the United States (with Japan's support). But it would be a coalition of the 
poor, who would then be likely lo remain collectively poor for quite sonic time. 
A Greater China is emerging as the regionally dominant power. As such, it may attempt to impose itself on its 
neighbors in a manner that is regionally destabilizing; or it may be satisfied with exercising its influence more 
indirectly, in keeping with past Chinese imperial history. Whether a hegemonic sphere of influence or a vaguer 
sphere of deference emerges will depend in part on how brutal and authoritarian the Chinese regime remains 
and in part also on the manner in which the key outside players, notably America and Japan, react to the 
emergence of a Greater China. A policy of simple appeasement could encourage a more assertive Chinese 
posture; but a policy of merely obstructing the emergence of such a China would also be likely to produce a 
similar outcome. Cautious accommodation on some issues and a precise drawing of the line on others might 
avoid either extreme. 
In any case, in some areas of Eurasia, a Greater China may exercise a geopolitical influence that is 
compatible with America's grand geostrategic interests in a stable but politically pluralistic Eurasia. For 
example, China's growing interest in Central Asia inevitably constrains Russia's freedom of action in seeking to 
achieve any form of political reintegration of the region under Moscow's control. In this connection and as 
related to the Persian Gulf, China's growing need for energy dictates a common interest with America in 
maintaining free access to and political stability in the oil-producing regions. Similarly, China's support for 
Pakistan restrains India's ambitions to subordinate that country and offsets India's inclination to cooperate with 
Russia in regard to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Finally, Chinese and Japanese involvement in the 
development of eastern Siberia can likewise help to enhance regional stability. These common interests should 
be explored through a sustained strategic dialogue.10