1nc – China Threat

OFF
Slavery haunts the present as a rupture in being, signification and time – antiblack
violence is an ontological pre-condition for existence itself.
Warren 16 (Calvin, Assistant Professor of American Studies @ GW, “Black Time: Slavery, Metaphysics, and the Logic of Wellness,” The
Psychic Hold of Slavery Legacies in American Expressive Culture, Chapter 3, Editors: Soyica Diggs Colbert, Robert J. Patterson, and Aida Levy-
Hussen 978-0-8135-8395-2, July 2016, p 58-59 //shree)

In an interview with Mark Sinker, Greg Tute adumbrates this logic when he suggests that “ the
bar between signifier and
signified could be understood as standing for the Middle Passage that separated signification from
sign.” The structure of meaning in the modern world—signifier, signified, signification, and sign— depends on
antiblack violence (slavery as master signifier) for its constitution. Not only does the trauma of the Middle
Passage rupture the signifying process , but it also instantiates a meaningless sign as the foundation of
language , meaning, and social existence itself . Following the work of Nicolas Abram and Maria Torck we could suggest that

the meaninglessness of antiblack violence is the crypt-signifier that organizes the modern world and its

institutions. Any meaning that is articulated presumes a kernel of absurdity that blacks embody as fleshy
signs . What I am suggesting is that slavery structures western thought; it is a violent metaphysical enterprise
that reduces the grandeur of black being to an object of exchange and provides the condition of
possibility for western institutions — trade , economy , philosophy , medical science , theology, and so on.
(Can we envision modern civil society without slavery ?) Slavery exceeds ontological violence—the reduction of black
being to object. It structures the world itself; in Frank Wilderson’s words; “ no slave, no world .” When we limit out

scope of slavery to the physical and the legal , we neglect other forms of violence that constitute slavery, such as
epistemological and metaphysical violence . These other aspects are not easily quantifiable using
historiographical instruments and positivists methods . We are just beginning to mine the depths of slavery as an

epistemological, metaphysical (and ontological), and spiritual force. To suggest that slavery is a thing of the past is to
deny the unsettling lifespan of violence; for certain forms of violence never die but are continually
regenerated, reborn, and reincarnated. Slavery is such violence.

Debate is structured by an arch of redemption built around the axis of black

subjugation. The rhetorical form of the 1AC siphons energy into modalities of
humanist redress that are parasitic on black suffering.
Wilderson 16 (Frank B Wilderson III, associate professor of African American Studies and Drama at UC
Irvine, PhD in Rhetoric and Film Studies from UC Berkeley, February 25 2016, “HSI Podcast 52,”
http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/hsi-podcast-52_71843, transcribed from audio 5:33-12:25,
modified) gz
But here’s why I would say that the things can’t be reconciled and why I’m fascinated with the way high school and college debaters are using it. I think it was—I

don’t know what sociologist—Max Weber (you know, I quote all sorts of people except right out fascists)—I believe he said that the power to pose the
question is the greatest power of all . And the way that the question is posed in the world of debate in
January—the question that carries one through the entire twelve months —is posed in a way that cannot be
reconciled with the basic lens of interpretation of Afropessimism . The question is always posed on what I
an arch of redemption . In other words, the question assumes an instance of plenitude , say, the
call and others call

free association and the free assembly—the right to free assembly—of citizens, and then it moves from that
assumption to a rupture. So it moves from equilibrium to disequilibrium , which is to say the manifestation of the
surveillance state. And so the
third move in the tripartite arc of narrative is, of course, the move of redemption ,
which is to say how can the plenitude—whether it’s a historical materialist plenitude, a social
formation having its rights and liberties disrupted—how can that be restored. It’s that movement from
equilibrium to disequilibrium to equilibrium restored which is precisely at the center of the critique of
Afropessimism. Afropessimism is not an offering for historical redemption ; it’s not an offering for the
restoration of a body in need of redress the way that postcolonialism is, the way that Marxism is, the
way that radical feminism is, the way that indigenism is. It’s a critique of the rhetorical structure of
those lenses of interpretation , critiquing them as to a) what they don’t or are unable to say about the
violence that subjugates and positions Blacks and b) why it is that they actually need Blackness as
slaveness to be outside of their lens of interpretation . So there’s a way in which—to come full circle to where I started—there’s
a way in which the rhetorical structure of debate , the demand of debate , the protocols are already
ideologically laden . It doesn’t matter what question you pour into those protocols. The protocols,
themselves, are all ideological straightjackets [ constrictions ] which preclude the kind of investigation of
suffering. In order for Black suffering to be part of the debate question, it would have to go through a
structural adjustment to begin to look like the suffering of some other group . The way Hartman talks
about this is by suggesting that what you have in the world of subalterns—degraded humans who suffer—you
have narratives of the possibility of real or imagined redemption , which is to say, narratives which are
structured around the question of how to relieve the suffering that didn’t happen before the invasion
of some sorts. But what she says with respect to Blacks is that you cannot tell the story of before the

invasion, before the destruction . So, without being able to do that, she says when you think of narrating
Blackness, you have to think of repetition as opposed to redemption . And so when we were off the air, one of the things I
said to Marquis and to Josh is that one of the foreseeable problems with the future of Afropessimism is people kind of

cherry-picking from it to enhance the explanatory power of their own suffering . And that cherry-
picking will actually, inevitably, leave by the wayside the very deliberate absence in Afropessimism , and
of redemptive theorization , which is present in everything else. Redemptive theorization
that is the absence

is theorized through all three volumes of Das Kapital; it’s theorized in the psychoanalytic feminism of
Hartman and people like Julia Kristeva ; it’s theorized in the work of Ward Churchill and Vine Deloria . It’s not only

theorized. I should take a step back. It’s assumed . It’s assumed. And so, these are metacritiques of relationality . What
Afropessimism is is a metacritique of the metacritique , to show how pure and simple relations are
dependent upon —they’re parasitic— using blacks as a parasitic host .

The 1AC misses the boat on foundational antagonisms for violence – it isn’t China vs
the West, but the world vs blackness. Their theorization just props up another
antiblack actor to the helm of power – China has tactically weaponized ethno-racial
hierarchies rooted in antiblack values that proves the aff has the wrong starting point.
Shih 16 (Shu-mei Shih – professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, Asian Languages and
Cultures, and Asian American Studies – UCLA, “Race and Relation: The Global Sixties in the South of the
South” – ERW)
As I have suggested, Bandung was a pivotal moment that turned the lives of Chinese minorities from bad to
worse. While at Bandung, Chinese Premier Chou En-lai affirmed that China had no desire to dominate her
neighbors or spread her influence through the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia (Lee 52) by signing
a treaty with the Indonesian government declaring that China would not try to influence how “the Chinese Question” in Indonesia would be
resolved. This treaty, along with similar kinds of understanding with other Southeast Asian nations, presumably freed these
nations from fear of China’s interference, yet, paradoxically, it also allowed them to act on their fear of
China by prosecuting Chinese minorities in their nation-states . For example, the Tionghoa, besides being the target of
race riots, were the target of dozens of discriminatory laws and policies from the late 1950s all the way up to the end of the period of “New
Order” (1966–98). In 1960, the only Indonesian writer who had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature several times, Pramoedya
Ananta Toer, published The Chinese in Indonesia, a seminal book criticizing Indonesian state racism against Chinese Indonesians, for which he
had to pay the steep price of nine months in prison. Under the New Order, according to Melani Budianti, all “traces of Chineseness”
were banned in Indonesia, including culture, language, and education (277). Indeed, it was not until the race riots
of May 1998 and the subsequent overthrow of the Suharto government that the state’s racist policies against the Tionghoa were formally
abolished. Bandung has been considered the inaugural moment for global “racial brotherhood” (Burton 352), but both the terms “racial” and
“brotherhood” are haunted Comparative Literature Published by Duke University Press COMPARATIVE LITERATURE / 150 3 This was confirmed
by multiple sources, according to the editorials of the special issue of TEMPO, a major radical journal in Indonesia, commemorating the 60th
anniversary of Bandung Conference (24). It also appears that women who served on the hospitality committee were not allowed to refuse
offering sexual services when told to do so (62). not only by what happened in individual Southeast Asian states following the Bandung
conference, but also by revelations of what had transpired during the conference itself. The host of the conference, as has been recently
revealed, ran a “hospitality committee” consisting of beautiful women, some of whom were already married, to offer, among other things,
sexual services to the delegates.3 The masculinist thrust of the conference is perhaps best embodied in the all-tooauthoritarian states that the
participant countries became: in the words of Samir Amin, “Bandung regimes” of one-party states and authoritarian regimes that abused basic
human rights and deprived workers and peasants of economic rights (Lee 18–19). Most
of the countries involved, including India
and Zanzibar, practiced racial nationalisms in which social inequality was structured by ethno-racial

hierarchies (Burton 354; Burges 200). As Dipesh Chakravarty points out, despite activating dialogues among decolonial thinkers (which he
calls “the dialogical side of decolonization”), the Bandung Conference was also a setting where a developmentalist
view of the postcolonial world was taught and circulated — what he calls the “pedagogical style of developmental
politics” (45–68). The nation that would soon experience the extreme casualties of developmentalism in the Great Leap Forward, leading to
thirty million famine-induced deaths, was none other than China itself. By 2015, the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference, the dialogical
side of decolonization has given way completely to developmental politics, in which Third World and AfroAsian solidarity has
become nothing but hollow rhetoric , confined to economic principles of cooperation and
competition. Consider, for example, the special issue commemorating the conference — “60 Years: Asia-African
Conference” — published in 2015 by the radical Indonesian journal TEMPO, which intermittently has suffered
government censure in the past. While this special issue includes reminiscences about the conference, including a prominent
reference to Richard Wright, as well as the exposé of the sexual service scandal, its major focus is Indonesia’s global economic presence,
especially in competition with China. The editorials in the journal even taunt the Indonesian government for not
grabbing a sufficient enough share of the African market and promote an “industrial expansion into
Africa ” (24). Rethinking our piety towards the global sixties has recently spurred critical reflections on the Bandung Conference, such as
Antoinette Burton’s call for a new history that would “refuse all of Bandung’s pieties and romances and break, finally, from its presumptively
fraternal narratives, if not its epistemological grasp” (358). More specifically, it also means a rethinking of the legacies of global Maoism. As a
non-Stalinist and non-white Marxism, or “Marxism with Chinese characteristics,” Maoism had been widely considered an answer to Western
imperialism and capitalism for Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Harding; Fiszman; Rothwell) at Paris ’68 (Fields; Fejto; Bourg), and for African and
the “world revolution” rhetoric of Maoism,
Asian Americans in the United States (Steven Lee; Hinderliter). But, as Yinghong Cheng notes,
which had at the time replaced whites with the Chinese as leaders of colored people of the world, actually

helped blind the Chinese to their own racism (Cheng; Shih, “Race and Revolution”), and Arif Dirlik’s recent essay summing up
the meanings and implications of global Maoism concludes that there is little evidence of “any significant impact” of Maoism on Third World
revolutionary moments; that China’s identification with the Third World, because of its size and power, “has not always been convincing”; and
that, in the end, major Maoist groups in Peru, Cambodia, India, and Turkey exemplified the “degenerative
consequences of revolutionary goals” in their acts of random violence and terrorism (234–35, 252). As I have
shown throughout this essay, theperspectives situated on the margins of the margins within the Global South
— vis-à-vis the lives of ethnic minority peoples in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia — register
strongly opposing positions that clamor for a further rethinking of the global sixties. These perspectives starkly contrast the view of W.E.B.
Du Bois, who went on a ten-week trip to China in 1959 and supplied an African American perspective that is distinct from those of Smith and
Wright and perhaps more typical. Du Bois had written, as early as the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, that the “awakening of the yellow
races is certain” and that “the awakening of the brown and black races will follow in time” (34), and his trip to China appeared to confirm this.
China “amazed and touched” him like no other nation in the world; it was a country where human nature is “freed of its most hurtful and
terrible” and people are “full of joy and faith and marching on in a unison” (190). “Fifteen times I have crossed the Atlantic and once the
Pacific,” he proclaims, and “I have seen the world. But never so fast and glorious a miracle as China” (195). Expressing solidarity especially on
the global racial line, Du Bois declares to his African American readers back home: “ China
is flesh of your flesh and blood of
your blood. China is colored and knows to what a colored skin in this modern world subjects its
owner” (199). The China Du Bois saw in 1959 was a China engulfed in revolutionary euphoria. There was,
however, also a different China, the China of the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and the Great Famine, all of which resulted in
thousands of persecuted intellectuals and millions of corpses. The picture of global racial alliance that China
purportedly advocated was also not all that rosy. China’s engagement with Africa — as can be seen by Chou
En-lai’s no less than ten visits to various African countries between 1963 and 1964, the Chinese support for the building of the Tanzanian-
Zambian highway, and, since 1961, Chinese offerings of scholarships to African students to study in China — was marred by Chinese
racism against Africans within China, especially on college campuses. The first wave of African
students in China was met with such violent racism that two-thirds of them repatriated to Africa
within the first year, and, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Chinese students rioted against African students across major cities of
China, creating conditions that witnesses and participants described as akin to “apartheid,” “cultural rape,” and even

“pogrom” (Shih, “Race and Revolution”). Du Bois’s lack of awareness of what was going on in China at the time reinforced a romantic racial
internationalism also shared by such African American figures as Langston Hughes, who had visited China in 1933 during an earlier era of black
internationalism, as well as Robert Williams, who spent four years in China in the 1960s. Despite
all the best intentions and
professed solidarities, however, in the end it is crucial to take into account China’s sheer size and power, as well
as its long history as the subject of empire. To Southeast Asia, China has always been the Comparative
northern power. Within the Third World or the
Literature Published by Duke University Press COMPARATIVE LITERATURE / 152
Global South, then, there are further north-south differentiations, whose racialized effects reached
Chinese Southeast Asians in the form of lootings, expulsions, rapes, and murders during the global sixties. The
global sixties arc of histories and texts that I trace here, connecting France, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, and Malaysia, was inflected by fissures
within the resistance towards the racialized power of colonialism, as postcolonial nationalisms across Southeast Asia themselves took the form
of racial nationalisms. Furthermore, this arc is also crucially modulated by China’s deft appropriation of the global
racial line and its strategic Third-Worldization. The suppressed relationalities within the Global South, involving the internal
colony in the United States represented by Smith, Wright, and Du Bois and the postcolonies in Southeast Asia represented by Duong and Li,
bubble up not only in Paris, Bandung, and Beijing, but also in Saigon, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Surabaya. Seen from such a relational
perspective, the actual and symbolic geographies of the
North and the South suggest a differentially inflected system
of racialized power, which deeply fractured the global racial line of black, brown, and yellow peoples
throughout the global sixties.
Their faith in some ethereal social order will inevitably reproduce anti-blackness –
only recognizing blackness as the metaphysical foil of the Political through a nihilistic
refusal of their redemptive project can create a space for black life
Warren 15 (Calvin L Warren, Assistant Professor of American Studies at George Washington University,
Spring 2015, “Black Nihilism and the Politics of Hope,” CR: The New Centennial Review Volume 15
Number 1, modified) gz

Throughout this essay, I have argued that the Politics of hope preserve metaphysical structures that sustain black
suffering . This preservation amounts to an exploitation of hope —when the Political colonizes the
spiritual principle of hope and puts it in the service of extending the “will to power” of an anti-black
[End Page 242] organization of existence . The Politics of hope, then, is bound up with metaphysical
violence , and this violence masquerades as a “solution” to the problem of anti-blackness. Temporal
linearity , perfection , betterment , struggle , work , and utopian futurity are conceptual instruments
of the Political that will never obviate black suffering or anti-black violence ; these concepts only serve
to reproduce the conditions that render existence unbearable for blacks . Political theologians and
black optimists avoid the immediacy of black suffering, the horror of anti-black pulverization, and
place relief in a “not-yet-but-is (maybe)-to-come-social order” that, itself, can do
little more but admonish blacks to survive to keep struggling . Political hope becomes a vicious and
abusive cycle of struggle —it mirrors the Lacanian drive , and we encircle an object (black freedom,
justice, relief, redress, equality, etc.) that is inaccessible because it doesn’t really exist . The political
theologian and black optimist, then, propose a collective Jouissance as an answer to black suffering—
finding the joy in struggle , the victory in toil , and the satisfaction in inefficacious action . We continue
to “struggle” and “work” as black youth are slaughtered daily , black bodies are incarcerated as forms
of capital , black infant mortality rates are soaring , and hunger is disabling the bodies, minds, and
spirits of desperate black youth . In short, these conditions are deep metaphysical problems —the
sadistic pleasure of metaphysical domination —and “work” and “struggle” avoid the terrifying fact
that the world depends on black death to sustain itself . Black nihilism attempts to break this
“drive” —to stop it in its tracks , as it were—and to end the cycle of insanity [absurdity] that political
hope perpetuates. The question that remains is a question often put to the black nihilist: what is the
point? This compulsory geometrical structuring of thought —all knowledge must submit to, and is
reducible to, a point —it is an epistemic flicker of certainty, determination, and, to put it bluntly, life .
“The point” exists for life; it enlivens, enables, and sustains knowledge. Thought outside of this mandatory point is illegible
and useless . To write outside of the “episteme of life” and its grammar will require a position outside
of this point , a position somewhere in the infinite horizon of thought (perhaps this is what Heidegger wanted to do
with his reconfiguration of thought). Writing in this way is inherently subversive and refuses the geometry of
thought . Nevertheless, the [End Page 243] nihilist is forced to enunciate his refusal through a “point,” a
point that is contradictory and paradoxical all at once. To say that the point of this essay is
that “the point” is fraudulent —its promise of clarity and life are inadequate— will not satisfy
the hunger of disciplining the nihilist and insisting that one undermine the very ground upon which
one stands. Black nihilistic hermeneutics resists “the point” but is subjected to it to have one’s voice
heard within the marketplace of ideas. The “point” of this essay is that political hope is pointless .
Black suffering is an essential part of the world , and placing hope in the very structure that sustains
metaphysical violence , the Political, will never resolve anything. This is why the black nihilist speaks
of “exploited hope,” and the black nihilist attempts to wrest hope from the clutches of the Political .
Can we think of hope outside the Political? Must “salvation” translate into a political grammar or a
political program? The nihilist, then, hopes for the end of political hope and its metaphysical violence.
Nihilism is not antithetical to hope; it does not extinguish hope but reconfigures it . Hope is the
foundation of the black nihilistic hermeneutic. In “Blackness and Nothingness,” Fred Moten (2013) conceptualizes
blackness as a “pathogen” to metaphysics , something that has the ability to unravel , to disable
[ stultify ], and to destroy anti-blackness . If we read Vattimo through Moten’s brilliant analysis, we can suggest that
blackness is the limit that Heidegger and Nietzsche were really after. It is a “blackened” world that will
ultimately end metaphysics , but putting an end to metaphysics will also put an end to the world itself
—this is the nihilism that the black nihilist must theorize through. This is a far cry from what we call
“anarchy ,” however. The black nihilist has as little faith in the metaphysical reorganization of society
through anarchy than [t]he[y] does in traditional forms of political existence. The black nihilist offers
political apostasy as the spiritual practice of denouncing metaphysical violence, black suffering, and
the idol of anti-blackness . The act of renouncing will not change political structures or offer a political
program; instead, it is the act of retrieving the spiritual concept of hope from the captivity of the
Political . Ultimately, it is impossible to end metaphysics without ending blackness ,
and the black nihilist will never be able to withdraw from the Political completely without a certain
death-drive or being-toward-death . This is the essence of black [End Page 244] suffering: the lack of
reprieve from metaphysics , the tormenting complicity in the reproduction of violence, and the lack
of a coherent grammar to articulate these dilemmas. After contemplating these issues for some time
in my office, I decided to take a train home. As I awaited my train in the station, an older black woman
asked me about the train schedule and when I would expect the next train headed toward Dupont Circle. When I told her
the trains were running slowly, she began to talk about the government shutdown. “They don’t care
anything about us, you know,” she said. “We elect these people into office, we vote for them, and they watch black people
suffer and have no intentions of doing anything about it.” I shook my head in agreement and listened intently. “I’m going to stop

voting, and supporting this process ; why should I keep doing this and our people continue to suffer,” she said. I looked at her
and said, “I don’t know ma’am; I just don’t understand it myself.” She then laughed and thanked me for listening to her—as if our conversation
were somewhat cathartic. “You know, people think you’re crazy when you say things like this ,” she said giving me a
wink. “Yes they do,” I said. “But I am a free woman ,” she emphasized “and I won’t go back.” Shocked, I smiled at her,
and she winked at me; at that moment I realized that her wisdom and courage penetrated my mind and
demanded answers. I’ve thought about this conversation for some time, and it is for this reason I had to write this essay. To the
brave woman at the train station, I must say you are not crazy at all but thinking outside of
metaphysical time, space, and violence. Ultimately, we must hope for the end of political hope .
 OFF
The 1ac’s analysis of the resolution posits China as a monolithic entity – turning the
West into a locus point of identification erases the complexities of China’s position,
effacing its history while also justifying its modern imperial aspirations
Chen 10 [Kuan-Hsing Chen, professor in the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies,
coordinator of the Center for Asia-Pacific/Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University, “Asia as
Method,” Duke University Press, 2010] Manu

Under present historical conditions, with the economic, historical, and cultural meanings of Asia fluctuating and
contradictory, members of critical intellectual circles in Asia are better equipped to move beyond the limit of
the nation-state boundary, to develop discourses congruent with the new condition, to create a new
discursive mood, and to imagine new possibilities. In the intellectual history of the twentieth century, the word “Asia” was
in fact loaded with anxieties. As Wang Hui points out in “Imagining Asia: A Genealogical Analysis,” the notion of Asia “is colonial,

and is also anti-colonial ; it is nationalist and is also internationalist; it is European, but also in turn has
shaped the self-understanding of Europe; it is tightly connected to the question of the nation-state,
and is over- lapping with the perspective of the empire; it is a civilizational concept in relation to
Europe, but is also a geographical category established in geo-political relations” (Wang 2002, 204). These
anxieties, entangled and interrelated, have to do not only with the question of the West, but also with
historical memories within Asia. Inside the region itself, anxiety over the meaning of Asia arises from the
politics of representation. For instance, in Japan and South Korea, Asia has referred mainly to China, and occasionally to India. This
understanding of Asia indicates how larger civilizational entities functioned historically . China , for example, considers itself to be

the center of its imaginary Asia , so Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, the Pacific
Islands, Australia, and New Zealand have been pushed to the margins or have simply disappeared
altogether. In East Asia, challenging this bias can open up new horizons and a broader regional system of reference. There is certainly a
need for subregional integration, but it would be a mistake with enormous consequences if East Asia were imagined as a replacement for the
whole of Asia. The anxiety over representation is also evident when Asia is seen as primarily a colonial
imagination . If Asia is to have analytical value, it does indeed have to be placed within the frame of world history, but if world history is
understood as Euro-American imperialism and capitalist expansion, the agency and subjectivity of Asia are stripped away. It would be no
different than saying that since the nation-state is a European or colonialist construct, it is therefore illegitimate. If
the legitimacy of
the discourse on Asia is discounted, we are left with the old binary opposition between the East and
the West, which erases Asia’s rich multiplicity and heterogeneity. Asia as method recognizes the need
to keep a critical distance from uninterrogated notions of Asia, just as one has to maintain a critical
distance from uninterrogated notions of the nation-state . It sees Asia as a product of history, and
realizes that Asia has been an active participant in historical processes. Building on the analyses developed in the
previous chapters, this chapter presents a series of dialogues. The first dialogue takes up once again the old question of
the West as it is rearticulated in several seminal postcolonial texts. The purpose here is to pinpoint the understandable but
unnecessary obsession with the question of the West, and then to suggest a move toward Asia as a possible way of shifting
points of reference and breaking away from the East-West binary structure. The second dialogue is with Partha
Chatterjee’s theory of political society. By analyzing how civil society can be translated or understood as what I will call mínjiān society, it argues
that this translation provides a point of access into the organic shape and characteristics of local society. The third dialogue is with Mizoguchi
Yūzō’s China as Method ([1989] 1996). In this dialogue, Asia as method ceases to consider Asia as the object of analysis and becomes a means
of transforming knowledge production. The Question of the West In
the history of imperialism, diverse positions and
discourses competing against each other in colonized national spaces have responded in various ways
to the invasions of Western forces
. The discursive formulations have continually resurfaced at different points in history, constituting intellectual traditions. These
traditions of response to the West have in turn become the main heritage of nationalist thought . In
various Chinese contexts, this heritage is evident in the evoking of familiar historical events such as the Boxer Rebellion of the late Qing
Dynasty; formulations like “Chinese knowledge as the basis, western knowledge as the application” (zhōngtǐ xīyòng); and positions as diverse as
modernist, nativist, and neotraditionalist. Emerging in different historical contexts, each of these diverse modes of response became the
leading nationalist discourse of its time. But whatever the label, the moral and emotional legitimacy of these discourses appeals to patriotic
sentiments. The presumed consensus is that “we are doing this for the good of the country and the people.” Such a sincere appeal has its
emotional and material basis in the national history of suffering. But the Other, which has conditioned this nationalist self, has been and still is
the West. This imaginary West has performed different functions in nationalist discourses. It has been an
opposing entity, a system of reference, an object from which to learn, a point of measurement, a goal
to catch up with, an intimate enemy, and sometimes an alibi for serious discussion and action . For the
past few centuries, “the West as method” has become the dominant condition of knowledge production . As
Stuart Hall points out in his important essay, “The West and the Rest,” the West performs a wide range of functions. It is a framework
used to categorize different societies and their characteristics. It is a structure of knowledge, a series
of images that form a system of representation that connects with other concepts (the
West/metropolitan/developed/industrialized versus the non-West/ rural/underdeveloped/agricultural). It is the basic criterion by
which the backward and disposable is differentiated from the desirable and progressive (Hall 1992b, 277).
Hall’s account sums up the functions of the West within the geographical space of the West, but in the third world, the West has

become the object of both desire and resentment . This fatal attraction—or, to use Arif Dirlik’s (1997) term, “fatal
distraction”—has become the backbone of third-world nationalism. In fact, the discussion has always been framed as a
dichotomy: the East versus the West, China versus the West, South Korea versus the West, Japan versus the West, India
versus the West, and so on. In this situation, we must ask: what is the subject of nationalist discourse, if not the West? If this political
unconscious has become the basis for the reproduction of the structure of desire, we need to
reconsider this history and compare how the West has been imagined and reimagined in various local
spaces over time.

The narrative of Western imperial invasion obscures the oppressive practices of

China’s empire – this locks subjectivities within the imperial desire and recreates the
1ac’s impacts
Chen 10 [Kuan-Hsing Chen, professor in the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies,
coordinator of the Center for Asia-Pacific/Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University, “Asia as
Method,” Duke University Press, 2010] Manu

*we do not endorse ableist rhetoric

Resisting imperialism can no longer be reduced to the simple gesture of resisting outside forces. Chinese
intellectuals need to transcend the lingering master narrative of the tragic Western imperialist
invasion . Our shared consciousness [acknowledgement] of suffering should not prevent us from critically
reflecting on the immense political, military, and cultural pressures that the Chinese empire has
exerted on its neighbors throughout history. The anxiety over the rise of China in the region today does not stem only from
contemporary China's economic and military growth or the authoritarian policies of the CCP, but also from the historical China—the
China of the tributary system. Intellectuals in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even the Chinese communities in diaspora need
to reflect on the historical identity and positioning of the Chinese empire in the premodern era . Doing
so preempts the possibility of falling back into the imperial dream, the desire to become a
superpower that can compete with the United States . In Asia, the deimperialization question cannot be
limited to a reexamination of the impacts of Western imperialist invasion , Japanese colonial violence, and U.S.
neo-imperialist expansion, but must also include the oppressive practices of the Chinese empire . Since
the status of China has shifted from an empire to a big country, how should China position itself now? In what new ways can it interact with
neighboring countries? Questions like these can be productively answered only through deimperialized self-questioning, and that type of
reflexive work has yet to be undertaken. In my view, it would be a huge mistake to think of a return to empire as a
way to resist U.S. imperialism, though this sort of dangerous thinking has already begun to emerge in mainland China. Instead,
Chinese intellectuals need to self-consciously recognize that by positioning itself as a big country,
China needs to shoulder a commensurate responsibility—not to fight to achieve world domination,
but to make contributions to the integration of Asia. China must not become an imperializing force in
Asia. Following Sun Yat-sen's insights, we must recognize that the first step toward the elimination of imperialism is
the lessening of our own imperial desire. Only by radically reflecting on our own past imperial identity
can we acquire a new subjectivity , and only then will we be able to extend the deimperialization question to rethink Euro-
American imperialism and Japanese colonialism. In this context, debating whether Japan is an independent country is, in fact, a type of self-
questioning. The Japanese problem is also ours. The worship of America in Chinese and Taiwanese intellectual circles is due to our inability to
recognize our own imperial identification with the Chinese empire. To peel back the layers of history and expose imperial desire is a
precondition for moving toward regional reconciliation, integration, and independence.

Vote neg to endorse Asia as method – critical work on deimperialization must first
break free from Western locus points of identification, the alternative uses Asia as an
anchoring point to foster self-reflexive processes between intellectuals of the East –
this is a necessary prerequisite to self-transformation and resistance
Chen 10 [Kuan-Hsing Chen, professor in the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies,
coordinator of the Center for Asia-Pacific/Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University, “Asia as
Method,” Duke University Press, 2010] Manu

Knowledge production is one of the major sites in which imperialism operates and exercises its power. The analyses
in the preceding chapters suggest that the underdevelopment of deimperialization movements is a significant contributing factor in local, regional, and global
conflicts throughout the contemporary world. This underdevelopment, I submit, has to do with the current
conditions of knowledge
production, which have serious structural limitations . To break through the impasse, critical intellectual work on
deimperialization first and foremost has to transform these problematic conditions , transcend the structural
limitations, and uncover alternative possibilities. To confront the long-lasting impact of leaving Asia for America" (tudyii ramie) since the Second World War in East
Asia in general, and Tai-wan in particular, this chapter puts forward "Asia
as method" as a critical proposition to transform the
existing knowledge structure and at the same time to transform ourselves. The potential of Asia as method is this:
using the idea of Asia as an imaginary anchoring point, societies in Asia can become each other's
points of reference, so that the understanding of the self may be transformed, and s

ubjectivity rebuilt. On this basis, the diverse historical experiences and rich social practices of Asia may be mobilized to
provide alternative horizons and perspectives. This method of engagement, I believe, has the potential to
advance a different under-standing of world history. At the same time, the formulation of Asia as method is also an at-tempt to
move forward on the tripartite problematic of decolonization, deimperialization, and de-cold war. To briefly recap the analysis devel-oped over the previous four
chapters: the historical processes of imperi-alization, colonization, and the cold war have become mutually entangled structures, which have shaped and
conditioned both intellectual and popular knowledge production. Through the use of Asia as method, a society in Asia may be inspired by how other Asian societies
deal with problems similar to its own, and thus overcome unproductive anxieties and develop new paths of engagement. In proposing a means for
self-transformation through shifting our points of reference toward Asia and the third world, Asia as
method is grounded in the critical discourses of an earlier generation of thinkers , with whom we now imagine new
possi-bilities. For those of us living in Asia, Asia as method is not a self-explanatory proposition. Until the last decade, most intellectuals in Asia had
mul-tiple direct links to North America or Europe, but we had few contacts among ourselves . If we met at all,
it was in New York, London, or Paris. At its most basic, Asia as method means expanding the number of these meeting points to include sites in Asia such as Seoul,
Kyoto, Singapore, Bangalore, Shanghai, and Taipei. As a theoretical proposition, Asia as method is a result of practices growing out of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies:
Movements journal project, which has been operating since the late 19905. In this context, Asia
as method can be considered a self-
reflexive movement to examine prob-lems and issues emerging out of our experiences organizing
interventions in various local spaces.' Those of us who have been involved come from very diverse intellectual and academic backgrounds, not
to mention re-gions with immensely varied local histories. Yet we all feel that something important and worthwhile is emerging out of the intense dialogues we are
undertaking among ourselves and with others. Asia as method is my own attempt to think through some of these intellectual concerns, priorities, and processes.
The Inter-Asia project is not new An earlier generation of intellectuals paved the way, and having learned of their struggles, we are now finding out for ourselves
how difficult it is to initiate dialogues and links among critical circles in Asia? The most obvious difficulty is the imbalance be-tween big countries and small ones,
evident in the relationships between India and the rest of South Asia, Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia, and China and the rest of Northeast Asia. What we
now call inter-national relations existed in each subregion of Asia before the forma-tion of the modem nation-state, and the earlier imbalances were exacer-bated
by twentieth-century colonialism and nationalism. Each of these factors — size, colonial experiences, and nationalism—is evident in the major historical conflicts in
the region: Japan's aggression in East and Southeast Asia, Indonesia's 1963 massacre of communists and reluctance to grant East Timor its independence, the
division of Korea, the conflict between the CCP and the KMT, the partition of Pakistan from India, the separation of Singapore from Malaysia, and the unequal
distribution of wealth between first- and third-world Asian countries. Dealing with these large-scale conflicts is made more difficult by recurring practical prob-lems.
For example, English is often seen as a colonial language in non-English-speaking parts of Asia, and those countries that have adopted it are viewed by others as
much too colonized. As we interact, problems such as this surface repeatedly, and we have not yet found effective ways to handle them.
 OFF
Text: We endorse the entirety of the 1AC sans their reading and endorsement of
United States federal government action.

The 1ac’s inclusion of a plantext relegitimizes lawfare – renders questions of settler

colonialism as controlled by the law – their investment into the simulacra of lawfare
normalizes the necropolitical state, maintaining the false distinction between law and disorder while
justifying the extermination of deviant bodies.
Camaroff and Camaroff 7 (John Comaroff, Professor of African and African American Studies and of
Anthropology, Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard, and Jean Comaroff, Professor of
African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies also
at Harvard, “Law and disorder in the postcolony”,
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1286816.files/Law%20and%20Disorder.pdf)

Nor is it just the politics of the present that are being judicialised. As we said earlier, the
past, too, is being fought out in the
courts. Britain, for example, is currently being sued for acts of atrocity in its African empire (Anderson 2005; Elkins 2005): for having killed
local leaders, unlawfully alienated territory from one African people to another, and so on.33 By these means is colonialism itself
rendered criminal. Hauled before a judge, history is made to submit to the scales of justice at the
behest of those who suffered it. And to be reduced to a cash equivalent, payable as the official tender of damage, dispossession,
loss, trauma. What imperialism is being indicted for, above all, is its commission of lawfare : the use of its
own penal codes, its administrative procedures, its states of emergency, its charters and mandates
and warrants, to discipline its subjects by means of violence made legible and legal by its own
sovereign word. Also, to commit its own ever-so-civilised forms of kleptocracy. Lawfare – the resort to legal instruments, to the violence
inherent in the law, to commit acts of political coercion, even erasure (Comaroff 2001) – is equally marked in postcolonies. As a species of
political displacement, it becomes most visible when those who ‘serve’ the state conjure with
legalities to act against its citizens. Most infamous recently is Zimbabwe, where the Mugabe regime has consistently passed laws
to justify the coercive silencing of its critics. Operation Murambatsvina, ‘Drive Out Trash’, which has forced political opponents out of urban
areas under the banner of ‘slum clearance’ – has recently taken this practice to unprecedented depths. Murambatsvina, says the government,
is merely an application of the law of the land to raze dangerous ‘illegal structures’. Lawfare
may be limited or it may reduce
people to ‘bare life’; in Zimbabwe, it has mutated into a necropolitics with a rising body count . But it always
seeks to launder visceral power in a wash of legitimacy as it is deployed to strengthen the sinews of
state or enlarge the capillaries of capital. Hence Benjamin’s (1978) thesis that the law originates in violence and
lives by violent means; that the legal and the lethal animate one another . Of course, in 1919 Benjamin could not
have envisaged the possibility that lawfare might also be a weapon of the weak, turning authority back on itself by commissioning courts to
make claims for resources, recognition, voice, integrity, sovereignty. But this still does not lay to rest the key questions: Why
the
fetishism of legalities ? What are its implications for the play of Law and Dis/order in the postcolony?
And are postcolonies different in this respect from other nation-states? The answer to the first question looks
obvious. The turn to law would seem to arise directly out of growing anxieties about lawlessness . But this
does not explain the displacement of the political into the legal or the turn to the courts to resolve an
ever greater range of wrongs. The fetishism, in short, runs deeper than purely a concern with crime. It has to do with
the very constitution of the postcolonial polity
. Late modernist nationhood, it appears, is
undergoing an epochal move away from the ideal of cultural
homogeneity: a nervous, often xenophobic shift toward heterogeneity (Anderson 1983). The rise of neoliberalism –
with its impact on population flows, on the dispersion of cultural practices, on geographies of production and accumulation – has heightened
this, especially in former colonies, which were erected from the first on difference. And difference begets more law. Why? Because, with
growing heterodoxy, legal instruments appear to offer a means of commensuration (Comaroff and Comaroff
2000): a repertoire of standardised terms and practices that permit the negotiation of values, beliefs,
ideals and interests across otherwise intransitive lines of cleavage . Hence the flight into a
constitutionalism that explicitly embraces heterogeneity in highly individualistic, universalistic Bills of
Rights, even where states are paying less and less of the bills. Hence the effort to make human rights
into an ever more global, ever more authoritative discourse. But there is something else at work too. A well-recognised
corollary of the neoliberal turn, recall, has been the outsourcing by states of many of the conventional operations of governance, including
those, like health services, policing and the conduct of war, integral to the management of life itself. Bureaucracies
do retain some
of their old functions, of course. But most 21st century governments have reduced their administrative
reach, entrusting ever more to the market and delegating ever more responsibility to citizens as
individuals, as volunteers, as classes of actor, social or legal . Under these conditions, especially where the
threat of disorder seems immanent, civil law presents itself as a more or less effective weapon of the
weak, the strong and everyone in between. Which , in turn, exacerbates the resort to lawfare . The court
has become a utopic site to which human agency may turn for a medium in which to pursue its ends .
This, once again, is particularly so in postcolonies, where bureaucracies and bourgeoisies were not elaborate to begin with; and in which
heterogeneity had to be negotiated from the start. Put all this together and the fetishism of the law seems over-
determined . Not only is public life becoming more legalistic, but so, in regulating their own affairs and
in dealing with others, are ‘communities’ within the nation-state : cultural communities, religious
communities, corporate communities, residential communities, communities of interest, even outlaw
communities. Everything , it seems, exists here in the shadow of the law . Which also makes it unsurprising that a
‘culture of legality’ should saturate not just civil order but also its criminal undersides. Take another example from South Africa, where
organised crime appropriates, re-commissions and counterfeits the means and ends of both the state and the market. The gangs on the Cape
Flats in Cape Town mimic the business world, having become a lumpen stand-in for those excluded from the national economy (Standing 2003).
For their tax-paying clients, those gangs take on the positive functions of government, not least security provision. Illicit corporations of this sort
across the postcolonial world often have shadow judicial personnel and convene courts to try offenders against the persons, property and social
order over which they exert sovereignty. They also provide the policing that the state either has stopped supplying or has outsourced to the
private sector. Some have constitutions. A few are even structured as franchises and, significantly, are said to offer ‘alternative citizenship’ to
their members.35 Charles Tilly (1985) once suggested, famously, that modern states operate much like organised crime. These days, organised
crime is operating ever more like states. Self-evidently, the
counterfeiting of a culture of legality by the criminal
underworld feeds the dialectic of law and disorder . After all, once government outsources its policing
services and franchises force, and once outlaw organisations shadow the state by providing protection
and dispensing justice, social order itself becomes like a hall of mirrors . What is more, this dialectic has its
own geography. A geography of discontinuous, overlapping sovereignties . We said a moment ago that
communities of all kinds have become ever more legalistic in regulating their affairs; it is often in the
process of so doing, in fact, that they become communities at all, the act of judicialisation being also an act of
objectification. Herein lies their will to sovereignty, which we take to connote the exercise of autonomous
control over the lives, deaths and conditions of existence of those who fall within its purview – and
the extension over them of the jurisdiction of some kind of law . ‘ Lawmaking’ , to cite Benjamin (1978: 295) yet
again, ‘ is power making .’ But ‘power is the principal of all lawmaking’ . In sum, to transform itself into
sovereign authority, power demands an architecture of legalities . Or their simulacra.
 OFF
Reduce refers to sweeping measures that establish qualitative or quantitative limits
on weapon exports- that’s distinct from restrictions on specific states or types of
weapons
Pearson 88 (Frederic S. Pearson, Prof. of Political Science and Fellow at the Center of International
Studies @ University of Missouri-St Louis, Arms Transfer Limitations and Third World Security, ed.
Thomas Ohlson, SIPRI publication, pgs. 129-130)

Based on these general perspectives, second-tier suppliers have formulated both unilateral and multilateral positions on the
management, restriction or reduction of Third World arms transfers. These are examined separately in order to assess
the restraints most likely to be adopted in the future.  Arms trade management , whether unilateral or multilateral, implies rules
for reporting or licensing sales in specific circumstances, as well as potential market sharing
arrangements.  Restriction of sales entails disapproval, banning or embargoes to  specific states  or  classes

of states  or of specific types of weapon. Reduction of transfers includes more sweeping measures,

such as qualitative or quantitative limits or ceilings, and deliberate government policies or international
agreements designed to curtail weapon exports. In the process of devising restraints, there can be trade-offs, such as restraints
on transferring arms versus the technology or equipment to make or use them, on naval versus air versus land systems, or on weapon
deliveries versus new sales agreements.

Violation – the aff’s embargo to Taiwan is a restriction

Voting issue for limits and ground – key to negative preparation on a topic with 98
countries and a wide diversity of negative positions like country specific disads and
cps.
 OFF
OFF [1] Interpretation---aff teams must disclose 1AC and 2AC evidence on the wiki in
open source format, including full text and highlighting---key to fairness, in-depth
prep, and accessibility.
OFF [2] Old affs are bad – this was an aff cut at camp – it prevents argumentative
innovation – counterinterp is break a new aff on day one of the tournament.
 OFF
Substantially reduce means 50%
DODI, 9 – “Army Acquisition Procedures” Department of the Army Pamphlet 70–3,
http://everyspec.com/ARMY/ARMY-General/download.php?spec=PAM_70-3_RAR_2009.029324.pdf
DODI = Department of Defense Instruction 5000.02 – this refers to guidance for defense acquisition.
ACAT = Acquisition Category

f. Army JPMs or their DOD Components cannot terminate or substantially reduce participation in joint
ACAT ID programs without JROC review and USD(AT&L) approval, or, in the case of joint ACAT IA
programs, ASD(NII) approval. DODI 5000.02 defines substantial reduction as a funding or quantity
decrease of 50 percent or more in the total funding or quantities in the latest President’s Budget for
that portion of the joint program funded by the component seeking the termination or reduced
participation.

Violation – they reduce 27% -- voter for limits and ground – 98 country specific affs
makes neg prep impossible.
 OFF
Our interpretation is that you have to defend a material advantage based off of the
plan
Violation – their advantage is purely based on discursive effects of the plan
Voter for education – otherwise it becomes impossible to generate a literature based
solvency deficit to the plan and allows them to spike out of any of our disad links.
 OFF
We’d respond to an attack on the homeland or allies with a devastating counterforce
attack that would crush China
David J. Lonsdale 19 {David Lonsdale is the Director of the Centre for Security Studies at the University
of Hull, UK. 5/17/2019. “The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review: A return to nuclear warfighting?”
https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/doi/full/10.1080/01495933.2019.1573074}//JM

what objectives would the U.S. pursue within a nuclear conflict , and how would they be achieved? It appears
The important question is:

that the primary objectives sought would be damage limitation (an important component of warfighting) and the reestablishment of
deterrence. This fits with the preliminary qualifying statement to this section of the review, in which it is stated that the U.S. would use nuclear weapons in compliance with the law of armed

the NPR is at pains to note that nuclear forces would only be used for defensive purposes.
conflict.86 Indeed,

One assumes that this rules out counter-value targeting (deliberate attacks against enemy population
centers). This leaves counterforce operations as the only option. Strikes against enemy nuclear forces
and their command and control, in conjunction with active ballistic missile defenses ( BMD ), would
help ensure damage limitation for the U.S. and its allies .87 A focus on counterforce options is
reminiscent of later Cold War strategy , when the U.S. increasingly procured weapon systems with increased accuracy and penetrative capability designed for
warfighting. Indeed, Lieber and Press argue that increases in accuracy and remote sensing have enhanced the

potency of counterforce options, to the point that low-casualty counterforce options are possible for
the first time .88 One can reasonably assume, although it is not explicitly noted in the review, that the restoration of deterrence would be achieved through a combination of intra-
war deterrence by denial (as noted above in relation to counter-escalation strategies) and punishment for coercive purposes. Inclusion of the latter is premised on references to “unacceptable
consequences” resulting from nuclear attack elsewhere in the NPR. 89 However, in the face of no counter-value targeting, it is reasonable to question how these costs would be inflicted. There
are three possible answers, although none of them is discussed in the NPR. First, it may be that the enemy values highly their nuclear forces; so that the loss of them would inflict unacceptable
costs. Alternatively, there may be an unwritten assumption that counterforce strikes would inevitably produce “bonus” counter-value damage. Much of the nuclear force infrastructure
(including command and control, airbases, etc.) is within or near population centers. Thus, even a limited counterforce strike is likely to have a significant detrimental effect on counter-value

the stated desire to procure accurate limited-yield weapons

targets. This assumption, however, is somewhat thrown into question by

and to operate within the norms of the war convention. Low-yield accurate weapons would be ideal
for counterforce missions and would minimize damage to counter-value target sets . Thus, bonus
damage is likely to be limited. Finally, although again not explicitly noted in the NPR, perhaps there is a return to the notion of
attacking targets associated with political control. Yet again, though, concerns over collateral damage would likely restrict a campaign aimed at the
means of political control. We are, thus, left with many questions concerning how the coercive effects of nuclear weapons would be administered. This is problematic, for as Thomas C.
Schelling eloquently noted, “The power to hurt can be counted among the most impressive attributes of military force.” 90 It has to be concluded that the uncertainties in this area of strategy
reflect either a paradox or incomplete strategic thinking in the NPR. Clarity on these matters would be welcome, especially as it would enhance deterrence credibility still further. Although
countervailing is back on the agenda in the 2018 NPR, there is no mention of prevailing in a nuclear conflict. Indeed, the review quotes Defense Secretary Mattis, echoing the early thoughts of
Brodie, that nuclear war can never be won, and thus must never be fought.91 This is both curious and disappointing from a warfighting perspective, and speaks to the need for the further
development of strategic thinking in U.S. nuclear strategy under Trump. Damage limitation and the reestablishment of deterrence are perfectly admirable goals within the context of nuclear
conflict. However, if the U.S. is to achieve its objectives in a post-deterrence environment, it must have a comprehensive theory of victory. Damage limitation and the reestablishment of
deterrence are limited negative objectives. They do not provide a positive driving force for the use of nuclear weapons. To reiterate, victory refers to a policy objective that must be achieved in

the will of the enemy must be broken by destroying his ability to resist ,
the face of the enemy. And, as Clausewitz reminds us,

or putting him in such a position as his defeat is inevitable.92 If we consider the conditions under which
U.S. nuclear weapons could be used, as stipulated by the 2018 NPR, then we can assume that an
enemy power (likely Russia, China, North Korea, or a state-sponsored terror group) has launched a substantial attack on either
the U.S. or one of its allies. We can think in terms of a Russian assault on the Baltic States, a North Korean attack on South Korea, or perhaps a Chinese
invasion of Taiwan. Alternatively, the U.S. may have been subjected to a substantial strategic attack, involving either weapons of mass destruction (including biological or
chemical) or a crippling cyberattack. In any of these scenarios, more expansive objectives would be required. As Lieber and Press note, “In some cases, wars may be triggered by events that
compel U.S. leaders to pursue decisive victory, conquest, and/or regime change.” 93 Thus, in order to achieve its objectives, the U.S. would variously need to: punish an aggressor to reinstate
deterrence; defeat enemy forces for damage limitation or to reclaim lost territory; and, in the North Korean case, presumably overthrow a communist regime. In some of these cases, damage
limitation and the reestablishment of deterrence would not be enough. Enemy forces would have to be defeated, removed, destroyed, or coerced (to withdraw from allied territory). Any
operations in pursuit of these goals would need a theory of victory built on a detailed understanding of the use of nuclear weapons in the service of military objectives; i.e., nuclear warfighting.
This could include defeating enemy nuclear forces for force protection of U.S. and allied conventional forces. Alternatively, U.S. nuclear forces may be required to defeat regionally superior
enemy conventional forces. And yet, as previously noted, the NPR rules out a return to nuclear warfighting. This is a significant disjuncture in U.S. nuclear strategy. It is even more curious when

one considers the range of modern forces the Trump administration seeks to acquire under the 2018 NPR.
Now is key – further development of the DF-41 allows China 2 nd strike capabilities
Kristensen and Norris, ’18 Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the
Federation of American Scientists and his collaboration with researchers at NRDC in 2010 resulted in an
estimate of the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile that was only 13 weapons off the actual
number declassified by the U.S. government, and Robert S. Norris, senior fellow with the Federation of
American Scientists in Washington, DC and a former senior research associate with the Natural
Resources Defense Council, June 25th, 2018, “Chinese nuclear forces”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
Volume 74, Issue 4: Special issue: Missile Defense, around the world and, perhaps, in space,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2018.1486620, EO

China is continuing the modernization of its land-based nuclear-capable missile force. Overall, we estimate
that it possesses approximately 120 nuclear-capable land-based missiles that can carry 186 nuclear warheads. The force is slowly

increasing in both number and variety.

Over the past three years, China has fielded three road-mobile nuclear-capable versions: a new modification of the existing DF-21 (CSS-5)
medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), designated the CSS-5 Mod 6 by the US military; a new IRBM known as the DF-26; and a new ICBM
launcher, the DF-31AG. China has also made some of its silo-based DF-5 ICBMs capable of carrying multiple warheads, and is working on
completing development of the road-mobile DF-41, which is also capable of carrying multiple warheads.

The modernization, which began in the 1980s, is part of a transition from older, transportable, liquid-fuel,
slow-launching missiles to longer-range, road-mobile, solid-fuel, quicker-launching missiles. The nuclear
command and control systems needed to operate the missiles are also being modernized. The end result will be a land-based
missile force better able to survive US (or Russian) surprise attacks .
The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), part of the US Air Force, says that “China continues to have the most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the
world” (US Air Force, National Air and Space Intelligence Center 2017, 3). Most of that program is made up of conventional short-range missiles. The nuclear portion of China’s missile force is
significantly smaller than the nuclear missile arsenal of either Russia or the United States. Most of China’s nuclear missiles are medium- and intermediate-range, with launchers for ICBMs
numbering between 50 and 75. The size of the ICBM force has remained relatively stable over the past five years but appears to be increasing again. The number of missiles for the ICBM
launchers is higher because some types have one or two extra reloads per launcher. The US Defense Department says there are 75 to 100 ICBMs available for the 50 to 75 launchers (US
Defense Department 2017, 95). The extra 25 reloads are thought to be for the old DF-4s and potentially some of the DF-31s.

Seventeen years ago, the US intelligence community estimated that by 2015, China would have 75 to 100 warheads on ICBMs, primarily targeted at the United States (CIA 2001, 3). This
prediction did not come to pass. Of China’s 50 to 75 ICBM launchers, about 50 – capable of carrying about 70 warheads in total – can target the continental United States today.2 NASIC
predicted in 2017 that the “number of Chinese ICBM nuclear warheads capable of reaching the United States could expand to well over 100 within the next 5 years” (NASIC 2017, 3). The
United States is a much bigger area than the “continental” United States, and the 2017 projection appears to include any ICBM that can hit any part of the country including Alaska, Hawaii, and
possibly even the territory of Guam. For the 2017 projection to come true, China would have to MIRV all of its remaining silo-based DF-5s and field a dozen MIRVed new DF-41s.

The remaining liquid-fuel DF-3A (CSS-2) medium-range missiles now appear to have been retired and the last liquid-fuel mobile ICBM – the DF-4 (CSS-3) – is down to a single brigade and will
likely be retired in the near future as well.

China’s 20 silo-based ICBMs include the DF-5A (CSS-4 Mod 2) – a liquid-fueled, two-stage, ICBM with a range in excess of 13,000 kilometers.3 The original DF-5 was fielded in the early 1980s.
The second deployed version of the DF-5 is the DF-5B (CSS-4 Mod 3), which has been upgraded to carry MIRVs. It is possible that China plans to equip all of its DF-5s with MIRVs.

China’s primary regional nuclear missile is the two-stage, solid-fuel, road-mobile DF-21A (CSS-5 Mod 2), a medium-range ballistic missile with a range of about 2,150 km. Since 2016, China has
been fielding a new version, possibly known as DF-21E (CSS-5 Mod 6). We estimate that China has approximately 40 launchers for the nuclear DF-21, each of which has at least one reload.
China has also deployed two conventional versions of the DF-21, the DF-21C (CSS-4 Mod 4) land-attack missile and the DF-21D (CSS-5 Mod 5) anti-ship missile.

For the past decade, the focus of China’s ICBM modernization has been the DF-31 (CSS-10 Mod 1) and a longer-range
version known as the DF-31A (CSS-10 Mod 2). The DF-31, which was first deployed in 2006 but now appears to have fewer than 10 launchers assigned, is a three-stage, road-mobile missile that

is transported in a 15-meter canister on a six-axle transporter-erector-launcher (TEL). The DF-31 has a range of more than 7,000 km, but cannot
reach the continental United States. It is presumed to have taken over much of the regional targeting (of Russia, India, and Guam) previously done by the DF-4.
The reasons for the DF-31’s apparently slow introduction are unclear.
The DF-31A (CSS-10 Mod 2) – a solid-fueled, three-stage, road-mobile ICBM – is an extended-range version of the DF-31, designed to reach targets in most of the continental United States.
China appears to continue to field additional DF-31As. We estimate that the country deploys about 32 DF-31A ICBMs in four brigades.

During a parade in 2017 celebrating the 90th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, China displayed the improved launcher known as the DF-31AG. Rumors quickly emerged that it was
for a new ICBM, possibly even one with MIRV. But it remains to be seen if it will carry the same missile as the DF-31A launcher or a new version. The NASIC and Defense Department 2017
reports did not mention the DF-31AG.
Perhaps the biggest recent nuclear missile development for China has been fielding the new DF-26 intermediate-range road-mobile missile. First displayed during a parade in 2016 and again in
2017, one or two brigades now appear to have been equipped with the DF-26. Like the existing DF-4 and DF-31 ICBMs, the 4,000-km range DF-26 is capable of targeting important US bases in
Guam. Unlike the DF-4 and DF-31, however, the DF-26 is thought to be dual-capable, and so could also be used to target Guam or aircraft carriers with conventional warheads.

China is still working on completing development of the long-awaited DF-41 ICBM. The US Defense
Department says this missile is capable of carrying MIRVs (US Defense Department 2017, 31), and rumors have spread in
the news media that the DF-41 can carry six to 10 warheads (Gertz 2016.) As is likely the case with the DF-5B, though, the number of warheads
the DF-41 carries might be significantly less, perhaps three, and
the additional payload capability focused on decoys
and penetration aids to overcome the US ballistic missile defense system . If development is
successful, the DF-41 will likely replace the DF-5.
 OFF
Not specifying your agent is a voting issue---kills mechanism debates and avoids disad
ground---especially with their discursive advantages based off the plan engagement is
key---CX would’ve checked
 Case
Circumvention – trump will move items to the CCL – use one of 49 DOD Programs –
use BPC and other mechanisms to ensure weapons are still sold – he empirically has
incentive via vetoing the Saudi resolution.
Century of humiliation, Institutional undermining and public statement all prove
revisionism.
Choi ’18 (Ji Young Choi, associate professor in the Department of Politics and Government and affiliated professor in the International
Studies Program and East Asian Studies Program at Ohio Wesleyan University (“Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on the Rise of China:
Long Cycles, Power Transitions, and China's Ascent,” Asian Perspective, Vol. 42, Issue 1, January-March 2018, pages 61-84, Available through
ProQuest)

I have explored in light of historical and theoretical perspectives whether China is a candidate to become a global hegemonic power. The next
question I will address is whether the ascent of China will lead to a hegemonic war or not. As mentioned previously, historical and theoretical
lessons reveal that a rising great power tends to challenge a system leader when the former's economic
and other major capabilities come too close to those of the latter and the former is dissatisfied with
the latter's leadership and the international rules it created. This means that the rise of China could produce intense
hegemonic competition and even a global hegemonic war . The preventive motivation by an old declining power can
cause a major war with a newly emerging power when it is combined with other variables (Levy 1987). While a preventive war by a system
leader is historically rare, a
newly emerging yet even relatively weak rising power at times challenges a much
more powerful system leader, as in the case of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 (Schweller 1999). A historical lesson is that
" incomplete catch-ups are inherently conflict-prone " (Thompson 2006, 19). This implies that even though it falls

short of surpassing the system leader, the rise of a new great power can produce significant instability
in the interstate system when it develops into a revisionist power. Moreover, the U nited S tates and China are deeply
involved in major security issues in East Asia (including the North Korean nuclear crisis , the Taiwan issue,
and the S outh C hina S ea disputes), and we cannot rule out the possibility that one of these regional
conflicts will develop into a much bigger global war in which the two superpowers are entangled. According to Allison
(2017), who studied sixteen historical cases in which a rising power confronted an existing power, a war between the United States and China is
not unavoidable, but escaping it will require enormous efforts by both sides. Some Chinese scholars (Jia 2009; Wang and Zhu 2015), who
emphasize the transformation of China's domestic politics and the pragmatism of Beijing's diplomacy, have a more or less optimistic view of the
future of US-China relations. Yet my reading of the situation is that since 2009 there has been an increasing gap between
this optimistic view and what has really happened. It is premature to conclude that China is a revisionist state, but in what
follows I will suggest some important signs that show China has revisionist aims at least in the Asia Pacific and could

develop into a revisionist power in the future.¶ Beijing has concentrated on economic modernization
since the start of pro-market reforms in the late 1970s and made efforts to keep a low profile in international security issues for several
decades. It followed Deng Xiaoping's doctrine: "hide one's capabilities, bide one's time, and seek the right opportunity." Since 2003, China's
motto has been "Peaceful Rise" or "Peaceful Development," and Chinese leadership has emphasized that the rise of China would not threaten
any other countries. Recently, however, Beijing has adopted increasingly assertive or even aggressive foreign
policies in international security affairs. In particular, China has been adamant about territorial issues in
the East and South China Seas and is increasingly considered as a severe threat by other nations in the
Asia Pacific region. Since 2009, for example, Beijing has increased naval activities on a large scale in the area of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in
the East China Sea. In 2010, Beijing announced that just like Tibet and Taiwan , the S outh C hina S ea is considered a
core national interest . We can identify drastic rhetorical changes as well. In 2010, China's foreign minister publicly stated, "China is a
big country . . . and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact" (Economist 2012). In October 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping also
used the words "struggle and achieve results," emphasizing the importance of China's territorial integrity (Waldron 2014, 166-167).
Furthermore, China has constructed man-made islands in the S outh C hina S ea to seek "de facto control over the
resource-rich waters and islets" claimed as well by its neighboring countries (Los Angeles Times 2015). As of now, China's strategy is to delay a
direct military conflict with the United States as long as possible and use its economic and political prowess to pressure smaller neighbors to
give up their territorial claims (Doran 2012). These new developments and rhetorical signals reflect significant changes in China's foreign
China's peaceful rise seems to be over . ¶ A rising great power's consistent and
policies and signify that
determined policies to increase military buildups can be read as one of the significant signs of the
rising power's dissatisfaction with the existing order and its willingness to do battle if it is really necessary. In
the words of Rapkin and Thompson (2003, 318), " arms
buildups and arms races . . . reflect substantial dissatisfaction on
the part of the challenger and an attempt to accelerate the pace of military catchup and the
development of a relative power advantage ." Werner and Kugler (1996) also posit that if an emerging challenger's military
expenditures are increasing faster than those of a system leader, parity can be very dangerous to the international political order. China's GDP
is currently around 60 percent of that of the United States, so parity has not been reached yet. China's military budget, however, has grown
enormously for the past two decades (double-digit growth nearly every year), which is creating concerns among neighboring nations and a
system leader, the United States. In addition to its air force, China's strengthening navy or sea power has been one of the main goals in its
military modernization program. Beijing
has invested large financial resources in constructing new naval
vessels, submarines, and aircraft carriers (Economist 2012). Furthermore, in its new defense white paper in 2015, Beijing
made clear a vision to expand the global role for its military , particularly its naval force, to protect its overseas
economic and strategic interests (Tiezzi 2015). ¶ Sea power has special importance for an emerging great power. As Mahan (1987 [1890])
explained cogently in one of his classic books on naval strategy, Great Britain was able to emerge as a new hegemonic power because of the
superiority of its naval capacity and technology and its effective control of main international sealanes. Naval power has a special
significance for China , a newly emerging power, as well as for both economic and strategic reasons . First, its
economy's rapid growth requires external expansion to ensure raw materials and the foreign markets
to sell its products. Therefore, naval power becomes crucial in protecting its overseas business interests and activities. Second, securing
major sea-lanes becomes increasingly important as they will be crucial lifelines for the supply of
energy, raw materials, and other essential goods should China become involved in a hegemonic war
or any other major military conflict (Friedberg 2011). In light of this, it is understandable why China is so stubborn over territorial
issues in the South China and East China Seas. In fact, history tells us that many rising powers invested in sea power to expand their global
influence, and indeed all the global hegemons including Great Britain and the United States were predominant naval powers. ¶ Another
important aspect is that Beijing is beginning to voice its dissatisfaction with the existing international
economic order and take actions that could potentially change this order . The Chinese economy has
overall benefited from the post-World War II international liberal order, but the Bretton Woods
institutions like the IMF and the World Bank have been dominated by the U nited S tates and its allies and China
does not have much power or voice in these institutions. Both institutions are based in Washington, DC, and the U nited S tates
has enjoyed the largest voting shares with its veto power . Along with other emerging economies, China has called
for significant reforms, especially in the governing system of the IMF, but reform plans to give more power to China and other
emerging economies have been delayed by the opposition of the US Congress (Choi 2013). In response to this, Beijing recently took
the initiative to create new i nternational f inancial i nstitutions including the AIIB. At this moment, it is premature to say that these
new institutions would be able to replace the Bretton Woods institutions. Nonetheless, this new development can be read as a
starting point for significant changes in global economic and financial governance that has been
dominated by the United States since the end of World War II (Subacchi 2015).¶ China's historical legacies reinforce
the view that China has a willingness to become a global hegemon . From the Ming dynasty in the late
fourteenth century to the start of the first Opium War in 1839, China enjoyed its undisputed hegemonic
position in East Asia. "Sino-centrism" that is related to this historical reality has long governed the
mentality of Chinese people. According to this hierarchical world view, China, as the most advanced
civilization, is at the center of East Asia and the world , and all China's neighbors are vassal states
(Kang 2010). This mentality was openly revealed by the Chinese foreign minister's recent public
statement that I quoted previously: "China is a big country . . . and other countries are small countries
and that is just a fact" (Economist 2012). This view is related to Chinese people's ancient superiority
complex that developed from the long history and rich cultural heritage of Chinese civilization (Jacques
2012). In a sense, China has always been a superpower regardless of its economic standing at least in
most Chinese people's mind-set. The strong national or civilizational pride of Chinese people, however,
was severely damaged by "the Century of Humiliation," a period between the first Opium War (1839)
and the end of the Chinese Civil War (1949). During this period, China was encroached on by the West
and invaded by Japan, experienced prolonged civil conflicts, and finally became a semicolony of Great
Britain while its northern territory was occupied by Japan. China's economic modernization is viewed as
a national project to lay an economic foundation to overcome this bitter experience of subjugation and
shame and recover its traditional position and old glory (Choi 2015). Viewed from this perspective, economic modernization or the
accumulation of wealth is not an ultimate objective of China. Rather, its
final goal is to return to its traditional status by
expanding its global political and military as well as economic influence . What it ultimately desires is recognition
(Anerkennung), respect (Respekt), and status (Stellung). These are important concepts for constructivists who see ideational motives as the
main driving forces behind interstate conflicts (Lebow 2008). This reveals that constructivist elements can be combined with long cycle and
power transition theories in explaining the rise and fall of great powers, although further systematic studies on it are needed. ¶ Considering all
this, China
has always been a territorial power rather than a trading state . China does not seem to be
satisfied only with the global expansion of international trade and the conquest of foreign markets. It
also wants to broaden its (particularly maritime) territories and spheres of influence to recover its traditional
political status as the Middle Kingdom . As emphasized previously, the type or nature and goals or ideologies of a rising power
matter. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (territorial powers) experienced rapid economic expansion and sought to expand their territories and
influence in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, during this period Japan's goal was to create the Japanese empire in East Asia
under the motto of the East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere. On the other hand, democratized Germany and Japan (trading powers) that enjoyed a
second economic expansion did not pursue the expansion of their territories and spheres of influence in the post-World War II era.
Twentiethcentury history suggests that political regimes predicated upon nondemocratic or nonliberal values and
cultures (for instance, Nazism in Germany and militarism in Japan before the mid-twentieth century, and communism in the Soviet Union
during the Cold War) can pose significant challenges to democratic and liberal regimes. The empirical studies of Lemke
and Reed (1996) show that the democratic peace thesis can be used as a subset of power transition theory. According to their studies, states
organized similarly to the dominant powers politically and economically (liberal democracy) are generally satisfied with the existing
international rules and order and they tend to be status quo states. Another historical lesson is that economic interdependence
alone cannot prevent a war for hegemony . Germany was one of the main trade partners of Great
Britain before World War I (Friedberg 2011), and Japan was the number three importer of American
products before its attack on Pearl Harbor (Keylor 2011). A relatively peaceful relationship or transition is possible when
economic interdependence is supported by a solid democratic alliance between a rising great power and an existing or declining one. ¶ Some
scholars such as Ikenberry (2008) emphasize nuclear deterrence and the high costs of a nuclear war. Power transition theorists agree that the
high costs of a nuclear war can constrain a war among great powers but do not view them as "a perfect deterrent" to war (Kugler and Zagare
1990; Tammen et al. 2000). The idea of nuclear deterrence is based upon the assumption of the rationality of actors (states): as long as the
costs of a (nuclear) war are higher than its benefits, an actor (state) will not initiate the war. However, even some rationalists admit that certain
actors (such as exceedingly ambitious risk-taking states) do not behave rationally and engage in unexpected military actions or pursue military
overexpansion beyond its capacity (Glaser 2010). The state's behaviors are driven by its values, perceptions, and political ambitions as well as
its rational calculations of costs and benefits. Especially, national pride, historical memories, and territorial disputes can make states behave
emotionally. The possibility of a war between a democratic nation and a nondemocratic regime increases because they do not share the same
values and beliefs and, therefore, the level of mistrust between them tends to be very high. China and the United States have
enhanced their cooperation to address various global issues like global warming, international terrorism, energy issues,
and global economic stability. But these issues are not strong enough to bring them together to overcome

their mistrust that stems from their different values, beliefs, and perceptions (Friedberg 2011). What is
more important is whether they can set mutually agreeable international rules on traditional security
issues including territorial disputes .

Psychoanalysis does not justify the immutability of settler colonial ontologies.

Alex Trimble Young & Lorenzo Veracini 17. Alex Trimble Young is an honors faculty fellow in the Barrett
Honors College at Arizona State University. He serves on the editorial collective of the interdisciplinary
journal Settler Colonial Studies. Lorenzo Veracini is at the Swinburne University of Technology in
Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on the comparative history of colonial systems. He has
authored Israel and Settler Society (2006), Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (2010), and The
Settler Colonial Present (2015). Lorenzo is coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler
Colonialism (2016) and editor in chief of Settler Colonial Studies. 2017. “‘If I Am Native to Anything’:
Settler Colonial Studies and Western American Literature.” Western American Literature, vol. 52, no. 1,
pp. 1–23.
Apprehending this history as what Jodi Byrd has called the “transit” over which the international “postwestern” cityscape of Las Vegas is
realized leads us into a reading of a very different type of frontier than the one memorialized on Fremont Street (Transit xv). Read this way, as a
site of Indigenous dispossession, the
West cannot be seen as a dynamic site of pure possibility, as Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari have represented it, as
“a rhizomatic West, with its Indians without ancestry, its ever- receding limit, its shifting and
displaced frontiers” (19). The repetitive revisitation of frontier tropes recalls what critic Hamish Dalley calls “the

frozen temporality of settler- colonial narrative,” which, “fixated on the moment of the frontier, recalls nothing so much as
Freud’s description of the ‘repetition compulsion’ attending trauma” (Dalley). The “hyperreal West” in this context emerges as a fantasy (Lewis
194), in the sense that theorist Jacqueline Rose describes in her work on Israel/Palestine. “Never completely losing its grip, fantasy is always
heading for the world it only appears to have left behind” (3).5 Of course settler colonialism is but one of the “secret
histories of Las Vegas” that underwrite the postmodern wonderland visitors fi nd on Fremont Street and the strip, and but
one of many structures of violence that shape life in the contemporary western U nited S tates.6
Nonetheless, it remains a structure central to the consideration of “westness.” As the postwestern critics argue,
“westness” is neither contained by geography (as the popularity of the Western genre internationally attests), nor necessarily representative of
cultural production being produced within the western United States (Kollin x– xi). When we speak of a cultural production as “Western,” we
are speaking of a work that addresses the process and consequences of settler conquest, whether we are discussing a California memoir, an
Australian novel, or an Italian fi lm.7 This is not to say that Western cultural production is always a result of
settler colonial ideology, but rather that it is engaged with questions pertaining to it. Th e problem of the
West is, in a crucial sense, the problem of settler colonialism. Imagining
postwestern futures thus requires a critical
outlook that is more than just inclusive in its politics , transnational in its scope, and poststructuralist
in its methodology. Our movement toward the “post” in the conceptual space of the Western must be
decolonial in its orientation . Such a critique would abandon unilateral settler attempts at postnational place-making in order to
critique settler colonial structures of violence. Such a critique would not work to reify these structures as
permanent or inevitable , but rather to probe their contradictions , and to promote the Indigenous
intellectual traditions that have long been at work critiquing the settler colonial present in order to shape a
decolonial future.8 We hope that this special issue of Western American Literature, which features critical readings of western American
film and literature by three scholars from different fields and national backgrounds, can contribute toward this effort.

Century of humiliation, Institutional undermining and public statement all prove

revisionism.
Choi ’18 (Ji Young Choi, associate professor in the Department of Politics and Government and affiliated professor in the International
Studies Program and East Asian Studies Program at Ohio Wesleyan University (“Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on the Rise of China:
Long Cycles, Power Transitions, and China's Ascent,” Asian Perspective, Vol. 42, Issue 1, January-March 2018, pages 61-84, Available through
ProQuest)

I have explored in light of historical and theoretical perspectives whether China is a candidate to become a global hegemonic power. The next
question I will address is whether the ascent of China will lead to a hegemonic war or not. As mentioned previously, historical and theoretical
lessons reveal that a rising great power tends to challenge a system leader when the former's economic
and other major capabilities come too close to those of the latter and the former is dissatisfied with
the latter's leadership and the international rules it created. This means that the rise of China could produce intense
hegemonic competition and even a global hegemonic war . The preventive motivation by an old declining power can
cause a major war with a newly emerging power when it is combined with other variables (Levy 1987). While a preventive war by a system
leader is historically rare, a
newly emerging yet even relatively weak rising power at times challenges a much
more powerful system leader, as in the case of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 (Schweller 1999). A historical lesson is that
" incomplete catch-ups are inherently conflict-prone " (Thompson 2006, 19). This implies that even though it falls

short of surpassing the system leader, the rise of a new great power can produce significant instability
in the interstate system when it develops into a revisionist power. Moreover, the U nited S tates and China are deeply
involved in major security issues in East Asia (including the North Korean nuclear crisis , the Taiwan issue,
and the S outh C hina S ea disputes), and we cannot rule out the possibility that one of these regional
conflicts will develop into a much bigger global war in which the two superpowers are entangled. According to Allison
(2017), who studied sixteen historical cases in which a rising power confronted an existing power, a war between the United States and China is
not unavoidable, but escaping it will require enormous efforts by both sides. Some Chinese scholars (Jia 2009; Wang and Zhu 2015), who
emphasize the transformation of China's domestic politics and the pragmatism of Beijing's diplomacy, have a more or less optimistic view of the
future of US-China relations. Yet my reading of the situation is that since 2009 there has been an increasing gap between
this optimistic view and what has really happened. It is premature to conclude that China is a revisionist state, but in what
follows I will suggest some important signs that show China has revisionist aims at least in the Asia Pacific and could

develop into a revisionist power in the future.¶ Beijing has concentrated on economic modernization
since the start of pro-market reforms in the late 1970s and made efforts to keep a low profile in international security issues for several
decades. It followed Deng Xiaoping's doctrine: "hide one's capabilities, bide one's time, and seek the right opportunity." Since 2003, China's
motto has been "Peaceful Rise" or "Peaceful Development," and Chinese leadership has emphasized that the rise of China would not threaten
any other countries. Recently, however, Beijing has adopted increasingly assertive or even aggressive foreign
policies in international security affairs. In particular, China has been adamant about territorial issues in
the East and South China Seas and is increasingly considered as a severe threat by other nations in the
Asia Pacific region. Since 2009, for example, Beijing has increased naval activities on a large scale in the area of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in
the East China Sea. In 2010, Beijing announced that just like Tibet and Taiwan , the S outh C hina S ea is considered a
core national interest . We can identify drastic rhetorical changes as well. In 2010, China's foreign minister publicly stated, "China is a
big country . . . and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact" (Economist 2012). In October 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping also
used the words "struggle and achieve results," emphasizing the importance of China's territorial integrity (Waldron 2014, 166-167).
Furthermore, China has constructed man-made islands in the S outh C hina S ea to seek "de facto control over the
resource-rich waters and islets" claimed as well by its neighboring countries (Los Angeles Times 2015). As of now, China's strategy is to delay a
direct military conflict with the United States as long as possible and use its economic and political prowess to pressure smaller neighbors to
give up their territorial claims (Doran 2012). These new developments and rhetorical signals reflect significant changes in China's foreign
China's peaceful rise seems to be over . ¶ A rising great power's consistent and
policies and signify that
determined policies to increase military buildups can be read as one of the significant signs of the
rising power's dissatisfaction with the existing order and its willingness to do battle if it is really necessary. In
the words of Rapkin and Thompson (2003, 318), " arms
buildups and arms races . . . reflect substantial dissatisfaction on
the part of the challenger and an attempt to accelerate the pace of military catchup and the
development of a relative power advantage ." Werner and Kugler (1996) also posit that if an emerging challenger's military
expenditures are increasing faster than those of a system leader, parity can be very dangerous to the international political order. China's GDP
is currently around 60 percent of that of the United States, so parity has not been reached yet. China's military budget, however, has grown
enormously for the past two decades (double-digit growth nearly every year), which is creating concerns among neighboring nations and a
system leader, the United States. In addition to its air force, China's strengthening navy or sea power has been one of the main goals in its
military modernization program. Beijing
has invested large financial resources in constructing new naval
vessels, submarines, and aircraft carriers (Economist 2012). Furthermore, in its new defense white paper in 2015, Beijing
made clear a vision to expand the global role for its military , particularly its naval force, to protect its overseas
economic and strategic interests (Tiezzi 2015). ¶ Sea power has special importance for an emerging great power. As Mahan (1987 [1890])
explained cogently in one of his classic books on naval strategy, Great Britain was able to emerge as a new hegemonic power because of the
superiority of its naval capacity and technology and its effective control of main international sealanes. Naval power has a special
significance for China , a newly emerging power, as well as for both economic and strategic reasons . First, its
economy's rapid growth requires external expansion to ensure raw materials and the foreign markets
to sell its products. Therefore, naval power becomes crucial in protecting its overseas business interests and activities. Second, securing
major sea-lanes becomes increasingly important as they will be crucial lifelines for the supply of
energy, raw materials, and other essential goods should China become involved in a hegemonic war
or any other major military conflict (Friedberg 2011). In light of this, it is understandable why China is so stubborn over territorial
issues in the South China and East China Seas. In fact, history tells us that many rising powers invested in sea power to expand their global
influence, and indeed all the global hegemons including Great Britain and the United States were predominant naval powers. ¶ Another
important aspect is that Beijing is beginning to voice its dissatisfaction with the existing international
economic order and take actions that could potentially change this order . The Chinese economy has
overall benefited from the post-World War II international liberal order, but the Bretton Woods
institutions like the IMF and the World Bank have been dominated by the U nited S tates and its allies and China
does not have much power or voice in these institutions. Both institutions are based in Washington, DC, and the U nited S tates
has enjoyed the largest voting shares with its veto power . Along with other emerging economies, China has called
for significant reforms, especially in the governing system of the IMF, but reform plans to give more power to China and other
emerging economies have been delayed by the opposition of the US Congress (Choi 2013). In response to this, Beijing recently took
the initiative to create new i nternational f inancial i nstitutions including the AIIB. At this moment, it is premature to say that these
new institutions would be able to replace the Bretton Woods institutions. Nonetheless, this new development can be read as a
starting point for significant changes in global economic and financial governance that has been
dominated by the United States since the end of World War II (Subacchi 2015).¶ China's historical legacies reinforce
the view that China has a willingness to become a global hegemon . From the Ming dynasty in the late
fourteenth century to the start of the first Opium War in 1839, China enjoyed its undisputed hegemonic
position in East Asia. "Sino-centrism" that is related to this historical reality has long governed the
mentality of Chinese people. According to this hierarchical world view, China, as the most advanced
civilization, is at the center of East Asia and the world , and all China's neighbors are vassal states
(Kang 2010). This mentality was openly revealed by the Chinese foreign minister's recent public
statement that I quoted previously: "China is a big country . . . and other countries are small countries
and that is just a fact" (Economist 2012). This view is related to Chinese people's ancient superiority
complex that developed from the long history and rich cultural heritage of Chinese civilization (Jacques
2012). In a sense, China has always been a superpower regardless of its economic standing at least in
most Chinese people's mind-set. The strong national or civilizational pride of Chinese people, however,
was severely damaged by "the Century of Humiliation," a period between the first Opium War (1839)
and the end of the Chinese Civil War (1949). During this period, China was encroached on by the West
and invaded by Japan, experienced prolonged civil conflicts, and finally became a semicolony of Great
Britain while its northern territory was occupied by Japan. China's economic modernization is viewed as
a national project to lay an economic foundation to overcome this bitter experience of subjugation and
shame and recover its traditional position and old glory (Choi 2015). Viewed from this perspective, economic modernization or the
accumulation of wealth is not an ultimate objective of China. Rather, its
final goal is to return to its traditional status by
expanding its global political and military as well as economic influence . What it ultimately desires is recognition
(Anerkennung), respect (Respekt), and status (Stellung). These are important concepts for constructivists who see ideational motives as the
main driving forces behind interstate conflicts (Lebow 2008). This reveals that constructivist elements can be combined with long cycle and
power transition theories in explaining the rise and fall of great powers, although further systematic studies on it are needed. ¶ Considering all
this, China
has always been a territorial power rather than a trading state . China does not seem to be
satisfied only with the global expansion of international trade and the conquest of foreign markets. It
also wants to broaden its (particularly maritime) territories and spheres of influence to recover its traditional
political status as the Middle Kingdom . As emphasized previously, the type or nature and goals or ideologies of a rising power
matter. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (territorial powers) experienced rapid economic expansion and sought to expand their territories and
influence in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, during this period Japan's goal was to create the Japanese empire in East Asia
under the motto of the East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere. On the other hand, democratized Germany and Japan (trading powers) that enjoyed a
second economic expansion did not pursue the expansion of their territories and spheres of influence in the post-World War II era.
Twentiethcentury history suggests that political regimes predicated upon nondemocratic or nonliberal values and
cultures (for instance, Nazism in Germany and militarism in Japan before the mid-twentieth century, and communism in the Soviet Union
during the Cold War) can pose significant challenges to democratic and liberal regimes. The empirical studies of Lemke
and Reed (1996) show that the democratic peace thesis can be used as a subset of power transition theory. According to their studies, states
organized similarly to the dominant powers politically and economically (liberal democracy) are generally satisfied with the existing
international rules and order and they tend to be status quo states. Another historical lesson is that economic interdependence
alone cannot prevent a war for hegemony . Germany was one of the main trade partners of Great
Britain before World War I (Friedberg 2011), and Japan was the number three importer of American
products before its attack on Pearl Harbor (Keylor 2011). A relatively peaceful relationship or transition is possible when
economic interdependence is supported by a solid democratic alliance between a rising great power and an existing or declining one. ¶ Some
scholars such as Ikenberry (2008) emphasize nuclear deterrence and the high costs of a nuclear war. Power transition theorists agree that the
high costs of a nuclear war can constrain a war among great powers but do not view them as "a perfect deterrent" to war (Kugler and Zagare
1990; Tammen et al. 2000). The idea of nuclear deterrence is based upon the assumption of the rationality of actors (states): as long as the
costs of a (nuclear) war are higher than its benefits, an actor (state) will not initiate the war. However, even some rationalists admit that certain
actors (such as exceedingly ambitious risk-taking states) do not behave rationally and engage in unexpected military actions or pursue military
overexpansion beyond its capacity (Glaser 2010). The state's behaviors are driven by its values, perceptions, and political ambitions as well as
its rational calculations of costs and benefits. Especially, national pride, historical memories, and territorial disputes can make states behave
emotionally. The possibility of a war between a democratic nation and a nondemocratic regime increases because they do not share the same
values and beliefs and, therefore, the level of mistrust between them tends to be very high. China and the United States have
enhanced their cooperation to address various global issues like global warming, international terrorism, energy issues,
and global economic stability. But these issues are not strong enough to bring them together to overcome

their mistrust that stems from their different values, beliefs, and perceptions (Friedberg 2011). What is
more important is whether they can set mutually agreeable international rules on traditional security
issues including territorial disputes .

Reps don’t shape reality in the China debate.

Goddard 15 — Stacie E. Goddard, Jane Bishop Associate Professor of Political Science at Wellesley
College, and Ronald R. Krebs, Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in the Liberal Arts and Associate
Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, 2015 (“Securitization Forum: The
Transatlantic Divide: Why Securitization Has Not Secured a Place in American IR, Why It Should, and
How It Can,” Duck of Minerva — Political Science Blog, September 18 th, Accessible Online at
http://duckofminerva.com/2015/09/securitization-forum-the-transatlantic-divide-why-securitization-
has-not-secured-a-place-in-american-ir-why-it-should-and-how-it-can.html, Accessed On 04-14-2016)

* Modified for ableist language

But there are (good) substantive and (not so good) sociological reasons that securitization has failed to gain traction in North America. First, and
most important, securitization
describes a process but leaves us well short of (a) a fully specified causal theory
that (b) takes proper account of the politics of rhetorical contestation. According to the foundational theorists of the Copenhagen
School, actors, usually elites, transform the social order from one of normal, everyday politics into a Schmittian world of crisis by identifying a
dire threat to the political community. They conceive of this “securitizing move” in linguistic terms, as a speech act. As Ole Waever (1995: 55)
argues, “By saying it [security], something is done (as in betting, a promise, naming a ship). . . . [T]he word ‘security’ is the act . . .” [emphasis
added]. Securitization is a powerful discursive process that constitutes social reality. Countless articles and books have traced this process, and
its consequences, in particular policy domains. Securitization
presents itself as a causal account. But its mechanisms
remain obscure, as do the conditions under which it operates. Why is speaking security so powerful? How do mere words twist
and transform the social order? Does the invocation of security prompt a visceral emotional response? Are speech acts persuasive,
by using well-known tropes to convince audiences that they must seek protection? Or does securitization operate through the politics of
rhetorical coercion, silencing potential opponents? In securitization accounts, speech acts often seem to be magical
incantations

that upend normal politics through pathways shrouded in mystery. Equally unclear is why some
securitizing moves resonate, while others fall on deaf ears [are ignored]. Certainly not all attempts to
construct threats succeed , and this is true of both traditional military concerns as well as “new” security issues. Both
neoconservatives and structural realists in the U nited S tates have long insisted that conflict with China is
inevitable, yet China has over the last 25 years been more opportunity than threat in US political
discourse— despite these vigorous and persistent securitizing moves. In very recent years, the balance has
shifted, and the China threat has started to catch on: linguistic processes alone cannot account for this
change. The US military has repeatedly declared that global climate change has profound implications for national security—but that has
hardly cast aside climate change deniers, many of whom are ironically foreign policy hawks supposedly deferential to the uniformed military.
Authoritative speakers have varied in the efficacy of their securitizing moves. While George W. Bush powerfully
framed the events of 9/11 as a global war against American values, F ranklin D elano R oosevelt, a more gifted orator, struggled to
convince a skeptical public that Germany presented an imminent threat to the United States. After thirty
years as an active research program, securitization theory has hardly begun to offer acceptable
answers to these questions. Brief references to “facilitating conditions” won’t cut it. You don’t have to
subscribe to a covering-law conception of theory to find these questions important or to find securitization’s answers unsatisfying. A large
part of the problem, we believe, lies in securitization’s silence on [disregard of] the politics of security. Its
foundations in speech act theory have yielded an oddly apolitical theoretical framework . In its seminal
formulation, the Copenhagen school emphasized the internal linguistic rules that must be followed for a speech act to be recognized as
competent. Yet as Thierry Balzacq argues, by treating securitization as a purely rule-driven process, the Copenhagen school ignores the politics
of securitization, reducing “security to a conventional procedure such as marriage or betting in which the ‘felicity circumstances’ (conditions of
success) must fully prevail for the act to go through” (2005:172). Absent
from this picture are fierce rhetorical battles,
where coalitions counter securitizing moves with their own appeals that strike more or less deeply at underlying
narratives. Absent as well are the public intellectuals and media, who question and critique securitizing moves
sometimes (and not others), sometimes to good effect (and sometimes with little impact). The
audience itself—whether the mass public or a narrower elite stratum—is stripped of all agency.
Speaking security, even when the performance is competent, does not sweep this politics away. Only
by delving into this politics can we shed light on the mysteries of securitization. We see rhetorical
politics as constituted less by singular “securitizing moves” than by “contentious conversation”—to
use Charles Tilly’s phrase. To this end, we would urge securitization theorists, as we recently have
elsewhere, to move towards a “pragmatic” model that rests on four analytical wagers: that actors are both strategic and
social; that legitimation works by imparting meaning to political action; that legitimation is laced through with contestation; and that the power
of language emerges through contentious dialogue.

Pan’s Method Bad — it over-generalizes and is overly reductionist.

Jones 14 — David Martin Jones, Reader in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the
University of Queensland, Fellow of the Australian Institute for Progress and the Institute of Public
Affairs, holds a Ph.D. in Government from The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014
(“Managing the China Dream: Communist Party politics after the Tiananmen incident,” Australian
Journal of Political Science, Volume 49, Issue 1, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor &
Francis Online)

Notwithstanding this Western fascination with China and the positive response of former Marxists, such as Jacques, to the new China, Pan
discerns an Orientalist ideology distorting Western commentary on the party state, and especially its
international relations (6). Following Edward Said, Pan claims that such Western Orientalism reveals ‘not
something concrete about the orient, but something about the orientalists themselves, their recurring latent
desire of fears and fantasies about the orient’ (16). In order to unmask the limits of Western representations of China's rise, Pan
employs a critical ‘methodology’ that ‘draws on constructivist and deconstructivist approaches’ (9).
Whereas the ‘former questions the underlying dichotomy of reality/knowledge in Western study of China's international relations’, the latter
shows how paradigmatic representations of China ‘condition the way we give meaning to that country’ and ‘are socially constitutive of it’ (9).
Pan maintains that the two paradigms of ‘China threat’ and ‘China opportunity’ in Western discourse
shape China's reality for Western ‘China watchers’ (3). These discourses, Pan claims, are ‘ambivalent’
(65). He contends that this ‘bifocal representation of China, like Western discourses of China more
generally, tell us a great deal about the west itself, its self-imagination , its torn, anxious, subjectivity, as well as its
discursive effects of othering’ (65). This is a large claim . Interestingly, Pan fails to note that after the Tiananmen incident
in 1989, Chinese new left scholarship also embraced Said's critique of Orientalism in order to reinforce
both the party state and a burgeoning sense of Chinese nationalism. To counter Western liberal
discourse, academics associated with the Central Party School promoted an ideology of Occidentalism
to deflect domestic and international pressure to democratise China . In this, they drew not only upon Said, but also
upon Foucault and the post-1968 school of French radical thought that, as Richard Wolin has demonstrated, was itself initiated in an
appreciation of Mao's cultural revolution. In other words, the critical and deconstructive methodologies that came to influence American and
European social science from the 1980s had a Maoist inspiration (Wolin 2010: 12–18). Subsequently, in the changed circumstances of the
1990s, as American sinologist Fewsmith has shown, young
Chinese scholars ‘adopted a variety of postmodernist and
critical methodologies’ (2008: 125). Paradoxically, these scholars, such as Wang Hui and Zhang Kuan (Wang 2011), had
been educated in the USA and were familiar with fashionable academic criticism of a postmodern and
deconstructionist hue that ‘demythified’ the West (Fewsmith 2008: 125–29). This approach, promulgated in the
academic journal Dushu (Readings), deconstructed, via Said and Foucault, Western narratives about China. Zhang Kuan, in
particular, rejected Enlightenment values and saw postmodern critical theory as a method to build up a national ‘discourse of resistance’ and
counter Western demands regarding issues such as human rights and intellectual property. It
is through its affinity with this self-
strengthening, Occidentalist lens, that Pan's critical study should perhaps be critically read . Simply put, Pan
identifies a political economy of fear and desire that informs and complicates Western foreign policy and, Pan asserts, tells us more about the
West's ‘self-imagination’ than it does about Chinese reality. Pan attempts to sustain this claim via an analysis, in Chapter 5, of the self-fulfilling
prophecy of the China threat, followed, in Chapters 6 and 7, by exposure of the false promises and premises of the China ‘opportunity’. Pan
certainly offers a provocative insight into Western attitudes to China and their impact on Chinese
political thinking. In particular, he demonstrates that China's foreign policy-makers react negatively to what they view as a hostile
American strategy of containment (101). In this context, Pan contends, accurately, that Sino–US relations are mutually constitutive and the USA
must take some responsibility for the rise of China threat (107). This latter point, however, is one that Australian realists like Owen Harries,
whom Pan cites approvingly, have made consistently since the late 1990s. In other words, not all Western analysis uncritically
endorses the view that China's rise is threatening . Nor is all Western perception of this rise reducible
to the threat scenario advanced by recent US administrations . Pan's subsequent argument that the China
opportunity thesis leads to inevitable disappointment and subtly reinforces the China threat paradigm
is, also, somewhat misleading . On the one hand, Pan notes that Western anticipation of ‘China's
transformation and democratization’ has ‘become a burgeoning cottage industry’ (111). Yet, on the
other hand, Pan observes that Western commentators , such as Jacques, demonstrate a growing awareness
that the democratisation thesis is a fantasy. That is, Pan, like Jacques, argues that China ‘will neither democratize nor collapse,
but may instead remain politically authoritarian and economically stable at the same time’ (132). To merge, as Pan does, the
democratisation thesis into its authoritarian antithesis in order to evoke ‘present Western
disillusionment’ (132) with China is somewhat reductionist . Pan's contention that we need a new
paradigm shift ‘to free ourselves from the positivist aspiration to grand theory or transcendental
scientific paradigm itself’ (157) might be admirable, but this will not be achieved by a constructivism
that would ultimately meet with the approval of what Brady terms China's thought managers (Brady: 6).