the strategy to contain China will need a multilateral approach. now that China is a bipartisan issues in both republicans and democrats, the US needs to reach out for partners abroad, first the most important is the EU. The US needs a solid and well coordinated China strategy with it's allies in Europe. the US needs to convince the Europeans if they don't stand up now, than one day they could ended up coerced like Australia. the battle for influence for Germany in particular should be won, as they are the natural leader of EU due to their economic clout.
next should be ASEAN, there's no where else that China's influence felt more strongly than in ASEAN, an scenario where ASEAN is pulled out from China's orbit will be a huge geopolitical victory for the US. and it could very well start with things like investment.
China just execute a premature approach of foreign relations, that in my opinion only serve them a title of becoming a world pariah, let's start with Covid-19, it's unsophisticated wolf warrior style diplomacy, clashes with India, trade wars with Australia etc.
China's aggressive foreign policy not only awaken the Americans (prematurely) on the scale of China military threat, also pushes for major arms proliferation in the Indo-Pacific region, from Japan, India, Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia and most importantly the revitalization of the QUAD. For an aspiring world superpower it's hard to see how this superpower will expand beyond it's borders and near seas while being encircled by major militaries with varying loyalties to it's nemesis on almost all side.
The US still had the geopolitical advantage, but it will be decided in this decade if the US will hold to their comparative advantage. they should have not waste any time. China has many major errors in it's rushed approach to be equal to the states, if exploited well could well be used against them in the future.
the US should re-engage in world institutions, build trust in Europe as well as ASEAN and above all re-join TTP (or whatever it has incarnated to). China rise is not without it's headwinds, starting from this decade China will experience the largest population contraction in human history, some rough estimate has put that by the end of this century China population will be only half the current population. and it's going to be old population, which will hamper their attempt to overtake the US economy.
Some economists say a shrinking workforce threatens China’s chances of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s largest economy.
www.wsj.com
and this is where it gets quite scary, especially for countries surrounding China, like mine. historically wars and conflicts are lit by ascending powers that view itself running out of time, think about Germany before WW1 or Japan in before WW2. China might be on the ascent, but the fuel to that ascent had largely diminished by now, namely an aging population, increasing wage, diminishing competitiveness.
For countries in the receiving ends of China's bullying, they should learn to play the long games.