Joint Report
Editors: Dhruva Jaishankar and Greg Brown
Contributors: Shikha Aggarwal, Divyank Chaudhary, Lily McElwee, Aaron Glasserman, Keshav Kelkar, Kento Mashiko, Takuya Matsuda, Helen Mitchell, Philip Rogers, Rena Sasaki, David Saultry, and Neil Thomas
BACKGROUND
What will China’s strategic outlook be in 2030? This is a critical question facing policy-makers around the world. China is the world’s second-largest economy, the second most populous global power, and boasts among the world’s most powerful militaries. Beijing’s rapid ascent has put it in a position to reshape the international political and economic order. Its ambitious project of “national rejuvenation” — which is a strategic plan to achieve “lasting greatness for the Chinese nation” and encompasses “reunification” with Taiwan – poses major quandaries to its neighbors and the wider world.
Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – four countries that have worked together as the Quad – are keenly aware of some of the challenges presented by China’s rise and actions. The 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy highlights that China is “the pacing challenge.” Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy, for instance, describes China as the “greatest strategic challenge” for Tokyo’s security. India also sees China’s rise as a “complicated challenge” and a “unique problem.” Australia’s 2024 National Defense Strategy portrays U.S.-China strategic competition as a “primary feature of Australia’s security environment.”
Amid continuing conflict in Europe and the Middle East, elections in several countries, and an ongoing post-pandemic economic recovery, policymakers must think broadly and creatively about China’s medium and long-term trajectory. While there is no shortage of analysis and speculation of China’s capabilities and behavior today, it is imperative to keep an eye on longer-term developments and remain open to uncertainties that could shape China’s strategic outlook.
To think productively about visible patterns as well as uncertainties, our Task Force of twelve China scholars from Australia, India, Japan, and the United States came together to imagine scenarios for China’s strategic environment and trajectory by 2030.
METHODOLOGY
The Task Force identified four long-term strategic scenarios after a joint exercise in which we imagined alternative futures. First, we identified and ranked more than 125 factors that might determine China’s strategic outlook in 2030. This helped participants discuss a range of trends — political, economic, technological, social, and military — that could impact future scenarios. They encompassed domestic and international politics, institutional competition, jockeying within Chinese elite politics, public mobilization, the effects of overseas events, and the health and political stability of China’s current head of government and political officials.
Second, after defining, sorting, and ranking the factors, we selected two primary variables as the key drivers of China’s strategic outlook. Our goal was to choose the two most uncertain and important variables which could significantly impact China’s outlook and trajectory. These two variables were: (1) China’s confidence in its economic resilience and (2) its perception of cohesion among a countervailing coalition that included U.S. allies and partners. The former is mainly a determinant of China’s internal strength, and the latter is broadly a determinant of China’s external constraints.
For scope and consistency, the variables are defined as follows. Economic resilience includes China’s success in technological self-reliance, indigenous innovation, and dominance of supply chains. Coalition cohesion involves the United States, its treaty allies, and like-minded partners. Together, they can coordinate, collaborate, and implement policies to counter China’s objectives for regional and global hegemony. Examples of such actions include but are not limited to export controls, investment screening, sanctions, joint military exercises or operations, political-military cooperation, the sharing of advanced defense technology, and trade arrangements.
Third, using these two variables we created a 2x2 matrix, with four possible scenarios as shown below. Finally, within smaller groups, we constructed a narrative for each scenario by discussing possible events, crises, and signposts that might characterize it. The four scenarios are described and explained in detail below. The narratives depicted in each scenario are merely illustrative and it is beyond the scope of the paper to ascertain the probability of individual scenarios.
SCENARIOS FOR 2030
Scenario 1: Mutual Malaise
Beijing is less confident in its economic resilience and perceives weak coalition cohesion.
China’s multiple efforts to strengthen its economic resilience have failed but Beijing is perceiving U.S.-led alliances to be weak too. Against this backdrop, Beijing simultaneously seeks to sow divisions between the United States and its coalition partners whilst stabilizing bilateral ties with Washington. The activities of the PLA are more restrained and social cohesion may be a concern for the CCP.
China’s multiple attempts to achieve significant economic growth have failed. It is evident in how the CCP leadership’s public pronouncements have shifted, for instance, in increasingly modest growth targets being set with each passing year. China’s industrial, technological, and financial sectors remain vulnerable to sanctions, and export controls on key technological inputs. Within China, consumer confidence, consumption, and foreign investment are weakening. These developments leave policymakers with no clear pathways to achieve the objectives of the 14th Five-Year plan of becoming a “moderately developed economy” by 2035.
PLA’s military activities are more restrained in the near-abroad. China continues to emphasize “reunification” with Taiwan as a core objective. While the PLA may persist with gray zone activities and military exercises, broadly, the status quo prevails across the Taiwan strait. Simultaneously, it makes peaceful overtures and improves military-to-military communications and diplomacy with other regional players. Similarly, China becomes less assertive in its border disputes with neighbors such as India and Philippines. Military modernization efforts moreover shift to asymmetric assets and capabilities (e.g., area denial).
China’s perception of a U.S.-led countervailing coalition is that of weakness. European allies are troubled by the United States reducing its assistance to Ukraine and striking a grand bargain with Russia. Alternatively, Asian allies are frustrated by Washington’s focus on protracted conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, at the expense of the Indo-Pacific region. Either way, China perceives the U.S.-led countervailing coalition to be weakening due to differing priorities and decreasing collective action. Weakening could also include failed efforts to modernize the U.S.-Japan alliance’s command and control structures, stagnation of “minilateral” partnerships, and lack of transatlantic coordination to impose economic costs on China.
Consequently, China looks to stabilize bilateral ties with Washington while driving a wedge between the U.S. and its coalition partners. As China subverts the U.S.-led countervailing coalition, it would prefer to project confidence. The key unknown is which side of this modality China leans into more. This could be achieved through preferential trade deals with U.S. allies and partners (such as India) while emphasizing a lack of U.S. credibility. China resolves trade and investment disputes with the European Union (EU), leading to better economic ties and further reduced coordination with the United States on tariffs and export controls.
Scenario 2: Bold Beijing
Beijing is more confident in its economic resilience and perceives weak coalition cohesion.
China has a strong, growing export-led economy. It remains central to global supply chains and more crucial to global governance. Beijing is engaging in increasingly forceful and provocative actions, especially to U.S. allies and partners around the world. In its outreach to Taipei, Beijing is emphasizing ‘carrots,’ although successful outreach will be shaped by Taipei’s perceptions of the cohesiveness of a balancing coalition.
Beijing enjoys a high degree of confidence in China’s economic resilience. Due to proactive “de-risking” measures and “divide and conquer” tactics, China has deterred technology and economic restrictions imposed by the U.S.-led coalition. In fact, key U.S. allies and partners like Japan and India remain dependent on China for markets and critical supply chains. And the U.S. economy is also impacted by debt burdens and a fracturing trade system. All these trends further bolster Beijing’s confidence in its state-led capitalist model and economic resilience.
Beijing continues its statist, export-focused economic policy, confident in China’s ability to withstand external pressure. A strong and growing export-led economy coupled with a benign external environment will free up resources to address domestic challenges. Beijing doubles down on the provision of public services, expanding high-quality healthcare and education to millions of its citizens. These services could be complemented by unprecedented investments in elder care for its rapidly aging population and natalist policies to address the looming demographic crisis. Although it persists with non-market practices leaving major foreign industrial powers and companies frustrated with China.
Confident in China’s economic resilience, Beijing increasingly engages in gray zone tactics to chip away at a fracturing U.S. alliance network and pursue regional hegemony. Looking abroad, Xi Jinping is emboldened, and he is looking to drive a wedge within the U.S.-led coalition. Beijing therefore launches a major diplomatic and economic push to engage other Asian powers like Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. These efforts take the form of carrots and sticks and could include for example the conclusion of a China-Japan-Republic of Korea trade agreement. Beijing could undertake diplomatic initiatives in Eurasia too although they may face obstacles due to lack of transparency and buy-in.
However, Xi Jinping is not too confident to take risky and costly military action towards annexing Taiwan. The Party’s declared deadline of 2049 for “national rejuvenation” — of which national “unification” with Taiwan is a key component — remains far off. Meanwhile Beijing accelerates military modernization and increases gray zone activities in the Taiwan strait. It nonetheless reemphasizes carrots in its outreach to Taipei. Beijing may pursue an expansion of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), incentivize Taiwanese firms to invest in the mainland, and launch generous scholarship programs for Taiwanese students. The success of such carrots will be shaped by Taipei’s perceptions of cohesion within the U.S.-led coalition and China’s economic resilience. If Taiwan does not share Beijing’s assessments (or China’s confidence creates more anxiety in Taipei), these carrots are likely to be ineffective, and Beijing may reevaluate its approach.
Scenario 3: Hustle for Hegemony
Beijing is more confident in its economic resilience and perceives strong coalition cohesion.
Neither China nor the United States feels that it is comfortably ahead of the other, creating a tense, fragile, and bitterly contested balance of power. The Chinese leadership feels emboldened to pursue a more assertive foreign policy but is also deterred from decisive territorial moves. Xi Jinping remains tactically flexible, but his strategic focus on ideological control, economic statism, and national security has deepened. U.S. allies and partners have implemented more export controls and economic and other deterrence measures, leading to partial decoupling.
China and the United States are hustling for hegemony. Competition between China and the United States has significantly intensified after both countries enjoy strong domestic outcomes. Beijing is more confident in its economic resilience after making significant progress in indigenous innovation and high-tech manufacturing, supported by greater stimulus and fiscal reforms. This progress comes despite Washington’s success in building a more cohesive coalition of like-minded countries concerned about China’s rising power and cooperating closely on economic controls and security exercises directed at China. The Chinese leadership feels emboldened to pursue a more assertive foreign policy but is also deterred from decisive territorial moves by a more united coalition, creating an international system that is more tense, ideological, and bifurcated.
China feels economically secure and externally confident. In China, Xi Jinping remains general secretary of the CCP, his legitimacy bolstered by the country’s stable growth and especially its technological progress in key areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and semiconductors. He remains tactically flexible but his strategic focus on ideological control, economic statism, and national security has only deepened. Efforts to decouple from chokehold technologies have intensified, with Chinese firms, products, and standards increasingly dominating supply chains in the non-Western world. Western firms and investors increasingly struggle to operate in China, although Beijing welcomes more capital from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Nationalism has become more pronounced, economic coercion becomes a more routine element of Chinese statecraft, and China turbocharges its efforts to influence global governance and operationalize alternative international institutions such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Military modernization has accelerated, and the PLA now has the initial capabilities to credibly (but not certainly) seize Taiwan or eject other claimant states from the South China Sea.
But China is constrained by a stronger and more unified U.S.-led coalition. All is not well for Beijing. Despite stable economic growth and domestic stability, China confronts a more unified U.S.-led coalition, which constraints Beijing’s foreign policy ambitions. Propelled by a stronger economy at home and investments in domestic capabilities, the United States, in concert with allies and partners, can implement multilateral sanctions, export controls and economic deterrence measures against China. These measures though do not cripple China’s ability to innovate, and only lead to partial decoupling. U.S.-led coalitions also operate more cohesively in global governance, vigorously competing for influence with China in the Global South and cooperating more closely through groupings such as the G7, NATO, and the Quad. Multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges such as climate change and economic development has become politicized and ineffective. The U.S-led coalition also presents a more unified challenge to China in the military and security space, including with a significant expansion of allies joining AUKUS Pillar II and more joint operations in the Indo-Pacific, creating a credible deterrent to China launching kinetic action against Taiwan. Both China and the United States are strong, but neither feels that it is comfortably ahead of the other, creating a tense, fragile, and bitterly contested balance of power.
Scenario 4: Cornered China
Beijing is less confident in its economic resilience and perceives strong coalition cohesion.
The CCP has not been successful in its technological ambitions to surpass the United States and its allies in achieving self-reliance and dominance. Simultaneously, perceptions of strong coalition cohesion and domestic weakness deter Beijing from considering aggressive actions, including a Taiwan invasion. However, it may act more disruptively and unpredictably in international affairs.
China is facing economic headwinds, and its global economic outlook is looking weak too. China’s economic growth is lackluster due to decreasing exports and investments. As unemployment and local debt are rising, China’s policymakers face sharper budget trade-offs and discontent at home. This could lead to some changes in economic policies, although the CCP leadership is unable to find new solutions to address these challenges.
China’s socio-political cohesion is under pressure, and nationalist narratives are on the rise. To secure its grip on political power, the CCP may amplify efforts for ideological education or undertake further repressive action. This may involve diversion of existing resources to bolster its military and internal security apparatus.
China’s external environment is deteriorating. At the same time, the U.S.-led coalition has found new momentum and gained strength in the Indo-Pacific. It has a more cohesive coalition which has also attracted neutral countries and widened the former’s diplomatic space. Elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East, the Ukraine war has ended and the Abraham Accords are also strengthened. China hence finds its diplomatic space to be shrinking. Beijing sees the imperative to deepen partnerships with North Korea, Russia, and Iran. China is likely to be more proactive in its outreach with developing countries in the Global South to improve its economic prospects, even as other global initiatives fail to enhance China’s relative influence. While perceptions of a more cohesive U.S.-led coalition deter Xi Jinping from considering a Taiwan invasion, and the status quo prevails across the straits.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
The task force agreed over the course of their deliberations on three broad implications of their exercise:
China’s perceptions matter. What Beijing sees is what the world gets, and its leadership’s perceptions will ultimately matter more than any objective reality about its strategic circumstances. At the same time, it is getting harder to know how China views the world. This will complicate assessments.
Resilience over growth. China’s leaders are expected to prioritize resilience over economic growth as a long-term objective. This does not mean that growth will be irrelevant. But technological and economic self-reliance will be the key metric that shapes Xi Jinping and the Politburo’s outlook on China’s economic development and security.
Cohesion curbs aggression. On balance, China’s perception of a strong countervailing coalition is likely to deter some aggressive actions. This will not mean that tensions will subside entirely, but that they will be easier to manage if actors who share similar concerns are able to consult and coordinate.
Therefore, policymakers – especially from Quad countries – may find it useful to regularly exchange assessments on China’s strategic outlooks. Such exercises can expose them to diverse perspectives and assist efforts to craft policy options for China’s future trajectory.
Note: Citations and references can be found in the PDF version of this paper available here.