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China Offshore Balancing 1AC-Inherency Contention 1 is Inherency The US will maintain troop level in South Korea at 28,500 despite redeployment to Iraq and Afghanistan Kim Young-Jin Staff Reporter for the Korea Times 7/23/ 10 “'US troops in Korea to be deployed to conflict areas” [] PHK Strategic flexibility changes the focus of American forces abroad from stationary missions to defend host nations to a rapid deployment scheme under which they can be swiftly dispatched to other parts of the world where the United States is in need. The U.S. maintains 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against the North __,__ part of the over 400,000 American forces stationed abroad, including on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. " We have longstanding relations not just with the ROK, but also with Japan," Mullen said. "We have emerging relationships with other countries in the area... so the forces we have here are very much in support of all that. We haven't worked any of the details out on how that might happen in the future, and whether it would include a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan or somewhere else. So we're just not there, yet." Mullen reiterated, however, the U.S. pledge to maintain the current level of troops here for the time being. Regarding the troop level of 28,500, he said: “That 's the commitment and that's where we are." US plans to maintain troops in Japan. News Wires 05/28/ 10 , “US, Japan agree to keep military base on Okinawa” France 24 International News [] Japan and the United States agreed Friday to keep a US military base on the island of Okinawa despite strong local opposition , resolving a row that has badly strained ties between the allies. Tokyo and Washington said in a joint statement that the Futenma marine airbase would be moved , as first agreed in 2006, from a city area to the coastal Henoko region of the southern island. They announced the deal after a telephone conversation between Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took power last year vowing "more equal" relations with the United States, and President Barack Obama. "We were able to reach an agreement on the Futenma issue by the end of May," Hatoyama told reporters, referring to a self-imposed deadline on the issue that has badly eroded his domestic political support. The White House said both leaders "expressed satisfaction with the progress made by the two sides in reaching an operationally viable and politically sustainable plan to relocate the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma ." The base has long angered locals because of aircraft noise, pollution, the risk of crashes and friction with American service personnel, especially after the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen. Hatoyama -- who in an August election ended Japan's half-century of conservative rule -- initially said he may scrap the 2006 pact and move the base off the island, but then failed to find an alternative location. He caved in early this month when he said the base would stay on Okinawa, the reluctant hosts of a heavy US military presence since World War II, citing the need for a strong US military presence for regional security. China Offshore Balancing 1AC-Plan Text Thus the plan: The United States federal government should withdraw all of its military and police presence from South Korea and Japan. China Offshore Balancing 1AC-Miscalculation Contention 2 is Miscalculation A variety of causes make miscalculation with China inevitable Robert Samuelson Editor of Newsweek and The Washington Post 2/15 /10 “The China Miscalculation” [] WASHINGTON -- It's become apparent from recent events that America's political, business and scholarly elites have fundamentally misjudged China. Conflicts with China have multiplied. Consider: the undervalued renminbi and its effect on trade; the breakdown of global warming negotiations in Copenhagen; China's weak support of efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; its similarly poor record in pushing North Korea to relinquish its tiny atomic arsenal; the sale of U.S. weapons to Taiwan; and Google's threat to leave China rather than condone continued censorship. The United States and China view the world in starkly different terms. The lesson of the Great Depression and World War II for Americans was that isolationism was self-defeating. Tried after World War I, it failed. The United States had to engage abroad to protect its economy and physical security. These core ideas remain the bedrock justifications for overseas military commitments and the promotion of an open world economy. The quest is for stability, not empire. Top of Form Bottom of Form China, too, covets stability. But its history and perspective are different, as Martin Jacques shows in his masterful "When China Rules the World." Starting with the first Opium War (1839-42) -- when England insisted on importing opium from India -- China suffered a string of military defeats and humiliating treaties that gave England, France and other nations trading and political privileges. In the 20th century, China was balkanized by civil war and Japanese invasion. Not until the communists' 1949 triumph in the civil war was there again a unified national government. These experiences left legacies: fear of disorder and memory of foreign exploitation. Since 1978, China's economy has increased roughly 10-fold. The prevailing American assumption was that as China became richer, its interests and values would converge with those of the United States. China would depend increasingly on a thriving global economy. Freer domestic markets would loosen the stranglehold of the Communist Party. The United States and China would not always agree, but disputes would be manageable. It isn't turning out that way. A wealthier China has become more assertive, notes Jacques. American prestige has further suffered from the financial crisis originating in the United States. But the fissure goes deeper: China does not accept the legitimacy and desirability of the post-World War II global order, which involves collective responsibility among great powers (led by the United States) for world economic stability and peace. China's policies reflect a different notion: China First. Unlike the isolationist America First movement of the 1930s, China First does not mean global disengagement. It does mean engagement on China's terms. China accepts and supports the existing order when that serves its needs, as when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Otherwise, it plays by its own rules and norms. Trade policy is explicitly discriminatory to address two crucial problems: surplus labor and scarce commodities. The undervalued renminbi aims to help create 20 million or more jobs that Jacques cites as needed annually. China is scouring the globe to make investments in secure raw materials, particularly fuel. The object of "economic reform," Jacques writes, was "never Westernization" but "a desire to restore the (Communist) Party's legitimacy." Most American-Chinese disputes reflect China's unwillingness to endanger domestic goals for international ends. It won't commit to binding greenhouse gas cuts because these could reduce economic growth and (again) jobs. On Iran, it values its oil investments more than it fears Iranian nukes. Likewise, it worries that unrest in North Korea could send refugees spilling across the border. Because Taiwan is regarded as part of China, U.S. arms sales there become domestic interference. And censorship is needed to maintain one-party control. China's worldview threatens America's geopolitical and economic interests. Just recently, 19 U.S. trade associations wrote the Obama administration warning that new Chinese rules for "indigenous innovation" could "exclude a wide array of U.S. firms" from the Chinese market -- or force them to turn over advanced technology. (British firms are so incensed by "overwhelming protectionism" that some may quit China, reports the Telegraph newspaper.) It would be a tragedy if these two superpowers began regarding each other as adversaries. But that's the drift. Heirs to a 2,000-year cultural tradition -- and citizens of the world's largest country -- the Chinese have an innate sense of superiority, Jacques writes. Americans, too, have a sense of superiority, thinking that our values -- the belief in freedom, individualism and democracy -- reflect universal aspirations. Greater conflicts and a collision of national egos seem inevitable. No longer should we sit passively while China's trade and currency policies jeopardize jobs here and elsewhere. Political differences between the countries are increasingly hard to ignore. But given China's growing power -- and the world economy's fragile state -- a showdown may do no one any good. Miscalculation is leading us down dark alleys.

China Offshore Balancing 1AC-Miscalculation China’s advancement makes offshore balancing the only way to prevent regional conflict Doug Bandow, Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance and Cato Institute and former Special Assistant to Reagan, 1/12/20 09, “First Among Equals,” http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20570 It’s the job of military planners to plot future contingencies, which is why the U.S. Joint Forces Command looked ahead in its newly published //Joint Operating Environment 2008//. Despite obvious foreign threats, America’s destiny continues to remain largely in its own hands. No other country could draft such a report with such a perspective. The Europeans, constrained by the European Union and their memories of World War II, must cast a wary eye towards Russia and have little military means to influence events much beyond Africa. For all of its pretensions of power, Moscow is economically dependent on Europe and fearful of an expanding China; Russia’s military revival consists of the ability to beat up small neighbors on its border. Countries like Australia, South Korea and Japan are not without resources, but they are able to influence their regions, no more. Brazil is likely to become the dominant player in South America, but global clout is far away. India and China are emerging powers, but remain well behind Russia and especially the United States. Every other nation would have to start its operational analysis with America, which alone possesses the ability to intervene decisively in every region. The main challenge facing the United States will be becoming more like other nations. That is, over time other states will grow economically relative to America. That will allow them to improve and expand their militaries. Washington will long remain first among equals, the most powerful single global player. But eventually it will no longer be able to impose its will on any nation in any circumstance. That doesn’t mean the United States will be threatened. Other countries won’t be able to defeat America or force it to terms. But the outcomes of ever more international controversies will become less certain. Other governments will be more willing in more instances to say no to Washington. Especially China. Much will change in the coming years, but as the //JOE 2008// observes, The Sino-American relationship represents one of the great strategic question marks of the next twenty-five years. Regardless of the outcome—cooperative or coercive, or both— China will become increasingly important in the considerations and strategic perceptions of joint force commander s. What kind of a power is Beijing likely to become? Chinese policymakers emphasize that they plan a “peaceful rise,” but their ambitions loom large. Argues //JOE 2008//, while the People’s Republic of China doesn’t “emphasize the future strictly in military terms,” the Chinese do calculate “that eventually their growing strength will allow them to dominate Asia and the Western Pacifi c.” More ominously, argues the Joint Forces Command, “The Chinese are working hard to ensure that if there is a military confrontation with the United States sometime in the future, they will be ready.” Yet this assessment is far less threatening than it sounds. The PRC is not capable (nor close to being capable) of threatening vital U.S. interests—conquering American territory, threatening our liberties and constitutional system, cutting off U.S. trade with the rest of the world, dominating Eurasia and turning that rich resource base against America. After all, the United States has the world’s most sophisticated and powerful nuclear arsenal; China’s intercontinental delivery capabilities are quite limited. America has eleven carrier groups while Beijing has none. Washington is allied with most every other industrialized state and a gaggle of the PRC’s neighbors. China is surrounded by nations with which it has been at war in recent decades: Russia, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and India. Indeed, today Beijing must concentrate on defending itself. In pointing to the PRC’s investment in submarines, the //JOE 2008// acknowledges: “The emphasis on nuclear submarines and an increasingly global Navy in particular, underlines worries that the U.S. Navy possesses the ability to shut down China’s energy imports of oil—80% of which go through the straits of Malacca.” The Chinese government is focused on preventing American intervention against it in its own neighborhood, not on contesting U.S. dominance elsewhere in the world, let alone in North America. Washington almost certainly will be unable to thwart Beijing, at least at acceptable cost. China needs spend only a fraction of America’s military outlays to develop a deterrent capability —nuclear sufficiency to forestall nuclear coercion, submarine and missile forces to sink U.S. carriers, and anti-satellite and cyber-warfare weapons to blind and disrupt American forces. Washington could ill afford to intervene in East Asia against the PRC so equipped. Such a military is well within China’s reach. Notes //JOE 2008// : “by conservative calculations it is easily possible that by the 2030s China could modernize its military to reach a level of approximately one quarter of current U.S. capabilities without any significant impact on its economy.” Thus, absent the unlikely economic and social collapse of China, in not too many years Beijing will able to enforce its “no” to America. Washington must reconsider its response. U.S. taxpayers already spend as much as everyone else on earth on the military. It’s a needless burden, since promiscuous intervention overseas does not make Americans safer. To maintain today’s overwhelming edge over progressively more powerful militaries in China, Russia, India and other states would require disproportionately larger military outlays in the United States. It’s a game Washington cannot win. A better alternative would be to more carefully delineate vital interests, while treating lesser issues as matters for diplomacy rather than military action. Equally important, the American government should inform its allies that their security is in the first instance their responsibility. Washington China Offshore Balancing 1AC-Miscalculation **** should act as an offshore balancer to prevent domination of Eurasia by a hostile hegemon. But the United States should not attempt to coercively micro-manage regional relations. Stepping back today would reduce pressure on Beijing to engage in a sustained arms buildup to limit U.S. intervention in the future. If the PRC nevertheless moved forward, its neighbors could take note and respond accordingly. Encouraging China to keep its rise peaceful is in everyone’s interest. Despite the many challenges facing U.S. policy, America retains an extraordinarily advantageous position in today’s global order. Eventually, the United States is likely to fall to merely first among many—the globe’s leading state, but no longer the hyper- or unipower, as America has been called. The sooner Washington begins preparing for this new role, the smoother will be the transition.

US-Sino war causes extinction Straits Times, Singaporean Newspaper , July 25  2K  , “No one gains in a war over Taiwan” Lexis The high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries far and near and -horror of horrors - raise the possibility of a nuclear war. Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on fire. And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq. In south Asia, hostilities between India and Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability, there is little hope of winning a war against China 50 years later, short of using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities. Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding nuclear weapons. Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures from the military to drop it. He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention __.__ Gen Ridgeway said that  should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilisation. China Offshore Balancing 1AC-North Korea Contention 3 is North Korea South Korea is refusing to continue to the six party talks with North Korea Lee Jae-Hoon Reporter for The Hankyoreh, a South Korean newspaper 8/19 /10 “‘Now is not the time for six-party talks,’ says foreign minister” [] Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said Sunday that now was not the time to discuss the six-party talks laden with North Korean preconditions. Appearing in a policy discussion on KTV, Yu said North Korea is saying it will discuss the nuclear issue only if the issue of a peace treaty is also discussed, and is calling for the six-party talks to be held on an equal footing. Yu said this, however, was a demand that would render the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 powerless, passed after North Korea’s second nuclear test. He said North Korea’s sudden talk of the six-party talks was an unfortunate attempt to use the talks as a means to dodge world interest in the sinking of the Cheonan. Yu’s comments have been interpreted as signaling Seoul’s negativity regarding talk of restarting the six-party talks. The South Korean and U.S. governments are scheduled to discuss the six-party talks at the first round of “2 plus 2” (foreign and defense ministers) talks in Seoul on Wednesday, so attention is focusing on the U.S. response to Seoul’s negative attitude. Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said Thursday (local time) that Washington was ready to sit down with North Korea under the right environment. The six party talks are the only way for the US and South Korea to denuclearize North Korea Wookshik Cheong Representative of the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea 7/29 /10 “The Cheonan Sinking and a New Cold War in Asia” [] The Cheonan incident has had a critical impact on the Six Party Talks as well. North Korea, China, and Russia are generally positive about resuming the Six Party Talks as rapidly as possible. However, South Korea, the US, and Japan are taking a more passive attitude relating to the Talks. There are some important differences between policy in the US and South Korea on this issue though. South Korea is pursuing a one track //Cheonan// policy, arguing that there is no need to resume the Six Party Talks without solving the //Cheonan// incident. On the other hand, the US has a two-track approach to this problem. The US has concluded that the North is guilty and is pushing for increased sanctions against North Korea. Additionally, however, the US is expecting the Six Party Talks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. The US’ diplomatic dogma against hostile nations, which combines both sanctions and dialogue, can be seen in the response to the Cheonan incident. US presence in East Asia prevents China from preventing North Korean Nuclearization Dick K. Nanto, Mark E. Manyin , and Kerry Dumbaugh (specialist in Industry and Trade, Specialist in Asian Affairs, and Specialist in Asian Affairs – Congressional Research Service) 1/22 /2010 For years, the U.S. policy debate has been dogged by diametrically opposed opinions about exactly what China’s real security concerns and political objectives are on the North Korea nuclear issue. These continuing internal U.S. disagreements helped to paralyze much of the U.S. policy process during most of the George W. Bush Administration on policy toward North Korea. According to one view, espoused by many in the U.S. government, China is doing a credible job with North Korea and has been a helpful host and interlocutor for the United States in the whole process of the Six Party Talks involving the United States, the PRC, Japan, Russia, and North and South Korea. These proponents hold that Americans can count on the sincerity of PRC leaders when they say that Beijing’s principal priority is a non-nuclear Korean peninsula. 11 In spite of the military alliance and political roots that the PRC shares with North Korea, these proponents maintain that PRC officials have grown weary and frustrated with the unpredictability and intransigence of their erratic neighbor. Furthermore, some say, China may have less leverage with Pyongyang than many suggest and risks losing what little leverage it does have if it reduces or terminates its substantial food and energy assistance to North Korea. The chief rival to this viewpoint holds that China is being duplicitous on the North Korea question and insincere in its statements supporting a freeze or dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. 12 According to this view, Beijing actually has substantial leverage with Pyongyang but elects not to use it in order to ensure that the North Korean issue continues to complicate U.S. regional strategy and undermine the U.S. position in Asia. This is the reason, according to this view, that China appears casually tolerant of North Korea ’s erratic and unpredictable behavior, and why Beijing has sided so often with the North Korean position in the Six Party Talks. Furthermore, these proponents suggest that Beijing and Pyongyang actually may be coordinating their policies on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including the timing of North Korea’s more provocative pronouncements and actions, in an effort to keep the United States off balance. In addition, Beijing’s first priority on the Korean peninsula appears to be stability both in the Kim Jong-il regime and in the country as a whole. For Beijing, therefore, as long as the United States and others are talking to the DPRK, they are unlikely to take harsher actions against Pyongyang, and deliveries of economic and humanitarian aid to North Korea that result from the talks can only help to ensure stability.