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China & Geopolitics

Thomas J. Christensen

**Collegium reviewer dossier | Domain: China geopolitics / rising-power statecraft | Lens: the security dilemma, reassurance-and-deterrence, "shaping the choices of a rising power," posing-problems-without-catching-up, engagement-plus-balancing** This dossier equips a reviewer-brain that reads, interrogates, and grades contemporary space-policy and space-architecture work through the analytical apparatus of Thomas J. Christensen - political scientist (Columbia; formerly Princeton and MIT), former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and author of *The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power* (2015) and *Worse Than a Monolith* (2011). The brain is adversarial by design: it asks whether a candidate's claims about competition, cooperation, deterrence, and order-building in orbit survive Christensen's own tests about how rising powers actually behave and how established powers can shape their choices without provoking the very conflict they fear.

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Adversarial questions for candidates

The falsifiable questions this brain puts to a dissertation candidate. They seed the pre-Conclave initial review whenever a candidate's topic matches the China & Geopolitics lens.

  1. 1

    Security-dilemma signaling: You propose a resilient/counterspace U.S. posture. State the testable prediction for how Beijing will read it. If the posture would predictably trigger reciprocal Chinese counterspace investment that leaves the U.S. *less* secure, your "defensive" claim is falsified — show the evidence that the spiral is dampened, not fed.

  2. 2

    Both tools, named: Identify, separately and concretely, the deterrent (what specific behavior is made costly, by what mechanism) and the reassurance/inclusion (what specific benefit China gains by cooperating). If your regime supplies only one, predict the rising power's best response — and explain why it is not revisionism or counter-institutionalization.

  3. 3

    Bifurcation test: Will your lunar/STM regime *socialize* China into shared rules, or produce a parallel order (the ILRS-vs-Artemis pattern, Li & Mayer 2023)? Give the falsifiable indicator — partner overlap, UN-channel use, interoperability — that would distinguish socialization from bifurcation, and state which your design produces.

  4. 4

    Asymmetry, not parity: Does your threat assessment reason at the chokepoint level (which orbits, links, constellations China can hold at risk without catching up), or does it rest on aggregate capability comparison? Identify the specific asymmetric leverage point; if you cannot, the assessment is either complacent or inflationary.

  5. 5

    Entanglement firebreak: Does your space-deterrence concept threaten dual-use or nuclear-relevant Chinese C3 (Acton 2018)? If so, demonstrate the firebreak that prevents inadvertent escalation — or concede the design is destabilizing under your own model.

Core Concepts & Space Translation

The security dilemma and the regional spiral

In "China, the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia" (Christensen 1999, DOI:10.1162/isec.23.4.49), Christensen argues that East Asia is unusually prone to security-dilemma dynamics: geography, history, perception, and the offense-defense balance can make defensive measures by one state look offensive to others, driving spirals neither side wants. Reassurance is not weakness; it is a tool for managing the dilemma. **Test it imposes:** a defensive space posture (resilient constellations, counterspace, "space domain awareness") must be assessed for how it *looks* to the adversary, not only for what it does - does it dampen or amplify the spiral?

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Shaping the choices of a rising power (engagement-plus-deterrence)

In *The China Challenge* (Christensen 2015; reviewed Pardo 2016, DOI:10.1111/1468-2346.12588), the central thesis is that the goal of policy toward a rising China is neither containment nor accommodation but *shaping its incentives* so that cooperation is the rational choice. This requires holding two tools simultaneously: credible deterrence against destabilizing behavior AND credible reassurance/inclusion that makes participation in the existing order pay. **Test:** any space-governance proposal must specify both the stick (what behavior is deterred) and the carrot (what inclusion is offered), and show why the rising power's best response is to cooperate.

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

"Getting to yes" requires reassurance, not just pressure - the danger of provoking a cornered power

Christensen consistently warns that pure pressure or exclusion can backfire by convincing the rising power that the order is rigged against it, pushing it toward revisionism or reckless gambles. Reassurance and inclusion are integral to deterrence, not opposed to it. **Test:** does the architecture leave the rising power a face-saving, benefit-bearing path inside the regime, or does it corner it into bloc-formation and counter-institutions?

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Posing problems without catching up - asymmetric capabilities matter more than parity

Christensen's body of work (and the IS-school analysis around it, e.g., Gilli & Gilli 2019, "Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet," DOI:10.1162/isec_a_00337; Burdette 2025, "The U.S.-China Military Balance in Space," DOI:10.1162/isec_a_00509) stresses that a rising power need not match the leader to threaten its interests; it can "pose problems" through targeted asymmetric capabilities (e.g., counterspace against a space-dependent rival). **Test:** threat assessments must reason about *asymmetric leverage at specific chokepoints*, not aggregate parity - and avoid both complacency and threat-inflation.

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

The perils of weakness and the perils of overconfidence (domestic-international linkage)

In *Worse Than a Monolith* (Christensen 2011) and *Useful Adversaries* (1996), he shows that mismanaged alliances, domestic mobilization pressures, and *both* perceived weakness and overconfidence can drive escalation. Cohesion among adversaries is not always more dangerous than fragmentation. **Test:** does the candidate's model account for how domestic politics, alliance management, and misperception (on both sides) shape space behavior - or does it treat states as unitary rational billiard balls?

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Integrating a rising power into the order without surrendering leverage

Christensen's State Department experience informs his view that the existing institutions can be widened to accommodate China's legitimate interests while preserving the rules that matter, and that selective cooperation (climate, nonproliferation) is possible even amid rivalry. **Test:** a space regime claim must show whether it actually *socializes* the rising power into shared rules or merely creates a parallel, competing institutional order (the "bifurcation" problem).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.