The leaders of China and the United States certainly do not seek war with one another. Both the Biden government and the regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping see economic renewal and growth as their main goals. Both recognize that any conflict between them, even if confined to Asia and waged with non-nuclear weapons – not a safe bet – could cause catastrophic regional damage and potentially bring the world economy to its knees. Hence, no group has any intention of going to war on purpose. However, everyone is determined to show their willingness to go to war if provoked, and so are ready to play a game of military chicken in the waters (and in the air) off China’s coast. Everyone makes the outbreak of war, however unintentional it may be, more and more likely.
History tells us that conflict doesn’t always start out of planning and intention. Some, of course, begin as they did with Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and Japan’s attacks in December 1941 on the Dutch East Indies and Pearl Harbor. For the most part, however, the countries have historically been involved in wars which they hoped to avoid.
This was the case in June 1914 when the great European powers – Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – stumbled into World War I following an extremist act of terror (the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand von) Austria and his wife Sophie by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo), them mobilized their armed forces and issued ultimatums in the expectation that their rivals would step down. Nobody did it. Instead, a continent-wide conflict broke out with disastrous consequences.
Unfortunately, we face the possibility of a very similar situation in the years to come. The three major military powers of the current era – China, the United States, and Russia – all act eerily like their counterparts from this earlier era. All three employ forces at the borders of their opponents or their main allies, performing muscle flexing and show-of-force operations to intimidate their opponents while demonstrating their will to intervene in combat when their interests are at risk are. As in the pre-1914 period, such aggressive maneuvers carry high risk when it comes to causing an accidental or unintentional collision that can lead to an all-out struggle or, in the worst case, global war.
Provocative military maneuvers today take place almost daily along the Russian border with the NATO powers in Europe and in the waters off China’s east coast. Much can be said about the dangers of escalation from such maneuvers in Europe, but let’s focus instead on the situation in China, where the risk of accidental or unintentional collisions has steadily increased. Remember that unlike Europe, where the borders between Russia and NATO countries are pretty well marked and all parties are careful to avoid intrusion, the borders between China and the US / allied areas in Asia are often highly competitive are.
China Expectations that its eastern border is far out in the Pacific – far enough to enclose the independent island of Taiwan (which it regards as a breakaway province), the Spratly and Paracel Islands of the South China Sea (all claimed by China, but some also claimed by) include Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines) and the Diaoyu Islands (claimed by both China and Japan, which they call Senkaku Islands). The United States has contractual obligations to Japan and the Philippines, and a legal obligation to aid Taiwan’s defense (thanks to the Taiwan Relations Act passed by Congress in 1979), and successive governments have claimed that China’s extended border claims are illegal. So there is a vast area of contested territory that includes the East and South China Seas – places where U.S. and Chinese warships and planes mingle in increasingly challenging ways while they’re ready for battle.
Check limit values (and defy them) The leaders of the United States and China are determined that their countries defend what they define as their strategic interests in such disputed areas. For Beijing, this means asserting its sovereignty over Taiwan, the Diaoyu Islands and the islands of the South China Sea and demonstrating the ability to capture and defend such areas in the face of possible Japanese, Taiwanese or US counter-attacks. For Washington, this means denying the legitimacy of China’s demands and ensuring that its leadership cannot implement them by military means. Both sides recognize that such conflicting impulses are likely to be resolved only through armed conflict. Shortly before the war, however, everyone seems to be concerned about the extent to which they can provoke the other diplomatically and militarily without triggering a chain reaction that ends in catastrophe.
At the diplomatic level, representatives of both sides have been increasingly violent in verbal attacks. These escalated for the first time in the last few years of the Trump administration when the president gave up his alleged affection for Xi Jinping and began Block access on US technology from big Chinese telecom companies like Huawei to go with the punishment tariffs it already had imposed on most of that country’s exports to the United States. His grand final offensive against China would be led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the denounced the leadership of this country in scathing terms as it questions its strategic interests in disputed areas.
For example, in a July 2020 statement on the South China Sea, Pompeo banged China for its aggressive behavior there, pointing to Beijing’s repeated “bullying” of other claimants on islands in that sea. Pompeo went beyond mere insult, however. He has greatly exacerbated the risk of conflict, claiming that “America will act with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources in accordance with their rights and obligations under international law” – language that clearly justifies future use of is said to be violence by American ships and planes that help friendly states to be “bullied” by China.
Pompeo also tried to provoke China on the Taiwan issue. In one of his last official acts on January 9th, he officially took office raised Restrictions on US diplomatic engagement with the Taiwanese government in place for more than 40 years. Back in 1979, when the Carter administration severed ties with Taipei and established ties with the mainland regime, it banned government officials from meeting with their counterparts in Taiwan, a practice that has been followed by every government ever since. This was done as part of Washington’s commitment toOne China Politics in which Taiwan was seen as an inseparable part of China (although its future governance should continue to be negotiated). Pompeo re-authorized high-level contacts between Washington and Taipei more than four decades later, effectively undoing that commitment. In doing so, he alerted Beijing that Washington was ready to approve an official Taiwanese move towards independence – an act that would undoubtedly provoke a Chinese invasion effort (which, in turn, increased the likelihood that Washington and Beijing would find themselves on the same path War foundation).
The Trump administration also took concrete action on the military front, particularly from increasing sea maneuvers in the South China Sea and in waters around Taiwan. The Chinese responded with their own strong words and expanded their military activities. In response to a trip to China last September by Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Keith Krach, the State Department’s senior official who has visited the island for 40 years, China launched aggressive cross-strait air and sea maneuvers for several days. According to China Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said the maneuvers were “a sensible, necessary measure that will target the current cross-strait situation and protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Speaking of the island’s increasing diplomatic contact with the United States, he added, “Those who play with fire will be burned.”
Today, with Trump and Pompeo out of office, the question arises: how will the Biden team address such issues? So far the answer has been: similar to the Trump administration.
At the first high-level meeting between US and Chinese officials in the Biden years, a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, on March 18-19, the newly appointed Secretary of State Antony Blinken used his opening speech to verbally abuse the Chinese. express “Deep concern” about China’s behavior in the mistreatment of the Uighur minority in Hong Kong’s Xinjiang Province and its increasingly aggressive stance towards Taiwan. Such actions, he said, “threaten the rules-based order that sustains global stability.” Has blinking made similar complaints in other settings, appointed as Senior Biden the CIA and Ministry of Defense . Significantly, in its first few months in office, the Biden administration gave the green light to the same pace of provocative military maneuvers in contested Asian waters as the Trump administration has in recent months.
“Gunboat Diplomacy” today In the years leading up to World War I, it was common for great powers to use their naval forces in times of colonialism in waters near their opponents or near rebellious client states to suggest the likelihood of punishment for military action if certain demands were not met met. The United States used this “gunboat diplomacy,” as it was then called, to control the Caribbean region. Force Colombia For example, in order to give up the territory, Washington attempted to build a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific. Today gunboat diplomacy is alive and well in the Pacific, and so are both China and the United States.
China is now deploying its increasingly powerful Navy and Coast Guard regularly intimidating other applicants on islands they insist on are their own in the East and South China Seas – Japan in the case of the Senkaku; and Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines in the case of the Spratlys and Paracels. In most cases this means instructing the ships of the Navy and Coast Guard to evict the fishing boats of these countries from the waters around the islands claimed by China. In the case of Taiwan, China has its ships and aircraft in a threatening fashion to point out that any step towards independence from the mainland will come with a tough military response.
For Washington in the Biden era, assertive military maneuvers in the East and South China Seas are a way of saying that no matter how far such waters are from the United States, Washington and the Pentagon are still not ready to take control of them submit China. This was particularly evident in the South China Sea, where the U.S. Navy and Air Force regularly conduct provocative exercises and demonstrations to demonstrate America’s continued ability to dominate the region – like in February when there were task forces with two airlines in the Region sent. The USS for a few days Nimitz and the USS Theodore Roosevelt carried out together with the associated flotillas of cruisers and destroyers Mock combat missions near islands claimed by China. “Through operations like this, we ensure that we are tactically competent to meet the challenge of maintaining peace, and we can continue to show our partners and allies in the region that we are committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific.” was the way Radm. Doug Verissimo, Commander of the Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, explained these downright martial actions.
The Navy has also stepped up its patrols of the cross-strait destroyers to indicate that any future Chinese move to invade Taiwan would be met with a strong military response. Since President Biden’s inauguration, the Navy has carried out three such patrols: by the USS John S. McCain on February 4th the USS Curtis Wilbur on February 24th and the USS John Finn On the 10th of March. At every opportunity the Navy insisted that such missions should demonstrate how the US military “would continue to fly, sail and operate where international law allows”.
When the US Navy carries out such provocative maneuvers, the Chinese military – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – usually reacts with its own ships and aircraft to challenge the American ships. This happens regularly in the South China Sea when the Navy does what it calls. “Freedom of navigation operations , ”Or FONOPs, in waters near China-claimed (and sometimes Chinese-built) islands, some of which have been converted in small military facilities from the PLA. In response, the Chinese often send one or more ships of their own to escort the American ship out of the area – to make the matter as courteous as possible. This Encounters have sometimes proven extremely dangerous, especially when ships got close enough to pose a risk of collision.
In September 2018, for example, a Chinese destroyer came inside 135 feet of the guided missile destroyer USS Decatur on one such FONOP mission near Gavin Reef in the Spratly Islands Decatur Change course abruptly. If this had not happened, a collision could have occurred, lives could have been lost and an incident with unpredictable consequences could have been triggered. “It’s your turn [a] dangerous course ”, the Chinese ship reported to the American ship by radio shortly before the encounter. “If you don’t change course, [you] will have consequences. ”
What would have happened if the captain had the Decatur unchanged course? On this occasion the world was lucky: the captain acted quickly and avoided danger. But what about the next time when tensions in the South China Sea and Taiwan are way higher than in 2018? Such luck might not last, and a collision or use of weapons to avoid it could trigger immediate military action on both sides, followed by a potentially unpredictable escalating cycle of countermovements leading who knows where.
In such circumstances, a war that no one wanted between the United States and China could suddenly break out, essentially by accident – a war that this planet simply cannot afford. Unfortunately, the combination of inflammatory rhetoric at the diplomatic level and a tendency to back up such words with aggressive military action in highly competitive areas still seems to be high on the Sino-US agenda.
Chinese and American leaders are now playing a game of chicken that couldn’t be more dangerous for both countries and the planet. Isn’t it time the new Biden government and its Chinese counterpart realized more clearly and more deeply that their hostile behaviors and decisions could have unpredictable and disastrous consequences? Strict language and provocative military maneuvers – even if only intended as a political message – could produce a catastrophic outcome, much as behaving in the same way in 1914 triggered the colossal tragedy of World War I.
