WAR with CHINA: Is it Inevitable?

Grace Jackson ,our expert on China, discusses the possibility of an armed conflict between China and the US in the near future.

(Ep. 1328)

How to stop China and the US going to war

from the guardian by Kevin Rudd

As images of destruction and death emerge from Ukraine, and refugees flee the country in their millions, the world’s attention is rightly focused on the horror of what many once thought an impossibility in the 21st century: a large-scale modern war in Europe. In this grim moment, however, it is all the more important to think through and coldly reassess the dangers presented by other potential conflicts that could be sparked by growing geopolitical tensions. The most significant among these is the risk of a war between the United States and China. The salutary lesson of our time is that this scenario is no longer unthinkable.

The 2020s now loom as a decisive decade, as the balance of power between the US and China shifts. Strategists of both countries know this. For policymakers in Beijing and Washington, as well as in other capitals, the 2020s will be the decade of living dangerously. Should these two giants find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests, the world will be better for it. Should they fail, down the other path lies the possibility of a war many times more destructive than what we are seeing in Ukraine today – and, as in 1914, one that will rewrite the future in ways we can barely imagine.

Armed conflict between China and the US in the next decade, while not yet probable, has become a real possibility. In part, this is because the balance of power between the two countries is changing rapidly. In part it is because, back in 2014, Xi Jinping changed China’s grand strategy from an essentially defensive posture to a more activist policy that seeks to advance Chinese interests across the world. It is also because the US has, in response, embraced an entirely new China strategy since 2017, in what the Trump and Biden administrations have called a new age of strategic competition. These factors combined have put China and the US on a collision course in the decade ahead.

We have arrived at a point in the long evolution of the US-China relationship when serious analysts and commentators increasingly assume that some form of crisis, conflict or even war is inevitable. This thinking is dangerous. The advantage of diplomatic history – if we study it seriously – is that the risk of talking ourselves into a crisis is real. The discourse of inevitability takes hold, mutual demonization increases, and the public policy response, ever so subtly, moves from war prevention to war preparation. The sleepwalking of the nations of Europe into war in 1914 should remain a salutary lesson for us all.

In my view, there is nothing inevitable about war. We are not captive to some deep, imaginary, irreversible forces of history. Our best chance of avoiding war is to better understand the other side’s strategic thinking and to plan for a world where the US and China are able to competitively coexist, even if in a state of continuing rivalry reinforced by mutual deterrence. A world where political leaders are empowered to preside over a competitive race rather than resorting to armed conflict.

Indeed, if we can preserve peace in the decade ahead, political circumstances may eventually change, and strategic thought may evolve in the face of broader planetary challenges. It may then be possible for leaders to imagine a different way of thinking (the Chinese term is siwei) that prioritizes collaboration over conflict, in order to meet the existential global challenges confronting us all. But to do that, we must first get through the current decade without destroying each other.

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