Posted on 11/20/2017 12:21:31 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
On November 14 — days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing — the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), one of the most prominent U.S. think tanks based in Washington D.C., held a debate on the proposition of “a growing risk of war between the U.S. and China.”
Graham Allison (a Harvard University professor and author of the book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?) was for the proposition and Evan Medeiros (managing director for Asia of Eurasia Group) was against it. When the debate ended, 51 percent of the audience voted their agreement with the proposition that the United States and China are moving toward war. Actually before the debate even started, 40 percent of the audience had already expressed their support for that argument.
Despite the small sample, the stunning result still hinted at a disturbing reality: a group of Americans, including some policy pundits, firmly believe that China and the United States are going to go to war, because of the so-called “Thucydides’s Trap” — a theory, created and popularized by Allison, that claims war is the most likely result when a rising power confronts an established power.
However, China has made it clear numerous times that it really doesn’t want to go to war or have any serious friction with the United States. Beijing’s recent behavior during Trump’s trip in Beijing as well as during the APEC and the ASEAN summits once again demonstrated China’s strong intention to avoid conflict with the sole superpower in today’s world.
As The Diplomat reported earlier, during Trump’s trip in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping broke a series of Chinese protocol traditions just to provide Trump an emperor-style “state visit-plus” treatment. Not only Trump himself, but also his wife Melania Trump received the highest-level treatment in China. Melania was so satisfied with her grand treatment in China that she not only extended her stay in Beijing after her husband left for his next destination, but repeatedly posted Vogue-style photos shot in Beijing on her Twitter account. In fact, on China’s end, at the last minute Beijing closed two of the most popular area tourist attractions just to let Melania enjoy private super-VIP moments with pandas in the Beijing Zoo and on the Great Wall.
Economically, China also signed record-breaking multi-billion-dollar deals with the United States. Even if some analysts doubt the future actual delivery of these signed contracts, China’s intention to please Trump and fulfill his political agenda was unquestionable.
By exhausting the whole city’s resources to charm Trump and his wife, Xi has sent a clear message to the United States: China doesn’t want to have a trade war or any other war with America. As Xi said during Trump’s latest visit, as well as on many other occasions, “cooperation is the only correct choice” between the two nations.
During the recently closed Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Vietnam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit held in the Philippines, China once again showed its strong intention to settle disputes with its neighbors, including some U.S. allies. As The Diplomat reported, China has promised the Asia-Pacific countries that it will “stick to the path of peaceful development,” agreed to resolve differences over the South China Sea with the Philippines, issued a joint statement and reached a consensus with Vietnam, and tried to achieve a rapprochement with Japan.
As for one of the most critical issues between China and the United States, the North Korean crisis, China announced it would send a special envoy to North Korea — which won Trump’s Twitter compliments In fact, Xi straightforwardly said it earlier that China’s bottom line for the North Korean issue is “no war, no crisis, no nuclearization.”
Besides the latest developments mentioned above, it’s also worth keeping in mind that foreign policy is the extension of domestic policy. For China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the top priorities are always maintaining national stability, boosting the country’s economy, avoiding foreseeable and even unpredictable crises, and solving China’s domestic problems, so as to maintain “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Under these preconditions, a war with the United States would absolutely be the last thing the CCP wants.
It is my personal belief that China does not want war with the USA... for now. They know they would lose, as they are still too weak to win a total victory over us. Twenty years from now, maybe. There may be minor skirmishes, but not war. China simply has too many internal and regional problems to resolve, as well as the need to build their naval and air forces. Plus they probably know the future battles with Islam are the ones they need to focus on, and they will need us to assist.
See my tagline.
I think it’s inevitable.
China can’t be content with what it has. With all it’s land mass, it still has eyes on more.
Tiawan, Japan, either parts of their territories or more, they want the region to be their sole property.
If they ever get Taiwan and Japan, look out south of China and even into India.
That’s why you have to stand up to China. If it gets an inch, it will be inclined to compete for the planet.
Right now it’s busy occupying Eastern Russia. Eastern Russia has the same problem with the Chinese that we have with Mexican nationals.
Gee, no mention of the US Nuke arsenal of 1,500 on a hair trigger, and China’s 300 total?
A monumental strategic imbalance.
Of course they don’t want war with us. They would lose it resoundingly.
I wonder if the 4, American, battle ready carrier groups parked there near North Korea have anything to do with the way locals are behaving.
And most of ours are MIRV so they’d hit more than one city or other target.
The Chinese are patient. They play the long game. They do not need war to advance their agenda.
They are about to destroy another industry, the US auto industry. There cars are starting to come into the US market now. God we are dumb.
There = Their
I wouldn’t buy a Chinese car, would you? I have never paid money for a Japanese car and the only one I’ve ever owned was brought into the marriage by my first wife.
“Thucydides’s Trap” = “brainless, distract academic clickbait”.
“socialism with Chinese characteristics.” = a fascist government founded on Western capital”.
The centralization of power is bound to lead to disaster. war is one avenue it could do so and the US is a likely target.
But they could change. The Western investors have made their profits and there’s plenty of dough for internal development. And for The One Road which can be a good international expansion.
It goes both ways, as Russians have occupied Chinese territory. Back in the early 1970s, a co-worker was an elderly Russian man who survived Japanese death camps during WWII. We had some interesting chats. He was one of many Russians in a town in China when the Japanese overran it. Lots of Russians in China back then in the 1930s. Land fought over by Chinese, Russians, Japanese, Mongols etc. for many centuries. Now the Chinese are feeling more powerful these days to throw their weight around. Part of those regional problems I mentioned earlier, deflecting them from concern about any hostilities with the USA. They have enough to worry about with India, Russia, etc., pretty much anyone bordering their country in or out.
Communist China's stated objective is by 2025 to be able to go to war with the United States and win . It has been and is aggressively and successfully pursuing the ability to do so.
It's well passed time to stop listening to what Communist China is saying and pay attention to what it is doing!
I can forsee Japan and S. Korea going nuclear and building their forces in self defense from China.
Even though China is expansionist, why would they want to fight a world war and lose everything they've built? Even when they get on par with the US nuclear abilities, they would still have to face India, France, England, not to mention Japan, South Korea, and possibly Taiwan going nuclear?. Even with the same capabilities of the US, I believe they would adopt a MAD position. As for Russia, they'd sit it out and pick up the pieces.
It's the crazy Muslims I worry about in Europe getting their hands on nukes once they get complete control of the nations committing suicide by immigration. But then, what do I know?
That was a fundamental part of the groundbreaking work "Camp of the Saints": Millions of Chinamen invade and occupy Siberia and there's not a dang thing Russia could do about it.
PS: Everything I know about war with China I learned from Dragon's Fury by FReeper Jeff Head, which I read almost 20 years ago.
I sure hope Jeff is still alive. He is a great patriot. He was a conservative mentor to me in my early adulthood.
Even though Jeff wrote well researched books, they were still fiction and a lot of supposition.
"I sure hope Jeff is still alive. He is a great patriot. He was a conservative mentor to me in my early adulthood."
I hope he's still around, also. We need Patriots like him more than ever. I met Jeff at some FR event long ago and he was a friendly gracious man who is extremely informed on geopolitics. However, China has changed much in 20 years since he wrote Dragon's Fury. Read my post above for a more modern take on China.
I've known you for a long time, think we met at BobJ's house once and talked at a FR event. I have always respected your informed opinion and mostly agreed with your geopolitics. However, see my post #16 to see what I think of modern day China.
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