Is war between China and the US inevitable? The Thucydides Trap.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Maybe Taiwan wouldn't be such an issue had the Guomindang and its leader Chang Chung-Cheng not fled to Taiwan to create their own terrorist government, inflicting their 'White Terror' on the population not so different from the staggering murderous violence they had been visiting on the Chinese people since 1928. Biden was seven years old when that Terror began, so I don't know how he can be held responsible for a confict that old.

A little reading can help.

See, for example, for the perod pre-1949

Jonathan Fenby, Generalissimo: Chang Kai-Shek and the China He Lost (2015) -for the career of one of history's great mass murderers.

Immanuel C. Y, Hsu: The Rise of Modern China (5th Edition, 2000, Chapters 31 and 39 on the schism in 1949 and the economic success of Taiwan).

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"The Rise of Modern China" certainly looks like the prefect follow up to "China, a History" which I am now finishing and I found a very cheap used copy on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Modern-C...s%2C219&sr=1-1
The Fenby book also looks fascinating.
Thanks

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Thanks for these references, I am aware of the Keay's book through its glowing reviews, but in my own studies and work focused on modern China -amongst other places and regions. The movement or migration of people is so common throughout history I am not surprised at the genetic history you refer to. One should also consider how island people are more likely to have a maritime culture that looks across the seas rather than 'staying at home' -I am sure I read somewhere that traders from what is now Indonesia had links to what is now Angola in the late Middle Ages or thereabouts. There is a chapter on 'The World in 1400' in Eric Wolf's superb Europe and the Peoples Without History which traces all sorts of links you might have though improbable, and on the other level you are probably familiar with Karl Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism which argues the Imperial bureaucracy in China was developed and maintained through the dominance of China's mighty river systems, a form of 'hydraulic imperialism' that used water resources to build irrigation systems that boosted production in fertile areas and create it in less well-watered ones.

The issue of Taiwan though, is now seen as a domestic one in Beijing, and I don't doubt most Chinese thinks its none of our business what happens there. As to whether or not the US would go to war to defend the island, I don't doubt that miitary minds in China and the US have gamed the scenarios, and as the Foreign Affairs artice cited before suggested, a lot may now depend on just how ambitious Xi is, and the exent to which he thinks his risks will reap rewards.

Is Taiwan worth fighting for? Not in itself, but if the US has made a defence commitment to Taiwan, then as with NATO in the Cold War, the US and Israel, and of course the various treaties and agreements that did not survive Hitler's ambitions until 1939, not abiding by the agreement threatens more than just one place. If the perception is that the Biden Administration is too focused on the domestic politics of the US -which is currently in a crisis of legtimacy- to honour its agreement with Taiwan, this could lead Xi to 'do something' -and if Beijing does't care what the people of Hong Kong want, why should it be bothered with public opinion in Taiwan?

We live in dangerous times.

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Wow, Wittfogel and Wolf are certainly a couple of interesting characters!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_A...ntal_Despotism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Wolf

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Originally Posted by sukumvit boy

Wow, Wittfogel and Wolf are certainly a couple of interesting characters!

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You may also be interested in these two books on geography and rivers. If you don’t already know them-

https://geographical.co.uk/reviews/b...th-book-review

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prisoners-G.../dp/1783961414

I am currently interested in why some major countries have not created merchant shipping companies. The US enjoys access to two oceans, but has no merchant shipping with global reach to compare with Aristotle Onassis, Stavros Niarchos or the Scandinavians….why not?

That's interesting ,thanks.
I remember a few or my favorite authors and poets from the 60's were members of what used to be called the 'merchant marine', including Jack Kerouac ,Alan Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. And I remember the 'Seaman's Hall' down in lower Manhattan where card carrying 'merchant seaman could go to sign up for work.

If you look back through history, there has always been animosity between China and the United States. If anybody is interested, check out the Chinese foreign minister's speech to the United Nations in 1950 before China launched its offensive in the Korean War. A lot has changed since then, with each nation going through its own domestic and foreign issues, but also the fostering of relations with each other both politically and financially.

Having said that, underneath it all, it seems the tension was always still there. Especially with China's rise as a global superpower and some of their shenanigans. So I been figuring out the best way to answer this question, but have been having a hard time putting my thoughts together. I read the following article though and I agree with some of the points that the writer brings up:

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-china-war/620571/

So do I think war between China and the United States is inevitable, No. But I do think its possible. It just depends on what the United States is willing to go to war with them over. I don't think it will be over Taiwan though. Because that looks like the Korean War all over again and this time I don't think it would end in a cease fire.

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Originally Posted by blackchubby38

So do I think war between China and the United States is inevitable, No. But I do think its possible. It just depends on what the United States is willing to go to war with them over. I don't think it will be over Taiwan though. Because that looks like the Korean War all over again and this time I don't think it would end in a cease fire.

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Thanks for the link to a fascinating article to stand alongside the article in Foreign Affairs linked some time ago.

A few thoughts-

1) China has flourished in an age of peace since 1989 which has both seen its own domestic wealth increase to levels unknown since the Opium Wars, and in return as part of Globalization provided us in the rest of the world with affordable products, from flat-screen tv's, computers and cameras to clothes. Even with a slow-down in its economy Chna is still doing better than the days when Mao was in charge. Convinced China had everything it needed, he was opposed to modernization in everything other than architecture, preferring the miserabilism of East Germany to the vernacular Chinese architecture so much of which was destoyed during the 'Great People's Cultural Revolution'

2) The difference now is that Xi sees himself as a new 'Mao' with ambitions that reach beyond Continental China and end the 'era of peace' to replace it with belligerent statemenst, and the physical occupation of islands in the South China Sea. One point not made in the Atlantic Article is that the occupation of the Spatly Islands that the Philippines successfully challenged in court, are not far from the major gas resources north of Palawan that Shell and the Phillipines have been developing for years now. But if the occupation of the Spraty Islands is illegal, so too would be the theft of its sub-surface gas resources.

3) Whether this increase in tension provokes Japan to repeal its military neutrality remains in doubt as I am not sure if public opinion wants this dimension to Japan's foreign policy to change.

4) The most likely flashpoint may not be Taiwan or even the South China Sea, but the border with India, with China at best annexing territory over which it fights with India. At the moment, Modi is more committed to a long-term plan to 'anonymize' the Muslim communities of India, an under-reported set of campaigns that a friend in India often sends me evidence of. Modi is as belligerent as Xi, and that is not good news for either India or China.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53062484

5) The article linked below is from the RAND Corporation -for all the trillions it has spent and Xi's bellgerence, the lack of combat experience begs the question -how successful, if at all, would China's military be if it did engage another state? It points out for example, that even armies that have failed in one theatre can succeed in another if they have combat experience -thus, the US, which has combat experience but a string of military failures in recent years, may in fact see off any Chinese threat in, say, Taiwan, China becoming the victim of Xi's Hubris.
https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/11/ch...it-matter.html

Consider:
--Iraq had the world's fourth largest land army in 1990, but in the field an ineffective one -it failed to defeat Iran through conventional means -Iran swallowed the 'bitter cup of poison' in 1988 largely through war weariness on both sides, lack of funds, and Iraq's use of US-supplied -and illega- chemical weapons. Having a large army is no guarantee of military success.

--Saudi Arabia fought a war with Egypt for control of the Yemen from 1963-1970 and lost it as the new Government was Nationalist and Republican, where the Saudis had supported the 'Religious' party associated with the Imams overthrown in the 1962 revolution. Since 1970 Saudi Arabia has spent well over a trillion dollars on its military, but there it is in the Yemen again, incapable of winning a war with all the resources at its disposal. Spending trillions of dollars on the military is no guarantee of success.

Stavros:

Regarding this point in your post:

3) Whether this increase in tension provokes Japan to repeal its military neutrality remains in doubt as I am not sure if public opinion wants this dimension to Japan's foreign policy to change.


I have often thought that a good way to keep in China in check would be for Japan to repeal its military neutrality and starting developing offensive weapons and forces. I also feel that the nation has done its time for its actions before and during WW II and I think they can be trusted to have a military again.

But I think if they did, it would be make China feel like they were really being encircled by allies of the United States (Japan and South Korea) and that may make provoke them into making a first strike against either one of those two countries or against other U.S. interests. So in the end, that might not be a good idea.

You identify a genuine dilemma, and I agree that for Japan to end its military neutrality would alter the 'balance of power' in the Pacific Region, given that China might see such a move as an additional threat to add to the AUKUS agreement giving Australia a more toxic anti-Chinese position than it has had in recent years. I don't know if such a move would be popular in Japan, which does have a hard core of Nationalists, but where the ruling party doesn't seem keen to spend money on Defence that a change in strategy would entail.

It may not be a surprise that Americans have suggested Japan change to counter the Chinese 'threat'- the link below to a talk that was given at Chatham House in London earlier this year makes comparisons to Germany after 1945. Re-heating the claims that the USSR had a strategic plan to annexe the whole of Germany thus justifying the re-armament of Germany in 1950 the authors in my view are mistaken because of the quite different context from that Japan found itself in after 1945- Germany was a divided country on the European continent bordering the USSR.

Also, the two authors, (one of them [Eldrige Colby] is associated with the Marathon Initiative and the Center for a New American Security), make no mention of how Japan's 'soft power' through its economic and technological growth sine 1945 and its investments in China, South Korea and the Philippines, has been a more positive benefit than the Shinto Empire it imposed on the region in the first half of the 20th century. Why would Japan want to replace a successful strategy with one that might contrbute to a reversal of it and the region's gains?

At the moment, Xi is the focus of concern, because of his dominant influence in the Communist Party, his belligerent rhetoric and actions -he is perhaps testing the resolve of his perceived adversaries to find out how much he can get away with without actually sending in the troops. Hong Kong has been easy, Taiwan is anything but.

Incidentally, I raised this with my Indian friend yesterday, who regards Modi as weaker than Xi, that is, Modi doesn't have absoute power in India, and is more focused on internal politics, and the potential problems posed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, in itself, and in relation to potential meddling in Kashmir. I am not sure either India or China have a military with enough combat experience to give it a go in the Himalayas. We wait and see.

Chatham House article here-
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/06...ective-defence

Given the tensions that exist with Russia and what is seen by many as a Proxy War in which NATO countries are in effect arming Ukraine, and given the shock Russia's failures has been to China, their long-established aim to 're-unite' Taiwan with the mainland did not need so provocative an act by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

She has been 'defiant', saying China cannot tell her what countries in Asia she can visit, but she never needed to visit at all. If she wanted to talk to President Tsai, she could do so by Zoom. I don't see how anyone familiar with the current modus operandi in China can expect anything other than the response we have seen. It could be a provocation for President Xi in the sense that members of his own party think he is too reckless for the country and China needs to draw back from its imperial ambitions in the Pacific Region to focus more on domestic and international trade, or it could give Xi the impetus to go further.

Not so sure, because the failure of Russia to annexe Ukraine has been a warning, that annexing Taiwan might not be as easy as he thinks it is. Or, China could push the boundaries to see how far the US is in fact willing to go to 'save Taiwan'. Moreover, while NATO might think opening a new front in Eastern Europe would stretch Russia's military to breaking point (eg, Belarus), Russia and China together could open a new front for the US which it is incapable of dealing with.

So the last thing we need is a loud-mouth from Congress saying things we already know in a manner that is likely to cause more harm than we want. The best thing to hear from Pelosi is her retiring from politics, the sooner the better.

If you're a Western business owner and outsourcing to China or doing business with China, then you're part of the problem.
That being said, you can cure your problem by outsourcing and doing business to/with Africa, Mexico, Central America, South America, and a few other places as well.

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Originally Posted by MrFanti

If you're a Western business owner and outsourcing to China or doing business with China, then you're part of the problem.
That being said, you can cure your problem by outsourcing and doing business to/with Africa, Mexico, Central America, South America, and a few other places as well.

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Setting aside your personal objection to China, the intriguing aspect of your comment is the way in which, since the start of the Pandemic, though it has roots in 2008, international trade that developed global supply chains starting in the 1980s, is now in the process of questioning their efficiency.

On the one hand, China became an irresistible location because of a tamed, obedient non-unionised workforce, low labour and transport costs, and the volume of commodities that could be made. This does not discount the supply chains that source products elsewhere in Asia, but had the additional benefit of enabling China to develop its domestic market to the extent that it has not become dependent on external trade, which was a curse for other 'developing countries' as they were once known -these days re-branded as 'Investment Destinations'.

On the other hand, the global supply chain in commodities key to managing the Pandemic could not cope with demand, so the 'turn' against China is not just a political response to the kind of imperial activism that President Xi believes will cement his reputation as the heir of Mao, but an economic one in which manufacturing may seek a new deal in its country of origin, thus creating an agenda in which Economic Nationalism is viewed as a preference. Trump in 2017 was not the only political leader to promote this cost-heavy alternative to China, which in reality also meant a rejection of Asia. The potential crisis in semi-conductor production in Taiwan, a major source, if tensions with China spiral out of control, is another example of how capitalists are viewing global supply chains with scepticism.

Whether or not Apple, IBM and others can afford to make hardware and software in the US, is open to debate. The opportunity to shift production from China or Taiwan to, say, Honduras would not make sense right now. Honduras does have a growing economy relative to the rest of Central America, but remains a deeply divided country, with agriculture still dominant, along with a lethal narcotics industry, widespread poverty and crime, and corruption of the kind endemic in the region. Industrial production would be starting from zero, and thus require capital expenditure that would not be needed in, say, Indiana, though labour costs would be higher. Unless, without irony, the Corporations did shift to Indiana but then hired workers from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, in an effort to deter illegal immigration from those countries.

And as American firm re-located south of the border for tax purposes and cheaper labour costs, again in the 1980s and since, one can say that to some extent this model has been around for some time.

But economic nationalism may actually mean economic decline, as the great Brexit flop demonstrates. With the promised boon of global trade 'liberated' from the collective regulations of the European Union, the UK has found that in fact other States prefer the EU, or in the case of Japan, signed a deal which was close to the one the UK had already. The bottom line being that trade with the EU has declined -exports to the UK have declined by 14%, imports have declined by 25%.

We are all better off together.