[Would a Joe Biden administration relieve pressure on China, with
less antagonism? Though the rhetoric may be softened, the main thrust
of US policy, to prevent Beijing from ever achieving international
parity with Washington, is unlikely to change ]
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HOW WILL THE US COUNTER CHINA?  
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Michael T Klare
October 14, 2020
Le Monde diplomatique
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_ Would a Joe Biden administration relieve pressure on China, with
less antagonism? Though the rhetoric may be softened, the main thrust
of US policy, to prevent Beijing from ever achieving international
parity with Washington, is unlikely to change _

, Official U.S. Navy Imagery

 

It has become common for journalists and politicians to speak of a
‘new cold war’ between the United States and China, comparing the
current chill in Sino-American relations to the hostility that long
prevailed between the US and the Soviet Union. But it would be a
mistake to view the current situation as a replica of that earlier
time, when the western powers sought to contain Soviet power through a
strategy of unyielding encirclement. Rather than merely contain
Chinese power, America’s current leaders seek to push back at
Beijing, forcing it to abandon whatever geopolitical gains it has made
over the past few decades.

This drive to counter China reflects a fundamental shift in elite
American thinking regarding China’s role in world affairs. For many
years, American leaders believed that China’s rise to great-power
status could be managed in a way that did not harm fundamental US
interests. As China gained in wealth and power, it was assumed, it
would choose to integrate itself into an American-dominated world
order that allowed Washington to retain control over the principal
levers of power. Whether or not that assumption was ever correct to
begin with, top leaders — both Democratic and Republican — no
longer believe that Beijing will accede to an American-dominated world
system, and are determined to prevent China from ever achieving parity
with the US in global geopolitical might. Senior officials also
believe that China took advantage of America’s costly and futile
involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to secure significant
geopolitical gains in Southeast Asia and the Pacific — gains that
Washington now seeks to reverse.

Washington’s aggressive new stance toward China is on multiple
levels — rhetorical, military, diplomatic and economic: a key
architect of all this is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who has made
several highly belligerent statements on US-China relations. In the
most inflammatory of these, at the Richard Nixon presidential library
on 23 July, Pompeo adamantly rejected any accommodation with a rising
China and called for a broad-based campaign to counter its gains in
Asia and beyond. ‘We imagined [that] engagement with China would
produce a future with bright promise of comity and cooperation,’ he
said; but now, ‘we must admit a hard truth... that if we want to
have a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century of which Xi
Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply
won’t get it done. We must not continue it and we must not return to
it.’

We imagined [that] engagement with China would produce a future with
bright promise of comity and cooperation [but now] we must admit a
hard truth… that if we want to have a free 21st century, and not the
Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind
engagement with China simply won’t get it done. We must not continue
it and we must not return to it

Mike Pompeo

Instead, Pompeo declared, the US and its western allies must push back
at China at every level: ‘We, the freedom-loving nations of the
world, must induce China to change.’ This means, among other things,
ceasing normal economic ties with China and treating all such commerce
as a potential threat to western security. It also means viewing all
Chinese students and scientists studying or working abroad as
potential spies, and punishing those found to be working for Chinese
government agencies. On the military front, it means ending years of
‘cheek-turning’ (as he called it) in the South China Sea, and
resisting Chinese bullying of its neighbours there. And, in an
especially chilling note, he implicitly called on the Chinese people
to oust the current leadership. ‘Our approach can’t just be about
getting tough,’ he declared
[[link removed]].
‘We must also engage and empower the Chinese people — a dynamic,
freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese
Communist Party.’

US military set for action

On the military front, American leaders seek to reverse what they see
as an expansion of Chinese power from the mainland to the waters
around it, especially the East and South China Seas. No issue has
preoccupied American strategists more than China’s military presence
in the South China Sea, a major throughway for international shipping
and a potential source of oil and natural gas. China has long
stationed naval forces in the area and, in recent years, has installed
military installations on several islands there. Washington has
repeatedly expressed its opposition to these moves, but until recently
relied on diplomatic rather than military means to alter the
situation; but now, in accordance with the harsher stance advocated by
Pompeo, the US military is preparing to eliminate the Chinese presence
by sheer force.

Underlying the tensions in the South China Sea is a fundamental
dispute over ownership of the maritime features located there. As far
back as 1946, under the nationalist regime of Chang Kai-shek, China
claimed sovereignty over nearly the entire body of water along with
the small reefs and islands located within it. However, with the
ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) in 1982, other littoral states — Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines — laid claims to ‘exclusive
economic zones’ (EEZs) extending well into the area claimed by
Beijing. This has led, on occasion, to small-scale clashes between
Chinese gunboats and vessels belonging to those other countries. In
response, the Philippines sought to authenticate its claims in
accordance with the juridical provisions of UNCLOS, and in July 2016
an Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague ruled that
[[link removed].] China’s
claims to the entire region had no legal basis and that the EEZ claims
of the other states were valid. China, however, has rejected the
ruling and continued its practice of harassing fishing boats and
drilling rigs belonging to the other countries.

From the US perspective, the question of competing claims to the South
China Sea was a matter to be settled by the countries involved
themselves. But when China began to enlarge some of the islands it
claimed in the area and installing military installations on them,
Washington perceived a direct threat to its strategic interests.
Whereas US ships and planes traversing the region were once largely
immune to attack by hostile forces, now they faced the possibility of
interception by Chinese anti-air and anti-ship missiles — a
situation considered intolerable by senior American officers. ‘China
has fundamentally altered the physical and political landscape in the
South China Sea through large scale land reclamation and by
militarizing these reclaimed features,’ declared Admiral Harry B
Harris Jr
[[link removed].],
Commander of the US Pacific Command, in April 2017.

Although never saying so in public, US military leaders never accepted
China’s militarisation of those islands as irreversible; to the
contrary, they have long conceived of scenarios in which the process
could be reversed. Until recently, however, the nation’s top leaders
opposed such a move, favouring diplomatic pressure instead — what
Pompeo referred to as ‘cheek-turning’. But now, with the shift in
policy at the top, US forces have been given a virtual _carte
blanche_ to counter China’s military moves in the South China
Sea. On July 13, in a formal State Department memorandum, Pompeo
stated that China’s claims to the South China Sea were ‘completely
unlawful’. The US, he said
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‘stands with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting
their sovereign rights to offshore resources’ and will
‘oppose any attempt to use coercion or force to settle disputes.’

At the very least, this suggests that Washington is prepared to employ
force to drive off any Chinese warships said to be interfering with
the legitimate activities of those allies and partners when operating
within their EEZs. In an early test of such manouevres, the Pentagon
twice this spring sent a pair of Navy warships into waters claimed by
Malaysia to drive off Chinese vessels said to be harassing a
Malaysian-operated drillship
[[link removed].[.%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3EIt%20appears,%20moreover,%20that%20the%20Pentagon%20is%20preparing%20for%20far%20more%20extensive%20military%20operations%20in%20the%20region.%20In%20early%20July,%20the%20Navy%20deployed%20two%20of%20its%20nuclear-powered%20aircraft%20carriers%20--%20the%20USS%20%7BNimitz%7D%20and%20the%20USS%20%7BRonald%20Reagan%7D%20--%20into%20the%20South%20China%20Sea%20for%20extensive%20battle%20maneuvers,%20along%20with%20their%20escort%20fleet%20of%20cruisers,%20destroyers,%20and%20submarines.%20While%20in%20the%20area,%20the%20two%20carriers%20[launched%20hundreds%20of%20combat%20planes-%3Ehttps://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-shows-off-its-firepower-to-beijing-in-south-china-sea-11593965632] in
simulated attacks on nearby Chinese bases. In an even more ominous
indication of U.S. intentions, 350 paratroopers from the Army’s 25th
Infantry Division were flown from their home base in Alaska to Guam on
July 1 to test their ability to seize an enemy air base in the
Pacific.

It would appear, then, that it is only a matter of time before
American authorities find a pretext to engage Chinese naval forces in
the South China Sea and launch a full-scale operation to demolish
China’s military installations on those disputed islands. After all,
if you are no longer willing to engage in cheek-turning, the only
option is violent force.

Arming Taiwan and girding for war

Another area where the shift in American policy toward China has
become evident is in U.S. relations with Taiwan. Historically, the
United States has acknowledged that both mainland China and Taiwan are
both parts of a single sovereign entity called ‘China’ but has
rejected Beijing’s assertion that Taiwan is a ‘rebel’ province
that must, in time, be reunited with the mainland. Moreover, under the
Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the United States is obliged to provide
Taiwan with whatever weapons it needs to defend itself against
aggression. The 1979 act does not guaranty that the United States will
come to Taiwan’s aid if it is invaded by mainland China, but it does
not rule out that possibility, and American leaders have always hinted
that they might do so, without making a firm statement to this effect.
This ambiguity has served leaders from all three countries well, as it
has discouraged aggressive moves by Beijing while allowing it to bide
for time in its quest to reclaim Taiwan. Now, however, Washington
appears to be suggesting that the time for ambiguity is over and that
the United States is prepared to defend a wholly independent Taiwan
— even if this means war with China.

Washington’s altered stance on Taiwan is evident on several levels.
On the diplomatic level, the Trump administration has signalled its
increased support for Taipei and its pro-independence president, Tsai
Ing-wen, by sending two high-level officials there in recent months.
The first to arrive, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex M
Azar II, met with President Tsai on 10 August — the first visit by
an American cabinet member to the island since 1979. Azar’s visit
was followed a month later by the arrival of Keith Krach, the under
secretary of state economic growth, energy, and the environment and
the highest-ranking State Department official to visit Taiwan in
decades. Both visits were loudly protested by Beijing as an affront to
US-China relations, and were accompanied by multiple incursions into
Taiwanese airspace by Chinese fighter jets
[[link removed].].

In addition to these diplomatic forays, the United States has
commenced a series of major arms transfers to Taiwan. In 2019, the
Trump administration announced its intention to sell 66 F-16 fighter
jets to Taiwan, representing a major boost to the island’s air
power. In yet a more provocative move, the administration said in
September that it would sell the Taiwanese an advanced air-to-ground
missile, the AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded
Response), to equip those F-16s. Once armed with the missile,
Taiwan’s air force would be able to attack targets on the Chinese
mainland from ‘standoff’ locations beyond China’s robust air
defences — a capacity they lacked before, and one that suggests an
offensive rather than defensive intent.

In addition to these moves, the Department of Defense (DoD) has
stepped up its own military activities in the area. It has increased
the pace of “freedom of navigation” operations by US warships
sailing through the Taiwan Strait and conducted numerous military
exercises in the area. In yet another demonstration of US resolve, the
Pentagon has flown nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over nearby waters
[[link removed]].
All these moves, in turn, have provoked numerous outcries from
Beijing, along with periodic forays into the area by Chinese ships and
planes. As in the South China Sea, therefore, the risk of an armed
clash is ever-present.

Allies for an anti-China coalition

In a further drive to counter China’s geopolitical outreach in Asia,
the United States is strengthening its military ties with allies in
the region and attempting to weave them into an anti-China military
coalition stretching all the way from Japan to Australia and across
Southeast Asia to India. Such efforts, said Secretary of Defense Mark
T Esper in July, are as important as America’s own military
initiatives in the region. Alongside the ongoing US buildup, he
declared, ‘we continue to bolster our growing network of
Indo-Pacific allies and partners, a strategic advantage our
competitors [meaning China] cannot match.’

As part of this effort, Esper noted, the DoD is increasing its
engagement with such long-standing allies as Australia, Japan,
Thailand, and South Korea, and pursuing expanded ties with new
partners such as India. ‘I want to highlight our increased defense
cooperation with India,’ Esper declared, calling this ‘one of the
all-important defense relationships of the 21st century.’ In
addition to an accelerated programme of joint military manoeuvres,
Esper promised an increased level of US arms sales to India
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Under Washington’s leadership, India has been participating in joint
military activities with Australia and Japan as well as with the
United States, an arrangement commonly known as the ‘Quad’. At
present a relatively loose arrangement, the Quad is now being
fashioned into something more elaborate, with regular military
exercises and security consultations. In an online discussion
sponsored by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in September,
Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun indicated that Washington
sought to formalise the Quad into something more closely resembling
NATO. Our goal, he said, is to establish a xxxxxx against China by
bringing the four countries together ‘in a more structured
manner’. In time, he added
[[link removed]],
other countries would be invited to join the NATO-like arrangement,
including Vietnam, South Korea, and New Zealand.

Tightening the noose

All of this, it appears, is intended to trap China within an
ever-tightening gauntlet of hostile powers. Combine this with the
economic pressure being imposed on China by the Trump administration
in the form of sanctions, high tariffs, technology denials, and so on,
and Secretary Pompeo’s strategy to ‘induce China to change’
begins to come into focus. Chinese leaders can choose to play by
American rules and accept an inferior status in the world power
system, he appears to be saying, or it risks a confrontation with
American power from which it is bound to emerge battered and
diminished.

Would a Joe Biden administration relieve the pressure on China and
allow for less antagonistic relationship between Washington and
Beijing? Some softening in rhetoric is likely, but the main thrust of
US policy — to prevent China from ever achieving parity with the
United States on the world stage — is unlikely to change. Biden’s
foreign policy advisers have already expressed deep concern over
China’s rise, and have espoused policies that closely align with
those of the Trump administration in this particular area. (1
[[link removed]])

For Chinese leaders, then, the path ahead will be full of landmines.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is under enormous
pressure from the general public to embrace a nationalistic stance and
to vigorously assert Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan and the South
China Sea. To retreat on these critical issues would be to undermine
the legitimacy of the CCP and risk popular revolt; to aggressively
counter the United States in those areas risks war and humiliation.
American leaders are well aware of Beijing’s dilemma in this regard,
and are certain to take advantage of it. The result, then, will be a
time of constant crisis and war drumming in the Asia Pacific region.

(1
[[link removed]]) See,
for example, Michèle A. Flournoy, ‘How to Prevent a War in Asia
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Foreign Affairs, June 18, 2020. Flournoy is widely viewed as a
possible Secretary of Defense in a Biden administration.

_MICHAEL T KLARE is a professor at Hampshire College (Amherst,
Massachusetts) and the author most recently of All Hell Breaking
Loose: the Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, Metropolitan
Books, New York, 2019._

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