We’re closer to a South China Sea conflict than you think

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Fueled by China’s increasingly emotional ambition, tensions in the South China Sea are rising quickly. The result is a situation in which a U.S.-China conflict is considerably more likely than is commonly assumed.

The tension has been encapsulated over the past few days by competing U.S. Navy and Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy exercises. China’s exercises were focused around the contested Paracel Islands chain 180 miles south of China’s Hainan Island territory. But each nation’s exercises had two key purposes.

China’s intent was to broadcast its willingness to establish militarily enforced no-go zones in international waters and to improve its ability to defend these strongholds from interceding American forces. The United States’s exercises were designed to show that Washington intends to match Beijing’s military activity and to dissuade China from believing it can deny U.S. carrier strike groups access beyond the first island chain of waters west of Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines and north of Malaysia. That U.S. intention reflects an understanding of Chinese war planning, which seeks to deter U.S. carriers from accessing those waters in fear of China’s significant anti-ship ballistic missile force.

Regardless, the risk of a miscalculation or deliberate conflict is growing significantly.

One challenge here is the increasingly nationalist fervor with which China’s military is conducting itself. Whether firing lasers into the eyes of U.S. aircrews or aggressively approaching U.S. warships and aircraft, China is showing greater tolerance toward endangering U.S. lives. This reflects China’s increasing expectation of, and in some sense excitement over, the prospect of conflict. Recent illustrations of this thinking are clear to see. Take, for example, this weekend’s implicit threats to kill 12,000 Americans by China’s U.S.-focused media hard-liner Hu Xijin. Or consider the new column introduced by China’s military newspaper on the exigency of heroic sacrifice in battle.

This thinking at once reflects and fosters a culture of aggression.

The People’s Liberation Army’s command-and-control structure remains highly centralized, but its increasingly anti-American spirit risks an officer deciding that the time has come to punish the U.S. So, if, for example, a Chinese fighter jet causes an American spy plane to crash with all hands, the U.S. will almost certainly take its patrols in the South China Sea to an even more intense level. In turn, that will fuel pressure on Xi Jinping to act more aggressively against the U.S. patrols, further increasing the probability of an escalatory cycle that spirals into conflict.

While miscalculation remains the greatest risk here, Xi has also clearly adopted a more risk-tolerant foreign policy amid the coronavirus pandemic. China’s new Hong Kong security law, its Taiwan war games, its Indian border bloodletting, and its broader disdain for regional nations are all reflective of Xi’s new boldness. This is partly a result of President Trump’s increasingly overt criticism of Beijing over the coronavirus, which is a crisis for China’s global standing. But it’s also a symptom of Xi’s need to resecure his leadership credibility as China’s new Mao Zedong.

Where does this leave us?

China is taking great risks here, putting its untried Navy and Air Force into a position where they may have to fight a vastly more experienced American counterforce. Still, the U.S. should be wary against arrogance. The Navy’s aircraft carriers are more vulnerable to Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles, especially if those missiles are launched in saturation strikes, than the admirals are willing to admit. Necessary U.S. efforts to establish a NATO-esque deterrent alliance in the Indo-Pacific also remain at formative stages (although Australia and Britain are playing increasingly important roles here).

In short, tensions are growing for reasons both political and emotional. This, history teaches us, is a good recipe for slipping into war.

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