US and China need red lines

By: Ricardo Israel - 28/06/2023

The geopolitical competition between China and the USA is defining the 21st century and requires a concept that was extraordinarily useful for the Cold War, that of red lines, that is, the existence of limits that for no reason should be crossed by any of the contenders. , since this understanding was a guarantee of peace, so that interests and differences should in no case cause a direct warlike confrontation.

Today it seems to be a necessary way to overcome the Thucydides Trap. The expression is from Professor Graham T. Allison and refers to the tension that is generated when an emerging power threatens to displace the great power of its time, and is based on the contribution of the Greek historian Thucydides, who rigorously described the confrontation between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece. Allison studies similar situations throughout history and concludes that, in most, it ends in an almost inevitable confrontation.

The recent visit by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is the same one that had to be called off in February after the spy balloon scandal, and managed to materialize after persistent requests from Washington, in itself an indication of how difficult relations between both.

Two elements emerge clearly, on the one hand, that the USA continues to be the number one power in most indicators, but that, on the other, the distances are reduced year by year, every year, in favor of a China, that through his behavior he leaves no doubt of his desire to displace her from the top in this century, just as the USA did with the British empire in the past.

Unlike Ukraine, where the United States has shown clarity and determination to confront Russia, in the case of China, Washington is confused, and this is visible in various situations. This is how the USA did not seem prepared for the reaction to Nancy Pelosi's trip in 2022, where Taiwan was surrounded and isolated by Beijing, without there being a major response to what was in practice an attempt to prohibit the displacement of the American third authority. She also did not seem prepared for the spy balloon, where there was no protocol to shoot it down, which only happened on the high seas, after the images were sent.

But these are not only incidents, but the USA still does not seem to have a decision to confront the rise of China wherever its interests are affected, which is demonstrated, for example, in the way in which China has become the main trading partner of many Latin American countries, without a noticeable reaction from Washington.

Neither does there seem to be a position taken in the face of a new Chinese diplomacy, full of confidence, in a global deployment, seeming to dispute the role of irreplaceable power, as was demonstrated in the unexpected triumph achieved by bringing two countries closer to whom everything seemed to distance them, as is the case with Saudi Arabia and Iran, and which has also been present in the offer to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians as well as in a peace offer for Ukraine, which favors Moscow by wanting to freeze the current situation , in a similar way to what happened in 1953 until today in the Korean peninsula.

Furthermore, except for the denunciation, there does not seem to be a policy to address a situation that is bound to have profound consequences, such as the alliance that has developed between China and Russia, and where Moscow is the junior partner. It had not existed before in history, and the mere territorial continuity gives an idea of its potential, and how it could further strengthen China.

This replacement is already demonstrated in Central Asia, in those countries that emerged from the former Soviet Union and that have the characteristic of having Muslim majorities, a product of the historic Silk Road. This is how the rapprochement with China of countries such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and others is clearly perceived, where there is already a presence in regional security, infrastructure, industrial plants, oil refineries, investments, and other indicators, which, as in Siberia and the Russian Arctic are clear indicators of the shift towards China in the balance of power.

We are witnessing a process of historical characteristics, and perhaps the mistake of the USA is to think that China continues to move only for the economy, without understanding that, without denying its importance, this could be a stage that has already been overcome by a power that today competes as global actor at all levels, whether in diplomacy or security.

The USA seems to have been mistaken in thinking that Beijing was going to "mediate" or put pressure on Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. Also in his characterization of what he could expect from a trip to Beijing, where told by the Chinese press in English, he seemed to seek an apology for the shooting down of his balloon, forgetting that it was an aggressive espionage activity. A China that on this trip rejected a more direct relationship between the military of both countries.

China is not something recent, as demonstrated by the way they have sought to militarize the China Sea, transforming simple rocky promontories into take-off and landing strips, contrary to clear adverse rulings from the International Court of Justice.

Today China seems to think of itself first, more Confucius than Marx, and apparently the West does not have the preponderance that it was supposed to have in the stage of China's rise as an economic power, where the rivalry seems to move towards semiconductors and cutting-edge technology, such as Artificial intelligence is, for example, and as the pandemic demonstrated, China needs the rest of the world, but the rest of the world also needs it, and sometimes even more.

On the other hand, the invasion of Ukraine, becoming the first global war of the 21st century, has brought back the visibility of history and geopolitics, so that globalization is no longer just an economic process. In this scheme, perhaps in relation to Taiwan as or more important than Western opinion, it is for Beijing to expect a better result in elections that may be one of the most important in the world due to their impact, as is the case of the presidential elections in Taiwan on Saturday, January 13, 2024, since it is different if the independentists of the reigning Democratic Progressive Party lose to the Kuomintang, who since Chiang Kai-shek maintain the idea that there is only one China, a welcome speech in Beijing today.

What kind of relationship do you want to have with China? is the question for which the USA still does not have a clear answer. China at least seems to be clear that Taiwan is the red line that it is not willing to cross, but those of the USA are not defined, beyond the discourse.

Does Nixon's agreement with Mao in 1972 remain unchanged? Would autonomy be acceptable for Taiwan? What bases would a new agreement have with a China that resents it and does not find any containment policy acceptable?

And that is where I have nostalgia for the red lines that helped so much so that the cold war never reached direct confrontation, if through third parties, but not between the two in battle. It is there where the existence of limits to be respected by both, and not violated, is missed, an understanding that allows building bridges. Without those lines, it is not known whether China and the United States are entering or exiting the Thucydides Trap.

In the stage of Chinese rise that today has Xi Jinping exercising a power that no one had had since Mao, China has imitated the path followed by the USA in the last century, and that has consulted stages such as industrialization, a navy of all seas , a global trade network, protection of these routes, security of raw materials wherever they are, indebtedness with Chinese companies, strategic or "rare" minerals, linking countries through large infrastructure works, etc.

It is in this context where a trip like that of the Secretary of State appears as a product of US insistence, at the same time that it exposes some of the problems that the USA has for this almost existential confrontation for its status, namely, the lack of internal unity. , the doubts in its elite about the path to follow, bureaucratic deficiencies in the State Department and the Pentagon as well as in the Treasury Department, where there are inefficiencies in something that greatly irritates China when it has received them, and that has demonstrated failures , as in the sanctions against Russia.

Like Nancy Pelosi's last year, this trip showed that the USA does not have an oiled machine for the fact that despite insistent efforts there was no telephone communication between Xi and Baden, as would have been expected in order to redirect the relations between both countries. Despite the fact that Blinken had long meetings with Foreign Minister Qin Gang and even more importantly with Wang Yi, the person in charge of these issues in the Communist Party, doubts about success are also expressed in the fact that these meetings depended that Blinken was received by Xi Jinping.

What surrounded this trip is one more demonstration that China already feels an equal, hence the insistence on the issue of "respect" that it claims to deserve, as it appears in the English-language press in Hong Kong. Not only there, since official statements show annoyance, stating that interactions between states "should be based on mutual respect and sincerity", the latter alluding to another Chinese irritation, which qualifies as double talk what Washington reports for internal consumption and what would truly be discussed live.

The truth is that the USA sometimes allows it to be forgotten that it has been invited by China's Asian neighbors who are frightened by the aggressiveness it is showing today, and not only in Taiwan. For this reason, in this century what happened in Europe in 1945 has been repeated, when it was seen as the defense against the former USSR.

It is not even something recent, since this begins with important decisions under Obama, those that showed how the USA moved towards Asia, moving away from important scenarios, for example, with the decision to renounce to intervene more actively in the Syrian civil war and also in Europe, with the weakness shown before the occupation of Crimea, both situations that worked to the benefit of Russia, and perhaps emboldened the invasion of Ukraine.

For now, what stands out is that China resents the containment strategy that was so successful with the Soviet Union in the last century. So how will it operate going forward? A question to which the US has no known answer, an additional reason for the need for red lines.

The line for the sum is that there is a lot of clarity with Russia but not with China, where the USA still has illusions of friendly competition, when the truth is that they are adversaries, an adversary that often surpasses it, since it is "suaviter in modo, fortiter in re”, soft in forms and firm in facts, in the words of Quintilian, rhetoric instructor in the Roman Empire.

Personally, I count myself among those who have no doubts about their preference, hence my concern at seeing the United States insufficiently prepared.

@israelzipper

Lawyer, Ph.D. in Political Science, former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».