A US-China Military Contest Isn’t Just Alarmist Talk

Since the end of last year, the American policy toward the South China Sea has seen massive adjustments, with substantive development regarding Chinese military strategy. One [adjustment] of note is the acquisition of five military bases from the Philippines, in addition to previous American advances like the Marines’ base in Darwin, Australia, and the deployment of littoral combat ships and P-8A surface-based anti-submarine vessels, all of which form the early components of a system to encircle the Chinese navy.

Another adjustment is the normalization of warship deployment in the South China Sea, moving the Sea from a peaceful stability toward tense conflict. In the long run, the South China Sea in the eyes of the American military is mainly a sea route, with rare long-term obstructions. This year the situation has changed greatly. Since March, American forces have deployed, as if it were normal, an aircraft carrier group to the South China Sea, and in June they even sent the USS Stennis and USS Reagan to rendezvous there.

The third adjustment takes the name of “freedom of navigation operations,” challenging Chinese sovereignty and security.

The fourth is the “trilateralization” of bilateral military partnerships; this multilateralism drives the construction of an American-led Asia-Pacific security structure, reaffirming American leadership stature at the core. Therein the South China Sea is the major starting point for America, and ASEAN nations are the main target of its pull.

Based on the situation so described, it is clear that American policy in the South China Sea has undergone major shifts, from an indifferent view to an open clash with China, and from diplomatic to military tactics as most important. The nature of the South China Sea issue has fundamentally changed, turning from a dispute among China and its bordering neighbors on territorial sovereignty and rights to the sea, to a strategic Sino-American game; from a regional ocean concern to a strategic issue regarding China’s peaceful rise as a whole. While the American policy adjustments toward the South China Sea situation are indeed stopgap measures, they also are far-reaching measures to reinforce U.S. leadership in the East Asia-Pacific region, with [three] similarly far-reaching influences on Sino-American relations.

First and foremost, exchange and cooperation between the U.S. and China are still important methods [of diplomatic contact], yet risk management issues will unavoidably arise. Contact and communication, mutual cooperation and risk management are the three major outlets for the development of American and Chinese military relations. Recently, military intercourse between the two countries has shown marked improvement, but due to the great disparities China and the U.S. have on a number of basic issues, breakthroughs between them are hard to come by. Despite the last few years’ significant growth in the sharing of data and technology in joint military exercises, military cooperation still rests on an extremely weak foundation because of the mutual distrust between China and America. The U.S. and Chinese militaries do share a basis for genuine consensus and mutual benefit, namely risk management—both sides strive to avoid a military conflict. Although things are heating up in the South China Sea, there has been no repeat of plane or ship collision incidents,* showing that both navies are seriously respecting those [three] principles.

Second, while the chances of an outright conflict between U.S. and Chinese forces are not great, because of the “trilateral” factor, the prospect of frictional conflicts has risen conspicuously. In the past few years, following the U.S. and China’s geostrategic push-and-pull, the trilateral issue has rapidly expanded from Taiwan to the Korean Peninsula, the East China Sea, and other such concerns. While America consistently maintains that it takes no position on the Diaoyu (Senkaku) or Spratly Islands controversies, it still advances Taiwanese military strength and with it the capital of the “Taiwanese Independence” movement to change the status quo. The trilateral factor carries with it the increased possibility of an unexpected incident occurring, and will strengthen the suspicion between China and the U.S., while increasing overall strategic tension and complexity. It will be incredibly easy to produce misunderstanding and misjudgment, leading to the conflict that neither side wishes to see.

Third, the security difficulties between China and America continue to intensify, especially considering the slide into adversarial military preparations. In the long run, the basis of American strategy regarding China is “contact” and “prevention,” and the Chinese basis toward America is “cooperation” and “[competitive] struggle,” showing that for both great powers, competition and cooperation are largely balanced. But as the situation grows tenser in the South China Sea, it will inevitably amplify the competitive and adversarial aspects of the U.S.-China relationship. If we expand our view to the Western Pacific region, Chinese anxiety over strengthened American deployment and alliances grows day by day, and, likewise, America worries over Chinese “anti-access/area denial [A2/AD]” measures. If this trend continues, China and America could fall into antagonistic military competition, such that a military contest would not just be alarmist talk.

The author is the director and researcher at the U.S.-China Defense Relations Center of the PLA Academy of Military Science.

*Translator’s note: This likely refers to the Hainan Island incident in 2001 and the near collision of two U.S. and Chinese warships in late 2013.