Taiwanese Scholar Chen Yongfeng: Could There Really Be a War Between the US and China?

On March 27, Chen Yongfeng, director of the Japan Regional Research Center at Tunghai University in Taiwan, said in an interview with China News Review that after taking office, Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first visit to Russia bearing nearly $3.6 billion in arms purchases as a large gift, signifying a gradual warming of Sino-Russian relations. A confrontation has already occurred between these continental powers and U.S.-Japanese maritime powers, leading to a state of equilibrium. Comparatively, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union did not actually go to war during the Cold War, but the likelihood of a minor incident sparking a conflagration between the U.S. and China today is much higher.

Chen said that while the U.S. and the former Soviet Union generated East-West tensions during the Cold War, the two countries never went to war because their people were monotheistic. Most people in the U.S. believed in Jesus Christ, and the Soviet Union followed the Eastern Orthodox tradition; both religions come from a common point of origin. An actual war never occurred because of religion and other factors: Each country was familiar with the other’s logic and also could predict what the other was thinking.

In addition to citing the stabilization of tensions between the U.S. and former Soviet Union, Chen said that the relationship between China and Taiwan is similarly steady. Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong were well acquainted with one another; Chiang Ching-kuo and Deng Xiaoping met in France and in the former Soviet Union. Each of these individuals knew what his counterpart was thinking. Cross-strait relations were equally as tense as those between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, but the situation was not so serious as to lead to war. However, after Lee Teng-hui took office, mutual trust with China deteriorated and frequent antagonistic speeches led to the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis.

In Chen’s analysis, compared to the tense yet stable relations between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, relations between the U.S. and China are not quite as secure. The U.S. was able to predict the Soviet Union’s thinking, but its predictions about China are often inaccurate. For example, in East Asia, China used Japan’s advanced provocation in the most recent Diaoyu Islands dispute as grounds to suddenly dispatch naval surveillance ships and military aircraft, which continuously carry out actions in the region.

Chen stated that Xi Jinping’s first visit to Russia after taking office not only bears great significance but also elevates Russia’s position in Asia. In June, China and Russia will conduct joint military exercises; their strategic alliance is becoming increasingly obvious. On the other hand, Japan is growing more and more dependent on the U.S. Because of trade factors and the U.S.-Japan security treaty, Japan is unable to turn to Asia for aid and can only rely on the U.S.

According to Chen, the emergence of Sino-Russian and U.S.-Japanese alliances looks like a showdown between continental and maritime powers, even like a balance of power to the point of mutually assured destruction. He again stressed that the likelihood of a conflict between the U.S. and China is greater than the one between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Some people believe that the chance of war is negligible because trade dependency between China and the U.S. deepens everyday. However, Chen firmly believes that economic ties cannot guarantee a lasting peace.

From a modern historical point of view, Chen said that after the end of the 19th century, trade between England and Germany increased. On the eve of World War I, England was Germany’s most important supplier of industrial goods and raw materials. Correspondingly, Germany acted as the primary export country for electronics, organic material and industrial products to England. At the time, the international community speculated that economic interdependence between the two countries was too deep: If war occurred and either country’s economy collapsed, the effects would immediately rebound to the other. Regardless of who won or lost, a war would bring devastating disaster to England, Germany and the entire European continent. Ultimately, World War I still occurred. Does the chance for war really not exist between the similarly economically codependent U.S. and China?