Strategy: last year — get China to NOT arm Russia. Check!
Strategy: this year — get China to stab Russia in the back, frequently, and hard.
Tactics: last year — kill off the Russian paratroops (VVD) and spetznaz. Check!
Tactics: this year — kill off the Russian tankers and pilots.
All this is regrettable but necessary: thieves and murderers don’t stop unless you force them to stop.
Someone launched a bunch of drones at Moscow and Krasnodar in Russia. I swear it wasn’t me! And so should you! It made Mother so proud! “It’s the voices.”
Strike Codes, anyone?
Gege… I know something shiny and it’s real precious . . .
Kazakhstan Rejects Lukashenko’s Crazy Nuclear Gift: China Eats Russia’s Lunch Again. Get used to it.
Word of the day: VOICES voix, voces, Stimmen, hääled, голоси, голоса, 声音
CHINA AND FUTURE CONFLICTS
China is going to be busy eating Russia’s lunch in Central and East Asia for the foreseeable future. This will distract it from other misadventures. Although the USA and China are likelier than not to clash over Central Asia it is possible they will cooperate. Expect Russia to be totally frozen out of North Korea and Mongolia. Expect China to move into Central Asia. Kazakhstan is already flipping into China’s orbit, or at least away from Russia. This presages competition, but probably not outright conflict, between the USA and China. The Turkic republics of Central Asia and the soon to be ex-Russian Federation will be the main zones where they will spar for influence, trade, and bases. NATO allies Turkiye, Finland, Estonia, and maybe even Sweden will exercise influence into newly independent Komi and Mari republics, Nenets too. China will be unable to contend in those soon-to-be countries due to distance, language, culture, and climate. Turkiye will probably outmaneuver China more than it is outmaneuvered by China in the Turkic and Islamic republics and soon to be former “Russian” republics in Central Asia. How well Turkiye does depend a bit on how much NATO rightly rewards Turkiye for its participation opposing Russia’s stupid war in Ukraine, and how much Washington avoids being corrupted from within by Beijing.
One of my foreign intelligence contacts needs/wants me to map out the contours of probable U.S.-Chinese clashes. I feel it just to do so properly because of 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and especially foreign intelligence failures. I also feel it appropriate to clearly signal where red lines will be drawn, for unlike most other publicists I say that term knowing full well those red lines, properly signed, are trails of human blood in the sands. Possibly others use that term to mean the red thread of friendship. I am less optimistic, more honest, much more disciplined and careful with words, but less hopeful about delimiting State-to-State conflicts.
The new happy China, a moderately prosperous society which has eradicated extreme poverty, has been more-or-less achived. The CCP and its paramount leader chart out lines of foreign relations which, wisely pursued, will foster common global prosperity. This is a strategic “threat” to U.S. global hegemony. Communists of various stripes have long touted a faster path to ending poverty. We can and should greet wise Chinese initiatives like the belt and road initiative, the Asian infrastructure and investment bank, and partnering with ASEAN with caution, hope, and realism. Realistically speaking it is obvious China will uses it’s B&R investments to build out transit corridors, which in peace will foster Chinese trade and foreign relations but in war would move Chinese men and materiel. Yet, how is this so different to others’ foreign policies? How much can a foreign policy of constraint because “maybe someday” not fuel myths of oppression and exploitation?
Strategically speaking the USA or even the West in general, cannot effectively and ought not oppose the idea of common global prosperity. How can one gain and maintain allies and trading partners while opposing a universally desired goal? No State, no matter how powerful —or how brutal — can oppose universally desired goals.
However, let’s just remember for a moment the alternatives to U.S. hegemony, they tend to be far more violent and unstable: in comparison with Nazis, Fascists, Stalinists, Trotskyites, and 大日本帝国注意 American hegemony is benevolent, not brutal. Whatever the sources and vectors of pan American global power and influence the fact is “no one can oppose an idea whose time has come”. The world has the means for universal prosperity: we must help implement that, not destroy it, the way some would…
If you admit B&R is also “bases and replenishment”, not just a pure peace plan, why might one object to yet not oppose or hinder the AIIB, the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, better known as the Bank of International Bribery? While we can rightly see the AIIB as China’s way to bribe up local corruptionnaires it will also be difficult to oppose and ought not be opposed. Recall also, corruption was once a serious problem in the USA itself and in other Western countries too. Wealth obviates most economic crime: that is, as a society grows wealthier it also grows less corrupt. Our main goal should be development, but to constantly point out that corruption destroys development. China knows that and will throw its corruptionnaires “under the bus”, at times. The USA or even the entire Alliance Network could not stop AIIB. So we should not. People have some money. They are best to judge how to spend their money. When they waste it in crooked and unproductive undertakings we ought be sorrowful, but unsurprised.
If we cannot and should not oppose China’s hopeful economic projects what are we to do about China’s military potential? Hopefully China’s goverment notices the strength of the Alliance Network. We may hope that China, seeing the fact that in any conflict they would be quickly over-whelmed, will be deterred thereby from foolish pointless adventures and learn from Russia’s terrible errors. It is better to have a stable if less than friendly regime in Beijing that accepts its military limitations and constraints and quits being Russia’s stooge. Hopefully, China’s government will notice how very badly Putin’s methods are and reject them categorically.
If they don’t, here’s the list of nightmares awaiting the brave, loyal, People’s Liberation Army.
Taiwan Chinese people understandably wish to govern Taiwan. They do. The people who live in Taibei are Chinese. Since Taiwan is governed by Chinese people China ought simply regard its impossibly, foolish, and self-destructive efforts to plan for a war on Taiwan as wasted effort. I cannot sink hospital ships. I cannot impede or oppose Chinese disaster relief when the various storms or even foreign wars ruin China’s neighbors. I cannot stop Chinese anti-piracy operations, nor should I. We need more ships like Hope and Peace Ark (和平方舟) instead of warships to build a better world.
What about China’s other border disputes? China disputes the Senkaku islands (Japan), and also has a border dispute with India and even disputes its borders with most of its neighbors. A provocative U.S. foreign policy would stoke those conflicts. I suggest instead a more stable policy: the USA should make clear that a war with Japan or even India would result in U.S. intervention, just as much as any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would. But the USA ought not stoke those conflicts. China’s government uses its border disputes to rally nationalist support and distract from domestic difficulties. A resolute defense, clear deterrent signalling, and active defensive patrolling are all that is needed to stop China from self-destruction in any of its border disputes.
If, excepting Taiwan, Chinese military activities can be met militarily with clearly superior deterrent forces what are the lines of non-military and “grey zone” conflict?
To Chinese military theory, perhaps influenced by daoism, certainly by dialectical materialism, the idea that there is never perpetual or absolute peace or war must seem self-evident. There is always resistance, though often passive, sullen, non-violent. There is also always the chance for revolutionary change, whether because of technology, economic shocks, or climate (weather)! This demands certain vigilance and opportunism, to the Chinese perspective. All these are expressions of the idea of unity in conflict. Conflict unites conflicting parties. Parties and partners, though in unity, nonetheless inevitably have, likely minor, possibly eventual, conflicts.
Chinese cyclical relativised strategic thought is fairly different from Western linear hierarchical strategies. The West imagines an eventual victory of liberalism, democracy, and capitalism and the subsequent capitulation-cum-cooperation it got from Russia in 1990, but this time without all the blood corruption. This does enable structured forward movement toward their goals, a consequential logic drives their movements. Chinese people probably see themselves as simultaneously and inevitably intertwined in conflict and cooperation with the West, a constant conflict to claw back what one can, while claiming to want and even to have achieved real partnership, durable peace.
Westerners don’t see life or conflict that way. Instead they imagine if only they conquer in war, build the next technological breakthrough, reach the next trade agreement, they will finally have won their war, business deal, or lost souls. They imagine, in extremis, a manichean conflict between absolute good and perfect evil ending in a triumphant permanent peace. Their ideas about conflicts are fundamentally different.
Vectors of Conflict:
China traditionally and historically exercises a very restrained foreign policy. Chinese foreign policy has often been isolationist, or nearly so. This is partly because China has been so often internally divided. It may help Westerners to think of China as similar to the Roman Empire. A vast space, governing related nations with different languages, held together by common institutions and cross cultural binding. A good argument could be made that Korea or even Japan are more like Beijing than Southern China is.
Chinese isolationism can be seen rather clearly in two architectural master-works:
the great wall, meant like Hadrians’s Wall but far longer, to keep out marauding barbarians.
the forbidden city, i.e. palatial Beijing, which was prohibited to Europeans.
Chinese politics have and do reflect family structures. Whether Emperor or Chairman the patriarch on top of it all is like the father of the nation, all powerful. Foreign policy has tended then to be exercised over and through clan and kingship relations. China historically expanded itself with tributary and vassal states. We may compare belt and road partners to a new version of the tributary state system: it is intended to enrich China while developing the partner leading to cultural influence leading to favorable political or even military outcomes for China.
The USA in contrast relies on an alliance system that may be compared to the Romans. The USA provides security, guarantees free trade, and this in exchange for hosting troops and pre-positioned material.
Meanwhile: China is oil dependent.
Given these facts we can try to imagine where China is likeliest to seek influence: China is likeliest to assert influence in places with large overseas Chinese communities and places with historic ties and relations to China. Thus:
In descending order of cultural and historic ties: Korea, Japan, Vietnam.
In descending order of of numbers of overseas Chinese influence: Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, USA.
Types of Conflict
Trade ties and cultural influence will wind up being the most important axes of Chinese-U.S. conflict. China will try to wage “political warfare” but China is only a nominal communist country. The USA and China simply have too many common goals and values as well as literal blood relatives to wind up in proxy wars or state sponsored terrorism. China will feign bellicosity and military prowess in dramatic shows, only. In reality, China’s foreign policy will continue to be driven by economic goals and constraints. I do not expect a new cold war, though I do expect extended constant low grade conflicts in any and every field as Washington figures out China never accepted and never will accept a rules based international order. China is a mercantilist state capitalist dictatorship with a fundamentally non-interventionist foreign policy in practice. Basically China will stab Russia in the back repeatdly, eat Russia’s lunch, and get rewarded with continued good trade relations, but will meet conflicts in the Turkic and Islamic parts of Central Asia it will likely reflexively recoil from, after all who likes funerals? Though, China might prove able to negotiate another durable peaceable system for trade and governance there.
China’s go-to and best strategic move? Build a tributary and vassal state system in partnership with those countries that have a significant (usually economically powerful) overseas Chinese community: Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia; and also with those ideologically aligned states with cultural ties to China (Mongolia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia) to try to makes such countries currently closer to the USA than to China at least neutral, and eventually to turn them into Chinese allies (Japan, South Korea, Phillipines). This is a long term strategy, but China is ancient and patient.
REFUTING WRONG IDEAS ABOUT CHINA AN STRATEGY
Some argue that China’s faces demographic collapse leading to a shrinking work force and an increasingly dependent society. In reality: all those grandparents will do piece-work at home to earn money for their family, and raise the wave of as yet unborn grandchildren the CCP is already seeking to foster. Although the era of cheap Chinese labor is likely over, I do not expect population's aging to cripple China’s economy. The CCP can always blame the USA for China’s economy…
Most also think the first or main or best target for the Chinese military would be Taiwan. For good or ill, the Chinese government isn’t that stupid. The People’s Liberation Army does not want to kill off the Chinese in Taiwan. Meanwhile, China can always blame America if cross straits relations aren’t perfect, getting all the political benefits of nationalism without any bloodshed of Chinese. They value their family even more than they value money. The USA will not be able to provoke China into a war on Taiwan, which the USA will defend, because the Chinese are not Slavs and have no desire to self-genocide. Of course, if China were so foolish as to try to invade Taiwan the USA would fight, an China would lose, with many Chinese dead in consequence, an the probable collapse of the foolish Chinese government which ordered an invasion.
China has no intention under any circumstance of arming or supplying Russia. Instead, China will be eating Russia’s lunch in Central Asia, Korea, Mongolia, and Cuba. China / the CCP would be only too happy to see the collapse of Russia, especially if it meant return of the Amur valley to Chinese control, which it would. Scenarios imagining the USA and China in a proxy war over Ukraine are unrealistic.
China likewise has no intention to provoke another Korean war. Although China hopes to see a peaceful Korean reunification with Korea as a Chinese satellite that is unlikely. China has consistently supported the crazy juche ideologues in North Korea. This is to enable Korea to do China’s dirty work in espionage, and then to blame Russia. As North Korea falls even more firmly into China’s orbit such denial will become less possible. There is thus a strategic opportunity to reign in some of the blacker espionage nastiness: cooperation regarding China’s North Korean satellite in exchange for fewer crazy North Korean kidnappings, murders, counterfeiting, criminality. China will no longer be able to blame Russia when North Korea gets out of line. China supports North Korea for another reason: North Korea is the CCP’s political testing ground for extreme ideas the CCP once embraced but abandoned decade ago. Whether its nostalgia or an ideological reserve or both is a good question.
China’s best option strategically and economically is cooperation an cooptation with the West. Nonetheless, expect China to continue to try to forge BRICs into an anti-Western or anti-capitalist alternative, which opposition they will deny. The reasons China will pursue its BRICs strategy are
partly ideological, just like it’s juche support in NoKo,
partly the sunk costs fallacy (all that past effort to build BRICs ought not go waste), and
partly the belief in unity-in-conflict.
I predict military competition and economic cooperation between China and the West. The West, broadly speaking, can and should consistently reward Chinese cooperation on security matters with economic competition and reign in Chinese (ultra) nationalism and militarism with deterrence alongside economic constraints. Carrots and sticks.
I think K&G over-states their case, but I also think it’s worth watching and thinking about.
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