US-China relations: Cold War or Icy Peace?

On Wednesday, 17 November, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) said in its 2021 Annual Report to Congress that China has or is close to achieving an initial capability to invade Taiwan, one that remains under development but that China’s leaders may employ at high risk — while deterring, delaying, or defeating United States military intervention.

The PLA will continue to develop all of these capabilities to enhance Chinese leaders’ confidence that it can successfully execute an invasion campaign, the USCC said.

Cross-Strait deterrence still holds today because Chinese leaders remain deeply concerned about the uncertain success of an attempted invasion as well as its risks and consequences. Failed attempts by the PLA to invade Taiwan or to counter US intervention risk undermining the CCP’s legitimacy, the report said.

The report came soon after US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on Monday, in a virtual summit, in which Xi took a tough posture saying that China will ‘certainly defend’ its sovereignty and security interests as he warned that whoever plays with fire over Taiwan’s bid for independence will ‘get burnt’.

There is nothing breakthrough that came out of the virtual summit of the leaders of the two largest economies in the world, as also the two most powerful nations, except for the fact that the two leaders arrived at a consensus about rejecting a ‘new Cold War’ and agreed on the need to prevent competition from escalating into broader conflict.

In the summit, US President Joe Biden reiterated his commitment to the `One China’ policy.

However, earlier, in October, Biden dispelled US ambiguity on the Taiwan issue by stating that the US would defend Taiwan if that nation was invaded. The administrations of both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump have stepped up US support for Taiwan. American warships have sailed through the Taiwan Strait. Small teams of troops have conducted training with the Taiwanese military. China wants the US to steer clear of the Taiwan question , because it views Taiwan as a domestic issue.

Xi Jinping perceives the existence of an independent Taiwan, as a contravention to his `China Dream’ of making his nation the apex power in the world today and in future. He has not stopped short of implying that China would take Taiwan forcibly.

The Taiwan Relations Act, does not bind the US to defend Taiwan. It propounds that the US will provide Taiwan with the capacity to defend itself. Over the past decade, the US has announced more than $20 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.

China sees democratic Taiwan as a breakaway province. But Taiwan perceives itself as a sovereign state, with its own constitution, military, and elected leaders. In September 2021, as Taiwan warned of the imminent danger of being invaded by China, China sent 19 aircraft including nuclear-capable bombers, into Taiwan’s “air defence identification zone” on the eve of Taipei’s annual war games exercises.

Another bone of contention, between the US and China, is the South China Sea. China, in fact, has made expansive and unjustified claims on the South China Sea. It claims 90% of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory, but is opposed by south-east Asian countries including Taiwan. The South China Sea is a region of tremendous economic and geostrategic importance. One-third of the world’s maritime shipping passes through it, carrying over US$3 trillion in trade each year. Huge oil and natural gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed. It also contains lucrative fisheries, which are crucial for the food security of millions in South-east Asia.

China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China has impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, claiming that the ownership of territory belonged to China for hundreds of years.

Over the last five years, China has rapidly built artificial islands housing significant military infrastructure on what had been low-lying reefs.

On 12 July 2016, The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. It stated that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control, historically, over the key waterway.

China has repeatedly said it does not accept the Court ruling and has continued to expand its South China Sea presence over the past five years.

Since 2020, China has become more aggressive in increasing its military presence in the South China Sea, prompting the US, in June 2020, to formally reject most of China’s claims in the South China Sea. While the US does not claim rights over any territory in the region, it supports the claims of various South-east Asian countries and has historically vindicated that by conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea.

Another fallout of China’s increasing belligerence in the region has been the formation of the AUKUS. AUKUS is a new three-way strategic defence alliance between Australia, the UK and the US, initially to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, but also to work together in the Indo-Pacific region, where the rise of China is seen as an increasing threat, and develop wider technologies. China views this as a provocation, protesting that its new power and might have actuated the formation of alliances like AUKUS and the Quad. The Quad involves the US, Australia, India and Japan.

The US has also continued to take note of China’s human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, much to China’s displeasure. The US, in fact, has sanctioned officials and blacklisted dozens of Chinese agencies linked to abuses in Xinjiang. In January 2021, it determined that China’s actions constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.

US-China relations went on a downward spiral during Trump’s presidency, when a trade war ensued. Trump began imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, including Beijing’s extensive support for steel, solar cells, computer chips and other domestic industries. Tariffs and counter-tariffs were imposed by the US and China on imports from each other. Biden has continued protesting China’s economic policies.

While the world has more-or-less been a unipolar world, since the end of the US-Soviet Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the US at the helm, China views itself as the future of the world, even as it perceives that American power is on the wane. It sees the American mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, the polarisation of American society over the race issue and the US defeat in Afghanistan as tell-tale signs of this. Chinese influence in lesser developed countries has been burgeoning, as it bankrolls development and infrastructure projects in a number of countries in Asia and Africa. While, that China has aspirations to be the apex nation of the world, is redoubtable, it is no matter of conjecture that the US will do all that it takes to preclude that.

It is to be seen how sincere Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are in their commitment to peace. As for now, the fact that there is a an all-pervasive conflict of interest in the Indo-Pacific, over the Taiwan question, over Chinese unfair trade practices and Chinese human rights abuses, it will get inadvertently difficult to prevent a blow-out into a full-scale conflagration.