U.S.-China War Getting Serious

In the U.S., no current or party recommends war with China but in order to shift the blame of the inefficiencies of the tenant of the White House in Washington both in settling up the economy and in better performance regarding the coronavirus, the condition of the presidential campaign increases the pressure against China day in day so that this climate has convinced the Chinese for prepping for a probable war with the U.S.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

The issue of embroilment between this two countries started when Beijing and Washington engaged in a global blame-game over the deadly coronavirus and were at odds on almost every front, from trade tensions to the South China Sea, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Huawei, and they made their new and old differences public in the media.

Worse still, their recent wrangling over Beijing’s imposition of a draconian national security law in Hong Kong has further emboldened hardliners on both sides, accelerated the downward spiral and put the world’s top two economies on a headstrong – and dangerous and obstinate – collision course.

Analysts warn that the U.S.-China relations with an unprecedented pace are deteriorating, and this condition can worsen and end in a full military confrontation between both states. Last month, senior diplomats of China and the U.S. had a meeting in Hawaii after nearly one year, and despite both sides had pinned high hopes on the result of the meeting because there was a panic that the tensions between the two countries gradually prepared the grounds for military disputes and war, but the events after this meeting show the failure and effects of the meeting in their bilateral relations.

The secret meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Yang Jiechi, the top diplomatic aide to Chinese President Xi Jinping, took place – perhaps coincidentally – at Pearl Harbor, scene of a pivotal moment for the U.S. and world history when it was bombed by the Japanese nearly 80 years ago. And it seems no development has been seen in their relations.

Government officials and experts have warned that since the official and academic relations between the U.S. and China have been restricted significantly and the traditional dampers like trade, tourism and academic relations have almost become ineffective, their relations are deteriorating with an unprecedented pace.

Graham Allison, American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, says, “The remainder of 2020 could pose as severe a test for the US and China as the final five months of 1941 did for the United States and Japan.” He has said, “Japan’s surprise air strike on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 – which dragged the U.S. into World War II – had been beyond Washington’s imagination, that ‘a nation less than one-quarter the size of the U.S. would launch a bolt from the blue against the most powerful nation in the world’.”

Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says,” “China has seen the coronavirus as an opportunity to exploit U.S. weaknesses, and so China might be tempted to resolve territorial disputes through force. I think there’s a real possibility of miscalculation by Beijing in assuming the U.S. won’t or can’t respond militarily.” I think very likely China’s calculations that the U.S. has no will or capability for having a military action would turn out wrong.

Yuan Peng, president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a government-linked think tank in Beijing, drew parallels between the post-coronavirus world and the situation after World War I more than a century ago.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi refuted claims that China was a revisionist power seeking to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the U.S. He said, “China never intends to challenge or replace the U.S., or have full confrontation with the U.S.”

Any military action between both countries, even in the lowest scale, can totally overshadow world economic condition. The processes ahead for escalation in tension between these two big economic and political powers are so high that each one by itself can be the base for a tumult and strategic mistake between both states. But in this condition, the U.S. economy, with mammoth volume of debts on the shoulders of the U.S. government, shows this country is more fragile than China.

Hence, in this condition the role of the United Nations especially its Secretary General and ultimately the UNSC’s becomes more important and it warns of an unwanted mission. Today with the great danger which is threatening the world and smells the preparations for the Third World War, all joint and united organizations are tasked with responsibility to lessen this huge amount of tension through talks.

The imposed poverty resulted by the downward economic growth because of the Coronavirus pandemic and its compulsory management has today created a global disaster that emergence of the second one like the war between two economic and military superpowers would be something beyond the world’s endurance and all should work together and not to let the course of daily growing bitterness between these two states expand the perils.

 By: Hamid Reza Naghashian