Wednesday, August 12, 2020

A STATE OF WAR EXIST BETWEEN CHINA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD

(U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Alexander Cook)

Since there is a de facto China-American war, the United States should start to take China’s greatest national strength—its export-oriented, booming economic-growth model—and transform it into a major military weakness. To do so, the United States would implement a naval blockade of China that attempted to choke off most of China’s maritime trade. Under the right conditions, the United States might be able to secure victory by debilitating China’s economy severely enough to bring it to the negotiating table.

Yet until recently, a blockade strategy was largely overlooked, perhaps because economic warfare strategies seem inherently misguided given the close commercial ties between China and the United States. But if a serious conflict between the two nations erupted, then their immediate security interests would quickly override their trade interdependence and wreak enormous economic damage on both sides, regardless of whether a blockade were employed.

Even if a blockade is never executed, its viability would still impact American and Chinese policies for deterrence reasons. The United States’ regional strategy is predicated on the belief that a favorable military balance deters attempts to change the status quo by force, thus reassuring allies and upholding strategic stability. The viability of a blockade influences this calculus, and can accordingly affect American and Chinese actions—both military and nonmilitary—that are based on perceptions of it. If a naval blockade is a feasible strategy, it strengthens the American system of deterrence and dilutes any potential attempts by China to coerce the United States or its allies. Moreover, if a blockade’s viability can be clearly enunciated, it would also enhance crisis stability and dampen the prospects of escalation due to misunderstandings—on either side—about the regional balance of power. In short, as Elbridge Colby put it: “the old saw remains true, that the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it.”

While a blockade is not a priori impossible or irrelevant in any situation, it is also not a ready tool in the American arsenal and would be feasible mainly within certain boundaries. Most importantly, many commentators miss the fact that a blockade is a context-dependent strategy, one that crucially depends on the regional environment.

More importantly, though, a blockade strategy would depend on the cooperation of several third parties in the region. After all, China’s trade is borne on the seas largely as a result of economic considerations rather than physical limitations; if China were blockaded, it would turn to the countries on its borders for help.

While many of its neighbors would be unable to make a strategic difference because of their rugged geography or their small size, three could prove vital: India, Japan, and Russia. The latter two would be important in helping the United States by cutting off China’s trade routes in its south and east, respectively, through implementing national embargoes on China and pressuring their smaller neighbors to do the same. Without their cooperation, the United States’ task would become much more difficult.

The last of the three neighbors—Russia—would be the lynchpin of a successful blockade, and could tip the balance of a blockade in favor of either China or the United States. On the one hand, Russia is remarkably well-positioned to alleviate the blockade’s effects on China. Russian trade would be immune to American interdiction, since Russia’s nuclear arsenal and significant conventional assets preclude any serious American attempts at military coercion. But on the other hand, China’s northern neighbor could also sound the death knell for China’s ability to resist a blockade. On the political level, Moscow continues to exert sway over the decisions made in the capitals of China’s Central Asian neighbors and could convince them to refuse Chinese entreaties to act as transit states. It could also guarantee that China’s two neighboring oil producers would no longer supply it with petroleum.

Accordingly, for the United States to implement a strategically effective blockade of China, it would strive to build a “minimum coalition” with India, Japan, and Russia. If all three states made common cause with the American blockade, then China would be placed in both an economic and a political stranglehold. If not, however, a blockade strategy would regionalize a Sino-American war in a way that would be fundamentally unfavorable to American interests.

Such a minimum coalition could only arise in one way: on the heels of an assertive Chinese push for regional hegemony that precipitates local support for a drastic American response. Short of anything but an aggressive China, collective embargo action will be deterred by the potential consequences of a blockade, not least of which is the possibility of a larger regional conflict with China. The four states are unlikely to coalesce together around an implicit containment policy until each feels that its national interests may be threatened by China in the future.

While such a possibility may appear distant at present, the United States, Japan, India and Russia all fear that Beijing might someday conclude that it must use force in order to protect its interests and to resolve its security dilemma on favorable terms. All four powers have increasingly hedged their bets against this possibility. If China’s power and influence in Asia continues to increase, then the bonds between all four states will strengthen, not out of any conviction about China’s belligerent intentions, but rather because of a profound uncertainty as to their future disposition.

A Made-in-China Pandemic

I believe that China wanted to torpedo the world economy to become the dominant country, read below: It also show in their ruthless actions of burning people near death of covid 19, just to achieve their goals, no matter the obstacles before them. In all the countries around the world where this pandemic exist, the main origin of the virus is from China.

The COVID-19 pandemic should be a wake-up call for a world that has accepted China’s lengthening shadow over global supply chains for far too long. Only by reducing China’s global economic influence. Now China is spreading lies to deflect world opinion against them.

How China’s fake news machine is rewriting the history of Covid-19, even as the pandemic unfolds

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s retweet of an article blaming the U.S. for infecting Wuhan with coronavirus went viral, viewed 160 million times within hours. But where did the story come from?

Realizing it was in the firing line not just for running the nation that had unleashed the deadly virus on the world but also for ignoring, covering up and denying its spread, China’s Communist Party moved into damage-control mode. This included suggesting it was the United States that was responsible for the virus.

Chinese state media regularly tweet propaganda and what many describe as “fake news”. Global Times has 1.7 million followers on Twitter; China Xinhua News, 12.6 million; People’s Daily, 7.1 million; China Daily, 4.3 million; and China Global Television Network (CGTN), 14 million.

Zhao Lijian, spokesman and deputy director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ information department, had 287,000 followers when he tweeted a link to a conspiracy website alleging the U.S. was responsible for the virus. (Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying had 146,700 followers; the ministry’s “spokesperson” account, used by Geng Shuang, had 61,000; and Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Global Times, had 175,000.)

With the outbreak of an epidemic, one of the first jobs of scientists and doctors, even while they fight to save lives, is to identify its source. This is critical in the search for medicines to combat a virus and a vaccine to prevent its spread.

On January 24, an article written jointly by 29 Chinese medical doctors and scientists was published in The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals. The authors shared their findings from a study of patients who were suspected of having been infected with 2019-nCoV and had been admitted to a Wuhan hospital. The report said that by January 2, 41 of them had been “laboratory-confirmed” as infected with the virus – which causes Covid-19 – and two-thirds of those infected “had been exposed to the Huanan market”.

The findings appeared to support anecdotal evidence that the source of the virus was the market, which had been closed by city officials on January 1. This had been often repeated by Chinese authorities and reported widely in the global media. The Lancet article gave scientific currency to this narrative.

Then, on February 19, another study – this time published on ChinaXiv.org, an open repository and distribution website used by scientific researchers – suggested the market was likely not ground zero for the virus, but rather that it had been “imported”from outside.

The study was by a team of scientists from several institutions: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of Chinese Academy of Sciences; South China Agricultural University; and the Chinese Institute for Brain Research. It was revised on February 21. Neither version of the study suggested Covid-19 had originated outside China.

But the fake news machine was about to go to work.

On February 23, the People’s Daily’s English-language site reprinted a February 22 Global Times article titled, “Japanese TV report sparks speculations in China that Covid-19 may have originated in US”. The original Global Times article, which is no longer available online, began: “A report from a Japanese TV station that suspected some of the 14,000 Americans died of influenza may have unknowningly [sic] contracted the coronavirus has gone viral on Chinese social media, stoking fears and speculations in China that the novel coronavirus may have originated in the U.S.

“The report, by TV Asahi Corporation of Japan, suggested that the US government may have failed to grasp how rampant the virus have gone [sic] on the US soil.”

The article continued: “The story sparked various conspiracy theories on [sic] Chinese cyberspace.

“The Military World Games were held in Wuhan in October. ‘Perhaps the US delegates brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, and some mutation occurred to the virus, making it more deadly and contagious, and causing a widespread outbreak this year,’ a user posted on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.

“[An] international relations professor at the Shanghai-based Fudan University, noted that global virologists are working to track the origin of the virus, including the intelligence agencies. Netizens are encouraged to actively partake in discussions, but preferrably [sic] in a rational fashion.”

The original Global Times article appears to have been replaced with one about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s denial of the TV Asahi report.

On March 4, the People’s Daily reprint of this article was used as the basis for a piece published on conspiracy website GlobalResearch.ca, titled “China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US?” It was the first of two articles on the website that would lead to Zhao’s tweet nine days later suggesting the U.S. Army had brought the virus to Wuhan.

The March 4 article begins: “The Western media quickly took the stage and laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of the new coronavirus which appeared to have begun in China, claiming it to have originated with animals at a wet market in Wuhan.”

This omits a few salient facts: that China’s state-controlled media had also “laid out the official narrative”; that reporters had received that narrative from the Chinese government; and that in the early days of the outbreak, the majority of evidence, including the Lancet article by 29 Chinese doctors, pointed to the Wuhan market.

The Global Research article continues: “In fact the origin was for a long time unknown but it appears likely now, according to Chinese and Japanese reports, that the virus originated elsewhere, from multiple locations, but began to spread widely only after being introduced to the market.

“More to the point, it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the U.S.”

The article then presents a subheading that inflates “may have originated in the US” to “Chinese Researchers Conclude the Virus Originated Outside of China”. Underneath, it quotes two reports – a February 22 article in Global Times and a February 23 article in CGTN – both about the ChinaXiv study, which did not suggest the virus originated outside China.

But Global Research wanted readers to draw the conclusion that it did, and so it created some dots to be connected: “Chinese medical authorities – and ‘intelligence agencies’ – then conducted a rapid and wide-ranging search for the origin of the virus, collecting nearly 100 samples of the genome from 12 different countries on 4 continents, identifying all the varieties and mutations. During this research, they determined the virus outbreak had begun much earlier, probably in November, shortly after the Wuhan Military Games.

“They then came to the same independent conclusions as the Japanese researchers – that the virus did not begin in China but was introduced there from the outside.”

That was not the “conclusion” of the scientists who posted their research on ChinaXiv.

Next, citing a February 27 story on Xinhuanet, Global Research invokes a Chinese national hero, Zhong Nanshan, who led the fight to contain severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. “China’s top respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan said on January 27 … ‘Though the Covid-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China’.”

Global Research translates this for its readers: “But that is Chinese for ‘it originated someplace else, in another country’.”

Zhong did not say that. Neither did Xinhuanet. And the “Japanese researchers” Global Research refers to are never identified. The only reference to a Japanese source is: “In February of 2020, the Japanese Asahi news report (print and TV) claimed the coronavirus originated in the US, not in China …”

Global Research offers no link to Asahi, only a link to the February 23 People’s Daily article, which also has no Asahi link but was a reprint of the Global Times story, which appears to have been revised on February 22, and – you guessed it – provides no Asahi link.

An online search for “Asahi news coronavirus originated in the US” from February 1 to 29 reveals no link to any such Asahi article. Neither does a search of the Asahi news website, which returns 688 articles containing the word “coronavirus” through March 4. But not this one.

Global Research also cites the Fudan University quote in Global Times: “[The professor] stated that global virologists ‘including the intelligence agencies’ were tracking the origin of the virus. Also of interest, the Chinese government did not shut the door on this. The news report stated: ‘Netizens are encouraged to actively partake in discussions, but preferably in a rational fashion.’

“In China, that is meaningful. If the reports were rubbish, the government would clearly state that, and tell people to not spread false rumours.”

The final piece of “evidence” in Global Research’s March 4 article is headed “Taiwan Virologist Suggests the Coronavirus Originated in the US”, and includes an embedded video of a Taiwan television show, identified as This! Is Not News, and a screenshot of a man with a pointer giving a colourful lecture about the origins of the virus. “The man in the video is a top virologist and pharmacologist who performed a long and detailed search for the source of the virus,” claims the article.

Except the man in the video – whom the report does not name – is not a virologist at all. He is a politician from the pro-Beijing New Party and a member of the Taipei City Council, who, before entering politics full time in 2002, was a pharmacology professor.

The clip opens with an introduction from a man in a crew cut, who talks about China and Russia and Georgian defectors carrying American biowarfare secrets, and mosquitoes and bats developed by the U.S. for diabolical purposes. As he talks, tabloid-sized purple characters scroll along the bottom of the screen, punctuated with question marks and exclamation marks, and the one English acronym every conspiracy theorist worldwide knows: “CIA!”

Capping his performance is a 1981 analysis purported to have been carried out by the U.S. Army that showed the attraction of “entomological warfare” to the U.S. military and American taxpayers: 50 per cent of a city of 1.2 million people could be wiped out at a per-corpse cost of 29 cents.

Up next, “the man in the video”notes that, while the man with the crew cut had been talking in terms of Cold War-style geopolitics where everybody fears and loathes everybody else, he is there solely to discuss science. Then he waves a pointer with a plastic yellow index finger at its tip, indicating diagrams of multicoloured circles. As the most complex diagram arrives on screen, he reassures the show’s hostess, “The next slide will make it very clear.”

Such was Global Research’s Taiwan “expert evidence”. Undaunted, the article continues: “The Taiwanese doctor then stated the virus outbreak began earlier than assumed, saying, ‘We must look to September of 2019’.

“He stated the case in September of 2019 where some Japanese travelled to Hawaii and returned home infected, people who had never been to China. This was two months prior to the infections in China and just after the CDC suddenly and totally shut down the Fort Detrick bio-weapons lab claiming the facilities were insufficient to prevent loss of pathogens.”

The introduction of the U.S. Army’s Fort Detrick bio-weapons lab is a solid piece of conspiracy theory craftsmanship. The “man in the video” had not mentioned Fort Detrick – Global Research did, in an apparent attempt to tie the Taiwanese “virologist’s” Japanese travellers who visited Hawaii in September to a U.S. Army bioweapons lab.

The Fort Detrick facility had not been “suddenly and totally shut down” – it ceased research in mid-July (and not in September). And how one of the most contagious viruses in history travelled from Maryland to Hawaii over a six- to eight-week period, leaving no trail of illness and death, goes unexamined by Global Research.

For good measure, the article closes by listing six outbreaks in 2018, 2019 and 2020 of “pandemics” that “sickened” and “killed” people, chickens and pigs in China. Each includes notes such as, “China needs to purchase U.S. agricultural products,” suggesting that as part of the trade war, the U.S. has been unleashing pathogens in the mainland for more than two years in order to make China buy American.

In summary, the March 4 article invokes mainland hero Zhong, the “Japanese” and the “Taiwanese” – two American allies with no reason to lie – and adds the “CIA” and a leaky U.S. bioweapons research lab for spice. All independent and none really confirming the others while appearing to come close. Perhaps most impressive of all, the author produced almost 2,000 America-bashing words, and not one of them was “Trump”.

On March 5, without citing the Global Research March 4 piece or any of the underlying Chinese media articles, Zhao tweeted: “Confirmed cases of #COVID19 were first found in China, but its origin is not necessarily in China. We are still tracing the origin.”

On March 11, Global Research published a follow-up: “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US”.

The story begins by recapping the March 4 article, upgrading the never-found Japanese Asahi broadcasters and the “man in the video” to “Japanese and Taiwanese epidemiologists and pharmacologists [who] have determined that the new coronavirus could have originated in the US”. The “man in the video” was now also a “physician” and a “scientist”.

Recalling his attempt to place the first Covid-19 case in the U.S., Global Research again points out, “immediately prior to that, the CDC totally shut down the U.S. Military’s main bio-lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, due to an absence of safeguards against pathogen leakages, issuing a complete ‘cease and desist’ order to the military”.

As evidence, Global Research had posted a screenshot of an August 5 New York Times headline, “Deadly Germ Research Is Shut Down at Army Lab Over Safety Concerns; Problems with disposal of dangerous materials led the government to suspend research at the military’s leading biodefence centre”.

In fact, the New York Times article had not stated the centre had been “totally shut down”. It had reported that 900 people worked at the facility and, “Although many projects are on hold, [a facility spokeswoman] said scientists and other employees are continuing to work, just not on select agents”. Both The New York Times and a local newspaper that first reported the cessation of the research noted that no pathogens had escaped the facility.

Global Research’s March 11 story continues: “We also had the Japanese citizens infected in September of 2019, in Hawaii, people who had never been to China, these infections occurring on US soil long before the outbreak in Wuhan but only shortly after the locking down of Fort Detrick.

“Then, on Chinese social media, another article appeared, aware of the above but presenting further details. It stated in part that five ‘foreign’ athletes or other personnel visiting Wuhan for the World Military Games (October 18-27, 2019) were hospitalised in Wuhan for an undetermined infection.”

That other article is a blog on Chinese social media, identified only by a QR code, that began: “Because there have been so many American dogs recently, in consideration for my account’s safety, [I must write] ‘some country’ or ‘M Country’ [when referring to America].”

The blog entry, which appeared to be a work in progress and is no longer online, recycled much of Global Research’s March 4 article, adding screenshots of local news stories about U.S. military personnel in Wuhan for the October military games who were hospitalized.

According to Global Research: “The article explains more clearly that the Wuhan version of the virus could have come only from the US because it is what they call a ‘branch’ which could not have been created first because it would have no ‘seed’. It would have to have been a new variety spun off the original ‘trunk’, and that trunk exists only in the US.”

So there it was. A post on “Chinese social media” about “‘foreign’ athletes or other personnel visiting Wuhan for the World Military Games” in October completed the conspiracy’s journey. The fake news world had rewritten the origin of Covid-19: it was not due to a catastrophic natural occurrence somewhere in or around Wuhan, as the world’s scientists believed, but to a bioweapon brought to Wuhan by the U.S. Army.

At the end of its March 11 article, Global Research returned to January, citing two articles in Science magazine for further “evidence” of its conspiracy – neither of which states the origin of the virus was, as Global Research puts it, “Not in Wuhan” – tying a bow around the package Zhao would soon forward to hundreds of thousands, who would forward it to hundreds of millions.

On the morning of March 13, Zhao tweeted links to the Global Research articles: “This article is very much important to each and every one of us. Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US. It would be useful to read this prior article for background: China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus …”

Followed by: “Just take a few minutes to read one more article. This is so astonishing that it changed many things I used to believe in. Please retweet to let more people know about it. China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US? – Global Research: The Western media quickly laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of COVID-19 which appeared to have begun in China …”

By late afternoon, the South China Morning Post reported that the hashtag topic “Zhao Lijian sent out five consecutive tweets questioning the US” had been viewed more than 4.7 million times on Weibo. Twelve hours later, The New York Times reported it had been viewed more than 160 million times.

Zhao’s Twitter followers have increased from 287,000 to more than 500,000. Media worldwide carried stories about his tweets, putting them in front of millions more readers, most of whom would never have seen them on Twitter or Weibo. Fake virus news had gone viral.

In October, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence noted in the first line of its report on Russia’s use of social media to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, that “information warfare [is] designed to spread disinformation and societal division”. Zhao’s tweets accomplished both. The disinformation was obvious. Critical thinking in abeyance, plenty of people will believe a claim that the U.S. Army planted Covid-19 in Wuhan; even more will want it to be true.

When President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others began fighting back by loudly and repeatedly calling Covid-19 “the Chinese virus”, social division in the U.S. grew, if that is possible. The media accused Trump of being racist and xenophobic, and inciting more of the same towards Chinese-Americans. This only caused Trump to say it louder and more often.

One wonders how much longer Washington will continue fighting the information war against Beijing with one arm tied behind its back. Chinese media enjoy free run of the U.S., including on Twitter. The U.S. has no such freedom in China.

Not a few pundits in these past few weeks have predicted Covid-19 will end globalisation, or even “life as we know it”. That seems unlikely, given the short-term nature of people’s memories and how profitable “life as we know it” has been for so many. But given the mischief Zhao’s tweets caused, Beijing’s days on Twitter might be numbered.

NEW DELHI – The new COVID-19 coronavirus has spread to more than 100 countries – bringing social disruption, economic damage, sickness, and death – largely because authorities in China, where it emerged, initially suppressed information about it. And yet China is now acting as if its decision not to limit exports of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and medical supplies – of which it is the dominant global supplier – was a principled and generous act worthy of the world’s gratitude.

Witnessing Wuhan

When the first clinical evidence of a deadly new virus emerged in Wuhan, Chinese authorities failed to warn the public for weeks and harassed, reprimanded, and detained those who did. This approach is no surprise: China has a long history of “killing” the messenger. Its leaders covered up severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus, for over a month after it emerged in 2002, and held the doctor who blew the whistle in military custody for 45 days. SARS ultimately affected

more than 8,000 people in 26 countries.

This time around, the Communist Party of China’s proclivity for secrecy was reinforced by President Xi Jinping’s eagerness to be perceived as an in-control strongman, backed by a fortified CPC. But, as with the SARS epidemic, China’s leaders could keep it under wraps for only so long. Once Wuhan-linked COVID-19 cases were detected in Thailand and South Korea

, they had little choice but to acknowledge the epidemic.

About two weeks after Xi rejected scientists’ recommendation to declare a state of emergency, the government announced heavy-handed containment measures, including putting millions on lockdown. But it was too late: many thousands of Chinese were already infected with COVID-19, and the virus was rapidly spreading internationally. US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has said

that China’s initial cover-up “probably cost the world community two months to respond,” exacerbating the global outbreak.

Beyond the escalating global health emergency, which has already killed thousands

, the pandemic has disrupted normal trade and travel, forced many school closures, roiled the international financial system, and sunk global stock markets. With oil prices plunging, a global recession appears imminent.

None of this would have happened had China responded quickly to evidence of the deadly new virus by warning the public and implementing containment measures. Indeed, Taiwan and Vietnam have shown the difference a proactive response can make.1

Taiwan, learning from its experience with SARS, instituted

preventive measures, including flight inspections, before China’s leaders had even acknowledged the outbreak. Likewise, Vietnam quickly halted flights from China and closed all schools. Both responses recognized the need for transparency, including updates on the number and location of infections and public advisories on how to guard against COVID-19.

Thanks to their governments’ policies, both Taiwan and Vietnam – which normally receive huge numbers of travelers from China daily – have kept total cases under 50. Neighbors that were slower to implement similar measures, such as Japan and South Korea, have been hit much harder.

If any other country had triggered such a far-reaching, deadly, and above all preventable crisis, it would now be a global pariah. But China, with its tremendous economic clout, has largely escaped censure. Nonetheless, it will take considerable effort for Xi’s regime to restore its standing at home and abroad.

Perhaps that is why China’s leaders are publicly congratulating themselves for not limiting exports of medical supplies and APIs used to make medicines, vitamins, and vaccines. If China decided to ban such exports to the United States, the state-run news agency Xinhua recently noted

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the costs of Xi’s increasing authoritarianism. It should be a wake-up call for political and business leaders who have accepted China’s lengthening shadow over global supply chains for far too long. Only by loosening China’s grip on global supply networks – beginning with the pharmaceutical sector – can the world be kept safe from the country’s political pathologies.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

THE SHOOTING WAR WITH CHINA WILL BEGIN BEFORE THE NOVEMBER ELECTION, MAYBE A PROLOGUE OF WWIII

A BLOCADE BY INDIA AT THE MALACA STRAIGHTS WILL START WHILE WINTER CLOSE THE NORTHERN PASSAGE TOGETHER WITH US , JAPAN AND NATO BLOCK THE WESTERN PACIFIC TO ANY OIL AND ECONOMIC SHIPMENTS TO AND FROM CHINA. STARVING CHINA OF ENERGY, FOOD AND TRADE. US CAN THEN SINK MOST OF THE CHINESE NAVY USING THE AIR FORCE. TAKE POSSESSION OF SCARBOROUGH SHOAL LOCATED AT THE GATES OF MANILA, 120 MILES WEST OF SUBIC BAY, as China would militarize Scarborough Shoal first and then move to take Taiwan, not the other way around.

“I believe China will expand its influence over Taiwan and Scarborough Shoal at the same time, as both are necessary for China to move toward the Senkakus,” THESE TOGETHER WITH SANCTIONS IN THE US SENATE MUTUALLY AGREED BY THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICAN ALIKE

The Western block would consist of the US, NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. The Eastern block would consist of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, basically all of the Middle East, Serbia, and Belarus. There will unlikely be any large scale fighting near American soil in a strictly conventional war situation. Firstly, let us start with Asia. The United States, Japan, and South Korea. would send their navy to counter North Korea, and China. South Korea would strictly focus on North Korea and would win with relative ease. The United States would focus on China, and Japan would focus on North Korea and China. The United States, India and Japan would form a blockade around China. This would lead to the US and Japan destroying their nuclear launch sites and all aircraft that can carry nuclear weapons. The US air-force, assisted by Japan, would control the skies over China. They would launch devastating airstrikes and would pierce their land defenses. This would all lead to the withdrawal of China, as they would probably not want to surrender. This would be a major victory for the US and Japan in Asia. Overall, it would be a costly US led coalition victory. China, would be recovering from the massive Japanese/American bombardment. North Korea would be under South Korean rule and they would begin to slowly recover and become prosperous. Japan would be trying to recover from the Chinese. They would still remain prosperous. The United States and Canada would remain relatively safe. America, being a war based economy, would profit greatly. Australia would be safe and would not really change at all.

The underlying factors are the growth of Chinese power, Chinese dissatisfaction with the US-led regional security system, and US alliance commitments to a variety of regional states. As long as these factors hold, the possibility for war will endure.

Whatever the trigger, the war does not begin with a US pre-emptive attack against Chinese fleet, air, and land-based installations. Although the US military would prefer to engage and destroy Chinese anti-access assets before they can target US planes, bases, and ships, it is extremely difficult to envisage a scenario in which the United States decides to pay the political costs associated with climbing the ladder of escalation.

Instead, the United States needs to prepare to absorb the first blow. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Air Force (USAF) have to wait for Chinese missiles to rain down upon them, but the United States will almost certainly require some clear, public signal of Chinese intent to escalate to high-intensity, conventional military combat before it can begin engaging Chinese forces.

If the history of World War I gives any indication, the PLA will not allow the United States to fully mobilize in order to either launch a first strike, or properly prepare to receive a first blow. At the same time, a “bolt from the blue” strike is unlikely. Instead, a brewing crisis will steadily escalate over a few incidents, finally triggering a set of steps on the part of the US military that indicate to Beijing that Washington is genuinely prepared for war. These steps will include surging carrier groups, shifting deployment to Asia from Europe and the Middle East, and moving fighter squadrons towards the Pacific. At this moment, China will need to decide whether to push forward or back down.

On the economic side, Beijing and Washington will both press for sanctions (the US effort will likely involve a multilateral effort), and will freeze each others assets, as well as those of any co-belligerents. This will begin the economic pain for capital and consumers across the Pacific Rim, and the rest of the world. The threat of high intensity combat will also disrupt global shipping patterns, causing potentially severe bottlenecks in industrial production.

Whether US allies support American efforts against China depends on how the war begins. If war breaks out over a collapse of the DPRK, the United States can likely count on the support of South Korea and Japan. Any war stemming from disputes in the East China Sea will necessarily involve Japan. If events in the South China Sea lead to war, the US can probably rely on some of the ASEAN states, as well as possibly Japan. Australia may also support the US over a wide range of potential circumstances.

China faces a less complicated situation with respect to allies. Beijing could probably expect benevolent neutrality, including shipments of arms and spares, from Russia, but little more. The primary challenge for Chinese diplomats would be establishing and maintaining the neutrality of potential US allies. This would involve an exceedingly complex dance, including reassurances about Chinese long-term intentions, as well as displays of confidence about the prospects of Chinese victory (which would carry the implicit threat of retribution for support of the United States).

North Korea presents an even more difficult problem. Any intervention on the part of the DPRK runs the risk of triggering Japanese and South Korean counter-intervention, and that math doesn’t work out for China. Unless Beijing is certain that Seoul and Tokyo will both throw in for the United States (a doubtful prospect given their hostility to one another), it may spend more time restraining Pyongyang than pushing it into the conflict.

The US will pursue the following war aims:

1. Defeat the affirmative expeditionary purpose of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

2. Destroy the offensive capability of the PLAN and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).

3. Potentially destabilize the control of the CCP government over mainland China.t

Except in the case of a war that breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, the first task involves either defeating a Chinese attempt to land forces, or preventing the reinforcement and resupply of those troops before forcing their surrender. The second task will require a wide range of attacks against deployed Chinese air and naval units, as well as ships and aircraft held in reserve. We can expect, for example, that the USN and USAF will target Chinese airbases, naval bases, and potentially missile bases in an effort to maximize damage to the PLAN and PLAAF. The third task probably depends on the successful execution of the first two. The defeat of Chinese expeditionary forces, and the destruction of a large percentage of the PLAN and the PLAAF, may cause domestic turmoil in the medium to long term. US military planners would be well-advised to concentrate the strategic campaign on the first two objectives and hope that success has a political effect, rather than roll the dice on a broader “strategic” campaign against CCP political targets. The latter would waste resources, run the risk of escalation, and have unpredictable effects on the Chinese political system.

Japan is very much the flavor of the current Indian season. Especially when juxtaposed against China, Japan is acknowledged by New Delhi as being one of the most significant maritime players in the Indo-Pacific. Indeed, Japan’s steadily deteriorating and increasingly fractious relationship with China is a prominent marker of the general fragility of the geopolitical situation prevailing almost throughout the Indo-Pacific. Within this fragile environment, New Delhi is seeking to maintain its own geopolitical pre-eminence in the IOR and relevance in the Indo-Pacific as a whole by adroitly managing China’s growing assertiveness. In this process, Japan and the USA (along with Australia, Vietnam, South Korea, and Indonesia) collectively offer India a viable alternative to Sino-centric hegemony within the region. However, before it places too many of its security eggs in a Japanese basket, it is important for India to examine at least the more prominent historical and contemporary contours of the Sino-Japanese relationship. As India expands her footprint across the Indo-Pacific and examines the overtures of Japan and the USA to seek closer geopolitical coordination with both, it is vital to ensure that our country and our navy are not dragged by ignorance, misinformation or disinformation, into the law of unintended consequences.

Map of Sea of Japan. This could be the scenario in the conflict between India, Japan and USA against China and Russia. Although the videos are cartoon like, they are mostly accurate to some degree. With Japan, Ausrtalia, UK and Vietnam alliance China will be overwhelmed.

The influence of China, with its ancient and extraordinarily well-developed civilization, upon the much younger civilization of Japan has been enormous. Even the sobriquet for Japan — the Land of the Rising Sun — is derived from a Chinese perspective, since when the Chinese looked east to Japan they looked in the direction of the dawn. As Japan began to consolidate itself as a nation, between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, it increasingly copied the Chinese model of national development, administration, societal structure and culture. And yet, for all that, there is also a history of deep animosity between the two countries, which manifested itself across of whole range of actions and reactions. At one end was China’s disapproval of Japan attempting to equate itself with the Middle Kingdom (as when Japan Prince Shotoku, in 607 CE, sent a letter to the Sui emperor, Yangdi, “from the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun rises to the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun sets.”) At the other, lay armed conflict. Over the course of the past two millennia, Japan and China have gone to war five times. The common thread in each has been a power struggle on the Korean Peninsula. Even their more contemporary animosity dates back to at least 1894 — during the Meiji Restoration in Japan. It is true that, much like India and Pakistan, relations between China and Japan have witnessed periods of great optimism. For instance, Sino–Japanese relations in the 1970s and early 1980s were undeniably positive and ‘historical animosity’ was not a factor strong enough to foster tensions between the two nations at the time. However, it is also true, once again like India and Pakistan, that these periods of hope have been punctuated by a mutuality of visceral hatred. In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, China, which was mired in political conflict and civil war, suffered eight months of comprehensive defeats leading, amongst other indignities, to the occupation of Taiwan by Japan. The historical echoes of this horrific conflict and its humiliating aftermath for China resonate to this day.

The South China Sea has never occupied the top rung on Beijing’s foreign policy agenda, except perhaps during the Philippines’ initiation of arbitration against China’s claims of historic rights in 2013 and the Hague tribunal’s decision in 2016. Given economic reforms, protests in Hong Kong, President Tsai Ing-wen’s renewed mandate in Taiwan, censure of its security policies in Xinjiang, trade talks and great power rivalry with the United States, and the ongoing public health crisis of the novel coronavirus, Beijing will have its hands full. It may have little left in its tank for the South China Sea. In contrast, the six-way territorial and maritime row represents the most pressing security and foreign policy priority for other claimants. This sharp asymmetry may stimulate a willingness on the part of the biggest claimant to concede and negotiate with other disputants. That would jive well with China’s stated intention to project good neighborliness and settle the issue among the claimants without intervention by other powers. However, this readiness for dialogue may not necessarily extend to other maritime powers, especially as the South China Sea gradually emerges as a theater for great power competition.

China is apparently taking a more active role in conveying its narrative and engaging international think-tanks and publics. In April 2019, the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative was launched by the Peking University Institute of Ocean Research. Earlier this year, the initiative has already held exchanges with regional counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. This is on top of the Hainan-based National Institute for South China Sea Studies setup in 2004 which has also been holding exchanges with foreign counterparts. Whether these attempts at public diplomacy allay concerns among Southeast Asian claimants remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the high priority given to the dispute by other claimants means that they will exhaust the broad gamut of defense, diplomatic, and legal redress to safeguard their interests. Vietnam, for instance, concluded the 11th iteration of its Diplomatic Academy’s annual South China Sea conference in November 2019, drawing local and international experts. But pushback against Chinese incursions tends to wax and wane, and approaches vary among claimants. The nature of the threat posed by Chinese actions and the degree of economic ties with China are important variables to consider here.

Having lost the Paracels in 1974 and Johnson Reef in 1988, not to mention fighting China in a bitter land border war in 1979, Vietnam traditionally pushes back the hardest. Possible resort to legal means and international forums, especially as the country chairs ASEAN this year and assumes a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council (2020-2021), will diversify Hanoi’s toolkit and raise the stakes for future Chinese interference in Vietnam’s marine economic activities. The Philippines took a tougher stance after losing Mischief Reef in 1995 and control over Scarborough Shoal in 2012. The first incident pushed the country to modernize its armed forces (1995) and eventually sign a Visiting Forces Agreement (1999) with its longtime treaty ally, the United States. The second incident compelled the country to launch a legal challenge to China’s excessive maritime claims (2013) and allow U.S. troops a rotational presence in mutually agreed locations throughout the country via the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (2014). Last year, Manila also sought and obtained greater clarity on the scope of its Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States. However, Manila’s recent move to abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement may undercut the value of the alliance at a time of growing Chinese presence in the disputed sea.

Further from China’s reach, Malaysia and Brunei have long pursued quiet diplomacy. But with Chinese outposts now enabling distant fishing fleets and patrols to scour the sea’s southern reaches, they, as well as Indonesia, may eventually recalibrate their strategy. Indonesia’s tough response to foreign illegal fishing in its waters and its strong posturing in the Natunas creates disquiet in its relations with China as well as with ASEAN neighbors like Vietnam. Thus, China’s assertiveness and the smaller claimants’ heightened sense of insecurity generates the potential for conflict, drawing other major powers in—to Beijing’s displeasure.

In addition, in the interest of gaining legitimacy, smaller claimants have been aligning their maritime claims with international law, notably the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Malaysia’s submission of its second extended continental shelf (ECS) claim in the South China Sea last December is instructive. Prior to that, Vietnam and Malaysia jointly submitted an ECS claim in 2009, a move which compelled Beijing to officially articulate its nine-dash line claim. The Philippines, meanwhile, ratified its first ever maritime boundary delimitation agreement with Indonesia last year. These legal foundations may serve to pressure Beijing to bring its claims into conformity with international law. This is especially so after the landmark 2016 arbitral award invalidated China’s claimed “historic rights” and ruled that none of the features in the contested Spratly Islands are capable of generating exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Other claimants will likely continue to pursue their own ECS submissions and EEZ delimitations in the South China Sea.

Southeast Asian claimants will also push back against Chinese overtures to upend security engagement and offshore energy undertakings with other countries in the South China Sea. The deep and complex web of alliances and partnerships, to which security and economic engagement with China forms just one part, is integral to ASEAN’s centrality and autonomy, an aspiration threatened by growing major power rivalry. The 2019 defense white papers of Malaysia and Vietnam both recognized this context of great power competition. Hanoi, for one, added a new caveat in its defense policy, expressing readiness to develop military relations with other countries while still upholding its four nos policy: no military alliances, no siding with one country against another, no foreign military bases, and no use of force or threat to use force in its international relations. This is a significant departure in Vietnam’s strategic thinking and goes to show the extent to which Chinese actions are driving such shifts.

In relation to hydrocarbons in the South China Sea, Southeast Asian claimants resist Chinese demands to terminate upstream contracts with foreign companies from non-claimant states because doing so would adversely affect investor confidence even outside the energy sector. For example, despite being compelled to suspend Spanish firm Repsol’s offshore work in 2017 and 2018, Vietnam continued to encourage Russian, Japanese, Indian, and U.S. energy companies to operate in its EEZ in the South China Sea. The Philippines likewise suggested it would welcome involvement from Russian energy company Rosneft in the country’s oil and gas projects. This said, the continued retreat of Western investors from offshore projects around the South China Sea may facilitate Beijing’s proposed joint development model by leaving its neighbors with few options. For instance, the exit of U.S.-based Chevron from Malampaya, the Philippines’ largest natural gas field located in the South China Sea, and the purchase of its equity by Udenna Group may pave the way for China National Offshore Oil Corporation to acquire a stake in the aging gas field that supplies up to 40 percent of the electricity for Luzon, the country’s main island. Last year, Phoenix Petroleum, one of Udenna’s companies, signed a deal with the Chinese state-owned company to develop a liquified natural gas terminal. ExxonMobil was also rumored to be exiting from the Blue Whale project off Vietnam as part of the company’s divestment efforts.

In sum, notwithstanding bilateral and regional efforts at dispute management and confidence building, the level of importance that claimants will assign to the South China Sea disputes and the extent to which they will push back against coercion will foretell how tempestuous the South China Sea will get in 2020.

Strategy to Defeat China in The SCS

The air campaign in Desert Storm was a watershed for air power. It demonstrated the effectiveness of precision munitions, marked a high water point for electronic warfare and introduced radar stealth in a decisive manner. It also established a template for the application of air power that has taken root in Air Force culture and remains firmly established a quarter century later.

During this COVID-19 global crisis, when

Before the shooting war begins, and after a hostile action made by China, activate naval and air forces in blocading Chinese economic access to the western Pacific and the sources of oil in the Sumatran Straights. In effect all US forces are in their full readiness without the time element of transporting from the distant mainland of the US. At the outset of the shooting war, sink all surface Chinese ships and submarine, after radar and SAM coastal batteries have been neutralized using our airforce stealth bombers and jet fighters.

Continue to limit the access of the Chinese Surface ships to the Western Pacific islands by mining the ports and islands. Limit the energy resource and commercial maritime intercourse which China is so dependent upon. The primary objective here is to effectively neutralize certain elements of PRC military power by starving it of energy. In contrast with maritime interdiction, strategic interdiction is not an airtight blockade but a targeted effort to interdict primarily the production and transport of energy resources all the way back to the source. A campaign would have four elements:

A “counterforce” effort designed to stop the adversary air forces (particularly bombers), naval forces (gray hulls) and naval auxiliaries (replenishment) to the point where they can neither project military power nor defend against U.S. power projection, at least far beyond the PRC continental shelf.

Chinese military force design has been built specifically to counter the U.S. Air Force’s reliance on stealth and forward basing, and to reduce the threat of carrier aviation by developing weapons designed to keep the carriers far away from the action. Our response has been to plan to fight symmetrically, matching our technological widgets against theirs in a battle in the PRC’s front yard.

Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea

The most prominent Sino-Japanese contributor to contemporary geopolitical fragility is the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands dispute. This is an extremely high-risk dispute that could very easily lead to armed conflict, especially in the wake of Japan’s nationalization of three of the islands in September 2013. Reacting strongly to this unilateral action by Japan, China established an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on 23 November, 2013, encompassing (inter alia) these very islands. This, in turn, was immediately challenged by the USA, Japan, and South Korea. Within days of the Chinese declaration, military aircraft from all three countries flew through China’s ADIZ without complying with the promulgated ADIZ regulations. Perhaps because of the robustness of this response, China has not been enforcing this ADIZ with any great vigour, but has not withdrawn it either. It is appreciated that this is a long-term play, because China would acquire strategic advantage by asserting a maximalist position, then seeming to back down, while preserving some incremental gain — akin to a ‘ratchet’ effect. This is an example of ‘salami slicing’ — of which much has been made in a variety of Indian and Western media.

China’s increased military activities in this maritime area have certainly caused a fivefold rise in the frequency with which Japanese fighter jets have been forced to scramble in preparedness against Chinese aircraft intrusions into Japanese airspace over the East China Sea (ECS). Japanese aircraft have moved up from 150 scrambles in 2011 to a staggering 1,168 scrambles in FY 2016-17. (The Japanese FY, like that of India, runs from 01 April to 31 March.) Given that fighter pilots are young, aggressive, and trained to use lethal force almost intuitively, this dramatic increase in frequency of scrambles causes a corresponding increase in the chance of a miscalculation on the part of one or both parties that could result in a sudden escalation into active hostilities.

Even more worrying is the prospect that once China completes her building of airfields on a sufficient number of reefs in the Spratly Island Group, she would promulgate an ADIZ in the South China Sea. Should she do so, the inevitable challenges to such an ADIZ would probably bring inter-state geopolitical tensions to breaking point.

All in all, the increased militarization and current involvement of the armed forces of both countries in the Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands have grave implications for geopolitical stability. To cite a well-used colloquialism, “once you open a can of worms, the only way you can put them back is to use a bigger can.” In the case of the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands, both Japan and the PRC have certainly opened ‘a can of worms’ and now both are looking for a bigger can. Thus, both countries are jockeying for geopolitical options with both the USA as well as with other geopolitical powers that can be brought around to roughly align with their respective point of view. Japan’s alliance with the USA and its active wooing of India and Australia with constructs such as Asia’s Democratic Security Diamond is one such ‘larger can.’

Yet, Japan’s geopolitical insecurities in its segment of the Indo-Pacific are not solely about the Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands. Japan’s apprehension in 2004-05 that China’s exploitation of the Chunxiao gas field (located almost on the EEZ boundary line — as Japan perceives it) was pulling natural gas away from the subterranean extension of the field into the Japanese side of the EEZ boundary brought the two countries to the brink of a military clash. While the situation has been contained for the time being, it remains a potential flashpoint. Across the Sea of Japan /East Sea lie other historical and contemporary challenges in the form of the two Koreas, a Russia that appears to be in a protracted state of geopolitical flux, and of course, the omnipresent elephant in the room, namely, the People’s Republic of China.

Closer home, Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) is present and surprisingly active in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as well. Its interest in maintaining freedom of navigation within the International Shipping Lanes to and from West Asia in general, and the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden in particular, are well known features of Tokyo’s ‘energy security’ and ‘security-of-energy’ policies. Off the Horn of Africa at the southern tip of the Gulf of Aden, the ‘war-lord-ism’ that substitutes for governance in Somalia is a source of strategic concern at a number of levels.

Chinese soldiers sit atop tanks as they drive in a parade to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing on Oct. 1. KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES

Many observers believe China is building up its military, especially its navy, to break through the first and second island chains and push the United States out of the Asia-Pacific. China’s military expansion in the region is thus seen as a major threat against U.S. interests and security.

But there’s a big problem with the language involved. Phrases like “pushing the United States out of the Asia-Pacific,” “China’s military expansion in Asia,” or “breaking the two island chains” create the image of a physical process, of the Chinese military pressuring U.S. troops and bases in the Asia-Pacific until they can no longer resist and are forced to leave. In reality, both the goal and the process are different—and unless U.S. strategists rectify the way they think about this, they could come to dangerous conclusions.

This isn’t about a physical outcome, but a political one. It doesn’t refer just to U.S. bases in Japan or South Korea. The United States has no permanent bases in the Philippines, but, because of the two countries’ mutual defense treaty, U.S. troops would defend the Philippines in case of attack. China’s goal isn’t just to remove U.S. personnel or equipment from the region, or even to prevent rotational deployments or joint exercises in the Asia-Pacific; it’s to limit or eliminate Washington’s influence over countries in the region, including, ideally, through the termination of their defense treaties and the Taiwan Relations Act, which commits the United States to support Taiwan’s defense.

This doesn’t mean that China is looking to completely extricate the United States from Asian and Pacific countries: It’s OK if they continue trading, or if U.S. companies invest there. But China’s goal is to constrain Washington’s influence to the point that it would no longer try, or would be unable, to convince regional governments to take measures against China such as banning Huawei fifth-generation technology.As long as Washington remains their chief partner, the U.S. government would still be able to convince Tokyo and Seoul to take anti-China measures.

It will help Beijing little if U.S. troops leave Japan and South Korea, but their mutual defense treaties remain in force. As long as Washington remains their chief partner, the U.S. government would still be able to convince Tokyo and Seoul to take anti-China measures, such as restricting Chinese tech companies it considers national-security threats—even if the assurance of U.S. troops as a tripwire against aggression were removed.

Yet in both Beijing and Washington, there’s a belief that, if China establishes regional military superiority over the United States, it will be able to push the United States out of the Asia-Pacific region. But transforming that military superiority into political influence is far trickier than it seems.

Imagine that it’s 2025, and China’s military has become stronger and more active, while the United States failed to keep up in the Asia-Pacific. Think tanks and experts warn that the military balance has shifted in China’s favor and, in case of war, it’s likely that it would prevail. Would U.S. allies, from Seoul to Canberra, decide to ditch the United States and align themselves with the rising hegemon, fulfilling demands such as Chinese sovereignty over the archipelago in the South China Sea known as the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, or censorship of local anti-China voices? Or would they stick to the United States, building up their military capabilities and strengthening other military alliances?

Both U.S. allies and neutral countries in the Asia-Pacific already fear China’s growing power and its geopolitical demands. This is happening while the military balance is still in Washington’s favor. If China becomes more powerful, it will also become more threatening. With the exception of India, all other regional countries are dwarfed by China. If left alone, they would have to acquiesce to any and all demands coming from Beijing, as they would stand zero chance of prevailing in a bilateral military conflict.

The United States, even if weaker than China, would be their only hope in such an adverse geopolitical environment. A more menacing China would also galvanize the U.S.government and public to confront it. Military expansion can’t achieve China’s goals by itself.Unless the United States willingly abandons its competition with China, Beijing will never create the military gap necessary to scare the entire region into submission.

Chinese military power could force the United States out of the region in two scenarios: a China so dwarfing the U.S, presence in the region that its might is unassailable, or a decisive military victory. The first scenario needs the United States to weaken so much that regional military planners would no longer believe that it can impose enough costs on China, thus voiding alliances of any deterrent effect. Combined with Chinese economic sanctions or military skirmishes, Asian and Pacific countries might be forced to cut ties with the United States, if it’s clear that they serve no defense purpose. But the odds of a U.S. government ever allowing so vast a gap to emerge are very low.

The other scenario, a war, would necessitate a crystal-clear military victory over the United States, maybe including the invasion and occupation of an ally. A simple tactical win wouldn’t suffice. If China defeats the Japan-U.S. alliance by sinking a few ships and bombing some bases, leading to a diplomatic agreement that gave Beijing control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, would the Japanese government later surrender its defense treaty with the United States and remain at Beijing’s mercy? This would make no strategic sense. More likely, it would strengthen military ties with the United States and maybe develop a nuclear capability to deter any further Chinese threats. Only a devastating defeat in a full-blown conflict that risks nuclear war could achieve such a goal—something China desires as little as anyone else.

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