{"id":38076,"date":"2021-09-16T14:04:11","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T22:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=38076"},"modified":"2021-09-16T14:04:11","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T22:04:11","slug":"looking-for-responsible-realism-on-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/16\/looking-for-responsible-realism-on-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for Responsible Realism on China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat sums up<\/a> the thesis of Elbridge Colby\u2019s book, Strategy of Denial<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Only China threatens American interests in a profound way, through a consolidation of economic power in Asia that imperils our prosperity and a military defeat that could shatter our alliance system. Therefore American policy should be organized to deny Beijing regional hegemony and deter any military adventurism \u2013 first and foremost through a stronger commitment to defending the island of Taiwan.<\/i><\/p>\n

Douthat describes this as a \u201crealist\u2019s book,\u201d and in some respects that may be true, but it is hard to ignore how dangerously oblivious to certain realities China hawks like Colby are. As I have mentioned before<\/a>, he and other advocates of a \u201cstronger commitment\u201d to Taiwan tend to ignore the danger of nuclear escalation that comes with such a commitment. They don\u2019t seem to take seriously how much more important Taiwan is to China than it is to us. They consistently misjudge how the Chinese government perceives U.S. actions in the region, and they don\u2019t appreciate how the policies they support are encouraging China to increase its nuclear arsenal. <\/p>\n

The strange story<\/a> about Gen. Milley\u2019s efforts in the fall of 2020 and again in early 2021 to defuse tensions and reassure China that the US was not going to attack them is relevant here. Last year, the Chinese government was apparently fearful of a possible American attack in the months leading up to the 2020 election, and evidently they were concerned that Trump might also try something during the transition. This shows us how easily Washington\u2019s attempts to send \u201cmessages\u201d through displays of military strength can be misinterpreted and create a crisis where none would have existed otherwise. Ethan Paul reviews<\/a> the evidence and concludes:<\/p>\n

Regardless, what this series of events does demonstrate in dramatic and frightening fashion is how easily signals between Washington and Beijing were and can be misinterpreted, and how this could bring us to the brink of conflict at any time. Not only should these revelations spark concerns about the deficiencies in current crisis management and military-to-military dialogue mechanisms \u2013 the two militaries spoke for the first time during the Biden presidency only weeks ago \u2013 but it should also lead to a rigorous debate about the path the United States and China are currently headed down, and a reconsideration of whether this serves any reasonable definition of American interest.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read the rest of the article at SubStack<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia<\/a>. He is former senior editor at<\/i> The American Conservative. He has been published in the<\/i> New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and<\/i> Culture11, and was a columnist for<\/i> The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat sums up the thesis of Elbridge Colby\u2019s book, Strategy of Denial: Only China threatens American interests in a profound way, through a consolidation of economic power in Asia that imperils our prosperity and a military defeat that could shatter our alliance system. Therefore American policy should be organized to deny Beijing regional hegemony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-38076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"It is hard to ignore how dangerously oblivious to certain realities China hawks like Colby are."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38078,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38076\/revisions\/38078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38076"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=38076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}