周波：我国现已主导西太平洋了吗？

发布时间：2025-05-08　点此：507次

导读：近来，英国对华关系全国委员会（UKNCC）约请国防部世界军事协作办公室安全协作中心前主任、我国前驻纳米比亚国防武官、清华大学战略与安全研讨中心研讨员、我国论坛特约专家周波，和英国驻华使馆前武官何儒博(Rupert Hollins)水兵准将，以《我国现已主导西太平洋了吗？》为同一主题，别离编撰谈论，并在其官网“客座撰稿人”栏目，以对话方法发布。周波以为，全球化的我国不需求在任何地方寻求主导位置。相反，我国需求全球化思想，承当大国职责，展示大国应有的担任。北京日前宣告申请参加《全面与行进跨太平洋同伴关系协议》（CPTPP），看起来更像是多边主义的坚决领导者。何儒博则以为，我国的兴起是各国活跃调整其印太战略的根本原因。我国期望美国能够让出西太平洋区域(乃至整个亚太区域)的军事主导权，连同其在全球规模内的领导力。可是美国却已开端重振旗鼓。《2021美国立异和竞赛法》(US Innovation and Competition Act 2021)就是美国四年来经过跨部门、全政府手法应对我国构成的应战的最新弥补。我国论坛特翻译两篇谈论全文，以飨读者。

【文/周波】

1999年，时任伦敦世界战略研讨所研讨室主任的西格尔（Gerald Segal）在《交际事务》宣告了一篇题为《我国重要吗?》的文章，引发了一场轩然大波。谈及我国的经济、政治和战略问题的方方面面，他终究得出的结论是——我国的重要性被严峻夸张了。在西格尔先生看来，我国仅仅一个“对世界无关紧要的小商场，特别是对亚洲之外的区域”。

二十多年后的今日，西格尔先生想必正在坟墓里翻来覆去，眼巴巴看着当年的观念让自己沦为笑柄。今日的我国不光不是“一个小商场”，反而变成了世界上最大的零售商场、消费商场、电子商务商场、奢侈品商场，乃至新车商场。一起，我国也是最大的交易国、最大的工业国和最大的出口国，以及约130个国家的最大交易同伴。曩昔的四十年里，我国的开展日新月异，势不可挡，亚洲金融危机、特朗普对华交易战等各种应战都无法阻挠其行进的脚步。

现在新冠病毒全球暴虐，可是我国就像是这场全球风暴的飓风眼，是地球上最安全的避风港。我国虽然榜首个遭到疫情影响，但也榜首个从疫情中康复，成为2020年全球仅有完成经济正增加的国家。

一起，我国向他国供给援助。到6月底，我国已向约100个国家供给4.5亿剂疫苗。

可是，不管这些数据多么惊人，得出21世纪会是“我国主导的世界次序”的结论是不可取的。事实上，即便在我国的大本营东亚区域，我国也没有取得彻底的主导位置。

辽宁号航母编队/材料图来自我国军网

比照具有一起文明和宗教根由的欧洲，亚洲自一开端就充满了多样性，具有各自共同的地舆特征、多元的文明与宗教风俗。虽然曩昔的数个世纪，我国人自视是世界的文明、政治与经济中心，君主有权控制“全国”，但我国从未企图控制整个东亚。明清两代皇帝想要的不过是藩属国对中华帝国的屈服与朝贡。

我国在东亚的经济主导位置是毋庸置疑的。2010年8月，我国超越日本成为世界第二大经济体。据英国经济与商业研讨中心（CEBR）猜测，到2028年，我国将替代美国成为世界榜首大经济体。

作为前史上最大的交易集团，RCEP（《区域全面经济同伴关系协议》）的成员国约占世界人口的30%，GDP规划占全球经济总量的30%，可是美国却缺席了该协议。而就在RCEP签署几天后，我国标明活跃考虑参加《全面与行进跨太平洋同伴关系协议》（CPTPP），北京看起来更像是多边主义的坚决领导者。

东亚不会以我国为中心。虽然有“大中华”的说法，其包含我国大陆、香港、澳门和台湾，有时还包含新加坡，但没有痕迹标明我国人期望输出他们的意识形态或开展方法。

假如一国的实力规模意味着其在本区域具有必定程度的文明、经济、军事或政治排他性，而且其他国家标明遵照，那么仔细观察就会发现，东亚并不像是我国的实力规模。虽然我国对立，朝鲜仍是固执开展核武器。日本、韩国和泰国又都是美国的盟友。

部分东盟国家与我国在南海也存在疆域争端，包含越南、菲律宾、马来西亚、文莱等。

中印万河谷抵触截图来自央视

不断兴起的我国会使世界变得更美好吗？这是21世纪的终极问题。即就是那些对我国最挑剔的人也无法否定，曩昔四十年我国的兴起是平和的—这是稀有的大国兴起。我国自1979年变革敞开以来就没有发生过战役。

因而，2020年6月中印边界区域加勒万河谷打斗事情是极不寻常和令人遗憾的，该抵触形成20名印度武士和4名我国武士逝世，以至于印度交际部长苏杰生标明，两边信赖“遭到严峻搅扰”。

可是，两边戎行均挑选用拳头和木棍这样石器时代的打斗方法，阐明他们理解不管怎么都不能打破默契，向对方开枪。

从这个意义上说，老练和理性依然占主导。跟着中印戎行撤出各自宣称归于自己的边境区域，并树立了一段缓冲区，形势现已有所平缓。期望两国政府能从这次丧命打斗事情中吸取教训，寻觅加强相互信赖的新方法，比如在两军之间树立热线电话。

东亚区域的真实应战并非我国怎么和邦邻打交道——数千年的前史触摸现已让他们学会怎么往来共处——而是我国怎么和美国共存。作为非西太平洋国家，美国却自称是“自在敞开的印太区域”的守护者。我国置疑美国想将我国的影响力遏止在西太平洋内，而美国置疑逐渐强壮的我国正企图将其赶出该区域。展望未来，特朗普政府建议的大国竞赛只会变得愈加剧烈。

问题在于大国竞赛是否会让相互堕入两边都不想看到的对立。

回忆暗斗这段前史，北京和华盛顿之间难以下降抵触危险有两个原因。首要，在暗斗期间，华盛顿和莫斯科各自实力规模爱憎分明，这使它们能够避免直接对立。但中美之间乃至连缓冲区都没有。现在，美国水兵舰艇经常在南海和台湾海峡的我国岛礁邻近海域飞翔。

其次，美国和苏联经过彼此确保炸毁坚持实力平衡。这一点不存在于北京和华盛顿之间。但在西太平洋，因为我国人民解放军几十年的开展行进，中美军事实力距离正在缩小，对我国越来越有利。因而，华盛顿扩展东亚军事出资，并呼吁其全球盟友和同伴联合起来抵挡我国。这些行为反倒会激怒北京，使形势变得愈加动乱。

美国无法确保与我国在榜首岛链的军事抵触中稳赢，榜首岛链从日本延伸到菲律宾和我国南海。可是假如美国输了，其影响将发生多米诺骨牌效应：美国将失掉在该区域盟友和同伴的心中的声威和诺言；联盟将土崩瓦解，美国不得不拾掇行囊，打道回府。

虽然我国短少全球军事基地，其全球影响力现已显示，特别是经过“一带一路”等大型项目。“一带一路”是人类前史上规划最大的基础设施项目。全球化的我国不需求在任何地方寻求主导位置。相反，它需求全球化思想，承当大国职责，展示大国应有的担任。

【文/何儒博】

我国梦

为了完成中华民族巨大复兴的我国梦，我国确立了“两个一百年”的奋斗方针。也就是在我国共产党建立100年时（2021年）全面建成小康社会，在新我国建立100年时（2049年）建成富足、民主、文明、调和的社会主义现代化国家。中华民族近代以来最巨大愿望的完成显示了我国的归纳国力，包括政治、交际、经济、交易、科技、金融科技、信息化和数字化、网络空间安全、立异以及军事。事实上，我国在上述范畴现已对世界发生了无足轻重的影响。

新时代的我国强军梦

我国人民解放军是一支听党指挥的人民戎行，有望成为世界一流的戎行。军事力气的强壮离不开国家强盛，一起也是确保国家强盛的条件。习近平主席以为，强国需求强军，军强才干国安，两者相得益彰。现在，我国的经济实力为我国戎行的全面变革和现代化供给了强有力的支撑。其方针是：到2049年建成“世界一流的武装力气”。在国家主导、国家补贴的战略下，例如军民交融(Military-Civil Fusion)，以及人工智能(AI)、量子技能、新兴和颠覆性技能的行进，将加快完成该方针。

国庆70周年阅兵，配备方队经过天安门广场。图自新华社

首要位置的实力规模

我国标明永久不会成为世界霸主。传统剖析以为我国的大志至少是寻求一个区域的主导位置和全球领导位置——换句话说，是以亚太区域为中心的主导位置并成为更具包容性的全球领导者。咱们能够把这个问题暂时放置，站在我国的情绪幻想一下，西太平洋的军事愿望会是什么姿态。

我国强军梦的寓意

令我国不悦的是，西太平洋区域被划分为我国经济实力规模和美国安全实力规模。美国印太司令部有37.7万多名军事和文职人员。驻日美军有54000名军事人员，以及美国驻韩国部队有28500人。

对我国来说，一个“美梦”或许是美国从世界日期变更线东部撤军，中止在该区域的防护协议，不对台湾供给援助，中止近距离侦查飞翔，中止在南海的飞翔自在举动。到时，跟着美国的退出，美国的协作同伴和盟友渐渐闭幕。该区域内的其他国家也无法干涉我国对根据本国利益的寻求，特别是在东海和南海区域。

愿望而非实际

这个愿望还没有成为实际。美国仍处在该区域军事平衡的优势位置。美国的国防预算约为我国的三倍。虽然这一优势被我国较低的军事本钱削弱了，尤其是在军事薪酬、表外资金和对其他国家没有协助的研制捷径方面。我国说“我国人民解放军依然远远落后于世界领先的戎行”，实际上是指美国的戎行，这不是在说谎。以远征才能为例，我国仍在尽力打造航母战役群、两栖特遣部队、战略空运、半途加油飞机和能够向全球投进兵力的“战略要点纽带”。而美国运作这些远征军事力气，以及具有前沿的和可继续作战才能的陆军、舰队、水兵陆战队远征军和空军现已有几十年了。

逐渐完成愿望

我国正在稳步完成其战略方针。在质量上，我国的舰船、归纳防空体系、巡航导弹、弹道导弹都处于世界领先的位置。在作战才能上，中美的核力气和弹道导弹防护体系正处于一个“影响-反响”、轮番主导的循环之中。

在可布置的投射才能上，美国太平洋司令部(USPACOM)在西太平洋区域正感遭到来自我国的压力。2020年7月，美国空军太平洋司令部副司令猜测，与美国印度洋-太平洋司令部(INDOPACOM)的指定部队(而非美国悉数戎行)比较，我国戎行在军事实力上更胜一筹。他标明，我国在榜首岛链(北起千岛群岛、日本列岛、琉球群岛、台湾岛、菲律宾北部群岛、巴拉望岛、婆罗洲，终究南北向散布在越南邻近)内具有“主场优势”。2021年3月，因忧虑当时形势会带来晦气于美方的军事平衡，美国印太司令部司令称，美国需求在军备数量和质量上“从头取得优势”。他说，“美国的光辉始于关岛”，但他其实能够再弥补一句，“我不期望光辉就此完结”。

行使主导权

我国处理中美关系的基本方法是“不抵触，不对立，相互尊重，互利共赢”。接下来咱们也有或许看到我国像《孙子兵法》中所描绘的那样，不战而胜。真实强壮的部队有打赢战役的军事实力，但却能够做到“不战而屈人之兵”。即就是不动用军事力气，我国也在活跃调用其他表现其国力的手法来完成自己的安全方针。

我国以在不引发武装抵触的情况下完成方针见长：情绪坚决强硬，却不见开战。这种十分规抵触方法现现在被广泛称为“灰色地带(grey zone)”举动。我国的南海公共交际战略就是一个很好的示例。比较起经过布置舰身为黑色的水兵军舰以到达震慑作用，我国差遣了舰身为白色的海警(China Coast Guard)和乘坐类似蓝色拖网渔船的海上民兵。后者本是平和时期海上法律的标志，但实质上，这都是归于我国的武装力气。两边一旦迸发抵触，形势就会变得险象环生。受制于地舆条件，美国的在武力选项上会十分被迫，而我国戎行则会有很大的有利地势之便。我国的反介入/区域拒止(Anti-Access and Area Denial，A2AD)战略始终将美国协防台湾的军事力气视为要点。该战略防护圈的影响规模现已扩展至第二岛链(从东京起经过关岛和帕劳，再到印度尼西亚的伊里安查亚)。

我国的弹道导弹命名充满了“杀气”，专门狙杀航母的DF21D被称作“航母杀手”，能对关岛基地精准冲击的中长途弹道导弹DF26被命名为“关岛杀手”。台湾是中美之间最简略迸发的抵触点，一起也是查验两国在西太平洋区域军事主导权的重要地域。不论是我国“武统”台湾失利，抑或是美国的军事介入失利，都会在战略上发生严峻的结果。

众所周知，对立两栖登陆是十分困难的，在一向在为这个做准备的台湾也是如此。我国用短程弹道导弹发射惯例弹头和核弹头到台湾只用6到8分钟，但这只会为占领军留下一片紊乱和愤恨的人群。一旦战役开端，把它遏止到局部战役是不太或许的。两个核超级大国避免事态升级到其本乡的下坡路或许很难找到。我国领导层是理性的，会核算危险。大多数方针声明都着重“平和一致”。

我国弹道导弹DF21D 图自新华社

美梦的完结或是变成噩梦

未来我国在西太平洋区域的战略规划很有或许会被打断，或是直接被破坏。假如美国失掉了在西太平洋的军事主导位置，那么日本便或许从头增强其军事力气，继而演进成为一个核大国。朝鲜半岛的一致与无核化或许会对我国晦气。而当时的世界环境与世界形势对我国而言远没有看上去那么简略。我国将这归咎于美国。美国、欧盟、德国和法国都有各自的印太战略。英国也在2021年最新的《安全、防务、开展和交际方针归纳评价陈述》中宣告了其要点倾向印太区域的安全方针。一起，印度、日本和澳大利亚也正在调整习惯当时印太区域的战略开展前景。

我国的兴起是各国活跃调整其印太战略的根本原因。北约(NATO)称我国对世界次序构成了“体系性应战”；欧盟将我国定位为“协作同伴、商洽同伴、经济竞赛者和准则性对手”;七国集团呼吁各国单方面采纳举动改变现状，缓解由我国兴起形成的区域紧张形势。当然，美国也绝不会在一旁坐视不管。最新经过的《2021美国立异和竞赛法》(US Innovation and Competition Act 2021)就是美国四年来经过跨部门、全政府手法应对我国构成的应战的最新弥补。

互换指挥棒与杀手锏？

我国的庞大叙事总体上是从前史决定论的情绪着重“东方兴起，西方法微”。我国期望美国能够让出西太平洋区域(乃至整个亚太区域)的军事主导权，连同其在全球规模内的领导力。可是美国却已开端重振旗鼓。“太平洋震慑建议”着重着重了美国的军事主导位置。但假如以上方案无法见效，我国在将来取得了西太平洋区域的军事主导权，那么手握指挥棒的我国将需求抛弃其杀手锏。杀手锏是微小的军事力气用极为不对称的方法来打败实力更强一方所依托的东西。当时美国戎行散布零星，布置灵敏，比以往更具生机与杀伤力，假如美国能够聚集当时与我国的战略竞赛，从头调整其军事投入，重建能有用投射的兵力，那么这支戎行很有或许成为美国将来的“杀手锏”。

（翻译：我国论坛/汤卓筠；校译：我国论坛/许馨匀、韩桦）

翻页检查英文原文

Is China’s primacy over the Western Pacific already a reality?

【Zhou Bo】

In 1999, Gerald Segal, then Director of Research at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, made a considerable splash with his essay “Does China matter?” in Foreign Affairs. Touching upon the economic, political and strategic issue of China, his overall conclusion was that China’s importance had been greatly exaggerated. For Mr Segal, China is but a small market ‘that matters little to the world, especially outside Asia’.

Two decades later, Mr Segal must be turning in his grave to see how his argument has made him a laughing stock. Rather than “a small market", China is now the largest retail market, consumer market, e-commerce market, luxury goods market and even new car market in the world. It is also the largest trading nation, industrial nation and the largest exporter in the world and the largest trading partner to around 130 countries. In the last four decades, no challenges have seemed able to stop China’s advance by leaps and bounds, be it the Asian financial crisis or Trump’s trade war with China, for instance.

Amid the ravaging pandemic, China looks like the eye of global storm, the safest haven on earth. It was the first to suffer from the pandemic, but also the first to recover from it, being the only country to have registered economic growth in 2020.

It is helping others, too. By the end of June, China has provided 450 million doses of its vaccines to nearly 100 countries.

However impressive these facts might be, it is wrong to conclude that the 21st century will be Pax Sinica. In fact, even in East Asia, China’s home ground, China’s primacy is not fully evident.

By contrast with Europe that is bound together by a common culture and religion, Asia has been diversified and pluralistic from day one with distinctive geographies, diversified cultures and religions. No matter how in centuries past, the Chinese thought China was the cultural, political or economic centre of the world and their sovereign had a right to rule “all under Heaven,” China never attempted to control the whole of East Asia. Deference to the Middle Kingdom and exotic gifts from tributary states were all that the Ming and Qing emperors wanted.

There is no doubt about China’s economic primacy in East Asia. In August 2010, China overtook Japan as the world’s second largest economy. According to the UK-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), China will overtake the US to become the world’s largest economy by 2028.

With the US absent from RCEP- Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the biggest trade bloc in history that accounts for about 30% of the world’s population and 30% of global GDP-and with China’s expressed interest in joining the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) just days after RCEP’s conclusion, Beijing looks a firm leader in multilateralism.

East Asia won’t be Sino-centric. Even if there is talk of a “Greater China” that encompasses mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan and sometimes Singapore, there are no signs that the Chinese wish to export their ideological or development model.

If a sphere of influence means that a state has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity in a region in which other states show deference to the power, then East Asia won’t look like China’s sphere of influence under scrutiny. DPRK has anyway developed nuclear weapons anyway despite China’s disapproval. Japan, Republic of Korea and Thailand are American allies.

Some ASEAN countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia and Brunei have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.

Would an ever-rising China make the world a better place? This is the ultimate question for the 21st century. Even those most critical of China cannot deny that China’s rise in the last four decades is peaceful -a rare phenomenon for any rising power. China has no war since its reform and opening up in 1979.

Therefore, the brawl resulting in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese servicemen in the Galwan Valley in the border areas between China and India in June 2020 was most unusual and unfortunate, to the extent that Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that bilateral trust was “profoundly disturbed”.

But the fact that the two troops chose to use fists and wooden clubs to fight in a stone-age manner showed they knew they should not shoot at each other under any circumstances to violate a tacit agreement.

In this regard, a kind of maturity and rationality still prevailed. Since the Chinese and Indian troops have withdrawn from the border areas that each claimed to be its own and a de facto buffer zone established, the situation has de-escalated. Hopefully, the deadly brawl will provide useful lessons for the two governments in finding out new ways to enhance confidence-building, such as setting up a hotline between the border troops.

The real challenge in East Asia is not how China will deal with its neighbours and vice versa - they know how to deal with each other through thousands of years of historical engagement. It is how China might coexist with the US, a non-Western Pacific nation but a self- claimed guardian of the “free and open Indo-Pacific”. China suspects the US wants to confine Chinese influence within the Western Pacific while the United States suspects a stronger China is trying to drive it out of the region. Looking down the road, the great power competition initiated by the Trump administration will only become more fierce in days to come.

The question is whether competition will slide into a confrontation that neither wants.

Risk reduction for Beijing and Washington is difficult for two reasons if one looks into the history of the Cold War. First, during the Cold War, there were clearly separate spheres of influence dominated by Washington and Moscow that allowed them to avoid direct confrontations. But between China and the United States, there isn’t even a buffer zone. Nowadays American naval vessels regularly sail through the waters off Chinese islands and rocks in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Second, the United States and the Soviet Union were balanced by mutually assured destruction. This is not found between Beijing and Washington. But in the Western Pacific, the gap in military strength is shrinking in China’s favour thanks to the advances of the PLA in the past decades. As a result, Washington is investing more militarily in the region and calling on its global allies and partners to gang up on China. This in turn would irk Beijing and make the situation more volatile.

There is no guarantee the US would win in a military conflict with China in the first island chain that stretches from Japan to the Philippines and the South China Sea. But should it lose, the consequence would be a domino effect: The US would lose prestige and credibility among its allies and partners in the region; The alliance would fall apart and it would have to pack and go home.

Short of global military presence though, China’s influence is already felt worldwide, especially through such mega-projects as the Belt & Road Initiative which is the largest project on infrastructure in human history. A global China doesn’t need to seek dominance anywhere. Instead, it needs to think globally and act responsibly in line with the great responsibility that is intrinsically associated with great powers.

【Rupert Hollins】

A Dream

The Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation has two centennial goals. The Communist Party’s centenary was on 1st July. New China’s foundation centenary is in 2049. This should be the apotheosis of China as a great power, exercising comprehensive national strength – political, diplomatic, economic, trade, tech, fintech, information and digital, cyber and space, innovation; and military, too. China is already impacting the world in all these dimensions.

Dreaming with Chinese Military Characteristics

The People’s Liberation Army, ever the Party’s army, now has a global mandate. Military might is both byproduct of, and pre-condition to, national greatness. For President Xi, a strong country and strong military go together.

China’s economic power underwrites wholesale reform and modernisation of its armed forces. The aim: by 2049 to have “world-class armed forces”. State-directed, state-subsidised, strategies such as Military-Civil Fusion, and advances in AI, quantum technologies, new, emerging and disruptive technologies will speed it there.

Sphere of Primacy

China says it will never be a world hegemon. Conventional analysis of China’s ambitions is that it seeks at least a regional primacy and global leadership - in other words, dominance centred on Asia-Pacific and a global leadership a little more accommodating. We can leave this as a moot point for now. Let’s imagine, in China’s shoes, what the military dream might look like in the Western Pacific.

The Meaning of the Dream

It irks China that its region is divided between a Chinese economic and a US security sphere of influence. US Indo-Pacific Command has over 377,000 military and civilian personnel. US Forces Japan number 54,000 military personnel, US Forces in South Korea 28,500.

A ‘good’ dream for China might look like withdrawal of US forces east of the International Date Line, the end of US defence agreements in the region, no assistance to Taiwan, cessation of closein reconnaissance flights, and the halting freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea. With the US out, its partners and allies melt away, and regional states are powerless to resist China’s pursuit of national interests, especially in the East and South China Seas.

Dream, Not Yet Reality

That dream is not yet reality. The military balance is still in the US’s favour. Its defence budget is about three times China’s, though that advantage is attenuated by China’s lower costs, especially for military wages, offbalance-sheet funding and shortcuts in research and development unhelpful to other states. China is not fibbing when it says the “PLA still lags far behind the world’s leading militaries”, by which it really means the US. One example, take expeditionary capability. China is still working on Carrier Strike Groups, Amphibious Task Forces, strategic air lift, refuelling assets and “strategic strongpoints” from which to project power globally. Whereas the US for decades has operated with these capabilities, and forward-positioned and sustained armies, fleets, marine expeditionary forces and air forces.

Realizing the Dream

China is steadily realising its dream. On quality, Chinese shipbuilding, integrated air defence systems and cruise and ballistic missiles are already top-notch. On capability, Chinese and US nuclear forces and ballistic missile defences are in an action-reaction cycle for dominance.

On deployable power projection, USPACOM is feeling Chinese push-back in the Western Pacific. In July 2020, USAF Deputy Commander USPACOM predicted Chinese military overmatch compared to INDOPACOM’s assigned (not all US) forces. He said China has “home field advantage” within the first island chain (Kuril Islands, main Japanese archipelago, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, northern Philippines archipelago and Palawan, Borneo and bending up to Vietnam). In March 2021 Commander INDOPACOM, worried about an unfavourable military balance, said the US needed to “regain the advantage” quantitatively and qualitatively. “America’s day begins in Guam”, he said. He could have added he does not want it to end there.

Exercising Primacy

China’s formula for a relationship with the US is “no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation”. We would expect China to use Sun Tzu strategy to win without fighting. A strong military, able to fight and win is, paradoxically, a military that does not have to fight to win. Deterring the use of hard power against it, China exploits other levers of national power to achieve its goals.

China is skilled at getting its way without triggering an armed conflict. There is assertiveness, but not a fight. The term “grey zone” operations is in common use now to describe the activity. A prominent example is in the South China Sea, where instead of fronting up with grey-hulled warships which are obviously intimidating, China employs Maritime Militia in blue-hulled look-alike fishing trawlers and white-hulled China Coast Guard vessels, symbols of peace-time maritime law enforcement, but actually belonging to Chinese armed forces. If there were a fight, it would be a close call. US forces would be at stretch, Chinese forces would have deep field strength. China’s AntiAccess and Area Denial (A2AD) strategy holds at risk intervening forces. This strategy is being extended to the second island chain (from Tokyo through Guam and Palau, down to Indonesia’s Irian Jaya).

Ominously nicknamed ballistic missiles are the DF21D “carrier killer” and the DF26 “Guam killer”. Taiwan is the most likely flashpoint between the US and China, perhaps also the litmus test of military primacy in the Western Pacific. A failed invasion by China or a failed intervention by the US would be a strategic shock.

Opposed amphibious landings are notoriously difficult and will be so in Taiwan which has been preparing for them. Conventional and nuclear warheads are only a 6 to 8-minute bus ride away on Chinese short range ballistic missiles, but that will leave a mess and an angry population for their occupation forces. Once combat has started, containing it to a local war is unlikely. Off-ramps for two nuclear superpowers to prevent escalation to their homelands may be hard to find. Chinese leadership are rational and calculate risk. Most policy statements emphasise “peaceful reunification”.

Rude Awakening or Nightmare

The dream may stop with a rude awakening or turn into a nightmare. A Japan without the US might re-arm and become a nuclear power. A denuclearised, unified Korean peninsula could turn antithetical to China. The international situation is even more complicated for China. China blames the US. US, EU, Germany, and France each have their Indo-Pacific strategies. In the Integrated Review, the UK has announced its tilt to the Indo-Pacific. India, Japan and Australia are adapting strategic outlooks on Indo-Pacific.

China is the underlying reason. NATO calls China a systemic challenge; the EU calls China partner, competitor and systemic rival; the G7 calls out unilateral attempts to change the status quo and increased tensions. The US is not taking anything lying down. Its 2021 Innovation and Competition Act is a recent addition to four years of interagency, whole-of government, measures to tackle the China challenge.

Swapping the Baton and Assassin’s Mace?

China’s metanarrative is that the “east is rising, the west is declining”, an historical determinism. China expects the US to hand over the baton of Western Pacific (even Asia-Pacific) primacy and global leadership. However, the US is rallying. The Pacific Defence Initiative doubles down on military primacy. If it doesn’t work, and one day China seizes the baton of military primacy, China will have to let go of the assassin’s mace. This is the instrument of the weaker military power asymmetrically to overwhelm the stronger. US forces, now becoming dispersed, distributed, more dynamic, lethal, re-invested and re-focused for the strategic competition, may just be that mace.

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