Why are China and America not more afraid of war?

Increasingly, Sino-US relations are haunted by some of the worst aspects of that first Cold War. By default, the other party’s motives are assumed to be malicious. Controversies are made organized by the clash of flag-hoisting pomp and reality. A foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing this week insisted that Covid-19 was cooked up by US military researchers to counter the US government’s assessment that the pandemic may have started with a laboratory leak in China. Once again, the accumulation of arms has threatened the balance of resistance between the two sides. In recent years, Chinese pilots have flown brazenly close to US spy planes in international skies near China, posing a threat of mid-air collisions. But this time, capitalizing on the (sometimes) seriousness of the American-Soviet standoff is missing.

The Sino-US rivalry is in danger of becoming a shallow, sarcastic parody of the Cold War. Too many American politicians view any interaction with China as a threat and as an opportunity to demonstrate patriotic resolve. Their chatter is often unwarranted, and it also makes it hard to focus on important challenges. In Beijing, Communist Party leaders invoke the principles that helped maintain an uneasy peace in the darkest days of the 1960s or 1970s, but for superficial, selfish purposes. Take the notion of “absolute security”. Proposals for a new security framework unveiled by China’s supreme leader, President Xi Jinping, revive old arguments about the bleak nature of security when rival nuclear powers believe war is mutually assured. Will cause destruction. Mr. Xi sternly declared that: “No country should seek absolute security for itself at the cost of the security of others.” But Mr. Xi reproduces that language and uses it to challenge US-led defensive alliances, particularly in Asia. In his words, defense treaties are an unsettling hangover of the Cold War because they seek “absolute security for one or a few countries while leaving the rest unprotected”. Building China-proof security Recently, Chinese officials have applied the same principle to blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on NATO expansion.

Infuriated by these perverse echoes of the Soviet era, Chaguan sought guidance from a diplomatic veteran of the original Cold War. Now 91, Thomas Pickering served the Kennedy administration as an arms control negotiator and was later Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Moscow, among many other positions. He recounts the obstacles to peacebuilding that have parallels in modern China. One involves the secrecy of the Soviet military, whose commanders developed doctrines of weapons and deterrence about which civilian Soviet diplomats “knew almost nothing”, to convince Americans “of the prevalence of Soviet weapons”. bound, as we understand it.” Today, Chinese diplomats seem equally out of the loop. Those posted in Washington were shocked when a spy balloon crossed the US in February. When asked about the rapid development of nuclear weapons by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s foreign ministry responded with gibberish.

Mr Pickering sees lessons for the US and China in the crises of decades ago. He recalls the Cold War crisis posed by destabilizing new technologies, such as anti-missile defenses that seemed to elevate the serious argument of nuclear deterrence. Some of these dangerous incidents ended with ambitious arms control agreements. Others were resolved with confidence-building agreements and increased transparency. American and Soviet officials set up emergency hotlines. At times, rival armies sent officers to count each other’s nuclear warheads or watch military exercises. In each case, says Mr. Pickering, “terror overcame a fascination for absolute secrecy,” arguing that true crisis management involves listening as well as lecturing, he praises John F. Kennedy. He urged Americans to “even” look at the provocative Soviet propaganda to see it. The Soviet Union may have had legitimate concerns.” Progress involved many difficult steps. “Meanwhile the fear quotient was very high,” he recalls.

China is more tolerant of risk

Zhang Tuosheng is a former instructor at the PLA’s military academy and is now at Grandview, a think-tank in Beijing. He shares Mr Pickering’s concern that the US and China do not feel prepared enough about crisis management. I wish he could see the gulf of understanding that divides the two powers. The US wants to talk about safe flight and shipping near China and the rules of war for advanced weapons. In contrast, China accuses the US of threatening its national security by intruding into its backyard or by upgrading ties with Taiwan. In its statement, China feels that America first creates crisis, then demands better management from it.

Zhao Tong, an arms control expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggests that China is consciously accepting the high tensions and short-term risks. He says that America is the aggressor in Chinese thinking and if he was really afraid of destruction, he would have backed down by now. Accordingly, China believes that further intimidating the US will reduce the long-term risks.

Veterans of the original Cold War shudder at such reckless reasoning, as they remember when terror used to inspire restraint. The scariest thing about China’s confrontation with the US is the lack of fear.

Read more on China from Chaguan, our columnist:

China’s people are fed up, but not on the verge of rebellion (23 February)

China is losing the hearts and minds of Taiwanese (16 February)

Lessons from Chinese spy balloons (February 7)

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