Get a link：https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-02-05/kevin-rudd-usa-chinese-confrontation-short-of-war
Officials in Washington and Beijing don’t agree on much these days,
but there is one thing on which they see eye to eye: the contest
between their two countries will enter a decisive phase in the
2020s. This will be the decade of living dangerously. No matter what
strategies the two sides pursue or what events unfold, the tension
between the United States and China will grow, and competition will
intensify; it is inevitable. War, however, is not. It remains
possible for the two countries to put in place guardrails that would
prevent a catastrophe: a joint framework for what I call “managed
strategic competition” would reduce the risk of competition
escalating into open conflict.
The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly confident that by the
decade’s end, China’s economy will finally surpass that of the
United States as the world’s largest in terms of GDP at market
exchange rates. Western elites may dismiss the significance of that
milestone; the CCP’s Politburo does not. For China, size always
matters. Taking the number one slot will turbocharge Beijing’s
confidence, assertiveness, and leverage in its dealings with
Washington, and it will make China’s central bank more likely to
float the yuan, open its capital account, and challenge the U.S.
dollar as the main global reserve currency. Meanwhile, China
continues to advance on other fronts, as well. A new policy plan,
announced last fall, aims to allow China to dominate in all new
technology domains, including artificial intelligence, by 2035. And
Beijing now intends to complete its military modernization program
by 2027 (seven years ahead of the previous schedule), with the main
goal of giving China a decisive edge in all conceivable scenarios
for a conflict with the United States over Taiwan. A victory in such
a conflict would allow President Xi Jinping to carry out a forced
reunification with Taiwan before leaving power—an achievement that
would put him on the same level within the CCP pantheon as Mao
Zedong.
Washington must decide how to respond to Beijing’s assertive
agenda—and quickly. If it were to opt for economic decoupling and
open confrontation, every country in the world would be forced to
take sides, and the risk of escalation would only grow. Among
policymakers and experts, there is understandable skepticism as to
whether Washington and Beijing can avoid such an outcome. Many doubt
that U.S. and Chinese leaders can find their way to a framework to
manage their diplomatic relations, military operations, and
activities in cyberspace within agreed parameters that would
maximize stability, avoid accidental escalation, and make room for
both competitive and collaborative forces in the relationship. The
two countries need to consider something akin to the procedures and
mechanisms that the United States and the Soviet Union put in place
to govern their relations after the Cuban missile crisis—but in this
case, without first going through the near-death experience of a
barely avoided war.
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Managed strategic competition would involve establishing certain
hard limits on each country’s security policies and conduct but
would allow for full and open competition in the diplomatic,
economic, and ideological realms. It would also make it possible for
Washington and Beijing to cooperate in certain areas, through
bilateral arrangements and also multilateral forums. Although such a
framework would be difficult to construct, doing so is still
possible—and the alternatives are likely to be catastrophic.tyBy
Kevin Rudd March/April 2021 |
