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https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/how-to-avoid-a-war-with-china

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The San Juan Daily Star
5 days ago
4 min read

How to avoid a war with China


By Nicholas Kristof


In the summer of 1914, few wanted war or thought a major war was
possible. My grandparents were married that spring in Lviv,
Austria-Hungary, and I look at their giddy wedding photos and realize
they had no clue that a cataclysm would soon erase their country,
shatter their lives and eventually send a branch of the family fleeing
to the New World.


This year I sometimes worry that we’re again too complacent about the
risks of conflict ahead. And perhaps the worst geopolitical risk over
the next decade or two is a war with China. While neither side wants
war, each now accepts that conflict may be looming and is preparing
accordingly — driving suspicions on the other side and fueling an arms race.


It’s time for both sides to take a deep breath and step back from
rhetoric and symbolic jabs that rally nationalists at home but that also increase the risks of a global catastrophe. A reminder of the risks came
on Monday when China responded to the warm welcome given in the United
States to Taiwan’s president by sending a record number of military
aircraft near Taiwan.


“Things done publicly, symbolically, to stand up to Beijing don’t necessarily lead Taiwan to be any more secure,” noted Jessica Chen Weiss
of Cornell University. For example, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
made a trip to Taiwan last year in what was meant to be a symbolic show
of support. Polling found that Taiwan’s residents concluded by a 2-to-1 majority that the Pelosi visit made them less secure.


If we want to help Taiwan, Weiss said, we need more deterrence and less provocation.


In my view, the risks of conflict are primarily driven by Xi Jinping,
from his brutal repression in Xinjiang to the enormous expansion of his
nuclear arsenal that is now underway, and tensions will become far worse
if he supplies Russia with artillery shells. But American domestic
politics are also steering a collision course, and that may get worse as Democrats and Republicans compete to denounce China.


From an American vantage point, another cold war may not seem so
terrible, since we and the Russians managed to avoid incinerating each
other in the last one. But millions died in the last cold war in proxy
war zones from Vietnam to Angola. And Russia and the United States
avoided nuclear war in part because leaders on each side had memories of
World War II that made them cautious. I worry that today, as in 1914, overconfidence and myopic political pressures on each side might drive continuing escalation.


I need no reminder of how oppressive China can be. I was on Tiananmen
Square in June 1989 and witnessed as the People’s Liberation Army fired
on the crowd that I was in. But I also saw China lifting more people out
of poverty than any other country in history and vastly improving
education and health outcomes. We in the United States have to grapple
with the uncomfortable reality that a newborn in Beijing may not be able
to look forward to a meaningful vote or to free speech but has a life expectancy seven years longer than that of a newborn in Washington, D.C.


When I say we must talk to each other, I am not downplaying American
concerns. I’m among those wary of TikTok because of the risk that it
might be used for spying. But I also know that the United States has
similarly used private businesses to spy on China. When China purchased
a new Boeing 767 in 2000 to be the Chinese equivalent of Air Force One, American officials planted at least 27 bugs in it.


I think the United States should press China harder on some issues, such
as the reckless way Chinese companies export chemicals to Mexico that
are turned into fentanyl. That Chinese-origin fentanyl kills many
thousands of Americans each year, and it’s hard to see why the deaths of
so many aren’t higher on the bilateral agenda.


But we also need humility. America’s politicians, pharma companies and regulators themselves catastrophically bungled the opioid crisis. Why
should we expect Chinese leaders to care more about young American lives
than our own leaders do?


Fulmination is not a policy, and it alienates the ordinary Chinese
citizens who are that country’s best hope after Xi has left the scene. That’s the long game.


Anti-Chinese rhetoric and over-the-top security concerns magnify racism
toward Asian Americans and make Chinese feel unwelcome in America — and
that hurts all of us. In 2020, 17% of American doctoral degrees given in science and engineering went to Chinese students, underscoring that the
United States has been a huge beneficiary of China’s brain drain. But
that could now reverse. A poll found deep disquiet among Chinese
scholars in America, with 61% saying they have thought about leaving.


I support President Joe Biden’s steps to bolster American industry and
his remarkable efforts to increase military preparedness in the Western Pacific. But let’s recognize that the single most important step we can
take to strengthen America vis-à-vis China has nothing to do with the military.


It would simply be to tackle American dysfunction — from addiction to
child poverty and our failed foster care system — and to invest in our education system so as to produce stronger citizens and a more robust
nation. That, not prickly nationalism, is the lesson we should take from
China — and is the best way for us to meet the China challenge.

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