Thinking about China and War

Aerospace Power Journal, Winter, 2001 by Jeffrey Dr. Record

Chinese military action against Asian mainland states not allied with the United States probably would not occasion a direct, armed US response. Sino-Russian, -Indian, and -Vietnamese war scenarios of the kind that transpired in 1962, 1969, and 1979, respectively, would not directly engage the vital interests of the United States--unless they spilled over into attacks on US forces and allies. Why would the United States intervene in such conflicts? To be sure, it has a general interest in peace and stability on the Asian mainland and a specific interest in deterring nuclear war between other states. But would it go to war to prevent a nuclear exchange between, say, Russia and China? It was certainly not prepared to do so to deter an Indo-Pakistani exchange during the South Asian nuclear-war scare of 1999.

What if China began absorbing the RFE? This prospect is certainly plausible. Moscow's control over the RFE has steadily weakened since the Soviet Union's demise; the RFE's economy is fast becoming a subsidiary of China's; and Chinese demographic infiltration of the RFE could eventually raise the issue of the RFE's self-determination in China's favor.

Yet, on what basis would the United States intervene against even an overt Chinese invasion of the RFE, and could it intervene effectively? To be sure, China's assumption of control over the REE's littoral and Siberia's vast, if hard to extract, resources would call for a fundamental reassessment of Chinese intentions and capabilities in Asia--perhaps leading to the creation of new security alliances in South and Southeast Asia and major increases in defense expenditure. But it is difficult to imagine an American war on behalf of Russian attempts to hold on to nineteenth-century czarist territorial gains in the Far East. But for its long-range nuclear missiles, one could consider Russia finished as a great power; in any event, it is highly doubtful that US air-power alone could overturn a Chinese invasion of the RFE. During the Cold War, the United States and its Pacific allies lived with a hostile East Asian mainland littoral stretching from the Bering Sea to the South China Sea. Why should the United States fear Chinese nuclear missiles in the RFE more than it did Soviet missiles there?

A Sino-Indian war, which for reasons of geography would be waged largely in the air (and potentially in space) and perhaps at sea, also would not engage US war-fighting interests. The same may be said of Chinese aggression against Vietnam, which has recurred throughout Vietnam's history--most recently in 1979.

Obviously, a Chinese attack on Japan (or any other US treaty ally) would be an automatic war starter. Such an attack could be preventive, aimed at thwarting the resurrection of a militarist Japan. China is hardly the only victim of past Japanese aggression that is upset by a still unalterably racist Japan whose leaders and citizen inhabitants are in an increasingly disturbing state of denial of their nation's behavior in Asia from 1895 to 1945. In a Sino-American crisis, Japan might also invite attack, or at least armed intimidation, because of the access it provides US military power in Northeast Asia. Attempted coalition busting is a must for most American adversaries because the United States relies heavily on coalitions for political legitimacy and logistical access. Peeling off Japan from the United States in the middle of a Sino-American military confrontation in Asia would be an enormous coup for Beijing.