All signs point to conflict: Chinese risk factors reveal a bumpy future

Over the more than 5,000 years of its history, China has been characterised by cycles of boom and bust which correspond with its prominence on the global stage.

China’s modern history, at least since the success of Mao’s revolution and the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, is no different, with various policies of collectivisation, mainly the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward both resulting in mass famine, economic stagnation, and decline.

By the time the 1970s rolled around, the now-deceased Mao’s dream of a socialist utopia was crumbling, providing the perfect opportunity for the Western world to engage the ancient power, paving the way for it to emerge as one of the world’s truly great economic and industrial powers.

Characterised as the period of “Boluan Fanzheng” or “Eliminating Chaos and Returning to Normal” by Mao’s pragmatic and reform-minded successor, Deng Xiaoping, in an attempt to “correct the mistakes of Cultural Revolution”.

This opening up and liberalisation of the Chinese economy, paving the way for the true beginning of the globalised economy, was rapidly embraced by both sides of the Communist East and Capitalist West.

Seemingly unassailable in its economic and industrial ascendency, China’s economic miracle avoided the Asian Financial Crisis and steadily positioned the nation to become the “factory of the world”, resulting in the hollowing out of many national industrial bases in favour of cheaper, “just in time” supply chains.

This shift also saw a major shift in the global flow of trade, particularly for industrial inputs, energy, and of course, perishables, to keep the vast Chinese economy and population operating like a well-oiled machine.

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At the same time, China’s leadership has extensively invested in the People’s Liberation Army and its subordinate commands, transforming it into what has rapidly become one of the world’s leading military powers, with the ambition of rebuilding the ancient glory of the Middle Kingdom.

All of this has ultimately combined to bring China, particularly the China of Xi Jinping, into direct confrontation with the post-Second World War order, with a number of emerging economic, political, and strategic flashpoints that could boil over into open and truly humanity-ending conflict.

Yet, preparing for a potential conflict leaves clues for analysts, like any good detective to follow and unfortunately, all signs point to something concerning.

Highlighting this is associate professor of political science at Tufts University, Michael Beckley, and professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Hal Brands, for Foreign Policy in a piece titled, How Primed for War Is China? Risk signals for a conflict are flashing red.

The pair begin by setting the scene, stating, “Notwithstanding the recent flurry of high-level diplomacy between Washington and Beijing, the warning signs are certainly there. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing is amassing ships, planes, and missiles as part of the largest military build-up by any country in decades.

“Notwithstanding some recent efforts to lure back skittish foreign investment, China is stockpiling fuel and food and trying to reduce the vulnerability of its economy to sanctions – steps one might take as conflict nears. Xi has said China must prepare for ‘worst-case and extreme scenarios’ and be ready to withstand ‘high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms.’ All of this comes as Beijing has become increasingly coercive (and occasionally violent) in dealings with its neighbors, including the Philippines, Japan, and India – and as it periodically advertises its ability to batter, blockade, and perhaps invade Taiwan,” Beckley and Brands explained.

The status quo isn’t guaranteed

Importantly for both Beckley and Brands, the long-held (and in my opinion, misheld) belief that China won’t seek to overturn the global order that has benefited it so strongly since Deng’s wave of economic liberalisation and reform in the 1970s is just the latest fallacy the West has deluded itself into believing.

Much like Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” hypothesis, postulated in the early-1990s to explain the post-Cold War world, the belief that as China became wealthier, liberal and more global, its people and by extension its government would equally liberalise and become more democratic.

Equally, the “Golden Arches” theory, which can best be explained by the belief that no two nations with a McDonald’s have gone or will go to war with one another has effectively characterised the Western view of the rising superpower like a sick game of sleight of hand.

Demonstrating this, Beckley and Brands explained, “What links these arguments is a belief in the basic continuity of Chinese conduct: the idea that a country that hasn’t launched a disastrous war in more than four decades is unlikely to do so now.

“We believe this confidence is dangerously misplaced. A country’s behaviour is profoundly shaped by its circumstances, no less than its strategic tradition, and China’s circumstances are changing in explosive ways,” the pair explained.

However, before China makes its move, there are a number of factors or preconditions that have to be met that would effectively serve as triggers for the superpower to take a more aggressive route to achieve its various objectives.

Stressing this, Beckley and Brands stated, “Political scientists and historians have identified a range of factors that make great powers more or less inclined to fight. When one considers four such factors, it becomes clear that many of the conditions that once enabled a peaceful rise may now be encouraging a violent descent.”

The four preconditions and the ambition of one man

It is critical to identify these four preconditions if we are to understand the broader implications of the key indicators that reveal Beijing’s accelerating push to confront the post-Second World War order.

Beginning with the first such factor, Beijing’s ongoing and numerous territorial disputes with its various neighbours, ranging from India in the Himalayas, to Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan in the South China Sea, and of course, the pesky question of that “breakaway province”, Taiwan.

Beckley and Brands explained the implications of Beijing’s territorial disputes, saying, “First, the territorial disputes and other issues China is contesting are becoming less susceptible to compromise or peaceful resolution than they once were, making foreign policy a zero-sum game.”

The impact of said territorial disputes equally lead into the second factor, that is the shifting balance of tactical and strategic military power in the Indo-Pacific, largely as a result of the increasing decline of the United States and its willingness to maintain the global order it built and maintained at great material and human costs since the end of the Second World War.

“Second, the military balance in Asia is shifting in ways that could make Beijing perilously optimistic about the outcome of war,” the pair explained.

Going further, Beijing’s unprecedented and meteoric explosion of economic and industrial capacity since the 1970s has given it the capacity to outbuild the once great industrial powers of the Western world, especially while they continue to pursue self-destructive policies across the domains of regulation surrounding employment, energy, and taxation.

Beckley and Brands detailed this, stating, “Third, as China’s short-term military prospects improve, its long-term strategic and economic outlook is darkening – a combination that has often made revisionist powers more violent in the past.”

Fourth and finally is the consolidation of Xi Jinping’s unquestioning personal power and prestige within the country and particularly over the civilian and military levers of power, leaving him the undisputed ruler of the emerging superpower.

“Fourth, Xi has turned China into a personalist dictatorship of the sort especially prone to disastrous miscalculations and costly wars,” the pair explained.

All of these combine to paint a particularly stormy forecast, despite Beijing’s protestations and commitments to maintaining its “peaceful rise” as a responsible regional and global stakeholder, and fly in the face of historical precedent.

Beckley and Brands highlighted this, saying, “It wouldn’t be the first time a seemingly peaceful rising power broke bad. Prior to 1914, Germany hadn’t fought a major war for more than 40 years.

“In the 1920s, Japan looked to many foreign observers like a responsible stakeholder as it signed treaties pledging to limit its navy, share power in Asia, and respect China’s territorial integrity. In the early 2000s, Russian President Vladimir Putin mused about joining NATO and linking Russia closer to the West. That each of these nations nonetheless launched barbaric wars of conquest underscores a basic truth: Things change. The same country can behave differently, perhaps radically so, depending on the circumstances.”

Each of these factors are ultimately defined by the ambitions and desires of its leadership, particularly in an autocratic nation like the People’s Republic of China, which ultimately rest with one man: Xi Jinping.

For Beckley and Brands, this is as critical as all the other individual factors, which is why the military build-up championed by Xi is so telling, “Today’s China is done hiding and biding. Instead, it is churning out warships and missiles faster than any country since World War II. Chinese planes and warships simulate attacks on Taiwanese and US targets. Asian sea lanes are dotted with Chinese military outposts and brimming with Chinese coast guard and fishing vessels that brazenly shove neighbors out of areas claimed by Beijing. Meanwhile, China is abetting Russia’s brutalisation of Ukraine and massing forces on the Sino-Indian border.”

Going further, the pair explained Beijing’s growing confidence, stating, “One reason China has become more combative is because it can. China’s inflation-adjusted military budget expanded tenfold between 1990 and 2020 ... it is no longer clear that the Pentagon could immediately respond to, let alone defeat, a Chinese assault on Taiwan. Historically, the United States has fallen back on its manufacturing prowess to outproduce adversaries in protracted wars.

“But now that China is the workshop of the world, Beijing might believe – correctly or not – that the military balance would shift further in its favour the longer a war continues,” they explained.

Rounding out this analysis, the pair detailed the influence of Xi over China’s current and future direction, stating, “Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has appointed himself chairman for life, inserted his governing philosophy into the constitution, and purged thousands of potential rivals.

“He has taken uncompromising positions on China’s vast territorial claims. ‘We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors,’ he warned US Defense Secretary James Mattis in 2018. Xi has attached his legitimacy to making China a superpower: State media now declares that under Mao, China stood up; under Deng, China grew rich; and under Xi, China will become mighty. In recent years, Xi has given internal speeches instructing the Chinese military to be ready for war and the Chinese people to prepare for ’extreme scenarios’.”

Broader implications for the region and what to watch for in the final countdown

It goes without saying that all of this combines to form a rather bleak outlook, particularly where matters that could be described as central to the legitimacy of contemporary China, and Xi Jinping for that matter, are at stake.

Think Taiwan, China’s global ambitions exercised through multilateral organisations like BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organisations, and programs like the Belt and Road Initiative that seek to build a new Silk Road, with Beijing firmly entrenched at the centre.