Foreign Minister Wang Yi shakes hands with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after a meeting at the State Department in Washington on October 26. Photo: AP
Opinion
C. Uday Bhaskar
C. Uday Bhaskar
Unstable world needs US and China to thaw ties and provide better global leadership
Wang Yi’s visit to Washington is a welcome sign amid a backdrop of rising violence and increasingly chilly US-China relations
Next, Biden and Xi should meet at the Apec summit to prevent further cracks from appearing, and provide the leadership the world desperately needs
The annual US Department of Defence report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”, also called the China Military Power Report, was released on October 19. Its central assertion is that Beijing’s national strategy is to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049.
The 212-page report further adds that this strategy aims to “revise the international order in support of the PRC’s system of governance and national interests” and that Beijing views the United States as deploying a whole-of-government effort meant to contain China’s rise.
Predictably, Beijing lashed out at the US assessment. A Defence Ministry statement said that, “We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this report”, adding that it “exaggerates and hypes the non-existent ‘Chinese military threat’.”
This is not necessarily an incorrect statement, given that the Pentagon report highlights Chinese military capabilities quantitatively without appropriate context, or the contrast with existing US military capability in each area, be it nuclear weapons, missiles, ships, submarines or air power.
The previous US report on Chinese military power, in November 2022, described China as a “pacing threat”, implying that Beijing was setting the pace and priority for US responses to safeguard its security and strategic interests. Chinese officials made similar protestations against the Pentagon at the time, accusing the US of distorting facts, creating divisions and inciting confrontation.
The intervening period resulted in a sullen freeze in bilateral relations. This was further aggravated by the Chinese balloon incident in January.
02:17
China’s Wang Yi calls for ‘in-depth’ Sino-US dialogue ahead of Antony Blinken talks in Washington
China’s Wang Yi calls for ‘in-depth’ Sino-US dialogue ahead of Antony Blinken talks in Washington
Against this backdrop, it is encouraging that Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his US counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Washington last week and noted that “China and the United States need to have dialogue. Not only should we resume dialogue, the dialogue should be in-depth and comprehensive.” Wang added that this would help reduce misunderstandings, stabilise the relationship and return it to the track of healthy, stable and sustainable development.
Blinken went on to endorse this recommendation. It is expected that the thaw will help pave the way for a meeting in mid-November between US President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping during the Apec summit in San Francisco.
It is instructive that the US and China are on the same page about resuming high-level dialogue. This is also the conclusion of this year’s China Military Power Report, which reiterates that the Pentagon “is committed to reopening lines of communication with the PRC to ensure competition does not veer into conflict. [The defence department’s] objectives in opening lines of communication include ensuring crisis communications channels, reducing strategic and operational risk and avoiding misperceptions.”
The Chinese military has been engaged in a series of aggressive and coercive military actions against its neighbours, ostensibly to safeguard its territorial sovereignty. These include some Southeast Asian states, the Philippines being the most recent. Both India and Japan have also been subjected to intimidation, along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and in the East China Sea respectively.
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Beijing and Manila trade blame over ‘provocative’ moves with ship collisions near disputed shoal
Beijing and Manila trade blame over ‘provocative’ moves with ship collisions near disputed shoal
The US report makes reference to this pattern of belligerence in some detail while dwelling on China’s “coercive and risky operational behaviour”. It notes that, between autumn 2021 and 2023, the US documented more than 180 instances of air intercepts by the PLA Air Force against US aircraft. This is more than was seen in the decade before 2021.
For its part, China accuses the US of being the principal provocateur. Among the things it has decried are the support Washington has extended to Taiwan, the US military presence in East Asia, the refusal to accept China’s nine-dash line map in the South China Sea or its other contested maritime claims and, most recently, the Aukus nuclear submarine agreement between the US, Britain and Australia.
Beijing’s rejection of the 2016 international arbitration award that upheld the Philippines’ claims in the South China Sea, and China’s current intimidation of Philippine vessels by deploying units of the PLA Navy, the Chinese coastguard and maritime militia in the Scarborough Reef area, are highlighted in the report.
This perception of China as the regional bully is a shared concern. Manila has described China’s claims in the maritime domain as “unfounded” and its actions “irresponsible”, and this issue could become volatile if things spiral.
The global security situation is perilous, and the violence in Ukraine and Gaza points to a breakdown in the ability of the major powers to keep conflicts from escalating. Interstate hostilities apart, the challenges of climate change, post-pandemic recovery and the inequitable orientation of the international economic order warrant a higher level of global leadership than is currently on display.
The US and China are jostling for pre-eminence in a classic contest between the status quo hegemon and the challenger, and the China Military Power Report is illustrative of the manner in which this is unfolding.
To keep further cracks from appearing in this troubled relationship, Biden and Xi should meet on the sidelines of the Apec summit and attempt to lower the temperature of the prevailing geopolitical simmer – one that could see the world engulfed in greater discord and destruction if left unattended.
Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar is director of the Society for Policy Studies (SPS), an independent think tank based in New Delhi
