Trump’s America is provoking a real war with China; will the unthinkable happen?
- Yonden Lhatoo raises the alarm over the risk of all-out war between the world’s two biggest powers, asking how much more provocation Beijing can absorb or will take before retaliating for real
“It is to one’s honour to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel,” Proverbs chapter 20, verse 3 advises those who are being provoked into a fight.
You don’t really have to follow the Scriptures to appreciate the wisdom in these words, but how immensely ironic to see the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party taking the “honourable” road in such a context while the Bible-thumping administration of US President Donald Trump adopts the role of the belligerent “fool” picking all the fights in its astonishingly provocative religious crusade against China.
The latest, senseless act of aggression from Washington, the self-anointed sheriff of the world, is the slapping of sanctions on Hong Kong’s leader and 10 other local and mainland Chinese officials as punishment for their part in enforcing the city’s sweeping new national security law.
By now, with the exception of America’s useful idiots, everyone and their mum knows all this has nothing to do with protecting human rights in Hong Kong and everything to do with provoking Beijing by attacking this city, China’s weakest link.
Beijing’s top representative here, Luo Huining, had a fitting reply, mockingly offering to send US$100 across to Trump to freeze in the absence of any other assets he owns there.
The big question is how much further the Trump administration intends to go with every egregious affront, every deep insult, every open challenge, from political interference in a sovereign nation’s internal affairs to military incitement in the South China Sea, before it crosses the final red line. And how much longer Beijing can continue to respond with warnings and measured, tit-for-tat actions before it runs out of options altogether and is forced to retaliate for real, its back against the wall.
Are the US and China heading for all-out war at this rate? It’s no longer inconceivable.
With Trump gearing up for a looming presidential election that he looks likely to lose but intends to win at all costs, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd warned in an article in the Foreign Affairs journal this week of an “especially high” risk of armed conflict between the two powers in the next three months.
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“The question now being asked, quietly but nervously, in capitals around the world is, where will this end?” he wrote. “The once unthinkable outcome – actual armed conflict between the United States and China – now appears possible for the first time since the end of the Korean War. In other words, we are confronting the prospect of not just a new Cold War, but a hot one as well.”
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Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, the Beijing-based tabloid that often serves as a sounding board for hardline views under the auspices of party mouthpiece People’s Daily, took it a step further with an op-ed titled, “If war breaks out between China and the US, which side will have the upper hand?”
‘Heightened risk’ of conflict over South China Sea, observers warn
“Don’t play with fire off China’s coast, don’t really stir up conflict over [the] Taiwan question, and don’t overdo it in the South China Sea. If the Trump administration just wants to create China-US tensions to help his re-election campaign, and is not really ready for a military showdown, then be careful for the next few months, and don’t go too far,” he wrote.
“China certainly doesn’t want a war. My suggestion is that under no circumstances should the Chinese military fire the first shot. But I am confident that China will be well prepared to fire a second shot as a response to the first shot. On core interests, China will not back off.”
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While Hu concluded that China’s “will, wisdom, and ability to master the situation” for the sake of world peace would be tested over time, Rudd urged both sides to “be careful what you wish for”.
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“If they fail to do so, the next three months could all too easily torpedo the prospects of international peace and stability for the next 30 years. Wars between great powers, including inadvertent ones, rarely end well – for anyone,” Rudd wrote.
His warning may not resonate like biblical verse, but it should ring true for every person on this planet, because nobody will escape such a war unscathed. No one.
Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post
