The United States and China aren’t expansionary powers
How long do you think it would take for China to go from its current level of expansionism to a level that would make war with the US plausibly worthwhile? Could it happen in a generation, and what might precipitate it? I’m thinking about Weimar Germany to Nazi Germany, or (the reverse) Imperial Japan to Solid-State Electronics Japan.
The Uighur ethnic cleansing is Han (versus “Chinese” more generally, since the Uighurs are citizens of PRC) expansionism, right? Might that become more widespread and aggressive?
(Contra, there’s not much worth owning in southeast Asia or the Stan countries, and Russia would oppose outside influence in former Soviet states, based on past and current behavior.)
What about taking over the Korean peninsula? Wouldn’t be the first time. If China controlled DPRK’s territory, which I assume they could at will, they could much more easily get troops into ROK than the U.S. could, especially if your view on missile-based ocean-area denial is correct. The 30,000 U.S. troops in ROK would have no realistic hope of reinforcement so long as neither side had air or sea superiority. Does POTUS order them to fight to the last soldier, hoping that 30,000 dead or captured would motivate the country to fight back, or negotiate a peaceful retreat and withdrawal from ROK? I guess it depends on who’s POTUS.
I bet the modern PRC could stop another Operation Chromite literally dead in the water. If nothing else, spotting an incoming sea assault is so much easier than it was in 1950.
These same issues would apply if China attacked Japan.
The deal offered benefits not only to England, France, and the Allies, but also to Japan and Germany that they couldn’t have even hoped to achieve had they won the war. 6
6 Apparently Germany and Japan would have found it to be unbelievable. “The primary reason Germany and Japan had launched World War II in the first place was to gain greater access to resources and markets. Germany wanted the agricultural output of Poland, the capital of the Low Countries, the coal of Central Europe, and the markets of France. Japan coveted the manpower and markets of China and the resources of Southeast Asia. Now that they had been thoroughly defeated, the Americans were offering them economic access far beyond their wildest prewar longings: risk-free access to ample resources and bottomless markets a half a world away. And “all” it would cost them was accepting a security guarantee that was better than anything they could ever have achieved by themselves.”
It seems to me there are positional status questions—is China just a participant in America’s world, or is it the Middle Kingdom?--but I think it’s hard to see a situation where China is better off annexing countries to be recalcitrant provinces rather than just trading with them while they’re American allies and protectorates. (Like, it’s really not obvious that China is better off with a conquered Korea than it is with a neighboring Korea.)
Re trade vs conquest—If smart people are in charge of a smart populace, I agree. But China’s South China Sea colonialism + attitude toward Taiwan suggest that they aren’t viewing things solely in those terms. They act like a people who find terminal value in throwing their weight around and in taking Taiwan, or at least in reducing the influence of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the area by doing those things.
Re your example of Bretton Woods—in an analogous situation, the U.S./world order would be ready to give China great trade terms, but China would not even perceive such terms to be possible—wouldn’t that give China an incentive to conquer instead of trade, as the Axis powers did? I am probably misinterpreting your point here. (Does China want more access to U.S./world markets than it already has?)
I think we’re looking at a game of chicken. I don’t think war between China and the US would be worthwhile for either side unless the opposing side folds. That might happen if the US population becomes much more isolationist. Such a shift could happen fast, slow or not at all.
I’m considering China’s actions towards the Uighurs and Tibet to not qualify as “expansionism” in this context because Xinjiang has been part of the PRC since 1949 and Tibet has been part of the PRC since 1951. Not only is this nearly the entire history of the PRC, they were even controlled by the Qing Dynasty. Geopolitically, Tibet and Xinjiang are Chinese territory.
It might be worthwhile for China to conquer Korea, and you make a good point about how China would have an easier time invading South Korea than Taiwan. I don’t think this will be an issue by 2050 unless China becomes much more expansionist. Taiwan is a higher priority for them. If China invaded Korea it would probably just be a side effect of a broader war against the United States and its allies.
It’s worth noting that the Weimar Republic was a short-lived democracy that was unpopular among the German people from the very start, who (regardless of what they thought of Kaiser Wilhelm & the imperial family), had very strong expansionist / imperialist leanings. When the citizens of a republic don’t like the republic, it’s hardly surprising to see it destroy itself
This all seems pretty sensible.
How long do you think it would take for China to go from its current level of expansionism to a level that would make war with the US plausibly worthwhile? Could it happen in a generation, and what might precipitate it? I’m thinking about Weimar Germany to Nazi Germany, or (the reverse) Imperial Japan to Solid-State Electronics Japan.
The Uighur ethnic cleansing is Han (versus “Chinese” more generally, since the Uighurs are citizens of PRC) expansionism, right? Might that become more widespread and aggressive?
(Contra, there’s not much worth owning in southeast Asia or the Stan countries, and Russia would oppose outside influence in former Soviet states, based on past and current behavior.)
What about taking over the Korean peninsula? Wouldn’t be the first time. If China controlled DPRK’s territory, which I assume they could at will, they could much more easily get troops into ROK than the U.S. could, especially if your view on missile-based ocean-area denial is correct. The 30,000 U.S. troops in ROK would have no realistic hope of reinforcement so long as neither side had air or sea superiority. Does POTUS order them to fight to the last soldier, hoping that 30,000 dead or captured would motivate the country to fight back, or negotiate a peaceful retreat and withdrawal from ROK? I guess it depends on who’s POTUS.
I bet the modern PRC could stop another Operation Chromite literally dead in the water. If nothing else, spotting an incoming sea assault is so much easier than it was in 1950.
These same issues would apply if China attacked Japan.
Consider this claim from a recent SSC book review contest entrant, describing the Bretton Woods arrangement:
It seems to me there are positional status questions—is China just a participant in America’s world, or is it the Middle Kingdom?--but I think it’s hard to see a situation where China is better off annexing countries to be recalcitrant provinces rather than just trading with them while they’re American allies and protectorates. (Like, it’s really not obvious that China is better off with a conquered Korea than it is with a neighboring Korea.)
Re trade vs conquest—If smart people are in charge of a smart populace, I agree. But China’s South China Sea colonialism + attitude toward Taiwan suggest that they aren’t viewing things solely in those terms. They act like a people who find terminal value in throwing their weight around and in taking Taiwan, or at least in reducing the influence of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the area by doing those things.
Re your example of Bretton Woods—in an analogous situation, the U.S./world order would be ready to give China great trade terms, but China would not even perceive such terms to be possible—wouldn’t that give China an incentive to conquer instead of trade, as the Axis powers did? I am probably misinterpreting your point here. (Does China want more access to U.S./world markets than it already has?)
I think we’re looking at a game of chicken. I don’t think war between China and the US would be worthwhile for either side unless the opposing side folds. That might happen if the US population becomes much more isolationist. Such a shift could happen fast, slow or not at all.
I’m considering China’s actions towards the Uighurs and Tibet to not qualify as “expansionism” in this context because Xinjiang has been part of the PRC since 1949 and Tibet has been part of the PRC since 1951. Not only is this nearly the entire history of the PRC, they were even controlled by the Qing Dynasty. Geopolitically, Tibet and Xinjiang are Chinese territory.
It might be worthwhile for China to conquer Korea, and you make a good point about how China would have an easier time invading South Korea than Taiwan. I don’t think this will be an issue by 2050 unless China becomes much more expansionist. Taiwan is a higher priority for them. If China invaded Korea it would probably just be a side effect of a broader war against the United States and its allies.
It’s worth noting that the Weimar Republic was a short-lived democracy that was unpopular among the German people from the very start, who (regardless of what they thought of Kaiser Wilhelm & the imperial family), had very strong expansionist / imperialist leanings. When the citizens of a republic don’t like the republic, it’s hardly surprising to see it destroy itself