Some thoughts regarding "China Threat"

Friday, January 3, 2014

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Recently, I've noticed that there is a lot of concerns amongst American readers and my fellow bloggers regarding the so called "China Threat". Much of this is due to China's activities and forceful actions in South China Sea in addition to recent ADIZ announcement. I've even seen articles about whether or not conflict with China is inevitable. I think it's important to address why recent events have happened and why the entire "China Threat" is overblown.

First of all, the question is whether or not the military capabilities exist at current time for China to actually pose threat to America. The answer at the moment is no. Both the Chinese navy and air force have improved a lot in the recent years as they have received a lot of improved hardware, but they are still a generation or more behind USAF and USN on most areas of military hardware. On top of that, they are just starting to develop new doctrines in the modern warfare and the usage of modern weapon systems. It will take years to really get up to speed in these areas. Especially when they don't get to interact closely with other military forces around the world due to American pressure. On top of that, they also need to improve their training methodology in order to really be able to effectively use these new platforms. The most China can hope for in the next 15 years is to develop enough capabilities that can be employed in nearby theatre that it can deter or neutralize possible USN and USAF intervention in any nearby conflicts. Regardless of what you read elsewhere, this is the balance of power facing the decision makers in Beijing.

After we move past the capabilities part, the next situation is why would China want to push neighbours around if it cannot achieve its objectives militarily in any conflict with US interventions. In the case of Japan, it won't be able to achieve its objectives even if not facing US inventions. In order to answer that, one needs to look at the largest threats to the Chinese leadership. Anyone that lives in China for a while can tell you the biggest problems facing China today are pollution and corruption. Both of these issues are directly related to the current rule of law in China. The average folk can tolerate lack of free election and some unfairness in the society, but they have trouble dealing with choking pollution that is destroying their family's heath. For all of the progress made in China in the past 30 years, pollution is an issue that no one can get away with regardless of how wealthy or privileged they may be. Scarily enough, this is only getting worse. Back in 2006 when I visited China, I thought pollution and corruption are equally serious problems in ordinary people's lives. But with the choking pollution that I endured in my two week visit in 2013, I see a problem that no one in the country can ignore regardless of how apathetic toward politics they are. Every country's politicians try to divert public opinions on pressing issues by focusing them on something else. What does the Chinese leadership do? They use patriotism and economic growth to divert public from getting angry at the government about pollution and corruption. Outside of the unveiling of major ticket items like CV-16 Liaoning aircraft carrier, J-20 and J-31, there is nothing that unite the public as much as a query with the old enemy Japan. When I was in China, the two main types of major news discussions were on how it is unsafe to go outside and Japan related stuff. You can guess which type of news the Chinese leadership would rather see on TV. That's not to say the leadership in Beijing have a better solution. Most of the local government neglect environmental protection and local debts in order to solve the employment problem and get economic growth in the short term, so that they can get promoted. Corruption is pervasive in every level of society. Since the task of maintaining economic growth and finding employment are becoming ever more difficult in the face of a mountain of local debt and economic excesses that are in desperate need of rebalancing after 30+ years of continual growth, the Chinese leadership really face a very tough job of trying to keep the population happy.

It's pretty clear why Chinese leadership picked these countries as their target. I think most people in China who are 25 years or older have heard of someone around them who were either killed or tortured by Japanese soldiers in WWII. The anger against recent Japanese regimes denials are real and deserved. Even today, Japanese businesses are not allowed within the city of Nanjing due to what happened in WWII. There is a lot of desires within China "to teach little Japan a lesson" for not just what is going with Diaoyu/Senkaku islands but also for what happened in the past. The Chinese public is increasingly confident about China's power around the world. It feels that it should be able to dictate what happens in its backyard like the influence that America has over the Western hemisphere. Now there are many Americans (especially the power brokers) who believe that America needs to be able to dictate all around the world and supports its allies all around the world. Why should China accept that? At some point in the next 30 years, China will probably have a larger economy than America. While its military spending will probably be less, I think it's quite reasonable to assume that it will have second strongest military in the world. The Chinese government is simply feeding into this public enthusiasm to dominate the power balance in South China Sea and East China Sea. In reality, very few people in China (the selected nut cases that exist in every country) want to have a conflict, because that would be devastating for the Chinese economy. There are too many problems facing your average Chinese family for any reasonable person to want more than chatters about a conflict with Japan or Vietnam or Philippines.

If we are to objectively look at threats around China, India would be a far more serious threat. Even though Japan still has a very large economy and strong military, it is a declining in power and will continue to do so. Its debt is great than 200% of its GDP and growing at a very fast pace. Despite the declining Yen, trade balance really have not changed in Japan's favour and it will have to continue to import a lot of natural resources in the future since it does not have any. Worst of all, Japan's demographics is becoming a huge problem since young people are not getting married and having kids. On the other hand, India is only going to continue to grow and become more powerful in the next 30 years. At some point, it will become the third largest economy in the world and compete for the same natural resources that China would like to access. Worst of all to China, it can also disrupt China's trade and energy routes from middle east and Africa. At some point, China would like to have a strong enough navy to defend its trade routes in Indian Ocean against possible threats from India. So, why doesn't Chinese leadership focus on India than Japan? The general Chinese media portrayal of India is one of comedy about the various social, economical and transportation problems in the country. It found the one country in the world that is experiencing even more problems in its growth than China. Because India is looked at comically while Japan is looked at with much anger by the Chinese public, it's quite clear why China is directing far more of its energy toward Japan than India.

So, I think it's important not to overly drum up the so called "China Threat". There are areas of competition between China and America, but much of what is going in China can be explained away if we look rationally at the dynamics of the Chinese society. The worst thing we can do is to not try to understand why another country makes the decisions that it does.