I think there’s something missing from James Holmes’s post at The National Interest on China’s strategy and tactics and the South China Sea and that’s the notion of a hierarchy of values. He writes:
The ornerier the better when you’re playing the part of Screwtape. So it’s with a whiff of fire and brimstone that I take issue with my friend Gordon Chang, who maintains that “China Wants Confrontation in the South China Sea.†Hence Beijing’s decision to disclose that USS Hopper executed a freedom-of-navigation cruise last week while Washington initially remained silent about it. Gordon regards Chinese bombast as proof that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders are spoiling for a fight of some sort, rather than as yet more proof that bombast is encoded in Communist China’s political DNA.
Keyword: wants. It’s the job of all strategic leaders to prepare for confrontation. To do otherwise courts disaster should confrontation come. But few sane leaders crave strife.
Let’s start reasoning from premises. The first thing that should be considered is Clausewitz’s formulation: war is politics by other means. The second is that politics is important in every country—democratic, authoritarian, or somewhere in between. The third is that China’s leaders want to stay in power.
Now to some observations. The Chinese want China to assume its rightful place in the world whatever that might mean. And the Chinese leaders think that economics and foreign policy are zero-sum games. One side wins; the other loses.
The implication of that is that for China to assume its rightful place in the world the United States must be diminished.
Now let’s weave those all together. The Chinese leaders may not want war but they may choose it if they believe it will advance China’s place in the world, if it will diminish the United States, or if they believe it’s necessary for them to retain hold of the reins. IMO all of those are more important in their hierarchy of values than maintaining the status quo or avoiding war.
