In his latest Washington Post column Fareed Zakaria says that China (read: Xi) is bungling its foreign policy:
As the United States has faltered in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, many experts have warned that China is using the situation to enhance its influence across the world. This is part of a familiar pattern in which the United States has worried that its competitors or adversaries were 10 feet tall and growing. But in fact, a striking feature of the recent international landscape has been China’s strategic blunders.
He then produces a long list of things the Chinese have done—the border conflict with India; sinking or harassing Vietnamese, Malaysia, and Japan; cyberattacks directed at Australia; confrontational language—as evidence. Is that bungling?
More than 150 years ago Lord Palmerston famously said of England “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” China, too, has eternal interests and I would claim that when it pursues them it is not “bungling”.
China’s interests are broadly irredentist, not just in terms of territory but in terms of stature. They want Chinese territory at its greatest extent, not just Hong Kong and Taiwan but parts of Russia, Korea, Nepal, India, Burma, and Vietnam as well, along with being seen as the uncontested, pre-eminent country in the world. When viewed through that prism, the actions fit together into a coherent whole. They are reclaiming their territory (India) or redressing failures of obeisance (Australia). Far from being “bungling” they’re completely consistent and successful.
What I think that Mr. Zakaria sees as bungling is failing to pursue his idealistic internationalist view of foreign policy. Sadly, the world remains full of self-interested countries, determinedly pursuing their eternal interests.
I started out with Zakaria’s position, but I have come to think you are right: China is pursuing and irredentist policy. They intend to be the hegemon of at least the Western Pacific, meaning everything west of Midway.
I do not know if that is possible. We still have an enormous collection of bases all around the Eurasian periphery (some 900 or so), and we have numerous allies with advanced economies and militaries. Japan has the second largest navy in the world, after us. China must believe they can intimidate our allies into abandoning us.
I also used to thing a peaceful coexistence was possible. Now I am not so sure. The navalists over at Cdr Salamander are discussing how commandos can sabotage Chinese shipyards. My two cents was that would lead to nuclear war on the American mainland. It seems a lot of people either don’t care or think China can be cowed into subservience.
Most European bloggers seem to think America is well-advanced into collapse. Vineyard of the Saker, Dmitri Orlov, Reminiscences of the Future, Pepe Escobar, Anatoly Karlin, Moon of Alabama are examples. For what it’s worth, most are expatriate Russians living in America; some are unreconstructed communists. There is more than a little schadenfreude there.
But if everyone thinks they can win, then we are back at August, 1914.
Europeans have thought that for more than 200 years. Who knows? This time they might be right.