Rumors Of War: Is War Between The U.S. And China Inevitable?

Is War With China Becoming Inevitable?

Pat Buchanan

Tensions are rising between the U.S. and China, as the list of ideological, political and economic clashes continues to lengthen. And there is a transparent new reality: China seems in no mood to back down.

“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ominously warned on Friday.

He spelled out what he meant to commentator Larry O’Connor:

“The Chinese have now begun to amass huge forces against India in the north. … They absolutely need the United States to be their ally and partner in this fight.”

Pompeo had just returned from a Tokyo gathering of foreign ministers from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad,” the group of four democracies — U.S., Japan, Australia, India — whose purpose is to discuss major Indo-Pacific geostrategic issues.

Exactly what kind of “ally and partner” the U.S. is to be “in the fight” between India and China over disputed terrain in the Himalayan Mountains was left unexplained. We have no vital interest in where the Line of Control between the most populous nations on earth should lie that would justify U.S. military involvement with a world power like China.

Yet, tensions are rising between the U.S. and China, as the list of ideological, political and economic clashes continues to lengthen.

And there is a transparent new reality: China seems in no mood to back down.

Xi makes no apology for — indeed, he is proud of — using state power to impose the state ideology upon the peoples he rules, and he openly repudiates our democratic values as inapplicable in his country.

Our rejection of China’s claims to virtually all of the reefs and atolls in the South China Sea is also being ignored. Beijing’s warnings grow louder and more pointed as the U.S. continues to send warships, the latest being the USS John McCain, close to islets claimed by China.

What is our strategy here? Are we prepared for a naval and air clash in these waters? What would be the U.S. strategic goal?

The Chinese are now responding angrily and defiantly to what they see as the provocations of sending high-level U.S. officials, and selling new weapons, to Taiwan, which China regards as its lost province.

Again, what is our purpose in playing the Taiwan card now?

If it is to provoke a fight, then are we prepared for a war in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea? Do we think the Chinese will capitulate?

When this election is over, this country has to think through what we are and are not willing to fight China for.

Xi Jinping dismisses our concerns over Hong Kong and the Uighurs, and he appears willing to fight for Taiwan and for what Beijing holds in the South China Sea, rather than see it permanently lost.

Are we?