A few days ago, a US Air Force EP-3 surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet, which crashed into the sea, before the EP-3 was forced by another Chinese fighter to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. Currently, both the US plane and its crew are being detained by China. This is the most visible military conflict between the two countries along the Chinese coast in recent years. Furthermore, a new Bush administration advocating a tougher stance against the PRC has just taken office. Whether the incident will cause the US-China relationship to further deteriorate has become the center of much international concern.
It is inevitable for the US to escalate surveillance of Chinese military forces. In recent years, China has continued strengthening its armed services. In particular, it has placed large numbers of missiles and advanced fighter jets along its south east coast, posing a threat to countries in the region and to US troops stationed in Asia. Since the Bush administration took over the White House, it has advocated treating China as a strategic competitor, giving the US even more reason to monitor the movement and capability of Chinese military forces.
As far as Beijing is concerned, it must be extremely upset that the US has strengthened its surveillance of China. China has always been especially sensitive on issues concerning territory and state sovereignty. Naturally, China does not want the US to monitor its military through close-range air surveillance. As well, the recent defection to the US of a Chinese military official has already given the US an opportunity to obtain a great deal of military information about China. The way that the Chinese fighter jets closely tailgated the American surveillance plane was essentially a warning to the US.
So far, both sides have remained rational in the handling of the incident. The US has simply indicated its hope that Beijing will follow international practice and return both the plane and the crew. As for China, it has simply issued a verbal protest about US conduct, without taking any further action. Both sides are apparently being cautious.
Although the Bush administration sees China as a strategic competitor, it does not intend to turn China into a military opponent. After all, China is no Iraq. Taking an extremely hard-line position could provoke a strong reaction from Beijing. In terms of military strength, although the US enjoys an absolute advantage, once the two sides began fighting, the warfare would affect the neighboring region and possibly even the US mainland. The risks are extremely high.
The fact of the matter is, economic development remains Beijing's top priority. A war with the US would be detrimental to China's economic development. Experts from the West believe Chinese military power continues to trail far behind that of the US. Based on the long-range offensive capability of the US, if China fights the US, China will suffer devastating losses.
Currently, Beijing appears to be testing the Bush administration's bottom line on its China policy through an escalation of pressure. At the same time, Washington will decide at the end of this month on arms sales to Taiwan. China may hope to make strategic exchanges with the US over the current incident: they may choose to let the incident come to a smooth and peaceful end and hope to receive in exchange a more conservative stance by the US in terms of arms sales to Taiwan.
Whether China's strategy will be successful depends on its diplomatic maneuvering and the Bush administration's appraisal of the incident. The fact that Chinese fighter jets tailgated the US plane closely in a provocative manner and that Beijing has detained both the plane and its crew may have at least one important effect. The hawkish faction in the Bush administration will earn support for its theory that China is a future military threat to the US necessitating the adoption of counteractive measures. Under such circumstances, Taiwan should be able to obtain the advanced weapons that it badly needs.
If the US decides to adopt a totally antagonistic policy toward China, it will have to pay a high economic and political price. These are issues that the Bush administration will certainly take into consideration. China's detention of the US aircraft and crew is therefore a very risky strategy. The longer the detention, the greater the pressure on Beijing. This is because under tremendous pressure itself at home and abroad, the Bush administration will have to take on an increasingly uncompromising attitude toward China.
As neither China nor the US intends to maintain a totally antagonistic relationship, the incident should quickly come to an end. Beijing will surely try to win as much diplomatic support as possible through the incident. The incident also reveals that with the continuing growth of Chinese military strength, the competition for supremacy between China and the US will gradually begin in the Asia-Pacific region. Conflicts and adjustments will become the model for interaction between the US and China. In the end, it will all depend on the strategies and decisions of the two sides.
Wang Kao-cheng is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University.
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