Cold War II: Putting Pressure on China

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2021/08/05/india-indigenous-aircraft-carrier/

Indian tanks have been seen on maneuvers less than thirty miles from the Chinese border in Ladakh. While the Ladakh-Tibet border does not represent an existential threat to Beijing, the area has been contentious since the two modern nations were formed in the 1940's. China doesn't want to see any kind of turmoil or trouble on the Tibet border – but you can be sure Washington is doing all it can to encourage India to make that trouble.

India is also poised to launch its own homegrown aircraft carrier – an additional headache for Chinese strategists in the Indian Ocean and potentially the South China Sea. The carrier could play a role in the Strait of Malacca, or in connection to events in places like Sri Lanka.

India has its own reasons for dispute with China but the US has been and will continue to do all it can to urge New Delhi to 'turn up the heat' as it were and coordinate with American strategic planning.

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2021/08/06/us-arms-sale-taiwan/

The Biden administration has also approved a significant package of weapons sales for Taiwan – a move sure to anger Beijing. This is not the first package in recent years nor will it be the last.

As both sides increase their 'readiness' and bolster their arms, the timetable for conflict runs the risk of increase. At some point planners will push for combat as their calculus informs them that further preparations on the part of the adversary will make their potential for victory that much more difficult. Essentially it's 'fight now' because it's going to be that much harder later.

But such questions are not merely in the province of military strategy. There is the larger set of political considerations. The US is limited in what it can hope to accomplish in terms of an all out war with China. At the same time, Washington wants to deter China, put pressure on the Xi administration or even better lead him to make a faulty move and face military failure – a failure combined with a country on fire as conflict breaks out in Xinjiang, Tibet, internally, and elsewhere. It's a chess game but one that destroys lives and potentially whole societies. As I've described it before, it's a case of Beasts at play.

And then there are the recent war games in South Korea and yet more weapons sales. Usually this is viewed through the lens of Pyongyang-Seoul tensions, and while that's true enough, in this case it's also part of the larger China equation. The US wants to flex its muscle and keep China nervous on all sides. The Kim regime is precarious and Beijing doesn't fully trust the leadership. There are a lot of possibilities. At the very least should a full conflict erupt, it would be in the US interest to destabilise North Korea. It would provide a reason for stepped up military activity on the edge of Manchuria and certainly in the Yellow (East China) Sea – prospects Beijing does not want to see.

Finally in Central Asia there is clearly a move on the part of the mostly Turkic 'Stan' regimes to look to China for business, finance and infrastructure deals and yet to continue to rely upon Moscow for security. From the perspective of their authoritarian regimes this both plays off the great powers but it also keeps the nations in a somewhat neutral corner. They are also maintaining relations with the West (the EU being the most attractive option). Relations with the United States are still present and yet increasingly limited as the US is clearly losing out in Central Asia – and generally speaking, none of these regimes can trust Washington.

But for these nations it's still not an easy road. Moscow and Beijing (and to a degree Tehran) are all but being driven into each other's arms by US machinations against them but there are still rivalries and tensions between them and Central Asia is one of the places this will become manifest. The US will want to destabilise the region and exacerbate the problems – leading to a heightening of these very tensions. The easiest way to achieve this is to funnel money and arms into the hands of Salafist fighters, something the US has done, is doing, and will continue to do – despite the official narratives that are presented to the public and the policy audience.

At present the US has to 'get through' the debacle and bad optics of the Afghanistan pull-out. After that, when the dust settles the US will seek allies with the Salafists of the region and even the Taliban. China knows this and reports are emerging of Beijing and Moscow trying to work out security agreements with regard to Central Asia and a programme to combine intelligence and counter-terrorism efforts.