President Xi Jinping has tried to play down the escalating tension between China and the US, insisting in a recent speech that “there is no such thing as the Thucydides Trap”. He was citing the ancient Greek historian, who argued that whenever a new power emerges to vie for supremacy with an established one (as Athens did with Sparta in Thucydides’s day), then war between the two is inevitable. Alas, the signs are that, whatever Xi may say, the US and China are on a collision course. Beijing has been steadily building its military strength, developing a “carrier killer” missile specifically designed to sink US aircraft carriers, and deploying surface-to-air missiles on one of the disputed islands, which China asserts are her territory. The US has reacted by carrying out “huge war games in the Pacific to practice fighting China”. Sino-US relations seem set on a scary trajectory. We can only hope that this time, Thucydides is proved wrong. (Peter Popham, The Independent)
With the exception of Bernie, the views of the US electoral candidates are not reassuring. Hillary adopts aggressive stances on most occasions, while non-stop, endless warfare is a given under the Republicans anyway. “Making America great again” means even more money being wasted on the military for the benefit of the military-industrial complex. And, if Trump were President, it would happen impulsively, without planning or thought for consequences, which don’t bear thinking about. And this is without taking into account the dictator Xi, whose lust for power seems limitless. The runes are not positive.
Epicurus loathed war and those who make it happen. Needless to say, Epicureans and millions of other people will suffer if the crazies start a new one. For pride? For a few tiny islands?
I don’t think there is appitite for war on either the US or the Chinese side. What could happen is a trade war. If Trump is elected, he’ll raise tarrifs on Chinese made goods. This will provoke the Chinese to raise tarrifs themselves. When the Chinese consumer market is growing so fast, it doesn’t make any sense to enact policies that will restrict access to their economy. Also, the planned TPP trade agreement will alienate China by developing closer trade links with its neighbours but not China itself. Bernie Sanders wants to restrict trade with China, saying that outsourcing jobs there has cost Americans good jobs. I sympathise with that to an extent, but reducing trade with China will increase the cost of consumer goods, costing Americans jobs elsewhere due to the higher cost of living.
There is also an ethical argument in favour of trade and closer relations with China and other developing nations. If we prevent the outsourcing of jobs, millions of working class people in the developing world will become unemployed, leading to a massive increase in world poverty- which has declined dramatically in recent years largely because of increasing world trade. And we can’t even say for sure if trade with the developing world was reduced, the old jobs in the Rust Belt and places like Baltimore will return. Corporations may turn to automation, or simply go bankrupt because their business model has been so severely disrupted.
It’s true, of course, that human actions have consequences but I passionately reject the idea that such military confrontations are “inevitable.” That idea fed the neurotic perceptions of the pre-U.S. Civil War years, e.g., Seward’s lofty pronouncement that the political situation was doomed to endure an “irrepressible conflict.” A similar malaise infected Europe in the pre-WWI years.
One consequence of that belief: If wars or other human catastrophes are “inevitable” then we cannot hold policy makers responsible, they’re simply the tools of inevitable outcomes.