China's SCS Strategy Thread

[Jura The idiot]

there're no posts in https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/south-china-sea-strategies-for-other-nations-not-china.t7302/ anymore, so here
Navy says it won't be deterred by Chinese-built islands

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A Navy officer aboard a mammoth U.S. aircraft carrier brimming with F18 fighter jets said Saturday that American forces would continue to patrol the South China Sea wherever “international law allows us” when asked if

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could restrain them in the disputed waters.

Lt. Cmdr. Tim Hawkins told The Associated Press on board the USS Carl Vinson that the Navy has carried out routine patrols at sea and on air in the strategic waters for 70 years to promote regional security and guarantee the unimpeded flow of trade that’s crucial for Asian and U.S. economies.

“International law allows us to operate here, allows us to fly here, allows us to train here, allows us to sail here, and that’s what we’re doing and we’re going to continue to do that,” Hawkins said on the flight deck of the 95,000-ton warship, which anchored at Manila Bay while on a visit to the Philippines.

When President Donald Trump came to power, Southeast Asian officials were uncertain how deep the U.S. would get involved in the issues in the South China Sea, where his predecessor, Barack Obama, was a vocal critic of China’s increasingly aggressive actions to assert its territorial claims.

“We’re committed,” Hawkins told reporters. “We’re here.”

In December, the Trump administration outlined a new security strategy that emphasized countering China’s rise and reinforcing the U.S. presence in the Indo-Pacific region, where Beijing and Washington have accused each other of stoking a dangerous military buildup and fought for wider influence.

Washington stakes no claims in the disputed region, but has declared that the peaceful resolution of the long-raging disputes, along with the maintenance of freedom of navigation and overflight, are in its national interest.

U.S. officials have said American warships will continue so-called freedom of navigation operations that challenge China’s territorial claims in virtually the entire South China Sea, including on seven artificial islands China built mostly from submerged reefs in the Spratly archipelago. That places Washington in a continuing collision course with China’s interests in the volatile region.

In January, China accused the U.S. of trespassing in its territorial waters when the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Hopper sailed near the Chinese-guarded Scarborough Shoal, which is disputed by Beijing and Manila. After voicing a strong protest, China said it would take “necessary measures” to protect its sovereignty.

The nuclear-powered Carl Vinson patrolled the disputed sea prior to its Manila visit but did not conduct a freedom of navigation operation, Hawkins said. “That’s not to say that we won’t or we can’t, but we have not, up to this point,” he said.

China has also opposed the Philippine military’s deployment of a Japanese-donated Beechcraft King Air patrol plane in late January to Scarborough, a Philippine official said on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the issue publicly. Chinese officials have relayed their objection to their Philippine counterparts, the official said.

China and Japan have their own territorial rifts in the East China Sea.

There was no immediate comment from Philippine military officials about China’s opposition to the surveillance flights at Scarborough using Japanese or even Philippine aircraft.

U.S. and Chinese officials have declared they have no intention of going to war in the disputed sea, but their governments have projected their firepower and clout in a delicate play of gunboat diplomacy and deterrence.

“We’re prepared to conduct a spectrum of operations, whether that’s providing humanitarian assistance, disaster relief in the time of an emergency, or whether we have to conduct operations that require us to send strike fighters ashore,” Hawkins said. “We don’t have to use that spectrum, but we’re ready to, in case we need to.”

The U.S. Navy invited journalists Saturday on board the 35-year-old Carl Vinson, which was packed with 72 aircraft, including F18 Hornets, assault helicopters and surveillance aircraft. President Rodrigo Duterte has tried to back down from what he said was a Philippine foreign policy that was steeply oriented toward the U.S., but has allowed considerable engagements with his country’s treaty ally to continue while reviving once-frosty ties with China in a bid to bolster trade tries and gain infrastructure funds.

U.S. Navy officials flew some of Duterte’s Cabinet officials as well as journalists Wednesday on board the carrier, where they viewed F18 jets landing and taking off as the ship patrolled the South China Sea. There are reports that the Carl Vinson will also visit Vietnam in its current deployment in the region, but Hawkins declined to provide details of future trips.

China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei have long contested ownership of the South China Sea, where a bulk of the trade and oil that fuel Asia’s bullish economies passes through.

 

[Phead128]

Over 60% of merchant traffic in South China Sea is CHINESE MERCHANT SHIPPING, so no nation on earth is more invested in open seas, especially in SCS, than China.

So the idea of "Freedom of Navigation" is just a Strawman, because no nation on earth is more interested in OPEN SEALANES in SCS than China, which depends on it for it's exports to Europe and imports from Middle East.

There is a significant concern in China that US navy will blocade the SCS shipping lanes in the event of Taiwan independence crisis. US navy is the likely one blocking sea traffic, not China.

China is inheriting responsibility for protecting the sealanes from US navy as China restores her rightful place as a regional power. US goodwill to patrol the sealanes will not last forever, so it's up to China to protect her own vital interests.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

However, an analysis of the built-up infrastructure on the islands suggests that the seven Chinese-reclaimed islands in the Spratlys today house over 40 different radar facilities (see interactive map below). Such a network would represent a significant enhancement of China’s ‘C4ISTAR’ (a commonly used term for command, control, communications, computers, information/intelligence, surveillance, targeting acquisition and reconnaissance) capabilities, enabling:

China’s radar installations in the Spratly Islands – what do they tell us about its ambitions for the South China Sea?

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China’s land reclamation activities in the South China Sea are currently focused on the installation of military infrastructure on its new islands. It has long been known that these new developments include runways, port facilities and military defences, however, in a significant boost to China’s surveillance and intelligence capabilities, as well as its power-projection efforts, new imagery indicates that they also feature a sprawling new network of radars of varying shapes and sizes.

By

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, Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security,

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, Research Fellow for Chinese Defence Policy and Military Modernisation, and Laurence Taylor, Visiting Researcher.

As part of an effort to strengthen its territorial claims, China has been working apace to expand what were once natural underwater features in the contested waters of the South China Sea. Along with environmental destruction caused by dredging and concreting coral atolls, China’s steady militarisation of the South China Sea features it claims has drawn considerable international concern. Despite President Xi Jinping’s 2015 statement that China did not intend to militarise such features, by 2016 it had turned its Spratly outposts into what some analysts have termed ‘unsinkable aircraft carriers’.

Between 2013 and 2015, it reclaimed 11.74km2 – or 17 times more than the four other Spratly Island claimants combined over the past 40 years. By 2016, China had reclaimed approximately 12.95km2. Despite official statements to the contrary, China’s reclamation activities are continuing, albeit at a significantly slower rate than before. The current focus of Chinese activity is on the completion of infrastructure on its new islands including aircraft hangars, possible missile emplacements, underground bunkers and storage facilities, accommodation, and administrative buildings.

What’s the purpose of China’s new installations?
New installations on the features include 3km-long runways, large naval-grade berthing facilities and a range of military defences, such as large anti-aircraft guns, and close-in weapons systems (CIWS). While such assets are highly visible, radar facilities are more difficult to identify. However, an analysis of the built-up infrastructure on the islands suggests that the seven Chinese-reclaimed islands in the Spratlys today house over 40 different radar facilities (see interactive map below). Such a network would represent a significant enhancement of China’s ‘C4ISTAR’ (a commonly used term for command, control, communications, computers, information/intelligence, surveillance, targeting acquisition and reconnaissance) capabilities, enabling:

• Interconnectivity between China’s reclaimed features across the South China Sea, probably with the new Southern Theatre Command and the Central Military Commission’s new Joint Battle Center;
• A new signals intelligence (SIGINT) capability and probable People’s Liberation Army (PLA) SIGINT deployments on the islands, offering considerable new reach into Southeast Asia and beyond, connected to China’s existing SIGINT collection network;
• Space, cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, with the likely presence of the PLA’s new Strategic Support Force;
• Connectivity with China’s expanding Beidou Satellite Navigation system, for both military and civilian applications;
• Command and control for PLAN, coast guard and maritime militia operations;
• The protection of China’s new seaborne nuclear deterrent including C4ISTAR support for its new airborne and subsurface anti-submarine warfare capabilities in the South China Sea. (This is strategically important for the protection of China’s SSBN fleet of Jin-class submarines operating from Hainan island);
• Early warning and stealth detection via the high-frequency (HF) arrays on Cuarteron and Fiery Cross reefs. (This could be part of what is perceived by the US to be China’s anti-access area-denial strategy to hold the US Navy at bay should hostilities break out);
• Connectivity to the PLA Rocket Force command and control network and guidance systems, specifically China’s increasingly lethal precision-strike ballistic missiles the DF-21D and the DF-26;
• The further enforcement of any air defence identification zone that China chooses to create in the South China Sea. Such radars could be used to further challenge US and Australian patrols near the islands.

A closer look reveals presence of radars
A February 2018

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in the Philippine Daily Inquirer offered an insight of unprecedented clarity and detail into the sheer scale and pace of construction on Chinese-occupied features in the Spratly Islands. The accompanying photos show an impressive level of construction, as

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by the CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, including what look like state-of-the-art garrison facilities, airbases, naval berths, paved roads and even agriculture. The photos also clearly show new radar facilities on all of China’s reclaimed features in the Spratly Islands.

Radomes – possibly housing radar or satellite communications equipment – have sprung up across all of the features, which also bristle with an assortment of antennas and communications arrays. While defence analysts have used satellite imagery to track the progress of big-ticket construction developments, few in-depth analyses of the radar, satellite and communications facilities have been conducted. While most analyses mention ‘radar facilities’, few specify the types of radar and their possible military application.

The ‘big three’ reclaimed islands – Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs – house C4ISTAR facilities in line with what one would expect to be long-range capabilities. Fiery Cross Reef plays host to seven radomes atop observation towers, a ground-level radome farm of various sizes and a HF array radar facility. Mischief Reef houses four radomes atop observation towers (two small, one tall and large, one short and large) and three radomes atop observation towers on other sites on the island, as well as a ground-level radomes and a radar. Subi Reef boasts an impressive collection, consisting of at least 12 radomes atop observation towers and what appear to be two ‘elephant cage’ direction-finding radars.

The smaller reefs host a significant array of radars too. Gaven and Hughes reefs are each furnished with two radomes and an observation tower, and Johnson South Reef houses two radomes atop observation towers and two stand-alone ground-level radomes. Cuarteron Reef is particularly interesting, boasting the widest range of arrays, including two ground-level radomes, a HF array, as well as one large and one small observation tower topped with radomes.

Little is known publicly about the exact extent of the C4ISTAR capabilities on these islands. Neither radar operating frequencies nor their size can be deduced from the size of the radomes or radar observation towers, and without knowing the angles, height and resolution from which photos of the islands were taken, little mensuration is possible.

Deductions can, however, be made about the types of radars in place on the islands. For example, while some radars might be utilised for weather monitoring such as Doppler radar, HF arrays are typically used for early warning and detection at great distance, sometimes up to several thousand kilometres (see for example the Jindalee Operational Radar Network in Australia, which has a publicised maximum range of 3,000km). Furthermore, when installed on top of observation towers, radomes have an extended operating range and target detection size, giving expanded surveillance and early warning capabilities. Lastly, multiple ground-level domes of various sizes could conceal satellite antennas serving as satellite-communications (SATCOM) ground earth stations, space-tracking systems or SIGINT collection systems

 

[Hendrik_2000]

(cont)

When applying this analysis to Chinese installations on the Spratly Islands, deductions can indeed be made as to the utility of the radars in place. The three centre-most islands (Gaven, Johnson South and Hughes reefs) have similar radar setups consisting of two ground-level radomes and at least one elevated radome on a tower. Given this reduced configuration, it is likely that these are used for surveillance within the island chains.

The easternmost island, Mischief, has a substantial radar setup, partially to support aircraft runway operations, but also to extend its visibility over the water, potentially to as far as the Philippine island of Palawan, some 280km away. Subi Reef, the northernmost island, has multiple elevated radomes, again likely to support aircraft runway operations.

There is likely to be an overlap in ranges between radar on the island and those located at bases on the Paracel Islands. Of particular interest are the radar setups on the two southernmost islands, Fiery Cross and Cuarteron reefs. Along with a substantial number of elevated radomes, these two islands also contain what appear to be HF radar installations consisting of numerous pole antennas indicating increased surveillance of air and sea traffic around the Malacca Straits and the coasts of Malaysia and Singapore.


A

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is cited as having suggested the radars located on Chinese islands in the Spratlys had a range of a range of 50 to 300km. Given their size and location, the HF installations on Fiery Cross and Cuarteron reefs are likely to be over-the-horizon surface wave (OTH-SW) systems, as opposed to systems which exploit radio wave reflection off ionized layers in the atmosphere. OTH-SW systems utilise the Earth’s curvature to propagate high frequency radio waves over distances of several hundred kilometres. The Chinese have been developing such systems since the 1960s, with the

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for their maximum operating range lying at around 400km. While the system on Fiery Cross Reef is likely to be smaller, if it is networked with the system on nearby Cuarteron, then the combined capability would allow for improved resolution.

Paving the way for enhanced power projection
The reclaimed islands in the Spratlys are not simply fortified flag markers for China’s claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea, demarcated by the so-called ‘nine-dashed line’. The islands serve as a network of platforms for the PLA’s C4ISTAR capabilities, enhancing significantly China’s projection of military power into the region.

Although the use of radomes by the PLA conceals the type and orientation of C4ISTAR capabilities on China’s new island bases, we can make a number of deductions from the locations of such infrastructure. Some radomes will be part of the CIWS protecting the islands, while others could be used for surface-to-air missile launch sites. Some will be tracking maritime traffic and foreign naval activity in the vicinity, others will be used to cover the airspace above and near to the islands. Others likely support air-traffic control and weather-monitoring activities. Some of the antenna towers will support microwave communications for line-of-site communications, as well as base stations for the 4G telecoms network being installed, according to

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. Some of the radomes will conceal SATCOM antennas for connectivity between the islands. The radome farms are of particular significance – are they SIGINT dishes intercepting satellite signals or ground earth Stations? Could they be space-tracking facilities? What is clear is that the militarisation of the Chinese Spratly Islands continues – and a network of surveillance and early warning capabilities will be a game-changer in China’s favour.

 

[antiterror13]

Interesting articles

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Rodrigo Duterte wants to create ‘balance’ by sending troops to China for training

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 21 February, 2018, 9:38pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 21 February, 2018, 11:32pm
Catherine Wong
Duterte said there was a need to “balance” the training of Filipino soldiers, who have a strong bond with the US military, The Philippine Star reported.
“Most of the Filipino soldiers … would immediately choose America. They have forged such a bond,” Duterte was quoted as saying on Monday during an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Chinese-Filipino Business Club in Manila.
“My suggestion is the next batch should go directly to China ... so there would be a balance,” he said. “I’m sure there is an academy there to train good professional Chinese soldiers. Maybe China can accommodate them also and let them ... not really fight the Americans, but terrorism.”
A former Philippine politician says the long-standing military bond with the US isn’t compatible with Chinese training. Photo: AFP
The proposal was met with optimism by Chinese military experts, who said it would help Duterte’s push to rebalance ties between the US and China, as well as consolidate his control over the military.
But in the Philippines, a former politician was sceptical, saying the long-standing military bond with the United States would not be compatible with Chinese training.
The development came as the Philippines’ envoy to China on Monday expressed concern over the rising risk of “miscalculation” and armed conflict in the South China Sea amid Beijing’s efforts to challenge US dominance in the disputed waters.
Several recent media and think tank reports have said Beijing appears to have expanded its communication links and other facilities on artificial islands in the area.
Rodrigo Duterte says Chinese military island bases are there to oppose US, not Philippines
“This is a show of trying to create a balance between these two powers that would serve the Philippines’ own interests,” said Xu Liping, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Xu said the two countries could “start with cooperation on counterterrorism” before they expanded their military cooperation.
Military commentator and retired People’s Liberation Army colonel Yue Gang said the move would also help Duterte consolidate his control over the military.
“Ever since Duterte started improving relations with China, the military has always expressed an opposing view,” Yue said. “It seems that Duterte does not have very firm control over the military … working with China can strengthen his influence over personnel choices in the future.”
But Roilo Golez, a former Philippine congressman and National Security Adviser who oversaw the country’s counterterrorism and national security programme, was sceptical.
“The AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] doctrines and equipment are generally compatible with those of the US military, the US being our treaty ally since 1951,” he said. “That cannot be altered to adjust to the PLA.”
Golez also said the language barrier and the Chinese military’s lack of recent experience in real combat may be obstacles.
Under a 1951 treaty, the Philippines and the United States must protect each other if attacked. Photo: AFP
The Pentagon in June announced it was providing Philippine forces with security assistance and training in the areas of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the fight against terrorism in conflict-torn Marawi.
It said it had an additional 300 to 500 troops in the country to support regular training and activities, on top of the regular 50 to 100 special forces troops in the south of the country on rotational exercises.
Also in June, China donated thousands of guns worth some 50 million yuan (US$7.8 million) to help Manila in its battle against Islamist gunmen in the southern city.
Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua said at the time that “the Chinese side would like to explore the possibility of joint training, intelligence sharing and joint military exercises in the area of fighting terrorism”.
Philippines seethes over Chinese build-up in South China Sea
Speaking at Monday’s event, Duterte said the proposal did not mean Manila would cut ties with its traditional ally, the United States, which he has previously accused of interfering with the Philippines’ internal issues.
“Let us be very clear on this – we are on good terms with America. Special terms, military alliance – that’s why we cannot enter into another military alliance with any country because there’s only one,” Duterte said, referring to the Mutual Defence Treaty between Manila and Washington.
“The Philippines now is veering towards China. But we maintain good relations. We have this [Philippines-US] pact defence deal, we will honour it, I don’t know when. But if we go to war, everything wilts,” he said.

 

[antiterror13]

Another view from Duterte ... honest and brave man!
Rodrigo Duterte says Chinese military island bases are there to oppose US, not Philippines

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte tried to allay fears over China’s construction of military bases on man-made islands in the South China Sea, saying they are a defence against the US, not made to attack Asian states.

“It’s not intended for us,” he said in a speech to Chinese-Filipino businessmen on Monday. “The contending ideological powers of the world or the geopolitics has greatly changed.
“It’s really intended against those who the Chinese think would destroy them and that is America.”
Duterte also blamed past Philippine governments for not building up the country’s defences in the Spratly archipelago - known in China as the Nansha Islands - at a time when Beijing was only starting to build its artificial islands.
“We did nothing,” the firebrand leader complained.
Philippines objects to China’s naming of undersea features
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which US$3 trillion worth of goods passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have overlapping claims.
A handout picture made available by the Armed Forces of the Philippines Public Affairs Office in 2015 shows construction at Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea by China. Duterte has tried to close the divide between the Philippines and China. Photo: Armed Forces of the Philippines via EPA
The United States has criticised China’s build-up of military facilities on the islands and is concerned they could be used to restrict free movement along the trade route.
Infographics: Can China's powerful new navy behemoth outclass America's warships?
China and the Philippines have long sparred over the South China Sea, but relations have improved considerably under Duterte, who has been courting Beijing in hopes of winning business and investment.
In 2014, Beijing started expanding the seven features it occupies in the Spratlys, reclaiming and building artificial islands which are now becoming military bases with airstrips, ports and anti-air and surface-to-surface missiles sites based on satellite and aerial photos.
China has built seven new military bases in South China Sea
Duterte defended himself from critics who say he is not doing enough to protect the country’s interests in the South China Sea.
He said he “will not commit the lives of the Filipinos only to die unnecessarily, I will not go into a battle which I can never win.”
This image provided by CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe shows a satellite image of Fiery Cross Reef in Spratly island chain in the South China Sea, annotated by the source to show areas where China has conducted construction work above ground during 2017. Photo: CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe via AP
He also played down concerns about the recent moves by China to assign Chinese names to several undersea features in Benham Rise, an area the size of Greece in the Pacific Ocean which the United Nations awarded to the Philippines, as part of its continental shelf.
“That is ours, period,” he said. “I am not allowing any expedition any more. China went there and put up markers.
China’s rising challenge to US raises risk of South China Sea conflict, Philippines warns
“Those are just directions and of course, they can do it in Chinese, it’s their dialect.”
Before ending his speech, he cracked a joke offering the Philippines to become a province of China. “If you want, you can make us a province, like Fujian. Province of the Philippines, Republic of China,” he added.

 

[Lethe]

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Yet the neither the Quadrilateral nor the term “

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” are about ganging up on China. These states feel insecure because China has taken over a major global trade route upon which they depend, militarised it, and then brushed off their concerns.

That's right folks. Maintaining hundreds of military bases all over the world, including a great many in the Asia-Pacific region, and waging so many wars around the world for so long that formalities such as declarations of war, civilian oversight, etc. seem like quaint relics from yesteryear -- this is just the "international order" to which all other states are expected to accede.

Meanwhile, pursuing one's territorial claims in one's immediate region and developing capabilities to protect one's fundamental economic interests, while doing nothing to threaten the trading interests of others, is held to be "revisionist" and unacceptable.

China, please, deal with these idiots. Become stronger than they can ever imagine, yet act magnanimously to ensure peaceful relations with all honourable actors and seek compromises in disputes that respect the sovereignty and dignity of all parties. Make these idiots choke on the memories of their decaying world order and all its lies and hypocrisies.

 

[Rachmaninov]

The main problem to me is that China is extremely poor at convincing anybody other than the Chinese people, and they are losing this marketing war pretty badly to the west. When I think about it, I couldn't really find many examples of things that China did to help improve its own image and sometimes it made me wonder whether they really cared.

 

[antiterror13]

The main problem to me is that China is extremely poor at convincing anybody other than the Chinese people, and they are losing this marketing war pretty badly to the west. When I think about it, I couldn't really find many examples of things that China did to help improve its own image and sometimes it made me wonder whether they really cared.

I don't think they care, because whatever they do ........ western medias always spin the stories and find something bad about China, clear and obvious example is China's investments in Africa which is super positive for Africa people but you see what the western medias spin the stories

 

[Lethe]

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Incidentally, Gen. Holmes also made the odd proclamation during a February

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at Nellis Air Force Base that “China was built to play in an infinite game, and my goal is to try to make sure that my grandchildren and your grandchildren have options other than giving massages to Chinese tourists when they grow up.” This sort of retrograde statement would normally get an airman at the rank of major reprimanded, but for a flag officer it passes without comment. (In addition to being a strange slur to make against massage therapists, it overlooks the high probability that these jobs will be replaced by robots in two generations.)

There is also a growing consensus that other countries play great-power politics while the United States merely participates in a “rules-based international order.” In January, Secretary of Defense James Mattis actually

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“We don’t invade other countries,” noting the Russian-sponsored intervention in Ukraine, but omitting the three regime-change invasions in a 12-year period led by the United States and the present occupation of portions of Syria without the consent of the Syrian government. He also claimed that “we settle things by international rule of law.”

Never mind that virtually no country believes America’s airstrikes in non-battlefield settings comply with international law. The reality is that Defense Department plans for, and reserves the right to, use of force anywhere in the world — including against Chinese and Russian

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— to attempt to defeat any perceived threat. As the great pacifist A.J. Muste observed in 1949: “No Big Power in all history ever thought of itself as an aggressor. That is still true today.” And true today in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington.

Perhaps most troubling about Pentagon officials’ recent comments on great-power competition is that they seem to want — perhaps even need — China and Russia to be their competitors. As one anonymous senior Defense Department official

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Nicholas Schmidle, “Real men fight real wars. We like the clarity of big wars.”

And then of course you have folks like Steve Bannon who see war as an excellent tool to bring the nation together -- just as the fascists of the past did.

Frankly I think this is a topic that receives far too little attention.

America's militarism, with the robust and layered mythologies that sustain it (from messianic Protestantism in the revolutionary era, to 'manifest destiny', to WW2 as "a good war against evil" that Americans never tire of reliving, to the supposed moral clarity of the Cold War and the unhinged moralism of the unipolar moment -- all stories that further and support the idea of redemptive violence) coupled with the otherwise acute and increasing fractures and dysfunction in American society, and the psychological stress of displacement from its status as the world's most powerful nation, combine to create a real risk of American belligerence in the medium-term.

To be clear, the danger is not that the United States is going to arbitrarily declare war on and invade China or Russia, the risk is that the United States will not seek to avoid war by mitigating tensions that arise with constructive diplomacy. It may encourage other nations with which China (or Russia) have disputes to act in ways that escalate tensions, providing an excuse for America to declare war.

All of this is basically unspeakable in the western world. Even those who are critical of American history, foreign policy, and/or who are horrified by Trump like to imagine him as a fluke and not a symptom of a progressing disease. Even those who acknowledge the possibility of an increasingly fractured relationship between China and the United States, or even the possibility of conflict, like to frame those ideas in terms of agent-less structural developments, or as emerging from Chinese actions. The idea that it is the United States that may be the real problem is unspeakable, certainly by Americans who value their careers.

But China cannot afford such a comforting blindspot. China must appreciate that it is dealing with an extraordinarily powerful, militaristic, and psychologically distressed nation that may come to act in increasingly reckless ways. Like a family that must hide from and attempt to placate a drunken and abusive father, China must remain acutely aware of the power relationships that exist (that will largely continue to favour the United States over the medium-term), of the potential consequences of conflict (military, but also economic), and choose carefully where and how to pursue its interests and if and how to respond to slights and adverse developments that will occur.

TL;DR: Don't overestimate American rationality, or underestimate American power.