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Opinion
To quieten drumbeats of war in US and China, cool heads must prevail
Sabre-rattling might rally a domestic political base, but true statesmanship lies not in inviting disaster but in mastering its prevention
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Wenran Jiang, the founding director of the China Institute and Mactaggart Research Chair Emeritus at the University of Alberta, is an adviser at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy.
While the Ukraine war drags on and new conflicts rage in the Middle East, we cannot overlook the drumbeats of great power tension across the Pacific at levels unmatched since the Cold War.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, a known China hawk, frames diplomacy through strategic confrontation. He has said the United States aims to “re-establish deterrence” against “China’s aggression” in the Indo-Pacific. This includes upgrading the US-Japan command to a “warfighting headquarters” and pushing allies in Asia to commit to spending 5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence as Nato has done. Crucially, even as limited but fragile agreements emerge on trade, the fundamental military and strategic confrontation remains entrenched.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Hegseth said the “threat China poses” could be “imminent”, warning that altering the first island chain status quo by force would be “unacceptable”. He has repeatedly stressed that the US is prepared for war with China, mirroring Beijing’s pledge to “fight till the end” against the US in any type of war. These reciprocal threats fuel nationalist fervour, normalising rhetoric once reserved for Cold War brinkmanship. This tension manifests in actions, not just words.
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