A particular pet peeve of mine, and among many China hawks, is the narrative that wars happen mostly by accident and therefore “managing” relations is the path to peace. This not only denies the bad guys of agency, but is a narrative that ignores even the US’ own purposeful but less than moral wars in the past. This false narrative emerged from World War I, and particularly Barbara Tuchman’s thesis in the Guns of August that due to a variety of factors, the war happened because leadership lost control due to things like mobilization timelines and time-dominated war plans. To be fair to the great historian, the book is still worth a read for individual battle and political analysis but the overarching conclusion is wrong. And that conclusion has done a lot of damage. It’s not that accidents don’t happen in war, or that skirmishes or accidental shootdowns don’t happen, or that narratives aren’t invented to falsify justification for conflict, it’s that the narrative of accidental conflict ignores the actions taken by the belligerent(s) to bring nations to the point of war. It’s like using a single frame of film instead of all 90 minutes of footage to tell a story. The Second Thomas Shoal is only a single frame in a broader story of PLA aggression.
Nations go to war for fear, honor, or interest. The PRC pushes the world to the brink of war on at least three different fronts from the Himalayas to Pacific because it has an interest in aggression, it may miscalculate when war will happen or it may misjudge another’s will to go to war, but its aggression drives conflict. Seizing territory, building islands and fortifications, ramming Filipino ships and cutting off people’s appendages, or shoving an Indian commander off a cliff is not an “accident.” This behavior is not something that can be managed as if it were a civil marriage dispute. When one party is the abuser in a relationship, you don’t treat them as equally at fault (at least you shouldn’t, in the 21st century). Because that’s all the Chinese Communist Party is: the abusive husband who has a lot of guns and ammo, is deeply paranoid, thinks the world owes him everything, and takes a swing at every neighbor he thinks he can bully. Any war that breaks out over Taiwan, the South China Sea, or elsewhere isn’t happening as if we tripped and fell into war in the dark. The PRC is to blame, and we should be doing everything we can to ensure they know what happens if they keep pushing.
The ongoing clash of ships between the Philippines and the PRC over a rusty shipwreck at Second Thomas Shoal can be traced back years. But to give you the executive summary: the PRC claims the entirety of the South China Sea as its territory under some shoddy claims that an international tribunal ruled was complete bullshit last decade. Obviously, the PRC has ignored this ruling. Over the last decade, the PRC has constructed, expanded, and militarized several artificial islands in the South China Sea (despite promises to the Obama admin that it would never militarize them) to enforce its illegitimate claims. In the last year or so, as tensions over Taiwan have grown, the PRC has also through a variety of means ratcheted up its pressure on the Philippines through disinformation, political rhetoric, and clashes at sea in order to dislodge Filipino claims to their portion of the SCS and prevent the Philippines’ military from reinforcing its precarious position at the Second Thomas Shoal. Now, there’s a variety of reasons why the PRC might be doing this right now, my personal belief is that its a combination of factors: 1) the new administration in Manila is extremely pro-US and is actively signing new basing and forces agreements with the US and its allies around the Pacific 2) as the PLA focuses on building up for Taiwan, the American buildup in the Philippines (in response to PLA threats) is likely increasingly seen as the greatest possible disruptor to PLA invasion plans of Taiwan, and 3) the Philippines is a US treaty ally, and if the PRC can successfully bully Manila without Washington intervening, then that is a strong message to others (like Taiwan) who do not have an ironclad defensive pact with the United States. And so, this is how you get a clash of Coast Guard and militia boats fighting with tools and water cannons around a rusted, garrisoned shipwreck that is a bad day away from slipping back into the sea. The Philippines has made it clear that the death of its military personnel at the hands of the PLA and its militia affiliates will be treated as “very close” to an act of war; an act of war that would undoubtedly invoke the defensive alliance between Manila and DC. Manila has clearly communicated this and the PRC continues to push and push. If a war breaks out, it’s not by accident, it’s PRC belligerence. Their unwillingness to believe in US and Filipino resolve, and their arrogance in their belief in success is dangerous beyond description, and if we do not respond accordingly should this conflict escalate, the PRC will see this as an affirmation of its own Kool-Aid consumption and the PLA’s next stop is Taipei.
To its credit, the Biden administration has handled this crisis fairly well, balancing carefully the need to back Manila while not feeding the PRC propaganda machine or leaning in too early with a dozen other crises around the globe. Of course, there is only so much we can do should the PRC decide the risk of war is worth it or should Manila decide it’s had enough. We can only be ready to defend and support. The 2024 election cycle, the culmination of PLA annual exercises over the summer, the fury over the PRC’s actions in the Philippines, and the general uneasy state of the world makes none of this easy. What we can do is to continue what we are doing: building bases, training together, and making clear statements to the PRC on our support for our Allies. I would also say that we need to message better on this clash to our own people to avoid the inevitable, invented social media narrative that Biden is some sort of warmonger or that this conflict came out of nowhere. It would probably also help if we weren’t dispatching Carrier Strike Groups from the region to the Middle East in the middle of a Pacific crisis where naval presence matters most.
The Second Thomas Shoal clash is yet another case, like Taiwan, where the US and its partners have done the prescribed “right things” and the PRC continues to act however it sees fit, with no regard for international law, norms, or for the sake of peace. There should be no mistake in understanding not only who is at fault for a South China Sea war, but that “managing” relations as if it were a workplace dispute between the PRC and the US is a fools’ errand born of faulty logic and misplaced hope. There’s no “better nature” for a genocidal regime that seeks the subjugation of its neighbors by force. We can, as I wrote last summer, only work to make the world unsafe for the CCP so that they do not see opportunity in conflict, only suffering and failure. Taiwan may be the prize fight, but the balance of power, the strength of our alliances, and our posture in and around the South China Sea may determine who wins. The Second Thomas Shoal clash is just the beginning.
If you would like to read more about the future of US-China conflict, check out my novel, EX SUPRA, about the world after the fall of Taiwan, an isolationist and hyper partisan America, and World War III. It was nominated for a Prometheus Award for best science fiction novel and there’s a sequel in the works! If you have any suggestions for topics for future newsletters, please send them my way on Twitter @Iron_Man_Actual. And don’t forget to subscribe!