By using direct armed pressure in these disputes, China makes its neighbors more eager for U.S. military support, and at the same time makes America less willing to give it, because of the clear risk of a direct U.S.-China clash. In other words, by confronting America's friends with force, China confronts America with the choice between deserting its friends and fighting China. Beijing is betting that, faced with this choice, America will back off and leave its allies and friends unsupported. This will weaken America's alliances and partnerships, undermine U.S. power in Asia, and enhance China's power.
This view of China's motives explains its recent conduct.
Ever since President Obama announced the "pivot," China has tested U.S. willingness to support its allies over the Scarborough Shoals and Senkaku/Daioyu disputes. Until his Asian trip last month, Obama seemed inclined to step back from America's commitments, but his bold words in Tokyo and Manila suggest he has recovered his resolve to stand firm.
Now we can expect China to test this newly-recovered resolve by applying more pressure in the same places or elsewhere. And that is what Beijing is doing today in the waters off Vietnam. It is calling Obama's bluff. Expect more pressure against Manila and Tokyo soon.
Of course this carries risks for China. It does not want to fight America, so it must be confident in the judgment that America will back down and desert its friends rather than engage in conflict with China, even if backing down badly weakens the U.S. position in Asia. This confidence reflects two key judgments by China's leaders.
First, they believe that China's new anti-access/area denial capabilities can deny America a quick and easy victory in an maritime clash in the East Asian littoral waters. They have been reassured by America's own Air-Sea Battle doctrine that the U.S. knows it cannot prevail in these waters without launching a major campaign of strikes against Chinese territory. Such strikes would obviously risk a major escalation which might not stop below the nuclear threshold. So China's leaders think their U.S. counterparts understand that a war with China today is one that America could not be confident of either winning or limiting.
Second, Beijing believes the balance of resolve is on China's side. Washington clearly wants to preserve its role in Asia, but Beijing is even more determined to win power at the U.S.' expense. China's conduct suggests that the leadership in Beijing believes Washington understands this imbalance of resolve. That makes the Chinese confident that U.S. leaders will not assume that China would back down first in a crisis.
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