If you want to make Americans uncomfortable—or desperate—don’t talk to them.
During his recent visit to China, Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly asked his hosts to set up a military-to-military crisis communications hotline. They declined.
John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, complained earlier this year that the Chinese ignored his requests to establish direct communications channels with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) regional commands.
And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was rebuffed when he sought a meeting with China’s defense minister during the Shangri-La Dialogue in early June.
Top U.S. civilian and military officials may be fretting. Still, they might better worry about having too few Navy ships, submarines, or stocks of anti-ship cruise missiles instead of having their Chinese counterparts on speed dial.
The U.S. military has been jousting with the Chinese military in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait for a number of years—and it’s a stroke of good luck nobody has gotten hurt or killed.
How critical is it to have a designated communication line with the PLA?
It doesn’t matter that much. The PLA knows how to get in touch with the U.S. military in the area if it wants to. Communication channels already exist for all militaries operating in the sea and air to communicate with each other. You’ll notice that the Chinese military routinely contacts American, Australian, Japanese, and Canadian ships and aircraft (and others) to warn them to stay out of what the Chinese regime says is its territory.
The Chinese think the Americans (and everyone else) should not be operating in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait without Beijing’s permission, so that sets the tone for the relationship. Having some other or special communications link isn’t going to change anybody’s mind.
And when the PLA tries to ram or obstruct U.S. ships and aircraft, it knows exactly what it’s doing—and the orders come from “on high.” Being able to call the Chinese up on a “designated” line to tell them they shouldn’t do what they are doing seems pointless. The Chinese know we aren’t happy. They don’t care.
Why won’t China agree to these mil-to-mil hotlines?
In large part because the Americans are so eager to have such a communications channel. If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) refuses to join such a link, it’s possible (indeed, likely) that Washington will offer some concession in order to get Beijing to agree. Say, for example, not making an issue of a Chinese spy balloon over the United States.
The concession might not even be on the military front. It might be relaxing economic sanctions on China, not complaining about CCP human rights abuses and intellectual property theft, or pretending Chinese leader Xi Jinping knows nothing about the fentanyl that killed over 71,000 Americans from January 2021 to January 2022.
Does this absence of communication between the two militaries affect U.S. operations in the Indo-Pacific region?
Not really. The Chinese know what they are doing and what they intend to do. Their objective is to drive the Americans out of the Asia-Pacific and for the CCP to dominate the region. They’ve been clear enough about this. It is an adversarial relationship—owing to communist China’s position and objective—and no communication or engagement with Beijing or the PLA will make a difference.
The U.S. military went all out on communication and engagement with the PLA for a few decades—until the Trump administration. The PLA was twice invited to RIMPAC, the U.S. Navy’s premier regional exercise. And what did we get from this engagement policy? A Chinese military that has caught up with us in many areas and has surpassed us in others. In certain circumstances, the PLA could give the U.S. military a bloody nose—a very bloody nose. It’s jaw-dropping that some U.S. officers are now calling for a return to unrestrained engagement with the PLA and Chinese regime. This will cost American lives at some point—30 years of empirical evidence ought to be instructive.
It’s an American conceit, however, that if we can just talk to somebody, we can solve any problem.
Will the United States keep trying to set up these communication channels with the Chinese military? How about a different approach or strategy?
“The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.”
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