CHINA: Asian Geopolitics Just Got Scarier.
Even as the United States and its NATO allies pledged to supply more weapons systems to Ukraine, Asian geopolitics was eclipsing European geopolitics with reports of Xi Jinping’s October “war council,” the shooting down of what was believed to be a Chinese surveillance balloon, and reports that South Korea is considering developing its own nuclear deterrent. The 21st century is indeed shaping up to be the “Asian Century.”
The most worrisome of the three developments is Xi Jinping’s war council, which was revealed by the Hill on Jan. 28 and elaborated on by the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz on Feb. 2. Gertz reported that U.S. Air Force Gen. Michael Minihan’s memorandum stated that the war council includes top members of China’s Central Military Commission. Gertz describes China’s Central Military Commission as “the Chinese Communist Party’s most powerful institution.” And the subject of the war council was Taiwan. Minihan predicted in the memo that the United States should be prepared for war with China by 2025. This comes on the heels of U.S. Admiral Philip Davidson’s prediction in 2021 that war over Taiwan could come anytime within the next six years, the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations’ warning that China may invade Taiwan before 2024, and recent Chinese military exercises around the island of Taiwan. Although the Pentagon distanced itself from Minihan’s prediction, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul agreed with Minihan’s assessment.
The October war council may very well have led to the launching of what many are calling the Chinese “spy” or “surveillance” balloon that was shot down by U.S. fighters near the South Carolina shore after it traveled from the Aleutian Islands across parts of Alaska, Canada, and the continental United States, including over U.S. ICBM fields. The best commentary on this development was written by James Holmes, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College and a fellow at the Center for Innovation and Future Warfare of the Marine Corps University, in the journal 19Fortyfive. Holmes believes that the Chinese balloon likely gathered intelligence but was mainly a “trial balloon” designed to “see whether it would elicit a response from the U.S. government and military, as well as from the American people.”
It sure doesn’t seem like Biden’s response made war any less likely.