Joe Biden calls Vladimir Putin a killer, and Putin routinely retorts by wishing Biden good health, adding “without irony, no jokes”. Washington is flying military assets into Kiev, and Moscow is building up troop deployment at the border to Ukraine, or was it the other way around…? Biden calls Putin to propose a summit, and Russia gradually withdraws its tanks again from the Ukraine border. In other words, the past few days went like clockwork, didn’t they?
The reason for this seemingly harsh tit-for-tat but seamless actioning lies mostly in the fact that America and Russia have built a protocol of sorts when it comes to tensions. The long history of post WW2, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era has provided ample opportunity for aggression without escalation. The process has more or less become second nature and the entire diplomatic exchange business as usual. Everyone knows where the ominous red line is.
As I was told by someone in the know, the Russian ambassador in Washington would typically be called into the State Department, presented with a list of sanctions that he would relay back to Moscow, shake-hands and all, and Moscow would instruct him of Russia’s counter-sanctions, which he would then take back to the State Department. Job done, and maybe there is even some chit-chat and coffee in between. It has been the new normal for decades now.
I don’t believe such a protocol exists between America and China. To be sure, the sitting Chinese ambassador in Washington, Cui Tiankai, is being thought of highly, understands US politics well, and has certainly used his gravitas and dignity to act as a diplomatic buffer. But after more than 8 years in office, the 68-year old Cui is rumoured to be retiring soon, and all eyes are naturally on his probable successor Qin Gang, who currently serves as deputy foreign minister.
At the tender age of 55 for a Chinese envoy, and as chief of the ministry’s protocol division, Qin has been managing Xi Jinping’s schedule and leading his entourage on his state visits and is involved in all talks and events the Chinese leader frequents. His likely appointment is no coincidence, it appears. He would have earned Xi’s trust when front-lining foreign engagements. Maybe as a pedigree for his new job, Qin has been lauded for his tough, plainspoken style in press conferences and on social media.
Tea leaves are being read everywhere, and insiders wonder whether Qin as a confidante of Xi and being known for his tougher rhetoric and style is yet another sign of change in relations with America that Beijing pursues. I believe we already got a good taste of it in Alaska, when politburo member Yang Jiechi and foreign minister Wang Yi encountered secretary of state Anthony Blinken and national security advisor Jake Sullivan.
You will remember that opening statements were agreed to last 2 minutes each and that Blinken was to go first and Yang second. Yang would in all likelihood have been prepared for all possible scenarios in how to respond to Blinken, but the secretary by way of his rehearsed and regurgitated criticisms of Xinjiang and Hong Kong seemed to have triggered something. Yang broke protocol, retorted for a full 16 minutes and just short of put Blinken and America in their place.
Blinken could only deflect and kind of save the moment by suggesting to give the young Chinese interpreter next to Yang a raise, as she bravely and formidably kept up with translating Yang’s monologue. Nothing of this sort would have happened by coincidence, however. Yang received ample praise for his stunt in Beijing. But would such a moment have happened during an encounter between American and Russian delegates? I doubt it.
Even at the time when then-hawkish national security advisor John Bolton met with Putin in Moscow in late 2018, Putin opened the scene by describing the US national emblem, as in the eagle holding arrows and olives, and mused whether the eagles had eaten all the olives and only arrows were left… to which Bolton quickly responded that he didn’t bring any more olives with him… which in turn Putin laughed off saying: “That’s what I thought…!” Case closed.
It is that red line that isn’t visible in the ever so young US-China conflict, and that makes things precarious. What will it be…? Yet another aircraft carrier crisscrossing the South China Sea? Another exasperating poke at Xinjiang? Another attempted intervention in Hong Kong affairs? Or the most delicate issue of all… how far will Washington go regarding Taiwan? The US nomenclature has known all too well and for the past 50 years since Kissinger performed the breakthrough, that Taiwan is truly the sole issue.
What will happen when former secretary of state Mike Pompeo descends on the island as planned and publicly holds one of his inflamed speeches, in campaign mode for 2024? Would that constitute a red line? Is extra-territorialising US law by continuing to ban TSMC’s exports to the mainland reason enough? After all, how can US law be applied to a perceived province of China? There doesn’t seem to be a protocol whatsoever to deal with such conflicts.
In an evermore automated and robotised world, it comes down to who owns the best computing power to outperform the other in productivity gains. It is all a level-playing field, as long as global supply chains are accessible to everyone. On an increasingly intertwined and globalised planet, this is how it should work, and the Chinese seemed to naively have believed in and bought into this notion. Now, in their first geopolitical conflict of note, they will have to wake up to the fact that everything comes down to military power.
Unlike the economic and societal de-nationalisation of the world over the past 30 years, militaries hang on to their source of existence, and that is the national government of a country. To be sure there are establishments across nations, such as NATO, but eventually, we are migrating toward a 2-bloc world with regards to superpower status, or include Russia into a 3-bloc version in the military sense if you will.
Supremacy will be had by that nation that commands the technological advantage over others. America’s Defence Act of the 1960s and 70s has clearly laid the grounds for its superpower status. Back then, all necessary supply chains would have been onshore. These days, the chains are all over the place, and for most of the crucial semiconductor area they happen to be in Asia. As I pointed out in an apparently widely read
post last week, Taiwan and TSMC are big prizes to be had for the purpose of global supremacy.
This is what red lines are made of, and god help us all if they cannot be managed.
