“This is very good,” said Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday at the start of his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. We agree.
Most talk of U.S.-China relations in the past few years have focused on tensions and the potential for escalation, and there certainly are real and serious differences in policy and approach, including sovereignty and human rights questions like the Chinese government’s encroachment on Taiwan, cracking down in Hong Kong, backing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and launching spy balloons.
Yet dialogue is never a bad idea, which makes it puzzling that some House GOP members actively derided the idea of Blinken’s China visit. They should really know better, and cut the bluster that’s being done mainly to score political points. In contemporary political signaling, where everything is all-or-nothing, they seem to suggest that the only two options practically are total capitulation to Chinese global designs or a shooting war with the world’s second-biggest economy and its largest military.
Those appearing to agitate for this latter outcome might be doing so for domestic political reasons, but they should stop and think about what this would actually mean. We’ve had our share of military misadventures in recent years but their consequences have predominantly hit the people and places on the other side, which unfortunately has meant that plenty of our leaders have become too cavalier about the true costs.
A conflict with China would be very different, holding the potential to very quickly spiral uncontrollably into the type of struggle that will be ruinous for both nations, with horrendous casualties. Long gone are the days of conventional warfare; this war would involve cyberattacks on crucial systems throughout the United States, including the electrical grid and communications tech. And for what? An approach of cooperation could instead produce immense gains on areas of mutual interest, like climate change mitigation. President Biden and Blinken should never lay down for Xi, but to suggest conflict is inevitable is to invite disaster.
