One of the top contenders to be Joe Biden’s secretary of state told Reuters in an interview on Friday that the US must prepare for a possible conflict with China.
Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said the US has “to prepare for the possibility of conflict with China.” He said this could be done by “being more active and more engaged on the world stage along with our allies.”
Coons also said he hopes a bipartisan US policy forms to “out-compete” China. While Coons stressed that the US and China are competitors, he also said cooperation in some areas is important.
“I see clearly that China is a peer competitor. And we have to be able at the same time, to cooperate with China in those areas where it’s essential,” he said. “There’s a whole series of areas where the world is only going to get safer and more stable if the United States and China cooperate, but our main focus has to be competing with China.”
The idea that China is Washington’s top competitor seems already to be a bipartisan consensus in China. On Wednesday, Senate Republicans released a report calling for a more multilateral approach to counter China’s influence by working with allies, echoing comments made by Biden just days earlier.
The Trump administration has pursued an incredibly hardline approach towards China, which escalated this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The area that risks a military confrontation the most is the South China Sea, where the US regularly sails warships and flies military aircraft to challenge China’s claims to the waters.
Biden is expected to keep up the pressure on Beijing in the South China Sea. One of the contenders to be Biden’s secretary of defense, Michele Flournoy, wrote in Foreign Affairs that the US should have the ability to sink all Chinese vessels in the South China Sea “within 72 hours” as deterrence for Beijing’s activity in the waters.
I think that China is far better prepared to sink all US warships in the SC Sea. China over time has developed technically and electronically far superior supersonic systems to do so. US should not underestimate Chinese capabilities.
Don’t underestimate the Beltway Bandits’ ability to use this “conflict” to feather their nests for the next 15 years. $$$
Don’t be so sure China can win. Or that winning is even a Euro-U.S. objective.
Why don’t we just be content with Monroe Doctrine, that should be enough to fuel the complex for you, Sen.
‘Coons also said he hopes a bipartisan US policy forms to “out-compete” China.’
Fat chance. Why not cooperate and realize you are way behind in many ways and may even benefit by sharing. War is to be avoided at all cost.
Odds are, as the U.S. can’t actually fight such a war and China wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) want to, a broad conflict will not happen.
All that’s needed is a legal state of war, not an actual war, to decouple the U.S. from China.
The Korean War has been effectively over for coming on 70 years, but remaining in a legal state of war with NK has benefited the Pentagon Globalists immensely.
Another FOOL Wannabee Secretary of State who is telegraphing War instead of Diplomacy. Be clear the US might not lose a war with China but it sure as hell wouldn’t win one without a serious bloody nose, a few sunken Aircraft carrier groups and the Likely hood of Nuclear Slag heaps on the US Lower 48 states! That is if the US gets off that lightly! China has the ability to place over 300 nuclear Warheads on the Continental US in just over 25 minutes time! In fact faster in many cases than the US could do so! However as I said China probably wouldn’t win a war, but I also said the US wouldn’t either!
https://indianpunchline.com/return-of-great-game-in-post-soviet-central-asia/
Return of Great Game in Post-Soviet Central Asia, Part I.
https://indianpunchline.com/russia-china-reinvent-their-moorings-in-central-asia/
Part II.