The looming war in the Pacific

To those who fear that an unintended or fortuitous "accident" between Russia and NATO could trigger World War III, I usually reply that we are already in the middle of it. The ongoing devastation, evident in Ukraine, but also simmering in many other parts of the world, and already very real in the form of hardship and misery of all kinds, is clearly a direct consequence of this global conflict. Think back and remember that the previous conflagration was not considered a planetary war until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States accepted the challenge. In short, war happens and then it is named for history.  

We may be at a similar moment with respect to the Pacific. Europe is on the front line with Russia, for the moment with Ukraine bearing the brunt of Russia's invasion and Vladimir Putin's intense campaign of total destruction of the country. But on the other side of Eurasia, the other front of this great conflict is being forged. 

Just this week China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, presents his China-Pacific Island Nations Joint Development Programme in Fiji. There are eight countries: in addition to the Fiji archipelago itself, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste. This is a strategic diplomatic operation, since all of them had hitherto maintained good political and economic relations with Taiwan, and especially with Australia, which they saw as the most immediate and possible destination for their dreams of prosperity.  It is also a response to Biden's past tour, and the programme he presented in Tokyo, reinforcing his strategic military and economic alliance with Japan and South Korea, and with an appeal to Asia's other great colossus, India.  

Wang Yi aims to radically change that picture and draw these Pacific island nations into his orbit with his best diplomatic tools: lots of money in the form of investment, technological and especially cyber-security training and education, and the promise of access for their commercial products to the giant Chinese market. It goes without saying that, in return, Beijing will ask or demand a severing of ties with Taiwan, a cooling of dependence on Australia and, of course, cooperation in shaping the area's marine maps. The latter is particularly significant as China's powerful navy, already the largest in the world, is occupying dozens of islets in the South China Sea and building artificial islands, some of which are already home to military bases, over which it claims sovereignty and exclusivity. 

China's massive increase in budgets for the modernisation and expansion of its armed forces into space last year prompted the creation of the AUKUS alliance (Australia, United Kingdom, United States) to counter it. Now, moreover, President Joe Biden has openly declared that he would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan. 

It is true that, as usual, the State Department, as soon as Beijing put its foot down, was quick to qualify the president's words, assuring that Washington has not changed its policy towards Taiwan in any way. A policy that in diplomatic jargon is called "strategic ambiguity". This expression sums up a position that, while recognising the People's Republic of China as "the only legal government of China", does not recognise Beijing's declaration that Taiwan is part of China.

This strategic ambiguity, established in 1979, has expired. This is denounced by analysts such as David Rieff, who points out that neither then nor later did Beijing commit itself to the "expectation that Taiwan's future will be determined by peaceful means" (US-Taiwan Relations Act). This expiration is based on the brutal change experienced by China, which has undisputedly emerged as the world's second superpower and with a clear vocation to occupy the top spot, and with an ostensible willingness to burn the bridges to achieve it. 

President Xi Jinping may be weighing up all the pros and cons of launching an invasion against Taiwan more than Vladimir Putin, but all signs point to the fact that, like the Russian president, China's top leader will not let up in his efforts to reunify China, and that, in view of his behaviour in Hong Kong, this action will be carried out anyway, at the time Beijing deems most favourable to its interests, and whatever the cost once it has been decided. 

In this scenario in the Pacific, even more so than in Ukraine, the new edition of Thucydides' Trap, which states that confrontation is inevitable when the dominant power is challenged by an emerging one that believes it has sufficient strength and capability to defeat it and take its place, will be played out.