China made a conflict with the U.S. more likely on Wednesday.
That became clear when President Xi Jinping warned Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that “[w]e cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors.”
Those words represent a deliberately emotive defense of China’s claim to island territories in the South China Sea. Over the past few years, China has been constructing and militarily reinforcing islands in the South China Sea which it claims are part of its historic territory. In these efforts, Xi ignores the fact that these islands are a great distance from mainland China but proximate to other nations, and the reality that many of the islands have never been inhabited.
Still, Xi has good reason to play up the moral narrative. He knows that if successful in formalizing China’s claims to and presence on the islands, he’ll be able to extract long-term concessions from nations like Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Dangling a veto over the vast trade flows which transit the waters surrounding the islands, Xi hopes to order his neighbors to do his political and economic bidding. This is the regional centerpiece to Xi’s international ambition of a new Chinese empire.
Fortunately, the U.S., with allied support from the Australians and the Vietnamese in particular, is pushing back. In escalating transits within 12 miles of the islands (the marker for sovereign territory), the U.S. is telling Xi that it won’t accept his claims.
And that’s why Xi used the language of ancestry and heritage on Wednesday. The Chinese leader is sending a not-so-thinly veiled message to Mattis that China regards its island campaign as an intrinsic facet of its national identity, as something as immutable to China as the Great Wall or Beijing itself. The intended implication is that China will use all its means to preserve its island power.
The U.S. and its allies must not lose their nerve here. Whatever Xi says, China’s island challenge represents a systemic challenge to the international liberal order. China wants to replace that order with a global feudalism which sees Beijing sit atop a throne of economic cronyism. The future prosperity and freedom of the U.S. depends on that not happening.
In turn, the right U.S. response here is a calibrated escalation that reminds Xi of his vulnerability to various elements of U.S. power. The U.S. should also push for an alliance of nations (including the British, French, and Indian navies) to join its patrols through the South China Sea in order to educate Xi to the fact that his policy will incur his growing international isolation.
Regardless, Xi’s words signal that the risks of conflict are growing. China must be allowed to win, or it must be deterred.
