By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Beijing’s Reluctance to Engage 

On October 24, 2023, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber was flying a nighttime mission in international airspace over the South China Sea when it was intercepted by a Chinese fighter jet. In a series of dangerous high-speed maneuvers, the jet pilot flew within ten feet of the bomber, endangering both aircraft and crews. This came on the heels of a June 2023 incident when the USS Chung-Hoon, a U.S. Navy destroyer, was sailing through the Taiwan Strait and a Chinese warship overtook her on the port side at high speed. The Chinese ship then abruptly tacked and crossed her bow at 150 yards, causing the Chung-Hoon to slow her speed quickly to avoid a collision. The Chinese warship ignored repeated attempts at ship-to-ship communication and violated standard operating procedures for close encounters on the high seas.

These are but two near misses in recent years between the U.S. military and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Although U.S. military strategists and planners are increasingly focused on preparing for intentional Chinese military actions in the Western Pacific, especially regarding Taiwan, these close calls have created substantial anxiety among U.S. analysts that an accident or miscommunication between the U.S. military and the PLA could pull the two countries into a conflict neither one desires.

PacificDefense.html These concerns are not new. For decades, the United States has tried to place guardrails on its military relationship with China, oftentimes borrowing from the playbook it used to keep U.S.-Soviet relations stable during the Cold War. During the 1990s, when Washington still enjoyed overriding military advantages over Beijing, U.S. strategists focused on reassurance, such as military dialogues and communication protocols. Today, as the Chinese military increases its presence in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea and as U.S.-Chinese tensions simmer from trade to technology, U.S. officials are more focused on confidence-building measures, which aim to create greater predictability in military operations, as well as crisis communications to ensure that a small mishap does not snowball into a full-scale war. China is the most rapidly growing military and the most rapidly growing nuclear power in the world. The U.S. has the biggest military in the world,” U.S. Representative Adam Smith said while visiting Beijing last month. “It is dangerous for us not to have regular communications about our capabilities and intentions.”

But despite repeated attempts on the part of U.S. officials to improve military-to-military communications, the Chinese side has resisted establishing and codifying even basic rules of the road. Although the reasons for Beijing’s ambivalence have evolved, what has remained consistent is a deep skepticism that U.S.-led initiatives will advance China’s interests. It will not be easy for Washington to overcome such long-standing suspicions. But now that U.S. and Chinese military capabilities are seen as comparable and the dangers of potential escalation have grown, U.S. officials looking to reengage U.S.-Chinese military diplomacy must understand this deep distrust—and then do what they reasonably can to overcome it.

 

The Soviet Playbook

U.S.-Soviet military diplomacy during the Cold War has long served as a model for successful relations between competing armed forces. Despite being existential nuclear adversaries, the two states developed significant military-to-military contacts during the latter part of the Cold War. The 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement, for example, sought to prevent ship collisions and reduce the risk of accidental escalation at sea. The 1989 Prevention of Dangerous Military Incidents Agreement sought to limit the use of certain weaponry, such as lasers that could potentially blind when aimed recklessly. These agreements were far from panaceas—U.S. and Soviet forces did have numerous dangerous and harrowing encounters—but they played an important role in preempting escalation.

At the beginning of diplomatic relations between China and the United States in the early 1980s, American strategists tried to apply these general models to relations with Beijing’s armed forces. At the time, there were modest military contacts and exchanges, such as meetings on military doctrine and general training. But these efforts came to an abrupt halt in 1989, when Washington suspended them in response to Beijing’s military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square. Relations rebounded slightly in the early 1990s, but not enough to account for rising tensions. The two militaries were increasingly operating close to one another, resulting in a series of near clashes, including the October 1994 Yellow Sea incident, when a Chinese submarine and fighter jets patrolled dangerously close to elements of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, including the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. Around this time, senior Chinese civilian and military officials repeatedly complained to their Washington counterparts that U.S. reconnaissance aircraft were flying precariously close to Chinese airspace. They claimed, not incorrectly, that these flights sought to expose various Chinese air defense systems and operational protocols.

The third Taiwan Strait crisis, which lasted from 1995 to 1996, brought these issues to a head. In response to China’s artillery shelling into the waters around Taiwan, the United States deployed two aircraft carriers to the western Pacific as a show of force meant to deter any further provocative military posturing on the part of the PLA. The Chinese, however, interpreted these actions as deeply humiliating and escalatory, creating substantial mistrust between the two militaries.

In Washington, the heightened tensions during the third Taiwan Strait crisis resulted in a bipartisan consensus around the need to establish military-to-military communication protocols with Beijing. But U.S. civilian and military leaders in the Pentagon had other reasons to pursue better relations with their Chinese counterparts, too. The PLA has long had an important bureaucratic role in internal Chinese politics, and as the twenty-first century neared, it had a growing global reach. Forging ties with the PLA’s leaders was thus not only a way to avert catastrophe but also a way to shape Beijing’s thinking and global practices.

U.S. efforts to establish communications reached their high point from 1996 to 1999. In rapid succession, the two sides launched the 1998 Military Maritime Agreement, which sought to prevent dangerous naval interactions, and a special leadership communication channel—a so-called hotline between Washington and Beijing. Both of these initiatives were celebrated at the 1998 summit between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and U.S. President Bill Clinton. High-level military officials from the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff also began holding talks with their Chinese counterparts to compare military doctrines in an effort to avoid misinterpreting standard military deployments and training as preparation for imminent hostile operations. There were even fleeting exchanges on nuclear-related matters, including the safety of nuclear warheads and command and launch protocols.

Still, this engagement went only so far. The two sides had a profound misalignment on the ultimate uses and value of these communication mechanisms. China was particularly reticent to make its military too accessible, given the clear imbalance in military power. After the Cold War, U.S. submarines and reconnaissance flights conducted missions close to the Chinese mainland, including in the South China Sea, with greater frequency and relative impunity. China was overwhelmingly focused on closing this gap in capabilities and deployment patterns, and its military strategists viewed U.S. efforts at confidence-building as insincere, designed by calculating U.S. military interlocutors not to prevent unintended escalation or conflict but to constrain or monitor China. In this view, formal confidence-building mechanisms could be used to Washington’s advantage not only in an immediate crisis but also in the longer term, by giving the United States channels through which to prevent the PLA’s ambitious buildup.

Chinese officials still maintained some ties to the U.S. military, which they sought to use for their own ends, such as limiting U.S. deployments and reconnaissance efforts in territory immediately adjacent to the Chinese mainland. But Beijing took pains to keep military exchanges and commitments vague, carefully scripted, and largely pro forma. Instead of instilling confidence, they worked to create anxiety and uncertainty in the minds of U.S. operators. This became all too clear in 2001, when a Chinese jet collided with a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane in the South China Sea. When the U.S. plane and the 24 military service members aboard were forced to land on Hainan Island, which is home to a Chinese military base, U.S. officials tried to use the high-level communication protocols but were met with silence and stonewalling from their Beijing counterparts. Phones rang unanswered as the Americans were detained for 48 hours of interrogation at a military facility. (They were subsequently held for 11 days before being released.)

In the decades since, U.S. anxiety over China’s military modernization and activity has only increased. Yet if anything, Beijing has become even less forthcoming. The United States has tried repeatedly to create mechanisms to prevent, manage, or curtail mishaps in a number of military domains—from cyberspace to outer space. But these efforts have invariably been met with misdirection or outright rejection by the Chinese. When U.S.-Chinese security-related dialogues have been launched, they have failed to live up to even limited expectations, such as when the Obama administration’s cyber dialogue failed to limit Chinese hacking. What’s more, these interactions have often spurred further suspicion and distrust rather than built confidence. For instance, when U.S. Army hosts took Chinese counterparts to observe armor training at Fort Hood in Texas, the visiting Chinese officer subsequently described the briefing and demonstrations as threatening and designed to intimidate.

China’s reticence is driven by its deep suspicions. But it manifests in several ways. Beijing, for instance, persistently fears that bilateral agreements with Washington would codify China’s inferior military status in perpetuity. From this perspective, a U.S.-Chinese code of conduct for military encounters gives the United States a get-out-of-jail-free card, allowing it to continue its freedom of navigation operations in the region because it can manage risk and extricate itself from a crisis. The belief that confidence-building measures are asymmetrically beneficial—that Washington gains more from transparency than Beijing does—is stubbornly persistent across China’s armed forces.

Historically, China has also been reluctant to participate in confidence-building exercises precisely because they were modeled after the U.S.-Soviet experience. This had less to do with whether these mechanisms were operationally effective and more to do with how they would be perceived: Chinese strategists astutely sought to avoid giving the impression that the United States should view China as a Soviet-like military adversary. This is consistent with broader Chinese messaging during the early 2000s that sought to downplay talk of China’s “rise” and instead focus on China’s national “development.”

To some extent, that has changed: Beijing now wants to be seen as something of a superpower. But unlike the Soviet Union before it, China does not appear worried about the escalation risks that come from having poor ties with the U.S. armed forces. If anything, Beijing seems to see it as a benefit. While Washington generally opts to telegraph its military acumen, in the hope that its strength gives its adversaries pause, Beijing largely elects to foster uncertainty in its deployments, diplomacy, and doctrine—hoping that it increases U.S. forces’ anxiety about operating in proximity. This strategy is largely political. Although some Chinese analysts and even some PLA officers have advocated for greater transparency between U.S. and Chinese forces, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have a preference for opacity about the PLA’s present capabilities and crisis protocols. Ultimately, they believe ambiguity maximizes their flexibility in a crisis and increases deterrence.

And what the CCP says goes: the PLA is the armed wing of the party, not merely China’s armed forces. The CCP-dominated military structure jealously guards decision-making authority in a crisis and views confidence-building schemes as a potential threat to party control and authority. Almost by design, military diplomacy would interfere with the CCP’s control in a military scenario—precisely when control is most important to China’s leaders.

Senior Chinese leaders may be downplaying or even dismissing the risk of inadvertent war. The United States and China, after all, have not experienced serious military tensions since the latter years of the Korean War. And it may take such tensions before Chinese leaders change their minds, just as it took the 1962 Cuban missile crisis before Moscow and Washington set up clear military-to-military ties.

But the United States should keep pushing to create robust channels of crisis communications before an emergency occurs. Its efforts may ultimately fall short. Yet with enormous military firepower potentially arrayed against one another, the two great powers of the twenty-first century must have the foresight to create such channels without first subjecting the world to a Cuban missile–type crisis in the Indo-Pacific.

 

A Preference for Opacity

In the decades since, U.S. anxiety over China’s military modernization and activity has only increased. Yet if anything, Beijing has become even less forthcoming. The United States has tried repeatedly to create mechanisms to prevent, manage, or curtail mishaps in a number of military domains—from cyberspace to outer space. But these efforts have invariably been met with misdirection or outright rejection by the Chinese. When U.S.-Chinese security-related dialogues have been launched, they have failed to live up to even limited expectations, such as when the Obama administration’s cyber dialogue failed to limit Chinese hacking. What’s more, these interactions have often spurred further suspicion and distrust rather than built confidence. For instance, when U.S. Army hosts took Chinese counterparts to observe armor training at Fort Hood in Texas, the visiting Chinese officer subsequently described the briefing and demonstrations as threatening and designed to intimidate.

China’s reticence is driven by its deep suspicions. But it manifests in several ways. Beijing, for instance, persistently fears that bilateral agreements with Washington would codify China’s inferior military status in perpetuity. From this perspective, a U.S.-Chinese code of conduct for military encounters gives the United States a get-out-of-jail-free card, allowing it to continue its freedom of navigation operations in the region because it can manage risk and extricate itself from a crisis. The belief that confidence-building measures are asymmetrically beneficial—that Washington gains more from transparency than Beijing does—is stubbornly persistent across China’s armed forces.

Historically, China has also been reluctant to participate in confidence-building exercises precisely because they were modeled after the U.S.-Soviet experience. This had less to do with whether these mechanisms were operationally effective and more to do with how they would be perceived: Chinese strategists astutely sought to avoid giving the impression that the United States should view China as a Soviet-like military adversary. This is consistent with broader Chinese messaging during the early 2000s that sought to downplay talk of China’s “rise” and instead focus on China’s national “development.”

To some extent, that has changed: Beijing now wants to be seen as something of a superpower. But unlike the Soviet Union before it, China does not appear worried about the escalation risks that come from having poor ties with the U.S. armed forces. If anything, Beijing seems to see it as a benefit. While Washington generally opts to telegraph its military acumen, in the hope that its strength gives its adversaries pause, Beijing largely elects to foster uncertainty in its deployments, diplomacy, and doctrine—hoping that it increases U.S. forces’ anxiety about operating in proximity. This strategy is largely political. Although some Chinese analysts and even some PLA officers have advocated for greater transparency between U.S. and Chinese forces, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have a preference for opacity about the PLA’s present capabilities and crisis protocols. Ultimately, they believe ambiguity maximizes their flexibility in a crisis and increases deterrence.

And what the CCP says goes: the PLA is the armed wing of the party, not merely China’s armed forces. The CCP-dominated military structure jealously guards decision-making authority in a crisis and views confidence-building schemes as a potential threat to party control and authority. Almost by design, military diplomacy would interfere with the CCP’s control in a military scenario—precisely when control is most important to China’s leaders.

Senior Chinese leaders may be downplaying or even dismissing the risk of inadvertent war. The United States and China, after all, have not experienced serious military tensions since the latter years of the Korean War. And it may take such tensions before Chinese leaders change their minds, just as it took the 1962 Cuban missile crisis before Moscow and Washington set up clear military-to-military ties.

But the United States should keep pushing to create robust channels of crisis communications before an emergency occurs. Its efforts may ultimately fall short. Yet with enormous military firepower potentially arrayed against one another, the two great powers of the twenty-first century must have the foresight to create such channels without first subjecting the world to a Cuban missile–type crisis in the Indo-Pacific.

 

 

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