Let's put it here, although it really belongs to the What the Heck thread:
From today's Telegraph
I made the paragraph below the map bold.
From today's Telegraph
Is this the quality of the education of the next generation of Western strategic thinkers? Notice in the map that the area said to be claimed by ROC has an entirely different shape from the PRC claim and that the reason for war in SCS is not described. Notice too that North Korea would be committing suicide if it attacked Japan while its real purpose, reunification with the South, would not be advanced, and that after citing Sun Tzu on the necessity of knowing your enemy.Is war with China inevitable?
18 April 2016 • 6:25pm
- King's College London
Fifth century Chinese military leader Sun Tzu said: “Know yourself and know your enemy and in a hundred battles you will always be victorious." Sun Tzu's The Art of War’s dictum could not be more right when thinking about the current status of the East and South China Seas and what it means for the future of world security.
Since 2010, tensions between China and Japan have risen like dragons to fight against each other. The reason? Territory. The dragons have clashed repeatedly, diplomatically and politically, ever since a Chinese fishing trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels near the disputed islands, known as ‘Diaoyu’ in China, and ‘Senkaku’ in Japan.
Tensions remained cold. Even they never reached crisis levels, the dragons rose once again in late 2012 following Japan’s decision to privatise the islands. What seemed like dormant historical disputes, they are once again shaping Chinese and Japanese domestic and foreign policies, leading both countries to ‘warmer’ waters.
Again in 2012, the Philippines contested activity near the Scarborough Shoal, in the South China Sea. Again, land disputes and land reclamation are at the core of the rising tensions, eventually evolving into a crisis. Soon, more and more countries, like Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, have become involved against China’s land reclamation and island-building activities in the South China Sea. Tensions escalated even more following American involvement in the region, first over the East China Sea, and then over the South China Sea.
The Council on Foreign Relations classifies both crisis as ‘critical’ for US interests, the same level as the crises in North Korea, Iraq and Syria. What if these crises escalated into a conflict? Are there any diplomatic solutions to these issues?
This is what the King’s College London (KCL) risis Team set to answer. A student-led and student-run Team of War Studies students from King’s war studies department, have spent months researching the current crises in the East and South China Seas.
The KCL Crisis Team is responsible for organising and running King’s yearly Crisis Simulation, an event that sees more than 100 students involved, from various UK, US and European institutions. Students act as delegates from the various countries involved in the disputes, such as China, Taiwan, Japan, the US, South Korea and North Korea, and take action according to their nation’s interests, capabilities and according to the developing situations in both seas.
The simulation serves as a learning tool where students can learn more about these current crises, as well as learning about the possible risks and scenarios that could develop in the future. Answering ‘What if…?’ is at the core of the KCL Crisis Team’s simulations. And the outcomes of this year’s simulation do not look promising for anyone.
The nightmare come true
War breaks out between North Korea and Japan, and between China and the US. While China continued the militarisation of their artificial islands in the South China Sea, the US responded by increasing their naval and military presence in the South China Sea, eventually leading to a direct military confrontation between the two countries. While the US was distracted and focused on Chinese military activity, North Korea took the opportunity to conduct false-flag operations in order to attack and destroy Japan. .
While this was only a crisis simulation, it raises concerns over the current situation. Will war break out between China and the US, or between China and Japan? Will North Korea attack Japan?
Our simulation suggests that if China continues to increase their military and naval activities in the South China Sea, without being transparent and communicating the purpose of their activities, misunderstandings and rising tensions could be the spark that starts a war. Over the East China Sea, on the other hand, while the US and China went at it against each other, North Korea took the opportunity to increase their military activities by launching attacks against an ‘abandoned’ Japan, as the US was too ‘distracted’ about China.
South Korea found itself in between all this, and had to make difficult decisions over which side to be with. Chaos reigned the waters, and the perfect storm hit.
Can war be prevented?
Diplomacy unfortunately failed. After numerous discussions and cases made in the United Nations Security Council committee, no decision or action was made to prevent war, let alone decrease military activity in the South China Sea. Bilateral talks only helped to reach limited strategic goals, but not enough to prevent war from occurring. Mistrust and betrayal flowed and rose like waves as the simulation progressed.
Therefore, the strongest lesson learnt and recommendation we could offer is to call for an increased diplomatic effort, most importantly, between . The waters and the dragons have risen, and only peaceful, diplomatic and bring these countries closer. However, the initial challenge is to reach a consensus to firstly meet. Once reached, only time will tell, but an increased diplomatic effort can only take us closer to such point.
The Chinese word for ‘crisis’, 危机 (wēijī), includes the words ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’: diplomacy’s goal is to make these current crises an opportunity to bring peace in the region. Only by communicating will we know and learn more in order to prevent war. Sun Tzu's said: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Riccardo Cociani is a second year undergraduate student in war Studies at King's College London and Chair of the KCL Crisis Team
I made the paragraph below the map bold.
