The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China

by Kevin Rudd

What follows must be the hard work of constructing a joint strategic framework between Washington and Beijing that is capable of achieving the following three interrelated tasks: 1. Agreeing on principles and procedures for navigating each other’s strategic redlines (for example, over Taiwan) that, if inadvertently crossed, would likely result in military escalation. 2. Mutually identifying the areas of nonlethal national security policy—foreign policy, economic policy, technology development (for example, over semiconductors)—and ideology where full-blown strategic competition is accepted as the new normal. 3. Defining those areas where continued strategic cooperation (for example, on climate change) is both recognized and encouraged.

These formal assessments of China’s international operating environment are the product of multiple inputs from across the party, government departments, and official think tanks. As good Marxists, the Chinese leadership regard their conclusions—never reached lightly over a weekend but usually over several years—as revealing long-term trends that are “scientifically and objectively true,” to use the Marxist formulation. As such, once reached, such conclusions tend to guide strategy and policy for an extended period and are hard to shift. Indeed, this can create an analytical inflexibility on Beijing’s part in dealing with contrary worldviews (even from within China), which are often written off by the CCP’s political and analytical system as “subjective and inaccurate.” As a result, foreigners whose perspectives directly conflict with the party’s received wisdom are often invited to reflect on their “incorrect views” and form instead a “correct” view of history. It is much more difficult for the party to concede that its analysis might be flawed.

AI has many definitions, but fundamentally it describes systems that interpret large quantities of digital information, make algorithmic decisions based on that information, and adapt and learn from the outcome of previous decisions.

China consumed more coal in 2019 than the rest of the world combined. Some 20 percent of the entire world’s carbon emissions stemmed from Chinese coal-fired power stations alone.

there are more coal-fired plants under construction in China today than the entire installed capacity in the United States.

Indeed, Xi has publicly described Putin as “his best friend,” shared birthday phone calls with him, and publicly declared that the two of them “have similar personalities.”