As anyone who has been paying attention to the increasingly fraught Sino–American relationship knows, the chance that the two nuclear powers could end up in a serious crisis, and possibly a major war, is significant and growing. Most notably, increasing tensions between China and several of its neighbors — including U.S. allies and partners from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines, and India — have resulted in escalating incidents involving military and paramilitary forces that threaten to draw Washington and Beijing into a direct confrontation.
For example, recent violent clashes between the Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal have repeatedly pushed the Philippines to the brink of declaring the clashes as “armed attacks,” thereby activating the U.S.–Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty.
The danger of this situation is made worse due to the deep distrust that now exists between the two powers, their growing reliance on military deterrence over diplomacy in conducting bilateral relations, and, most importantly, the fact that they hold antagonistic views toward issues of high national interest on both sides, such as the fate of Taiwan. Taken together, these factors pose a major challenge to future efforts to avoid or defuse a Sino–American political-military crisis and thereby avert a major conflict.
In response to this dire situation, Beijing and Washington have in recent years undertaken several notable measures to avert and defuse a future bilateral crisis. These include the creation of a crisis hotline, voluntary protocols for on-the-scene operators to avoid or de-escalate accidental clashes at sea or in the air, and a military-to-military crisis communication working group to discuss how to improve crisis management.
While undoubtedly useful, such measures will almost certainly prove woefully inadequate in averting or defusing a future Sino-American crisis, thus leaving the two countries open to the possibility of a major war. This judgment results from many so-called Track Two dialogues and crisis simulations — consisting of unofficial interactions between former Chinese and American officials and military officers, plus policy analysts and scholars — as well as extensive materials research that I and colleagues in the United States and China have organized and led over more than 15 years.
These examinations have revealed an array of senior elite and lower-level perceptions, beliefs, and features of the intelligence and decision-making systems on both sides that are likely to increase miscalculations, misperceptions, and unclear signaling in a crisis, possibly resulting in deliberate or unintended escalation, an unnecessary or excessive use of force, and a level of inflexibility inhibiting de-escalation and a “way out.”
Deeply Held Biases and Problematic Systems
Both historical studies and crisis dialogues and simulations have shown that the most basic feature undermining effective crisis avoidance and management is the growing tendency on both sides to view potential sources of Sino–American crises such as the Taiwan issue or maritime disputes in the South China Sea as non-negotiable, black-and-white threats. China views these as threats to territorial integrity, and the United States sees them as threats to alliance credibility. Such rigid, totalistic views inhibit the flexibility needed to avert or deescalate crises and instead inclines both sides to double down on demonstrations of resolve while ignoring possibilities for mutual accommodation.
More broadly, both sides have historically held strongly ideological views about the drivers of aggressiveness and risk-acceptance on the other side. In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. military confidence, when combined with an image of China as a crisis-mongering communist aggressor, at times led U.S. decision-makers to downplay prudence in favor of conveying resolve through extremely strong coercive (including nuclear) threats and military alerts or displays.
On the Chinese side, Maoist assumptions about the U.S. desire to overthrow communist rule resulted in what Beijing believed were justifiably strong Chinese reactions — sometimes in a rigid tit-for-tat manner and other times via disproportionate escalation — intended to convey superior resolve despite material weakness. Chinese leaders also at times prized the deliberate cultivation of uncertainty in a crisis, again believing that it would compensate for China’s relative weakness vis-à-vis the United States.
Some of these dangerous assumptions about the other side’s intentions are now re-emerging in the worsening Sino–American strategic competition.
Other dangerous features of Chinese and American approaches to political-military crises have been revealed in numerous dialogues and simulations. These include a Chinese belief that Beijing enjoys an advantage over the United States in a so-called “balance of fervor” regarding sovereignty issues such as Taiwan, and a U.S. tendency to over-react to perceived Chinese provocations out of the supposed need to disabuse Beijing of the notion that the United States is less committed or has become less capable militarily.
The Chinese also often mix external with internal threats when assessing the nature of a crisis, thus raising the domestic stakes involved. In addition, simulations suggest that Beijing might see U.S. defensive military preparations, alerts, and mobilizations during a crisis as a form of escalation that justifies a dangerous tit-for-tat response. Chinese players have also viewed U.S. actions as more coordinated than they actually were and have also believed that movements of U.S. military forces constituted the most credible signals of intentional escalation, leading them to discount the de-escalatory meaning of direct diplomatic signals.
Adding to these problems, past historical crises have revealed the presence on the Chinese side of a stove-piped and fragmented intelligence and decision-making system that can slow reaction time, distort the assessment of information, and reduce signal clarity. The Chinese system also suffers from a strong tendency to avoid sending bad news upward in a crisis, due to a fear of reprisal by higher-ups.
On the U.S. side, in some simulations, American players have apparently assumed, often incorrectly, that they can finely calibrate the level of military coercion they apply via alerts and deployments, and that the Chinese side can accurately interpret such signals. At the same time, U.S. players have misinterpreted Beijing’s rhetorical warnings or time-bound ultimatums in a simulated crisis as “cheap talk” and thus underestimated the propensity of China to resort to military action.
Crisis simulations between Americans and Chinese have also revealed mistaken views of both country’s relations with third parties involved in a crisis that can produce miscalculations. These include the notion that dangerous allied actions always reflect American or Chinese views or, alternatively, will cause Washington or Beijing to make dangerous moves. And both powers tend to hold exceptional views of themselves (e.g., that China is a uniquely peaceful country or the United States uniquely principled), which can lead to the denigration of the other side and thus reduce incentives for signaling self-restraint.
Finally, beyond all these factors, several generic, signaling-related problems that can inadvertently escalate a crisis have emerged in our crisis simulations and dialogues. These include unclear or inconsistent use of various types of media; the unexplained use of military alerts and mobilization; differing views of what constitutes authoritative channels and when they should be used; differing interpretations of specific phrases and terms used in crisis signaling; and a lack of attention to, or awareness of, the historical or political context of a crisis.
Obstacles to Moving Forward
One might think that this wide array of features inhibiting effective crisis management would motivate both countries to work hard to educate decision-makers on the dangers involved and put in place more effective crisis prevention and management measures. But this is not happening. Too many officials and observers on both sides seem to think that having a hot line and some kind of military-to-military crisis dialogue is enough to avert or deescalate a crisis. And many individuals seem content to let crisis management remain within the purview of the two militaries or civilian defense officials. The above findings clearly call into question such naïve notions.
Equally important, present differences between U.S. and Chinese officials regarding the basic meaning and purpose of such a dialogue are clear obstacles to a more effective crisis dialogue.
While U.S. officials tend to stress measures to defuse an existing political-military crisis and prevent it from escalating to conflict (i.e., crisis management), Chinese officials point to the need to focus on avoiding crises in the first place by dealing with their likely causes (i.e., crisis prevention).
Chinese military officers in particular tend to suspect that Washington merely wants to use a crisis management dialogue to create guardrails that avoid a conflict while permitting the United States to continue its supposedly crisis-inducing activities near China. For their part, U.S. military and civilian officials suspect that Beijing simply wants to use a crisis prevention dialogue to challenge basic U.S. policies toward Taiwan and the South China Sea that China likely sees as the cause of any future political-military crises.
No substantive efforts at creating meaningful confidence-building measures and crisis mechanisms will occur as long as this difference remains and suspicious militaries on both sides largely dominate crisis dialogues.
Breaking the Impasse
Not all of the above negative features of crisis behavior, or the obstacles to an effective crisis dialogue, can be removed entirely. But their influence can be reduced through measures aimed at educating crisis managers and creating substantive civilian-led, crisis-handling mechanisms and processes.
As a first step in this direction, the most senior leaders on both sides need to clearly recognize the many obstacles to effective crisis prevention and management that exist and demand that the two governments work more energetically to reduce their influence, using both Track One (i.e., official) and Track Two (i.e., unofficial) military and civilian channels.
Such a clear demand signal from the top of each system would help to overcome the above-mentioned impasse over the basic meaning and purpose of crisis dialogues and mechanisms. Indeed, discussions with both U.S. and Chinese officials suggest that a common definition of the meaning and content of crisis prevention and management can be arrived at if senior leaders apply pressure on those defense officials leading the current Track One crisis dialogue (especially on the Chinese side) and open it up to greater civilian, non-defense agency involvement.
Create a Two-Tier, Civilian-Led Crisis Dialogue
One possible expanded civilian and military format for addressing both crisis prevention and management that senior leaders should endorse is a two-tier, coordinated bilateral dialogue structure.
A senior tier would be largely civilian-led and focused more on reducing policy-related sources of crises. Although Beijing will doubtless seek to use such a forum to continue to call for basic changes in U.S. policy that Washington finds unacceptable, the venue would at least take the discussion out of the more contentious military-to-military arena and thereby allow for greater flexibility in addressing the topic. For example, the discussion could go beyond basic policy issues to include crisis-prevention-oriented, confidence-building measures distinct from crisis management and communications.
A subordinate tier would include both civilian and military officials and focus on specific crisis management challenges of the sort outlined above. Coordination between the two tiers would take place via some overlapping membership and occasional joint meetings of the leading officials involved.
Participants in this structure should include military and civilian officials within agencies spanning the entire crisis decision-making system, from senior leadership to on-the-scene operators, including not only military entities but also regional and functional (e.g., arms-control-related) civilian agencies, and senior-level national security offices. The latter should include relevant bureaus in the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the National Security Council and the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Committee.
Agreed-Upon Crisis Guidelines and Mechanisms
Such a two-tier structure should address a range of specific agenda items designed to overcome many of the above negative perceptual, structural, and process features operating on both sides and create effective crisis management mechanisms. They should include, first, the creation of an agreed-upon set of crisis prevention and management guidelines, or “dos and don’ts,” to be referenced by both sides prior to or during a crisis. These should include such commonsense notions as the use of clear, understandable signals, a focus on limited objectives and means, avoiding ultimatums and rigid tit-for-tat escalation, anticipating unintended consequences, and exchanging specific types of information when an incident occurs such as when any damage or casualties are sustained.
A second agenda item should consist of a lexicon or glossary of crisis terms that each side uses in crises, so that both sides have a better understanding of the meaning of terms used by the other side. This could help reduce misunderstandings about the other side’s thought processes and the meaning of its verbal signals.
Third, both sides should cooperate to produce a crisis manual that includes the other three sets of agenda items listed here and other information necessary for decision-makers on both sides to prevent and manage a Sino–American crisis, including reassuring explanations of policies that might be misinterpreted by the other side.
Fourth, and most importantly, both sides should produce proposals for specific policies, confidence-building measures, and crisis mechanisms that are intended to reduce the likelihood of a future crisis, slow the escalation of a crisis, or successfully de-escalate any crisis that might emerge.
This could include the development of a channel between trusted individuals (such as former officials) that exists outside of regular official interactions. Such a channel, often pointed to by former officials on both sides as a critical means of alleviating past crises, would also serve as a testing ground for specific ideas that could then be discussed at the official level.
A second crisis mechanism could be a crisis working group on early warning or a different sort of joint mechanism that includes mid-level representatives of military and foreign affairs offices. This group would be specifically tasked to identify actions taken by either or both sides that could generate a serious crisis and recommend actions for averting it.
Washington and Beijing should also consider holding regular crisis management exercises by senior decision-makers up to the head-of-state level, with the inclusion of outside crisis management specialists in both senior policy offices and the above-mentioned crisis working group. These would be hard steps to take but could add greatly to the ability of both sides to avert future crises.
Coordinating Track One and Track Two Dialogues
Achieving the above goals will take time and involve a considerable exploration of options and ideas in as frank and flexible an environment as possible. This cannot take place solely at the official Track One level. A sustained, unofficial Track Two dialogue, enjoying close contact with officials in both militaries and governments, will be essential to develop the above and other ideas in a more open, flexible, give-and-take environment.
Conclusion
The United States and China are ill-prepared to avert or manage a future political-military crisis. This greatly increases the chance that a future incident between them will escalate into a major conflict. Remedying this situation requires recognizing the problem and acting decisively to create the bilateral, civilian-led dialogue structures and processes needed to educate crisis handlers, and to create and put in place crisis prevention and management mechanisms. Senior leaders on both sides need to drive this process to overcome lower-level hesitation. This will take time, but there is no time to lose. The alternative is too onerous to contemplate.
Michael D. Swaine has been an expert on China and Asia-related security issues and an advisor to the U.S. government for over 35 years. He is currently a senior research fellow in the East Asia Program of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and held similar posts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the RAND Corporation.
Image: U.S. Department of State
