World War Three?

Things are getting worse.

People are speaking in apocalyptic terms. Is public transit dead? Are cities dead? Are schools and universities obsolete? Is the food going to run out?

Will there be war with China?

No. At least, not a big war.

This crisis leaves the Chinese leadership in a perilous spot. So long as China’s rise looked inevitable, those in charge had no real incentive to rock any atolls, and the Chinese public was prepared to stay on for the ride.

Now China will experience serious economic fallout, as the rest of the world “decouples.”

So the incentives change. If China’s economy and prestige is in decline, why not strike now, while still strong?

Germany charged into the First World War because they calculated that they were about to lose their ascendancy to Russia. They charged into the second because they thought they were unsustainable without Russia’s resources. Japan charged into the Second because they thought they were going to run out of resources.

The Chinese government might decide to grab while the grabbing was good. At the same time, perhaps forestalling internal revolt by uniting behind a common enemy.

The problem is, there is no plausible target that would be worth the risk.

China is actually quite self-sufficient in terms of natural resources, and, obviously, manpower. There seems to be no nearby grab that would significantly improve their strategic situation.

Starting a foreign war is also a poor strategy for avoiding internal dissention. Foreign wars, if they last more than a moment, are more likely to have the opposite effect. War provoked the Russian Revolution, the Paris Commune, indirectly both the French and the American revolutions. War hardly prevented the Chinese Communists from overthrowing the Guomintang.

Unless they see an easy, bloodless score, I expect no serious trouble from the Chinese government.

Would the US start a war with China? Not intentionally. The US too is self-sufficient. Nothing would be worth a land war in Asia. And war is a hard sell with the American public at the best of times.