The author is an ex-Naval officer who studied China's modernization of its navy. He sees four possible flash-points that could erupt into US-China war.
I would however caution that China relies on exports. So it might not go to war with its major trading partners.
Four Ways a China-U.S. War at Sea Could Play Out
I see four distinct maritime “flashpoint” zones, where the Chinese navy may potentially take military against the U.S. and its allies, partners and friends. They are the Taiwan Strait; Japan and the East China Sea; the South China Sea; and more distant waters around China's other neighbors, including Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and India.
Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait
The highest regional priority for the Chinese military is ensuring it can exercise sea control and power projection in the waters around Taiwan. President Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership have sworn to bring the “renegade province” to heel. While they still hope to do so through patience — and by strangling Taipei’s international support — they will be willing to use military force if necessary. In recent congressional testimony, Admiral Phil Davidson, head of the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command, said that he saw the possibility of military action “within six years.”
The Taiwanese are carefully watching as China violates the agreement negotiated with the British in 1997 to follow a “one country, two systems” system with Hong Kong. They recognize their future within greater China would include a loss of democracy and human rights.
With Taiwan over 8,000 miles from Hawaii but just 250 miles from the Chinese mainland, the challenges for the U.S. Navy are profound. U.S. support for Taiwan’s security is bipartisan — but the longstanding U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity,” supporting Taiwan militarily without a formal commitment to defending it, is dangerously fuzzy. It could lead to a miscalculation by the Chinese (or the Taiwanese) and set off a larger conflict.apan and the East China Sea
Japan and China have a long and difficult history, including two significant military confrontations in the modern era. In the first Sino-Japanese War, begun in 1894 largely over control of Korea, a newly dynamic Japanese war machine easily defeated the fading Qing Dynasty of China. A second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 and lasted until the end of World War II. The Japanese killed, wounded, raped and imprisoned millions. The bitterness between the two nations is palpable today.
The South China Sea
The South China Sea is huge, nearly half the size of the continental U.S. As you approach the coasts of the many nations that ring it, you’ll see huge clusters of coastal fishermen; oil and natural gas platforms; small tankers and breakbulk cargo vessels; and massive supertankers. It is a busy waterway; by some estimates it carries nearly 40% of the world’s shipping.
Alongside all those maritime silhouettes, you will also see the warships of many nations — China and the U.S., to be sure, but also local combatants from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Other Asia-Pacific nations, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India and South Korea, maintain a military presence. And warships from other side of the world — France, Germany, the U.K. — routinely deploy there as well.Read the entire article at the link.India and the Indian Ocean
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Today, India is cornerstone of an emerging Indo-Pacific geopolitical alignment, known as colloquially as the Quad, along with Australia, Japan and the U.S. One of Biden’s first actions after taking office was a video summit with the other three nations’ leaders.
It has not developed into the “Asian NATO” that some strategists envisioned. As is often the case in Asian geopolitics, it’s complicated. China is among the largest trading partners of three of the members, and there are very real differences in outlook and approach to Beijing among the group. But the Quad is increasingly touted as part of the strategic response to Chinese military activity.