SCS Tensions Rising

SCMP: Risk of military conflict between US and China higher than ever, experts say

Wu Shicun, the president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said that with Beijing and Washington locked in a rivalry on multiple fronts, the political distrust that had built up between them had led to hundreds of “track one” intergovernmental communication channels shutting down.

According to a report about US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region released by the institute on Tuesday, communication between the US and Chinese armies has been in sharp decline since 2018.

...But as the tension between Beijing and Washington has grown, so have been the fears of a new Cold War. For the first time since the actual Cold War, three 100,000-tonne US Navy aircraft carriers are now patrolling in the Pacific Ocean, while the US Pacific Fleet said last month that all of its forward-deployed submarines were conducting operations in the western Pacific.

...Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said the existing mechanisms might not be sufficient to keep every encounter under control, and the two sides should come up with a more effective way to manage possible crises.

“I am quite concerned as the encounters of the two armies in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait appear not to be incidental but intentional, both at sea and in the air,” he said.