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USA-CHINA:

War or Peace?

Joe Biden may have made another infamous gaffe when he was in Tokyo on Monday for the QUAD meeting. He appeared to drop the USA’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan when he proclaimed that the USA would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked by China. Cue the sharp drop of heads and uncomfortable shuffling in the seats as his national security team realise that there is a reason why he does not do many press conferences or sit down interviews. South Korea, Thailand and small Pacific states, such as Kiribati. The USA has a preponderance of hard power. Its annual defence budget is almost double that of China’s and it spends more on on defence than all of the rest of NATO combined. Its soft power is also formidable, as proven by the global influence of American film, media and sports. This is not to deny that Chinese influence is growing and that China is becoming more assertive, as its recent security agreement with the Solomon Islands illustrates.

It would not be the first time that Joseph Biden has dug himself a whole so deep that he needs Mr Trump to rescue him.

There is a serious point here, which is that the likelihood of a USChina conflict is rising, but it is not inevitable. There is tension, but this does not have to be terminal.

It is fashionable to talk about the end of US hegemony as though the USA’s global power can be dropped and dismissed like some ailing football player as a young academy start-up shines, but this is a gross exaggeration.

The USA’s power is entrenched. The post-war rules-based international order was crafted by the USA and the USA still dominates the UN, IMF, World Bank and NATO, due to the resources and expertise it contributes and the voting powers it has. The USA’s entrenched power is further evinced by its longstanding alliances. There are the obvious ones, such as its leadership of the Five Eyes alliance and AUKUS, but then this hegemon also has security agreements with Japan,

The USA remains the hegemon and China has moved beyond being a plucky upstart, as it is entrenching its power through the Belt and Road initiative and its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Great powers tend to copy each other and learn from how their great power rivals acquired their position and China is doing the same through building its entrenched, institutional power. So there are more similarities between the two states than the extremes of left and right will suggest.

Competition between the USA and China is becoming more intense, which is not an inherently negative development, as both states are pushing each other to see who can advance the most in the fields of AI, green technology, robotics, space and advanced manufacturing. This inter-state competition becomes especially problematic if it morphs into becoming intense military tension or if one of the great powers uses illegitimate means (such as intellectual property theft) to steal the march on their competitor in a non-military sphere.

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To prevent conflict between the USA and China, the USA must engage from a position of strength, so it can raise the cost of war. Both states must also develop a framework through which they can cooperate on a limited number of areas. They must aim for limited strategic cooperation and allow expansive strategic competition, as history teaches us that great power competition is just a fact of the international system.

As Graham Allison writes on Thucydides’ Trap, in his sample of sixteen cases of where there has been a transition of power from one great power dominating to another great power leading, twelve of these transitions resulted in war between the great powers involved in the transition. There are flaws in his argument, as the causal direction is not unidirectional, because war can also produce shifts in global power, as well as being the result of it. World War Two produced a significant shift in global power towards the USA, as the leading European powers were left militarily and economically exhausted by the war. But Allison draws our attention to a crucial point, which is that great power competition can become great power conflict if both sides do not consciously agree to manage competition. this approach is inspired by the Reagan administration’s policy of peace through strength, as it faced down the Soviet Union. The USA must maintain its defence spending levels and especially focus on improving its economic competitiveness through strengthening domestic supply chains. The Biden administration must consolidate old alliances, principally the US-EU relationship and also its relations with Japan and Australia. It must also strengthen the more volatile and vulnerable relationships it has with India, the Philippines and Thailand.

Strengthening alliances is about building an American led balancing coalition to demonstrate to China that any expansionist tendencies that they act on will not go unchecked.

Peace through strength can no longer be achieved through military might alone; the USA must build up its alliances and raise its long-run growth rate. China is less likely to militarily intervene in Taiwan or provide direct military or economic support to Russia in Ukraine if the USA has a fixity of purpose and resolve based on a tripartite system of strength. This system should be based on strong economic growth, a network of alliances and a formidable military. foundations.

The second part of the USA’s strategy should consist of pursuing limited strategic cooperation with China. There are a small number of global issues that both states can cooperate on and cooperation should be practiced in a piecemeal, step-by-step and issue by issue way. The strategy should consist of limited cooperation on tackling climate change, terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. The word ‘limited’ is crucial, because when there is intense great power competition, it is unrealistic to expect expansive cooperation that is grounded in fraternal relations. Both states must accept that competition and tension will dominate their relationship in the coming decades, but as long as competition and tension are interrupted by flashes of cooperation, peace can prevail.

Both states must respect the advantages that their rival has and acknowledge that competition can easily become conflict without raising the cost of war. War is not inevitable, but it remains a possibility. Policymakers in Beijing and Washington will hopefully adopt the adage of prepare for the worst and hope for the best. But probably doing more of the former is wise.

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Reviewing the Colour Schemes of each Boat Club

We’ve all been there – you’re stood on the banks of the Isis cheering on your friends as they inevitably get bumped into oblivion by a boat that’s going as fast as a crocodile on crack cocaine. Then you realise that you have no idea which team just overtook your college’s boat because you haven’t devoted hours of your life to remembering the colours of each team, let alone the rules of whatever’s going on, for the simple reason that you want to do well in your course.

After many hours consulting charts, websites and real, live rowers, I’ve compiled a guide that will help you identify each college. It also lets me give my unwanted opinion on each college’s colour scheme. It’s a win-win situation!

Brasenose

Black with some yellow details. The blades are completely black.

Although the glamour of the little black dress is undeniable, this doesn’t translate well to rowing blades or all-in-ones. The ‘Childe of Hale’ colours of red, purple and gold that are usually used for the M1 and W1 boats could really improve the blades, but the college’s overcomplicated coat of arms doesn’t really lend itself to a specific design to be put on the blade. Maybe just adding some stripes would fix it? 5/10.

Hertford

Burgundy and black. The blades are burgundy with two vertical white stripes.

The burgundy colour of Hertford’s rowing club is one of the more unique colours to be featured, making it much more memorable that the hordes of blue and white monstrosities that parade down the Isis. It is a shame that the iconic deer head emblem is reserved for the M1 and W1 boats only though. 9/10

Keble

Blue, white and red. The blades are white with the iconic red Keble chevron.

No surprises here, the ubiquitous Keble chevron is on both the blades and the allin-ones of the Keble boat club. It’s always nice when a brand (or a boat club) has a consistent motif (think the Louis Vuitton monogram or the interlocking Cs of the Chanel logo), and the Keble chevron is no exception. It is a slight let down that the stars on the Keble crest aren’t featured on the all-in-ones though, maybe they could be put on the sides, or on the front as a faux belt? 8/10

Magdalen

Black with white details. The blades are black with a white lily. Florals? For rowing? Groundbreaking. The design on the blades is nice, but what on earth is going on with the all-in-ones!? The all black front and backs are fine, if a bit boring, but who approved the strange black-and-white striped side panels? Unfortunately, they come across as slightly clownish. Of course, all rowers are clowns, they just don’t know it. 4/10

Oriel

White and navy blue. The blades are navy blue with two vertical white stripes.

There’s something eerily clinical about the predominantly white all-in-ones of Oriel. In fact, there’s something eerie about Oriel in general. Maybe it’s that statue of Cecil Rhodes. 2/10

St Benet’s Hall

Blue and white. The blades are white with a vertical blue stripe.

Everyone’s favourite disaster stricken PPH unfortunately falls into the blue and white trend that plagues many Oxford boat clubs. In comparison, the crest of St Benet’s is a crazy combination of primary colours, so why not lean into this by having more coloured panels on the allin-ones? Alternatively, the navy and blue combo would be fine if there was more white to create a better contrast. 6/10 Hello and welcome back, readers. I’ll admit, COVID has once again really been getting up in my grill recently, especially with the advent of online lessons. In order to escape the monotony of these online classes, we caught a high-speed rail train to Taiwan’s southern former capital city, Tainan, where we stayed in a charming house with a café underneath it. Here, we did our classes every morning (by every morning I mean just the Thursday morning after we arrived because I conveniently wasn’t woken up by my alarm on Friday). Known as Taiwan’s former capital city, Tainan is full of temples and forts preserved from periods of Dutch colonisation. In addition, it is known as one of the best places in Taiwan for food (which is saying something!) and has some of the biggest and most famous night markets heaving with people, arcade games and delicacies. Our first day took us to Tainan’s Confucius Temple and the area’s surrounding art galleries. We had dinner in a fish restaurant complete with an entire wooden boat in it and then went to the only club in Tainan, which, as it happens, was closed, presumably because of COV*D. We ended up in a rock-n-roll themed bar nearby, which was completely empty apart from our group, another victim of the virus.

The following day we mounted our motorbikes and tootled on down to Anping Fort, or Fort Zeelandia as it was known by the Dutch colonists who established it. I somehow drew the short straw and ended up stuck in a group of male friends who gathered round at squealed at cannons at regular intervals, discussing whether they were rifled (whatever that means) or not. During these periods, I would mull over the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ and feel a sense of gratitude to the universe for not knowing, or having an intention to know, certain things.

I somehow drew the short straw and ended up stuck in a group of male friends who gathered round at squealed at cannons at regular intervals, discussing whether they were rifled (whatever that means) or not.

At around sunset, we decided to head home via the scenic route, which seemed like a good idea at the time but in hindsight probably wasn’t. We drove north to a national park full of luscious paddy field-adjacent scenery, where, much to my friend’s chagrin, I fretted and backseat drove the whole way, which blended in harmoniously with the sounds of nature around us. Upon encountering several packs of ‘night dogs’ (‘yè gǒu’ - we’ve also heard them referred to as wild dogs, called ‘yě gǒu’ in Chinese, so we might have got the ‘night’ bit wrong), we quickly skedaddled away from said paddy fields. At this point, my friend and I discovered that both our phones were dead, hence no more google maps, and our bike was running very low on petrol, hence no more driving. After losing our only other friend who had a charged phone, we ended up stranded in the middle of Tainan and its convoluted traffic system with no petrol or means to get home. It’s one of those year abroad moments (or YAMs) in which one decides to hastily re-establish a relationship with the divine and pray for a miracle. Fortunately, God’s help hotline was open that day and we quickly managed to find a petrol station and, by a sympathetic twist of fate, reunite with our friend who had a charged phone. Despite my nerves being rather shot after this incident, I was soon revived by a 7-Eleven hot-dog, and we ended up at Datong night market to sample some snacks and see if we could win any stuffed toys (successful on both fronts).

It’s one of those year abroad moments (or YAMs) in which one decides to hastily re-establish a relationship with the divine and pray for a miracle. Our final day was marked characteristically by torrential rain. After our group splitting up to see various exhibitions, museums and forts, we ended up sheltering in the tranquillity of an old-style teahouse where we honed our pouring and steeping skills that are customary and necessary in a tea ceremony. A three-hour train took us back up to Taipei, where I am now safely back writing this. Nothing feels like more of a homecoming than arriving back to a notice on the door of our apartment building warning of a routine power cut. Trying to buy a bottle of water in 7-Eleven in a queue behind others paying taxes, picking up packages, doing dry-cleaning, buying train tickets, booking cabs, printing, etc., feels like a familiar comfort. No other place better exemplifies the phrase ‘one-stop-shop’ more than good old 7-Eleven. I am now back to attending in-person lessons and have just a few weeks of term left now. Time flies or whatever. CC xx