US or China - Who started it?

Many experts claim that the US, irked by China's economic and geopolitical rise, started surrounding China with bases and military posts and thus threatened the Chinese. Is it correct?

May 09, 2023

Many people get confused over what happened between US and China and who has started the current “fight” between the top 2 economies in the world. Is US wary of the economic rise of China? Or is China playing hokey?

To understand the current predicament, we must understand what has happened between these two countries. Let us quickly breeze through the historical issues and events between these two countries.

Pre-1971 US Actions in China

The Republic of China ROC (I will call this the Taiwan faction) was fighting the Japanese occupation in WW2.
ROC had secured significant upsets against the Japanese army, but the fight was not over.
The US bombing of Japan ended that fight. ROC (i.e. Taiwan faction) was declared an ally. ROC (i.e. Taiwan) became the founding member of the UN.
CCP started fighting the Chinese Taiwan faction, and this faction had to move to Taiwan. CCP named mainland China as People’s Republic of China (PRC)
CCP tried to attack Taiwan in 1954, with the US intervening and threatening the use of an Atomic Bomb. These crises repeated in 1956 and 1958.
The US refused to accept PRC as China and continued to accept Taiwan (ROC) as China. The US maintained that it recognised only one China (i.e. ROC).
In 1971, the Kissinger-Nixon cabal, in their desire to encircle USSR, sacrificed Taiwanese interests and accepted PRC as the only one China (and ditched ROC) Taiwan was kicked out of the UN.

US military encirclement of China - Bogus!

The US military always had bases around China. Rather these bases were meant to contain USSR, China was not a major factor in the equation then.
The US established bases in Japan to subdue the Japanese and keep an eye on USSR.
The Korean partition resulted from the post-WW2 Soviet-US division of occupied lands. The subsequent Korean War brought the US military to Korean shores again with an eye on the Soviets, though the PRC sided with North Korea.
The Philippines was a US colony between 1898 to 1940s when it was invaded by Japan. There was US military infrastructure there.
The US had bases in Singapore, and Australia was a US ally. There were appropriations of the Oceanian islands under the Australian and US sphere of influence.
All of this happened before the 1970s.
To argue that the US encircled China is fallacious. You can think of it like the US encircled the bear, and the sleeping dragon got encircled in the process.
Both PRC and Taiwan were at risk from the USSR. That even the communist CCP was at risk from USSR says something. Therefore both actually welcomed the US presence in the Asia-Pacific.
Thus, the US was looked upon as the policeman for the international order. The US did abuse its position, but overall it did function as a policeman.

Post-1970s, the US-China economic cooperation

The US used China to counter the USSR, exploiting the dissonance between the USSR and China.
The US-China cooperation opened doors to Japanese, Korean and European investments in China.
In the 1980s, there was a definitive push by Chinese students to end CCP rule and usher in democracy. Whether it was part of US / CIA-engineered activity, we cannot say. But the same was crushed ultimately at Tiananmen Square.
Considering the US-China relations did not suffer, I suspect, the US had some role in engineering democracy.
China used the “hide your strength, bide your time” philosophy. The US admitted China to the WTO despite China not meeting various criteria to this date.
China deployed mercantilism to extract from the EU/US. China built manufacturing capacities between 50% to 200% of the world demand in many industries. With a population of about 1.3 Billion focussed on manufacturing, little space remained for manufacturing by anyone else anywhere.
Yet, China choked its own domestic demand instead leaned on the global consumer. China became an 800-pound gorilla sitting on the chest of the global consumer.

Chinese Aggression

Countries bordering China have ignored Chinese (not Taiwanese) aggression. Annexations of Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Hong Kong etc., were not thwarted. These aggressive manoeuvres started right from the founding of CCP China.
PRC keeps manipulating borders and tries to control influence over all its land and sea borders continue to this day.
It has disputes with Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc., wrt sea borders. It has disputes with Nepal, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Vietnam etc., wrt land borders.
As a side note - The ROC (Taiwan faction), too, made egregious claims on these territories as per their 1949 map.
In 2020, despite being aware of the threat and potential spread of the COVID virus, China allowed infected international travellers out of Wuhan, resulting in massive loss of life globally. China had banned domestic travel between Chinese cities and Wuhan while international travel was allowed.

US Aggressions against China

The US blocked the PRC China in the 1954 First Taiwan Crisis to protect the democratic ROC /Taiwan.
The US had to intervene again in the 1958 Second Taiwan Crisis.
China, despite positive US-China trade relations, fired a volley of missiles across Taiwan in 1996, around the time Taiwan held its first free Presidential election.
The US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the ongoing Yugoslavian crisis. The US declared it as a mistake - (oops)!
In 2001, a US reconnaissance plane collided with a Chinese fighter plane and landed in China.
In 2022 a Chinese balloon with surveillance equipment was found loitering over critical US nuclear and defence infrastructure. It was shot down.

Post 2010 - Chinese Economic and Territorial Belligerence

Chinese opened multi-front bullying tactics against many countries.
China unleashed corporate spying, cyber-attacks and technological eavesdropping on US corporates. It manipulated its economic muscle and the overseas Chinese population to focus on intellectual property and other assets required for development.
Chinese belligerence in the South China Sea, Senkaku Islands, the Indo-Chinese, the China-Bhutan, China-Nepal borders and other places have increased exponentially since 2010.
Chinese fishing boats with reinforced hulls have deliberately run into many coast guard and naval vessels from ASEAN navies.

So who started it?

China! While the US has misbehaved in many ways, the scales are definitely and unequivocally blaming China!

In a way, the world is paying the price of ignoring the Chinese aggression in Tibet and other places. The US also flirted with the Chinese to counterbalance the Soviets. They turned a blind eye towards Chinese actions. If these bad behaviours had been nipped in the bud, we might have seen a peaceful China now.

Did I miss something?

Let me know in the comments if I missed something or if you catch my numerous mistakes. (If my wife reads this, she will definitely catch a lot more!)

I love to read your feedback too! Let me know what interesting US-China event you did not know before you read this post.