translation:

China-U.S. security competition is inevitable, but war is not inevitable.

Observer.com: China’s actions in Taiwan and the South China Sea are routine operations to safeguard sovereignty. The logic behind your statement is that you have always disbelieved that China will rise peacefully and claimed that there will be a war between China and the United States, even though China is trying hard to refute the “Thucydides Trap” theory proposed by your Western scholars.

You also told Al Jazeera that “American politicians don’t listen to you.” If they don’t listen to you, then China might be lucky. However, the reality is that the United States is following your strategy and constantly containing China in various ways.

What’s more, the United States and its Asian allies have been provoking tensions over the Taiwan issue. For example, the United States sells weapons to Taiwan (the latest batch of weapons is worth $1.988 billion) and plans to deploy missiles targeting mainland China on Japanese islands.

So, if a war really breaks out one day, your “there will be a war” theory may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, provided that the United States crosses the red line on the Taiwan issue. So what do you envision “there will be a war between China and the United States” looking like? Nuclear war? World War III?

John Mearsheimer: I’ve made it very clear that I’ve never argued that war between the United States and China is inevitable. I don’t think it’s inevitable. But since China’s rise, intense security competition has been inevitable. So this intense and dangerous security competition could lead to war.

During the Cold War, there was also an intense security competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thank God, there was no hot war between those two superpowers. Let’s hope that there will be no war as the competition between the United States and China escalates.

Now, you say that the United States is pursuing my policy, which is to contain China. I think that’s true. But the Chinese are basically pursuing my policy. I think the Chinese are determined to dominate Asia, and they should be.

If I were China, I would want to dominate the South China Sea. If I were China, I would want to take back Taiwan. If I were China, I would want to dominate the East China Sea. If I were China, I would want to drive the Americans out of the first island chain and then out of the second island chain. So I think everything that China is doing is roughly consistent with my theory, and so is the United States. That’s why I believed a long time ago that China could not rise peacefully.

Now the last issue at hand is Taiwan. I think the Taiwan issue is a very difficult issue for the foreseeable future, and I want to emphasize the word “I think” here. I am not sure about this, but I think it is unlikely that we will have a war over Taiwan in the foreseeable future, and I hope I am right. I think the situation in the South China Sea worries me more than Taiwan, and China is more likely to have a conflict or war over the South China Sea issue.

So what is the situation in Taiwan now? From the perspective of mainland China, taking back Taiwan is not only for strategic reasons, but also because Taiwan is a sacred territory that the Chinese have always wanted to take back. On the other hand, the Americans do not want mainland China to control Taiwan for strategic reasons, because Taiwan is a very important strategic asset for the United States. Therefore, the United States will do everything it can to prevent mainland China from taking back Taiwan, which will become a source of friction between the two countries.

So what I want to tell you is that the potential trouble of the Taiwan issue cannot be underestimated, but I think it is unlikely to cause a war in the foreseeable future. The reason is that it is difficult for mainland China to take back Taiwan, especially since the United States will almost certainly provide assistance to Taiwan.

One of the main problems is that mainland China must cross the Taiwan Strait and launch an amphibious operation to reach Taiwan, and an amphibious operation is one of the most difficult military operations imaginable. Therefore, if mainland China launches an attack on the Taiwan Strait with the help of the United States, it is unlikely to succeed and unlikely to win militarily.

I think that given the difficulties it would face in taking back Taiwan, mainland China would conclude that now is not the time to take back Taiwan. It is better to wait until mainland China is stronger and more militarily feasible before taking action.

Now you asked the last question, whether the Taiwan war would escalate into a nuclear war. The answer is that we don’t know, we have no way of knowing. Because first of all, we have no experience of two countries with nuclear weapons fighting each other. We don’t know much about nuclear escalation in a situation like the Taiwan war, so it is difficult to be sure what would happen.

But you can imagine, and I want to emphasize here that I am only saying “imagine”. You can imagine a scenario where China or the United States resorts to nuclear weapons. If a war breaks out over the Taiwan issue, and mainland China is at a disadvantage and the United States has the upper hand, given that the war is happening right on China’s doorstep and on China’s border, China may be very scared and turn to nuclear weapons to turn the situation around. At the same time, you can also imagine a scene where if the United States is at a disadvantage, mainland China will give the United States a devastating blow in the Taiwan war. I’m not saying it’s likely, but you can imagine the United States resorting to nuclear weapons.

The point I’m making is that the reason it’s reasonable to think that both sides might use nuclear weapons is that this war will largely take place over water, not on land. It’s easier to imagine using nuclear weapons in a Taiwan war scenario than in a war in Ukraine, Western Europe, or mainland China. It’s hard to imagine using nuclear weapons when the war is in a densely populated area. Whereas when the war is on an island in the water, one can imagine one side exploding one or two or three nuclear weapons.

So I’m very worried that if the United States and China go to war over Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the East China Sea, one side might use nuclear weapons. That’s why we have to do everything we can to ensure that there’s no war, and if a crisis does break out, both sides have to stay calm and handle the crisis like Khrushchev and Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis to avoid escalating into a thermonuclear war.

Observer Network: Well, if it’s as you say, we’ll have less to worry about. In September you had a famous debate with Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey Sachs believed that China was not a threat and he talked about how nuclear war was very dangerous. You said, “I agree with you in my heart, but I don’t agree with you in my head,” so I thought you were expecting war or something like the worst.

From the Chinese perspective, we never expect war. But if war really happens, as you said, it is inevitable, and it must be that the United States and your allies have touched the red line on issues such as the Taiwan issue and the South China Sea dispute.

John Mearsheimer: Finally, I want to emphasize again that I do not think war is inevitable. I think security competition, especially intense security competition, is inevitable. This is also where Jeffrey Sachs and I disagree. Jeffrey believes that we don’t have to get into security competition, we can avoid security competition, while I think security competition is inevitable.

Let us hope that in future crises, decision makers in Beijing and Washington can remain calm and ensure that security competition does not escalate into war between the two countries. Thank you very much for your invitation.

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