If the US ever went to war with China, it would be a Trump distraction technique

There is no indication that the US president wants a war. But, if he did get into one, it would be to direct attention away from his incompetence

Isaac Stone Fish
China's South Sea Fleet
Wednesday 25 January 2017 12.13 EST

First, the good news. Donald Trump almost certainly does not wish to go to war with China over the disputed islands in the South China Sea. Yes, in his Senate confirmation hearing in mid-January, secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson provocatively compared Beijing’s moves in the sea to “Russia’s taking of Crimea” and said its “access to these islands also is not going to be allowed”. And on Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer pledged to defend “international territories” in the South China Sea.

But the simplest – and, frankly, more believable – explanation is that both men misspoke.

In the same hearing, Tillerson mistakenly said $5tn in trade passes through the South China Sea daily – it’s yearly. Trump’s team is new, relatively inexperienced in foreign policy and less reliant on expert briefings. As Dennis Wilder, the top White House Asia adviser to George W Bush, put it: “Tillerson and the new press secretary are just not yet steeped in the arcane nature and legal niceties of the South China Sea issue.”

Moreover, blockading the islands is not only “literally an act of war”, but “operationally almost impossible” an American South China Sea expert, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the situation, told me. And that, he said, indicates “it is a temper tantrum” – one that Trump may be using with the intention of trying to exert trade concessions from China – and “not a believable threat”.

That is the good news.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/25/donald-trump-south-china-sea-distraction-technique