Communist China Is Moving Toward War: Separating the Signal From the Noise

History illustrates that statesmen often make one great mistake: the belief that the status quo will continue. Because there is peace today, there will be tomorrow too. That is the “fog of peace” that leads to a strong tendency to dismiss warnings and indications of aggression that cut against the bias of the status quo. A second danger is one to which Americans are particularly prone. That the national security community can only focus on one problem at a time. The war in Ukraine or the unrest in Syria occupies much of the bandwidth of the national security community and senior decision-making officials, despite the existence of our geographic and functional combatant command organizations. This allows bad actors to exploit a lack of focus that prevents national leadership from being able to separate the “signal from the noise” that exists in the modern world of seemingly endless digital communications 24/7/365.

Both biases are present now as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is certainly moving towards war against Taiwan and very likely against the U.S. and its allies like Japan. The intense political warfare waged by Beijing against Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S. is increasingly becoming kinetic. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) calculating and deliberate actions may disappear at times as they are superseded by crisis events, such as in Syria this past week, in Ukraine, in Israel, or the next crisis to come. Yet, an objective assessment of the CCP’s intentions and capabilities has long warned about this coming problem.

In 1962, Roberta Wohlstetter published Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. Her major argument was that the U.S. was surprised by the Japanese surprise attack on December 7, 1941, but in fact, it should not have been. The U.S. had ample indications of a Japanese attack, but those “signals,” accurate indications of a Japanese attack, became lost in the “noise” of other intelligence, operations, and the peacetime expectations of civilian and military decision-makers.

Today the PRC’s actions are exploiting our biases much in the same way as they move towards war. CCP dictator Xi Jinping has repeatedly sent strong signals, including most recently by informing the Biden administration of the “Four Red Lines” the U.S. cannot cross—actions that it must not support or undertake. These “Red Lines” were the major theme of Xi’s meetings with President Biden at the 31^st APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting held in November in Lima, Peru. Most important was Xi’s personal demand that the U.S. obey them. A clear signal to the incoming Trump administration. Xi stated that the “Four Red Lines” are: the Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, China’s path and system, and China’s development rights. The Communist tyrant is telling the future U.S. president that: 1) the U.S. must not support an independent Taiwan; 2) the U.S. must not interfere in Chinese democracy and human rights; 3) the U.S. must not support the overthrow of the CCP; and 4) the U.S. must not interfere with China’s “rights” for advancement and development. At root, Xi is telling Biden and Trump that America must accept the PRC’s conquest of Taiwan, not labor to overthrow Communist tyranny, and accept the PRC’s aggression as it works to supplant the U.S.

Of great importance is that these political warnings are augmented by military actions. The recent detection by the Taiwanese military of 53 Chinese military aircraft and 11 People’s Liberation Army Navy ships, as well as eight other PRC vessels, around the island is a cause of concern, as it could be a preparatory signal for a future People’s Liberation Army (PLA) action against Taiwan and American forces in the region. Worth noting is that 23 of those aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s northern, southwestern, and eastern Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). This fits the pattern of the PRC tightening the noose around Taiwan while attempting to normalize the increased number of naval and aerial incursions against Taiwan. […]

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