AS this column goes to press, information has reached us that a group of American soldiers had conducted an inspection of the premises of the Sanjia Steel Corp. inside the Phividec Industrial Estate in Misamis Oriental. As this column stressed a number of times before, the May arrests by Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. of Chinese steelworkers in the company were already steps in the American plan to convert the 3,000-hectare Phividec Industrial Estate into a giant American fuel-munition-manufacturing-complex to implement two strategic military concepts that surfaced as the decade’s geopolitics throbbed into its concluding chapter.
Before ending his tenure, United States Navy Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Philip Scot Davidson elaborated on what he believed was China’s advancement in expansionist capability. In an oral and written appearance before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services on March 9, 2021, he warned that China was accelerating its goal to supplant US leadership in the international order, moving timelines up from 2050 to the current decade. He stated that Taiwan was an ambition for Beijing and that the threat of military action would manifest “during this decade, in fact, in the next six years” (leading up to 2027, the centennial of the People’s Liberation Army).
The revelation actually amounted to a brute pragmatism the US must embrace if it were to match China’s latent advances in both defense and attack capabilities.
The battleground, of course, is the Asia-Pacific, site of what in 2011 then-US secretary of state Hillary Clinton proclaimed as America’s Pacific Century.
For all its espousal of an international “rules-based order” and “freedom of navigation,” the concept is anathema to China’s own advocacy of a Declaration of Conduct among China and Asean members that rejects interference by parties foreign to the region.
Since neither the US nor China would budge from these avowed stands, the conflict is expected to explode sooner or later.
And in light of the evident continuous rule of Xi Jinping as president of China, the ultimate clash could take place sooner than later.
The key seems to hinge on the question: Until when will Xi Jinping stay as Chinese president? Will he continue to be at the helm of Chinese political power and thereby pursue his resolve of “reunifying the motherland” through to the end? Or could there be a cap once again on Chinese presidential terms so that the momentum of Xi’s reunification resolve is effectively stopped?
Xi was first elected president in March 2013, following his election as secretary-general of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in November 2012. Back in 1982, the cap on presidential terms was initiated by Deng Xiaoping purposely to prevent a repeat of the long dictatorship under Mao Zedong. But on March 11, 2018, China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, voted overwhelmingly to approve the constitutional amendment removing presidential term limits. The decision scrapped the two-term limit (10 years total) for the president and vice president, allowing Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely.
Such is the present reality the US faces in its own resolve to prevent Taiwan from being reunited with mainland China. America’s greatest asset in this regard is the strong alliance it has with Taiwan leader Lai Ching Te, whose Democratic Progressive Party is resolutely for Taiwanese independence from China.
As far as Taiwan’s peaceful assimilation into the motherland is concerned, nothing of that likelihood would come about.
Invasion remains China’s only choice in bringing about Xi’s desired reunification with Taiwan.
It is in such a perspective that Davidson conceived his war window with China.
He set the year 2027 as the year for a determined action by China on the issue of annexation of Taiwan because that is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and of the People’s Liberation Army. Any significant action by China, particularly in its relationship with the US and allies, must serve to accentuate that milestone when the CPC dared to break away from the US-supported Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek which it crushed at the end of the civil war in 1949.
Of course, Davidson did take care to clarify that his war window was not necessarily one for actual breakout of military clash. Rather, it was a scenario for China to have already achieved a readiness to engage the US in such a breakout if ever.
China already had by the time Davidson’s Indopacom successor, Adm. Samuel Paparo, submitted to the US Congress his crucial 121-page report. It details the advancements made by China in military preparedness vis-à-vis the US and allies, and desperately pleaded to lawmakers the grant to his command of some $122 billion in funding for the 2027 fiscal year for the purpose of strengthening American military presence, deter conflict and counter growing threats from China.
Key allocations requested include: $67.4 billion for new missile systems; $18 billion to counter Chinese military control systems; $15 billion for space-based missile warning systems and surveillance sensors; $3 billion for infrastructure expansion in places like Guam, Hawaii and Pacific islands; $2.3 billion for maritime and ground-based drone weapons; and $909 million for the Guam Defense System.
The report admitted that the US could no longer match the naval battle capabilities China has achieved, with 430 battleships as against the US’ 291. In order to neutralize this Chinese advantage, Paparo proposed the manufacture of what he termed as Quicksink kits capable of detonation beneath the waterline and hitting enemy ships right at the keel.
The idea was that rather than try matching in construction China’s already unmatchable fleet, counter it with low-cost destructive weaponry.
That in sum is the Davidson window which his Indopacom successor Admiral Paparo is pursuing to the hilt.
But then time and again in their continuing warfare, be it military, trade or whatever, China surprises the US with aces up its sleeve.
In this regard, Paparo becomes comparable to the monkey who complained: “Just when I knew all the answers, you suddenly changed the question.”
In his last summit with Xi, US President Donald Trump tried his damn best to convince the Chinese president to agree to a billion-dollar arms deal the US had in the works with Taiwan.
Xi talked in fine literary allegorical fashion. He said: “Can China and the United States transcend the so-called Thucydides Trap and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?”
Trump got the message. Waving to the send-off crowd before disappearing into Air Force One on the way back home to the US, his facial demeanor could not help betraying a vastly devastated soul.
Paparo may have the Davidson Window as a stopgap measure for countering China’s warfare preparedness, but how effective would it be when ranged against this evolution of Xi’s stand on the Thucydides Trap?
When visiting Seattle in 2015, Xi stated that “there is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap in the world,” implying major powers could avoid repeating history.
From 2023–2026, Chinese officials and Xi gradually changed their approach. Instead of denying the concept, they began referencing it to caution Washington.
True, during his meeting with Trump, Xi asked if the two nations could “forge a new paradigm” to escape the trap, but he paired this with a sharp warning about Taiwan, stating that US support for the self-governing island is the core issue that could trigger war.
No way for the Davidson Window to go than fall into the Thucydides Trap.
