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In my letter, “Geopolitics makes landscape complex in the West Pacific” (June 21), I surmised that in the event of a war over Taiwan, Beijing, which has no formal military ally, may have to fight against the US, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, yet it is questionable whether Japan and South Korea would be willing and able to wholeheartedly support the US in a war with China, as the pair perpetually cast a wary eye over their nuclear-armed neighbours, North Korea and Russia. This observation has now been strengthened by the recent Russia-North Korea military alliance.
If a war breaks out in the South China Sea, with the US, Japan and South Korea busily occupied therein, Russia and North Korea may and can, with or without coordination with China, make expeditious moves from the north, thus unavoidably distracting the US and its allies from their war with China.
The US may have additional distractions. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine may end with precarious truces. The US cannot afford to be totally unprepared for resumption of conflict in those parts of the world. Involving itself, one way or another, simultaneously in conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, South China Sea, Taiwan and northeast Asia would certainly be extremely unappetising to the US.
The Russia-North Korea military alliance would indeed change the geomilitary chessboard which, I dare say, is slightly tilting in China’s favour.
Francis Lo, North Point
Pithy explanations mask US-China complexity
American geopolitical commentator and former Clinton administration official Jamie Metzl recently posted on X, formerly Twitter: “China’s government was offered every opportunity to be a South Korea, celebrating its own culture and traditions while joining efforts to build a better and safer future for its citizens and the world. Instead, it has tragically chosen the destructive path of Russia and Iran”.
Such a statement about China is dangerous. It offers the masses in the United States and throughout the English-speaking world a powerful explanation for the state of affairs between the US and China. It provides the kind of terse language that many like, in feeling they have a handle on a fluid and complicated reality. Instead of understanding what is, they are likely mistake this concept as representative of the whole reality. This is the road to conflict. Perhaps all conflict in life, at individual or societal level, has its roots in such probable-sounding but illusive concepts that take the place of real understanding.
Who offered China “every opportunity”? The US? The West? Metzl lacks the courage to be explicit.