US v China: NZ has already picked a side

• Published date: 27 May 2023
• Publication title: Weekend Herald

Mike Smith sometimes attended the Labour caucus as general secretary of the party, and in 2002, having just returned from North America, he reported to the MPs that the United States would be invading Iraq

It was a year before the actual invasion, but he was convinced, simply because of what he saw on his hotel television screens.

After his presentation, then-Prime Minister Helen Clark got up and said: “Well, I’ll tell you one thing — we’re not going with them.”

She didn’t, and the decision not to go was a source of great political debate and a source of pride for Labour.

Today, Smith is worried about the lack of debate within Labour, and that what is happening now looks like a prelude to a war between the United States and China, a war which would be like no other.

“It wouldn’t be like the invasion of Iraq, which didn’t have much effect on people in the United States, or New Zealand for that matter; it would be catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic,” said Smith, who visited China several times as a Labour official.

“We’re not talking about conventional war. We’re talking about the real possibility of nuclear war, to the point where the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is the closest to midnight as it has ever been [90 seconds to midnight].”

The tempo of the United States’ action against China’s rise has undoubtedly intensified in the past year, fuelled by the fact that staying staunch on China has become an almost essential part of US domestic politics. It is likely to intensify even more in next year’s presidential run-offs and campaign.

On the trade front, the US has banned the export of advanced semiconductors to China in order to slow its technology developments, and its nascent Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity is a vehicle to promote supply chain resilience from China.

US President Joe Biden said unequivocally last September that US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion by China, in contradiction of maintaining its policy of strategic ambiguity. Congress has stepped up contact with Taiwan. China, which now has the world’s largest navy, has stepped up sea and air activity around the island.

War is talked about openly these days as though it’s odds-on happening.

In January, US Air Force General Michael Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, sent an unauthorised memo to his troops saying: “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” Two years ago, the then-head of Indo-Pacific Command, Philip Davidson, told a Congressional committee he thought China would try to take Taiwan by 2025.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger — who turns 100 on Saturday — was featured in The Economist last week talking about the potential for war.

“We’re in the classic pre-World War I situation,” he said, “where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences.”

He also believes that Washington...