Until the historic 1972 visit to Beijing by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, China was a sleeping monster. The confrontation between communism and the liberal West was measured in an absurd war on Vietnamese soil with Cambodian overtones. Mao's Red Book was selling like hotcakes in a Paris given over to recreational narcissism. The Watergate time bomb was close to exploding.
That historic visit set in motion not only the awakening of China, but the globalization of which we are all beneficiaries or victims, perhaps both at the same time. But now there are more and more Westerners who want to go back, and they do so by praising the excellence of local products. Even so, the Chinese economy does not stop growing, and with it its geopolitical power. The new silk road covers the entire world.
As much as Xi Jinping takes note of the mistakes made by Putin in Ukraine, there remains the dispute with Taiwan, which he would not hesitate to invade at the first opportunity, which could be the possible re-election of Donald Trump. Everything indicates that the Pacific Ocean will experience in the coming years the rise of Chinese power in the face of the decline and gradual withdrawal of the Americans.
When China launched its first nuclear submarine in 1974, the Western powers roared with laughter, as it was nothing more than a submersible botch. Since then, however, military spending has increased exponentially, especially on the Navy, which will soon be able to take on the hulking US Navy, but by other means: artificial islands instead of aircraft carriers that cost an arm and a leg.
The greatest beneficiary of the pax americana has been precisely China. It all started in Washington, in 1971, during a dinner in honor of the president of Nicaragua. Kissinger pulled Nixon aside to show him a secret message from Zhou Enlai in which he called for a one-on-one meeting between the US and Chinese presidents. “This is the most important communication a nation's president has received since World War II,” Kissinger whispered in his ear, in his unmistakable German accent.
Since then, both powers know if there is going to be a confrontation between them, it will be of a naval nature. Hence Beijing's determination to increase, whatever the cost, its fleet by forced marches. And it costs a lot, a lot.
In recent years there have been naval skirmishes in the Pacific between the world's top two economies, but they never go beyond a kind of sparring match, without major consequences. For now. In March 2009, a US surveillance ship was surprised, in waters just 70 nautical miles from the brand new Chinese Hainan submarine base, by the sudden appearance of ten threatening Chinese ships, which they proceeded to throw into the sea. large planks, in order to stop the advance of the Americans.
Passing the bow of the retreating American ship, the entire crew of a Chinese ship came up on deck, dropped their pants, and wagged their asses in brazen defiance of the Yankee intruders. The day Beijing orders the invasion of Taiwan, the war in Ukraine will seem to us, even if it is not yet over, a storm in a teacup, as the British said on the eve of losing their American colonies.
