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US-China relations
OpinionComment
Andrew Sheng
Andrew Sheng

Opinion | Respect for ‘red lines’ is the only way global powers can avoid nuclear war

  • History may remember the heroes of war, but it is the leaders who succeed in averting conflict that deserve to be celebrated
  • Without the first brave steps towards conciliation, it is all too easy for tensions to escalate to the point of no return

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Illustration: Stephen Case
Andrew Sheng
Now that the pomp of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has died down, and Beijing’s military exercises have concluded, what has been achieved, other than a worsening of US-China relations?

The crumbling of the current world order is like the early stages of an earthquake. Initially, everything looks fine, then cracks and tremors begin to appear, and events accelerate until the actual earthquake occurs, with massive devastation.

The difference between earthquakes and war is that the latter is human-induced and should, in theory, be avoidable. Unfortunately, history rewards heroes who win wars, but has seldom praised statesmen who have avoided them.

History will debate whether the Ukraine war was avoidable. So far, it has remained a non-nuclear war because Russia has warned Nato not to provoke it and Nato understands at least that, much like during the Cold War between 1946 and 1991 – that nuclear war would be MAD (mutually assured destruction).
A man pushes his bike past a destroyed building in Sloviansk, eastern Ukraine, on July 29. Photo: AFP
A man pushes his bike past a destroyed building in Sloviansk, eastern Ukraine, on July 29. Photo: AFP

There were lots of proxy wars in those years: in Korea, where the Soviets pushed China to do the fighting; and Afghanistan, where the US financed Islamist forces to wear down the Soviet forces. The Cuban missile crisis was defused when the Russians agreed to remove missiles from Cuba, provided the Americans removed missiles from Türkiye.

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