China unlikely to have cold war-style confrontation with US, says report

China will likely use its growing power to try to force its way with Japan but it is doubtful that Beijing will enter a cold war-style confrontation with the United States, a study said on Thursday.

The report by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace aims to be the most comprehensive unclassified assessment of China’s rise and its impact on the US-Japan alliance in the years ahead.

China, which has been boosting its defence spending by double digits each year, has an increasingly tense relationship with Japan, which has voiced alarm at the frequency of Chinese ship incursions around disputed islands.

The report said China likely saw force as a last resort in foreign affairs but that Beijing may see its interests in the islands – known as the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese - as a special case.

“The most likely potential challenge to the US-Japan alliance over the next 15 to 20 years does not involve full-scale military conflict between China and Japan or the United States - for example, one originating from Chinese efforts to expel Washington from the region,” it added.

“The likeliest challenge instead stems from Beijing’s growing coercive power - increasing Chinese military capabilities could enable Beijing to influence or attempt to resolve disputes with Tokyo in its favour short of military attack.”

“Dramatic shifts” - such as an Asian cold war pitting China against the United States and its allies, or the dawn of a Chinese-dominated Asia - are unlikely by 2030, according to the study.