How the US and China can stop stumbling towards war

Name: Who’s to blame for toxic China-US relations? | David Shambaugh on Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo
Uploaded: 2022-02-12T02:15:09.000Z
Duration: 14 min 34 s
Description: Who’s to blame for toxic China-US relations? | David Shambaugh on Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo

The relationship between the two countries is extremely stressed but they must learn to coexist, David Shambaugh says

The Communist Party must also ensure China remains open and continues to grow its economy to avoid Soviet Union-style atrophy, he tells the Post

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Who’s to blame for toxic China-US relations? | David Shambaugh on Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo

William Zheng

Published: 10:15am, 12 Feb 2022

The United States and China must find a way to prevent conflict escalating and improve top-tier communications to avoid the risk of an “accidental war” between them, according to David Shambaugh, a leading, long-time American observer of China.

Shambaugh delivered the assessment in the latest episode of the South China Morning Post’s video series Talking Post with SCMP chief news editor Yonden Lhatoo. In the conversation, he shared his take on the possibility of a China-US war, the future of the Chinese Communist Party and more.

“It’s not an insubstantial risk that a war [will occur] between the United States and China,” Shambaugh said, adding that the “major trigger” would be Taiwan or a military accident in the South China Sea.

He said another possible trigger was “a kind of EP-3 type crisis”, referring to the April 2001 collision between a US EP-3E intelligence aircraft and a People’s Liberation Army J-8II interceptor near China’s Hainan Island.

One PLA pilot went missing, later presumed dead, in the incident, and the EP-3 was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan.

“I don’t think it is an exaggeration, I think … there is a risk,” Shambaugh said.

“Europe is not going to go to war with China, Australia is not going to go to war with China – but the United States and China do have potential.

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