Would a Cold War-style agreement help prevent China-US tensions from escalating?
- A former PLA senior colonel suggestd US-Soviet agreement could provide model
- But a former US defence official says level of tensions undermines historical comparison
China and the US should establish a mechanism similar to the agreement reached between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War to prevent the escalation of tensions, a retired People’s Liberation Army officer said last week.
But his suggestion prompted a sceptical response from a former US Defence Department official who managed military-to-military relations between China and the United States.
“For those watching the war in Ukraine and worrying that a similar conflict might occur in the Taiwan Strait, my response is simple: it’s the South China Sea, stupid,” Zhou, now a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, wrote.
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PLA scrambles fighter jets after detecting foreign warplanes over South China Sea