James Holmes — Why the World Should Fear a 'Thucydidean' China

This is an interesting article from the perspective of psychological projection. Professor Holmes projects onto China the behavior of the American Empire asserting its right to global hegemony as "exceptional" and "the indispensable nation" that gets to make the rules.

In comparison China has so far has done very little to project its power, while the US has been encircling China militarily.

Moreover,the Chinese government certainly has not claimed global hegemony as the US did in the Wolfowitz Doctrine. And has the good professor forgotten about the Monroe Doctrine that claimed hemispheric hegemony in 1823 and America's ongoing intrusion in the internal affairs of Latin American countries?

Moreover, the People Liberation Army officers that Holmes quotes are not in a position of authority to speak for the Chinese government on Chinese foreign policy.

Interestingly also, Holmes uses the term "Thucydidean." Certainly he is aware that the Thucydides trap refers to a country in decline going to war with a rising power challenging it to maintain position and that international relations (IR) experts have applied it to the US-China relationship. President Xi was so concerned it was becoming an IR meme that he addressed while in the US, brushing it off as irrelevant in today's world of mutuality.

It appears to be yet another example US pessimism and paranoia.

The National Interest
Why the World Should Fear a 'Thucydidean' China

James Holmes | Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College

Liu Haiyang — Whose “International Law” Are We Talking About?

A Chinese view of what happens when the US makes the rules.

On its face, the US FON [freedom of navigation] program is an effort to assert US desires upon the world oceans for the sole purpose of affording its naval and air forces the maximum degree of mobility and flexibility. In essence, through enforcing American perspective of international law in defiance of shared international perspectives of international law, the apparent provocative nature of such assertions exposes the FON operations as exercises of hegemonic power projection so as to establish a US-dominated maritime legal order beyond a world ocean legal order guaranteed under the convention. As for the FON operations conducted in the South China Sea, they are no more than a tool to carry out the US “Pivot to Asia” strategy.

CHINA US Focus
Whose “International Law” Are We Talking About?
Liu Haiyang is a research fellow at the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies, Nanjing University