The More Things Change (Don't believe the armchair strategists. It's still a Bipolar World.)

Too many current governments have subscribed to the belief that we have slipped into a multipolar world where the old order no longer holds sway. While the USSR has gone the way of the dodo, the argument is that as US president Donald Trump pursues his ‘America First’ policy and withdraws from engaging the wider world, the resultant uncertainty this has caused compels countries to adopt an “every person for themselves” approach, disregarding old alliances whilst favouring bilateral trade and military engagements.

As with many such fashionable viewpoints often put forward by a globalist media and other institutionalized elites, this belief does not survive factual scrutiny. There are still two major powers with vast military and economic arsenals locked in hegemonic conflict. The United States is one player; the other is the People’s Republic of China. It would be a fallacy to suggest that any other nation, or aggregation of nations are in a position to challenge either – or both powers.

Ever since 2021 when Chinese official first met with their new Biden administrations counterparts and publicly declared that the US could no longer engage China from a perceived position of strength, Beijing has clearly operated under the auspices that a shift in the balance of power is underway. Steady advances in China’s industrial, technological and military capabilities commensurate with an increase in international influence have led to a state of what could be best described as a “strategic stalemate” where both countries wield comparable power.

Donald Trump 2.0 has done did little to shake Beijing’s optimism that it can navigate continued threats from the United States, secure a lasting equilibrium, and continue to position itself to vie for global supremacy. To the Beijing regime it might seem that Trump’s early actions as America turns inward have strengthened their conviction that the US is in the process of accelerating its own decline, drawing ever closer a new era of power parity. The perception that China likely does not face an existential threat from the United States has had a stabilizing effect on policy in Beijing, which has responded to Trump’s escalation of trade tensions in April with patience, anticipating that Trump will eventually lower U.S. tariffs in an attempt to reach an agreement.

But despite the low risk level of immediate conflict between the United States and China, the current stalemate may not prove enduring. Over the next four years, the risk of a military crisis will likely rise as the two countries increasingly test each other’s resolve. By the time Trump’s current term nears its conclusion, China will have had ample opportunity to reevaluate the United States’ domestic political environment, the state of its commitment to Taiwan, the global economy’s dependence on the island’s semiconductor industry (notwithstanding Trump’s barely-veiled cut-and-paste of TSMC into Arizona , and the trajectory of China’s own economic development and rapid military modernization. The risk of a U.S.-Chinese military crisis could sharply escalate if Beijing further closes the capability gap with Washington and perceives that international indifference to Taiwan’s status precludes active military support from a US administration, grows frustrated with nonmilitary efforts to unite Taiwan with China (either via referendum or the election of a KMT government), and foresees more pro-Taiwan leadership in Washington and Taipei (should the Democrats mount a successful presidential election challenge). What appears today as strategic stalemate could rapidly transform into something more volatile—and dangerous—for both countries.

Beijing has been hitherto willing to bide its time as Trump appears to weaken the United States’ standing in the world. Despite the Trump administration’s aggressive tariffs on China, many Chinese strategists have downplayed the frequently voiced international concern that the trade war raises the risk of military conflict. In their eyes, heightened trade tensions are simply the first phase of Trump’s signature negotiating tactic: squeeze hard, then back down look for a deal to cut. China, it appears, is content to let Trump’s trademark strategy run its course, expecting it to falter as the US faces severe economic and diplomatic consequences.

Beijing has shown similarly little inclination to initiate military conflict in the immediate future, even over issues of core national interest such as Taiwan. This restraint, however, has been underwritten by a substantial military buildup, spanning conventional and nuclear forces, that Chinese officials see as critical to shifting the balance of power. Trump’s fixation on “holding the cards” in international disputes only reinforces Beijing’s conviction that hard power rules. And Beijing believes it is in position to gain the upper hand.

Despite Trump’s stated interest in arms control talks with China and Russia, officials in Beijing see the White House’s erratic, disjointed decision-making as unhelpful to any potential grand bargain. They feel less inclined to pursue cooperative security measures and are prioritizing the development of China’s own military capabilities. Beijing believes that’s as American global authority fades over time, international pressure on China to join arms control talks will diminish. Moreover, the Chinese see the U.S. defense industrial base as faltering, hampered by an increasingly disordered governance system, cost overruns, systemic inefficiency and a paucity of rare earth supplies. Trump’s posturing, including his commitment to maintaining the world’s most powerful military and his proposal to build a “Golden Dome” missile defense system (a la Reagan’s SDI, or Strategic Defence Initiative), no longer rattles Beijing as it once did. As the United States diverts resources toward costly efforts to defend its homeland against China’s comparatively low-cost swarming attack capabilities, Beijing effectively strains U.S. resources at little cost to itself.

China’s military buildup and its assessment of the United States’ stagnation has also emboldened Beijing to act more assertively to shape the behavior of smaller countries in the region. As Washington’s capacity and credibility erode, China is openly courting U.S. allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea while drawing firmer redlines around its core interests. Its seemingly contradictory surges in economic and diplomatic outreach and its military muscle flexing, evident in high-profile drills near Australia and Japan in February, are, in China’s view, actions characteristic of the major power it believes it has become.

Chief among those interests is what China sees as its ‘renegade province,’ Taiwan. Despite rising political and military tensions across the strait since Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office in 2024, China’s, Taiwan Work Conference in February and the convening of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Two Sessions” conferences in March revealed more continuity than change in Beijing’s near-term Taiwan strategy, which combines patience with the methodical, systematic expansion of control over cross-strait relations. This indicates no significant elevation in the threat of an attack in the near term despite media attempts to predict a cross-strait conflict by 2027.

Although the Chinese Communist Party’s recent meetings have not suggested that a Chinese military move against the island is imminent, the risk of a conflict in the medium term grows. In recent years, Beijing’s strategy has evolved from primarily preventing Taiwanese independence to actively proclaiming and pursuing unification, culminating in the CCP’s 2021 innocuous-sounding plan, “Overall Strategy for Resolving the Taiwan Question in the New Era”. Details are limited, but the new approach seems to emphasize the boosting of China’s influence within Taiwanese society, nudging Taiwanese to see unification as their least bad option. According to Taiwanese authorities, Beijing has been collaborating with Taiwanese civil-society organizations, political parties, and influencers to undercut Taipei’s narratives, handing out Chinese ID cards to Taiwanese citizens, and even securing loyalty pledges from Taiwanese military officers. China may see such measures as legitimate, whereas Taiwan’s countermeasures, such as Lai’s 17-point plan to combat such infiltration, appear to Beijing as acts of pro-independence defiance that have required the PRC to intensify its air and sea incursions and carry out bigger, bolder military drills. Beijing, which has largely turned its back on Lai’s administration, has little hope that a pro-Chinese leader will win Taiwan’s 2028 presidential election, increasing the likelihood of continued escalation with Taipei. Ultimately, even nonmilitary unification measures regarded by Beijing as peaceful risk military escalation to all-out conflict, one that could draw in the United States.

Trump’s lack of clear foreign policy priorities (or his masking of such) accentuates this risk. His stated reluctance to engage in conflicts with a major power, lack of interest in defending other democracies, and unclear commitment to Taiwan loom large to Chinese officials. Many in Beijing suspect that if any U.S. president might quietly tolerate China’s coercive takeover of Taiwan, it would be Trump. China’s early April military exercises in the strait served in part as a test of his resolve. The administration’s verbal condemnations in response did not particularly impress Beijing, with Chinese analysts highlighting the relatively muted nature of the U.S. response.

Other restraining forces are also weakening. As the United States engages in tough-talking engagement of allies and adversaries alike, smaller states in the region like Singapore and beyond face new challenges. They have fewer incentives to antagonize China, especially as it positions itself as a comparatively more predictable and less disruptive global power that consistently outpaces the United States in economic and military growth. As the U.S.-led Western bloc fragments, the international will and capacity to pressure China on Taiwan may wane in a more uncertain world.

But here the Chinese must play their cards with caution, for they have badly misread Trump before. Shortly after his first inauguration, Xi Jinping put on a lavish show of welcome for the then 45th president, seeking to impress his ego with strum und dang displays, believing that as a businessman, he would pragmatically engage with them. Instead, he levied sanctions and initiated the trade-driven pressure campaign which continued under his successor Biden, culminating with the trade war he has ignited in his second term. Is he really going to follow his previous modus operandi? That’s the problem when Chinese strategy driven by cold realpolitik runs up against an illogical, unpredictable force like the POTUS.

In fact, the Trump administration is steadily beefing up its military deterrent against China amid growing concerns about Beijing’s aggressive actions in Asia. But internal fissures have impeded the effort. Erratic, disruptive overhauls in the Pentagon and broader bureaucracy, driven by administration loyalists more inclined towards loyalty than offering alternative viewpoints eager to carry out the president’s agenda, have made Beijing doubt the American ability to bolster its military capabilities. Furthermore, senior Defense Department officials aren’t fully aligned on the importance of Taiwan to U.S. strategy, at least publicly. Some have observed that the US could survive without Taiwan and are pushing instead to neutralize China’s broader regional dominance. Trump’s own recent dismissal of National Security Council senior officials insufficiently committed to his “America first” foreign policy sounded a warning shot to like-minded peers across the administration.

But then again, given that Trump can shift beliefs and interpretations as often as the Red Queen from ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ his definition of ‘America First’ is fungible. He clearly understands, for example, the importance of TSMC and its dominant position in the global semiconductor industry, which is why while he trumpets its $100 billion USD investment and has essentially allowed it to onshore in Arizona. He may not view great power conflict in conventional terms but sees geopolitics as a kind of giant Monopoly game where supremacy is not decided by arms and weaponry but the control of natural resources, and economic leverage. China would do well to note that while he shies away from deploying American troops to guarantee Ukrainian security, he believes that having Americans business interests there are just as effective. It’s his Trumpian version of the kind of suzerainty control the US used to overtly pursue in places such as El Salvador and pre-Castro Cuba.

Meanwhile, the ratcheting up of tensions sparked by the ongoing trade war has strengthened national cohesion within China. Even the country’s most liberal-leaning strategists, previously less critical of U.S. policy, now see Washington as the aggressor and advocate for tougher measures to counter Trump’s swaggering economic and foreign policy pressure. Certainly, the state-controlled Chinese media have been playing up President Xi ’s forecast of “great changes unseen in a century” as part of an ongoing effort to add to his burgeoning personality cult by making him appear prescient. This growing internal consensus could have the salutary effect of making Beijing less likely to engage in the critical but necessary self-reflection so essential in dispassionately evaluating its own strategic planning—and more likely to intensify its military buildup and pursuit of unification. In short, they may lull themselves in believing that saber-rattling can be beneficial.

Likewise, Trump’s demand for loyalty and his expansive use of executive power to enforce compliance and conformity across the government have eroded the US administration’s ability for self-evaluation and corrective action. And without dissenting voices within the administration, the United States cannot plan, develop effective military deterrence and responsibly manage future military crises, many of which like the current issues in Ukraine, Yemen and now in the Pakistani/Indian Kashmir are presenting themselves.

Ultimately, these internal dynamics—more than any long-standing trade and foreign policy disputes—pose the greatest possibility of turning current strategic stalemate into an acute crisis which brings the bipolar powers into open conflict. To reduce the risks of catastrophic confrontation, strategists in Beijing and Washington would do well to look inward and scrutinize their own leadership before this uneasy stalemate can no longer hold.