Reflection on war and peace - at the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII

Comments on Tessa Morris-Suzuki “70 years on, peace remains incomplete”, 8/08/2015

Yes, the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war should be a time for reflections of costs of terrible wars and the benefits of lasting peace for the Asian and Pacific region. It would be terrible to have another and second period of cold war in the world.

The US is currently the sole superpower in every sense and it is only interested in maintaining its military, economic and political superiority over any other individual countries. In that context, the rise of China poses significant challenges to the US. China has risen to the second largest economy only behind the US and it is expected that it will overcome the US as the largest economy in the world in the not so distant future (even though some have argued that China has already been the world largest economy in purchasing power parity terms). As the Chinese economy grows further at a significantly faster speed, its military expenditures are likely to grow to be commensurate with its economic power. Given its much larger population, it won't be too long for it to catch up with the US militarily, at least in terms of military expenditures. That will be likely to cause concerns and insecurity in the US. As a result, the US will continue to take measures to contain China as much as possible.

On China's part, it has been used to the containment by the US, even though the future containment is likely to be different from the past, as an increasingly felt insecure in US may take more stringent containment strategies.

While China is a minor nuclear power, particularly as compared to the US and Russia, its industrial capacities as the world's factories mean it could become a nuclear power if it really faced with stringent security threats and if it chose to do so. Let's hope it will never be necessary for China to choose that route, given that route could mean other minor nuclear powers could do the same.

Russia is still a superpower in terms of its nuclear weapons and the recent events in Ukraine and the deterioration between Russia and the West is a reminder of Russia's power as well as its vulnerabilities.

China and Russia are likely to maintain a good bilateral relationship in the face of the containment by the US.

So what lies ahead will, to a large degree, depend on how the US to choose its future and the strategies towards newly emerging and definitely growing powers.

I hope my above concerns, out of the reflection of war and peace at the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war, will be proven to be wrong and will never be realised.