I think about the Belgrade bombing and the EP-3 incidents a great deal because, despite lots of talk about bilateral tensions, neither Beijing nor Washington have had to handle a bilateral crisis like those in 1999 and 2001.
I think about the Belgrade bombing and the EP-3 incidents a great deal because, despite lots of talk about bilateral tensions, neither Beijing nor Washington have had to handle a bilateral crisis like those in 1999 and 2001.
Indeed. The thing that worries me is China's reaction time during emergencies like these. And Beijing has similar concerns about the White House. During the EP-3 incident, it took a while to get any response from China. It seems to me that the in-built time lag caused by deliberations within the walls of Zhongnanhai during emergencies hasn't changed much at all over a couple of decades. Lots of similarities between China's reaction time during the original SARS outbreak and SARS-2. So it begs the question of how resilient China's crisis management mechanisms are. With China's saturation of the SCS I fear its a question of not if, but when, so Beijing and Washington need to jaw-jaw about this, perhaps in a track 2 setting.
I think about the Belgrade bombing and the EP-3 incidents a great deal because, despite lots of talk about bilateral tensions, neither Beijing nor Washington have had to handle a bilateral crisis like those in 1999 and 2001.
Indeed. The thing that worries me is China's reaction time during emergencies like these. And Beijing has similar concerns about the White House. During the EP-3 incident, it took a while to get any response from China. It seems to me that the in-built time lag caused by deliberations within the walls of Zhongnanhai during emergencies hasn't changed much at all over a couple of decades. Lots of similarities between China's reaction time during the original SARS outbreak and SARS-2. So it begs the question of how resilient China's crisis management mechanisms are. With China's saturation of the SCS I fear its a question of not if, but when, so Beijing and Washington need to jaw-jaw about this, perhaps in a track 2 setting.
Obama chickened out of helping the Philippines (a treaty ally) over Scarborough Shoal too.
The USNS Impeccable incident in 2009 was close, but definitely of a lower signature than the EP-3 incident and the bombing of the embassy.