WASHINGTON – Almost everyone in Washington wants to be a China hawk now, making it a lonely town for some well-placed sceptics.

With United States-China ties at a low ebb and Chinese President Xi Jinping securing a precedent-breaking third term in office, the Biden administration is maintaining its sharp-edged approach towards China with everything from new export controls on high-tech chips to warnings about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The two governments’ muscular rhetoric is drowning out the concerns of some leading US specialists on China who are not dovish about Beijing’s behaviour but are sceptical of the logic behind Washington’s increasingly aggressive analysis of Beijing as a threat – and especially what they view as loose talk about the prospect of a military attack on Taiwan. 

It is a concern voiced, sometimes on condition of anonymity, by former government officials and by analysts who speak regularly with the Biden administration.

“It’s just sloppy,” said Ms Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, who has advised the government on Asia policy.

“It not only has negative consequences for our relationship with China when we’re so sloppy, but it has consequences for our relations with our allies and partners around the world. And potentially can end up provoking the war that we seek to deter,” she said.

But such voices are unlikely to prevail anytime soon. The increasing likelihood that Republicans will win control of Congress in next week’s midterm elections brings the prospect of even more tension as GOP critics pursue their argument that President Joe Biden has not been tough enough on China.

Unlike those espousing Washington’s increasingly hawkish consensus, these experts do not believe that China is poised to seize Taiwan by force despite bellicose language. They say Beijing’s claims to Taiwan - which China considers a breakaway province - and vows for “reunification” have been consistent for years.

Although these people praise aspects of Mr Biden’s approach to China, they say they worry the two superpowers are stuck in a cycle of recriminations and punitive actions that might hasten a crisis or conflict.

Open speculation by some US military brass that China may move to seize Taiwan by 2027, if not sooner, is based on China’s internal goal for military modernisation – 2027 is the centennial of the People’s Liberation Army – or by strategists’ concern that US forces need to be ready soon to counter any such attack, according to Dr Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the National Defence University’s Centre for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs.

“People got obsessed with this 2027 date as if this was some sort of political timeline” for the Chinese Communist Party, “and I think it was mischaracterised”, Dr Wuthnow said. “It’s about readiness. It’s about preparedness. It’s not about, ‘I have made a decision and you will do this in 2027’.”

Already, Mr Biden has undercut the US’ long-time policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan on multiple occasions by pledging to defend Taiwan militarily. He also departed from the US policy of discouraging Taiwan from formally breaking with China by saying in September that “Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence”.

Congress has led escalations including the Taiwan Policy Act – which earmarks US$4.5 billion (S$6.4 billion) for Taipei’s defence over four years – and Mrs Nancy Pelosi’s trip to the island in August, the first by a House speaker in 25 years, which prompted China to launch military exercises around the island and fire missiles into Japanese waters.

Beijing’s perspective

From Beijing’s perspective, the US is changing the status quo with such moves. Mr Xi’s government shows no signs of readying an invasion as it focuses on finding ways to tackle growing social problems at home and preventing Covid-19 from killing a relatively large group of unvaccinated seniors. 

A Chinese diplomat in Washington said this week that Beijing has no timetable for unification with Taiwan and “we don’t want to use force”.

“Some people are talking about five years, 10 years, 2035, 2049 – I don’t think so,” Mr Jing Quan, the No. 3 official at the Chinese embassy in Washington, said on Wednesday in a speech to the Institute for China-America Studies. 

But US perceptions cratered as Beijing militarised islands in the South China Sea during the Obama administration, initiated what human rights experts have called a genocide in its Xinjiang region and cracked down on Hong Kong’s independence.

The Biden administration inherited former president Donald Trump’s tough China policy – including US$300 billion in tariffs – and has kept most of it in place. 

The administration also has moved to sharpen export controls for advanced technology, including chips and possibly artificial intelligence, in an effort to hobble China’s ability to match American military and economic might. 

The cycle of escalation by Washington and Beijing could worsen, especially if a planned meeting between Mr Xi and Mr Biden at the upcoming Group of 20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia does not do much to calm tensions. 

“I do not expect US-China relations to improve,” said Professor Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The only question is how much further they will deteriorate and if the relationship will shift from one of competition to one of hostile confrontation,” he said. BLOOMBERG