On August 10, Matthew Kroenig, Atlantic Council vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center, was quoted by Voice of America on how China’s lagging economic growth could raise the risk of war in the South China Sea. Kroenig believes that Chinese President Xi Jinping does not recognize that “China’s economic growth has leveled off and will likely decline in the near future” and argues that Xi may miscalculate in the same way Russian President Vladimir Putin did in invading Ukraine.
[Xi] is convinced that he is making China stronger, and it is America that is in decline. I fear, therefore, that this is a recipe for war. International relations scholars believe that war is most often caused by miscalculation.
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