Economics pundit Noah Smith reports that a meme has been circulating among China-watchers of late. The meme holds that if you would just travel to China you would realize that China doesn’t want a war in the Taiwan Strait, or anywhere else. This is a form of argument from authority or, as Noah puts it, argument from tourism. Now, he and I don’t run in the same circles, but I’ve been hearing variants of the same storyline in recent months. Some who tout it claim, like Noah’s interlocutors, that China doesn’t want war. If not, they imply we should all heave a sigh of relief and stop preparing for Pacific combat. Other travelers maintain that China has burgeoned into such an industrial and military colossus that no eyewitness could countenance opposing it. Abandon all hope. Etc. The common denominator among these arguments from authority is their upshot: stand down. You need not—or cannot—buck China’s will.

To which I reply: Of course China doesn’t want a war over Taiwan. So what?

After all, wannabe conquerors love peace! They want to win without fighting. They long to cow their antagonists into submission, inducing them to lay down arms without putting up a fight. In so doing they spare themselves the ravages and unintended consequences inherent in the clangor of arms. That mode of proceeding has been baked into Chinese strategic culture since antiquity—witness the writings of Sun Tzu. Or ask Western martial sage Carl von Clausewitz. Writes Clausewitz, who took the field against Napoleon, the French god of war, “the aggressor is always peace-loving (as Bonaparte always claimed to be); he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.” Bottom line: to prevent an aggressor from triumphing without firing a shot, “one must be willing to make war and be prepared for it. In other words it is........

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