Confrontation to conflagration: Asia’s six likeliest wars

Many of the 20th century’s most horrific wars were fought in Asia, from the Pacific theatre of World War II to Indochina to the Korean Peninsula. The 21st century, in contrast, has mostly been a time of peace and a window of possibility for economic growth. Hundreds of millions of Asians have been lifted out of poverty, and a prosperous middle class has begun to flourish across much of the continent. 

Recent tensions between China and Taiwan, however, have underlined the potential for the “frozen” conflicts of Asia to become hot again. Long-simmering confrontations could once again become great power conflagrations. 

An era of unchallenged U.S. hegemony is ending, while China is seeking to challenge the status quo in many border regions. The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has signaled that an era of geopolitical competition may be unfolding in which Washington is no longer able or willing to guarantee a safety net. 

Amid the rise of a new era of geopolitical competition, Nikkei Asia has weighed the likelihood of a major conflict in the next five years and presented the results in the following article. Of Asia’s six most likely great power conflicts, most date from the Cold War and may be reignited by a new cycle of tensions between East and West. Some, however, are new. All are made more likely by the changing balance of power, by rising distrust and by ideological rigidity. 

When Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August, China’s fierce response unnerved countries in the region. Beijing saw the trip as a direct challenge to a delicate status quo hammered out five decades ago, in which the U.S. recognises Beijing and not Taipei.

A day later, China surrounded Taiwan with live-fire military drills, raising concerns that Beijing may ultimately blockade the island and seek to normalize aggression against its neighbor. 

Beijing and Washington have seen off crises over Taiwan in the past, but critics worry that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might embolden Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Taiwan, with its own constitution, armed forces and government, has never been ruled by Communist China. But Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and refuses to rule out an invasion.

“It is not unlikely that the PRC uses financial and economic warfare over the next several years, and a kinetic attack is also possible,” said Chen Kuan-ting, CEO of the Taiwan NextGen Foundation think tank.

 Taiwan needs to ensure that China doesn’t have the capability to carry out an amphibious assault successfully, Chen said. He added that collective efforts with Japan, South Korea and the U.S. are key.

 “We need to make it clear that even a blockade will result in severe, crippling sanctions on China,” said Chen.

 Nick Marro, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, said China’s fear of U.S. involvement in any conflict is “still enough of a deterrent to prevent rash Chinese action.”  

 “As a result, we still see the likelihood of a direct, purposeful Chinese invasion of Taiwan as relatively contained in the next five years. 

 “That said, the risk of a wider conflict spiraling out from a miscalculation -- such as a collision between Chinese and Taiwanese fighter jets, or an errant missile -- is more concerning. The bigger concern for us is whether we find ourselves accidentally falling into a war that no one wants,” Marro warned.

Thompson Chau, contributing writer 

The high peaks of the Himalayas have been a scene of confrontations between India and China for decades. Asia’s two most populous powers fought a brief war in 1962 and ever since the two armies have faced each other across an ill-defined no-man's land.

For two years, this conflict has focused on the eastern Ladakh region of the Galwan valley, at 5,000 meters above sea level. Soldiers on both sides are usually not given firearms in an effort to minimize escalation, but things have still gotten out of hand. In the summer of 2020, a confrontation over a highway route turned ugly with hand-to-hand fighting between Indian and Chinese troops. Twenty Indian soldiers died, along with four Chinese soldiers.    

It could happen again, and next time it could be worse, said Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies and dean of School of International Studies at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, who said a larger conflict between India and China in the next five years is “quite possible.”  

“At the moment, we have not resolved the Galwan incident,” Kondapalli added, pointing to media reports that say the Chinese have occupied some of the disputed territory in Galwan. “There is a chance of conflict between India and China [because of this],” he told Nikkei Asia.

Pankaj Jha, a professor of defense and strategic affairs at the O.P. Jindal Global University and a former deputy director of India’s National Security Council Secretariat, was a little more optimistic, saying the Galwan crisis could have evolved into a full-scale war but that has not happened. He said that both sides are expected to exercise restraint to avoid a major conflict in the next five years too. 

At the same time, Jha added, the pressure on China from different quarters is going to rise in the near future, be it the case of Taiwan or Tibet. “And when China gets pressurized, it does something along the border. In view of this, there is a possibility of a limited tussle [with India].”

Kiran Sharma, Nikkei staff writer

In early August, a Tokyo-based think tank conducted a two-day war game simulating a crisis around the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands, which China claims and calls Diaoyu.

In the simulation, set in August 2027, 200 Chinese fishing boats approached the Senkakus. Some of the “fishermen” were armed, hinting that they were Chinese special forces. Things quickly got out of hand for the Japanese side when some fishing boats rammed Japan's Coast Guard ships, and dozens of the Chinese “fishermen” landed on the islands.

The scenario is shifting from a potential concern to a real-life threat: Around the waters of the Senkakus, China is stepping up efforts to intimidate Japan by escalating in minimal, deniable steps, a tactic experts refer to as “salami slicing.”

China's apparent efforts to wrest control of the islands from Japan began on Dec. 8, 2008, when two Chinese government vessels suddenly entered Japanese territorial waters around the Senkakus for the first time.

The ships stayed in the waters for nine hours, despite repeated warnings from the Japan Coast Guard. Only seven months before, Chinese President Hu Jintao had visited Japan, vowing to promote a “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests.” But China was also seeking to alter the status quo by force.

In September 2012, Japan nationalized the Senkaku Islands, and since then Chinese government vessels have entered the contiguous zones around the Senkakus every day, except during bad weather. Chinese ships enter Japan's territorial waters at a pace of three times a month.

While Washington does not take a position on the sovereignty of the islands, successive U.S. administrations have affirmed that the Senkakus are covered by the U.S. - Japan security treaty and will be defended if attacked, raising the stakes in any stand-off with China.

Nobukatsu Kanehara, a former Japanese diplomat and a member of the war game, said that while it was unthinkable that China would wage war with Japan just over the Senkakus, if there was a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan, China will most definitely go for the Senkakus as well.

“In such a scenario, the U.S. will be focused on Taiwan’s mainland. Japan would have to defend the Senkakus pretty much on its own,” he said. 

Ken Moriyasu, Nikkei Asia diplomatic correspondent

Four years ago, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in held hands and embraced in a guesthouse inside the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries -- a historic summit that capped Moon's policy of integration and detente with its prickly northern neighbor.

Then came the pandemic, and a period of isolation for the North Korean regime which saw Pyongyang ramp up many military weapons programs. It is likely to emerge more confident and aggressive than it has been in the past, according to experts.

South Korea’s attitude has also changed. New President  Yoon Suk-yeol, elected in May, has made a priority of undoing Moon’s thaw, resuming military exercises with the United States and focusing on a military strategy to decapitate the North Korean leadership in  the event of war.

Kim has described Yoon’s administration as "confrontational maniacs," and stressed that the North is "completely prepared to respond to any crisis, and our country's nuclear war deterrent is also ready to mobilize," if needed.

“Inter-Korean relations have essentially fallen apart. The environment is getting heated, and Kim and Yoon both appear unfazed about it,” said Daniel R. DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington, in a column for Nikkei Asia in August. 

Leif-Eric Easley, an associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said, "Conflict with North Korea is not preordained but the risks are growing.” 

“The Kim regime is overly convinced of the utility of military capabilities. When North Korea finally exits its self-imposed COVID isolation, it is more likely to complete a provocation and testing cycle than opt for diplomacy," Easley said.

Kim Jaewon, Nikkei staff writer

India and Pakistan have fought four wars since a bloody partition in 1947 resulted in the birth of both countries. In today’s world, experts believe that despite their hostility, India and Pakistan will not be going to war in the next five years.

The South Asian neighbors fought wars in the disputed territory of Kashmir in 1948 and 1999. There were also full-scale wars between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. Pakistan lost its eastern territory, now Bangladesh, as a consequence of the 1971 war.

Experts believe that war is less likely between India and Pakistan despite the public posturing on both sides.

Shuja Nawaz, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, is of the view that neither India nor Pakistan is ready for a full-scale war. “They need to climb out of an economic hole caused by global events and their own mismanagement,” he told Nikkei. India is slipping farther behind arch-rival China. Pakistan is trailing India’s growth rate,” He told Nikkei.

Nawaz, who is also the author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within,” adds that the nuclear escalation ladder is steep for both and the consequences of any conventional war would be enormous for the world.

Ayesha Siddiqa, a research associate with the South Asia Institute of the School for Oriental and African Studies, University of London, said that war is less likely between India and Pakistan today.

India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism in the Indian part of Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies, claiming that it only provides diplomatic and moral support to the separatist movement in the region. 

The possibility of a confrontation between the neighbors, however, doesn’t seem to have grown recently. Jawaharlal Nehru University's Kondapalli pointed out that there has not been any major conflict since the 2019 air strike by India against what it called terror camps in Balakot, Pakistan.    

On the likelihood of a conflict with Pakistan, Jha, of the O.P. Jindal Global University, said he does not see this happening in the next five years “because the economic condition of Pakistan is in a very bad state.”

Adnan Aamir, contributing writer, and Kiran Sharma, Nikkei staff writer

Known as the “graveyard of empires,” Afghanistan last year erected another tombstone. As the U.S. military withdrew after two decades of occupation, the Taliban swept into Kabul, seizing complete control of the country in a military blitzkrieg that shocked the world.

As their white flag was hoisted above the presidential palace in August 2021, the Taliban ushered in patriarchal, theocratic rule that has disrupted girls' education and forced conservative Islamic rule on the population. However, as the Taliban completed one year in power, experts acknowledge a significant drop in violence. 

Afghans who had grown accustomed to death and destruction -- approximately 20,000-40,000 fatalities per year, a toll that was believed to have surpassed that of Yemen, Syria, and Iraq -- noticed an obvious drop in violence. Since the Taliban seized power, the U.N. estimates that violence has dropped to 18% of previous levels, a projection verified by International Crisis Group’s Graeme Smith.

A report by International Crisis Group also notes that the internal displacement of people that were forced to flee their homes in previous years has also decreased sharply as only two of 34 provinces reported fresh displacements due to conflic 

Smith noted that two small conflicts in the country continue to smoulder -- one in the east and the other in the north. “They are fairly localized as opposed to previously when the entire country was on fire,” he said. 

The country, however, has other problems: famine in some parts and a pervasive shortage of medicines. With the Taliban barely in control of many areas, Afghanistan's neighbours -- Pakistan, Iran, even China -- may try to fill the vacuum, a scenario that in the past has led to proxy wars.

Asfyndyar Mir, a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the country most likely to intervene is Pakistan, which has a growing problem with a local militant movement, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan: “It is possible that Pakistan could undertake some attacks in East Afghanistan. So that might escalate the violence,” he said.

But the pre-August 2021 level of violence is only likely if the Taliban fragments, Mir added: “This seems like a far-fetched possibility at this point.”

Experts are certain the U.S. is unlikely to introduce soldiers again. “I don't see much appetite for that,” International Crisis Group's Smith said.

Smith told Nikkei that “we should try to avoid having Western countries resume proxy wars.” He hopes Western nations will kick “the habit of giving more money or weapons to non-state actors in Afghanistan.”

“We are recommending alternatives in engaging with the Taliban, notably with border security that requires involvement of both sides,” Smith added.

“Also on the risk of proliferation of weapons that the Americans left behind can fall in the wrong hands, it requires cooperation of the Taliban to prevent that from happening,” he said.

Kanika Gupta, contributing writer