A few days ago Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, commemorated the 82nd anniversary of the Japanese attack in a ceremony attended by several hundred, including centenarian survivors.
Not only did the bombing of the harbor by Japanese aircraft in what was then a US territory pull the United States into World War II as a full combatant. It also permanently influenced US grand strategy.
At a deep strategic level, the lesson US planners drew from the Pearl Harbor attack is that American security is not ensured by the favorable geographic circumstances of large oceans to the east and west and weak neighbors to the north and south.
This assessment has been a pillar of postwar US internationalism, in which Washington maintains alliances and military bases abroad to shape the affairs of other regions toward convergence with US interests, and especially to prevent the rise of a regional military threat that could again reach across one of the great oceans to strike US territory.
More colloquially, Americans equate the Pearl Harbor attack with an unexpected disaster – such as the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s use of social media to interfere with the 2016 US elections or the attempt of Trump supporters to disrupt certification of the 2020 election.
Many analysts are now adapting the Pearl Harbor scenario to China. The argument they make is that China would launch a surprise attack to try to neutralize US bases in the Asia-Pacific, particularly those on Guam and Okinawa, at the beginning of a campaign to conquer Taiwan, with the goal of weakening or eliminating the US ability to intervene in Taiwan’s defense.
“China would use the same strategy as Japan to try to achieve a quick and dirty victory,” warns Harry J. Kazianis, senior director for national security affairs at the Center for the National Interest. Kazianis visualizes “a massive `bolt-from-the-blue attack’ that could, in not even a day, wipe out most of our military assets in the Indo-Pacific region.”
PRC propagandists are fighting back by asserting their own, very different, interpretations of the Pearl Harbor attack. One take is that the United States is doing a Pearl Harbor to China.
Chinese commentary on US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022 included a PRC foreign affairs scholar saying that, to Chinese people, Pelosi’s trip was what the “Pearl Harbor attack was to Americans during World War II.”
A second way the PRC deploys this historical event is as evidence to support Beijing’s narrative on US-Japan relations. The Chinese argue that Americans should view Japan as an enemy (as China does) and that Washington is foolish to support Japan’s remilitarization.
According to a China Daily editorial, Washington’s misguided policy toward Japan in the 1940s led to the Pearl Harbor attack and Americans are wrong again today in thinking “a re-militarized Japan can act as a guard dog at the door of the Indo-Pacific” – failing to realize that “their imagined guard” is actually “a wolf that does not heed the voice of its master.”
Finally, PRC government-affiliated commentators decry as an intentional insult the idea of China possibly launching a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack. This is a “smear campaign against China,” asserts an unsigned Global Times editorial. “The US military is conducting an act of aggression, and we are justified in self-defense. This is the exact opposite of the nature of the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
“Comparing China to Japan in the Second World War,” says PRC Ambassador to the US Xie Feng, is tantamount to “demonizing China.” Xie says the fact the comparison is being made confirms that “a whole-of-government and whole-of-society campaign is being waged to bring China down.”
The way China invokes the Pearl Harbor attack reflects PRC interests in upholding Beijing’s honor, opposing a militarily strong Japan and imploring the United States to stop supporting the Taipei government.
On the other hand, the main concern of US analysts linking China to Pearl Harbor is to shock Americans into understanding the danger that China might initiate hostilities against the USA.
Rather than an attempt to smear or demonize China, this warning stems from Beijing’s standing threat to use military force to annex Taiwan if Taiwan’s people choose not to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government.
Whether Beijing likes it or not, China is the aggressor in this scenario. Claiming that its ownership of the island of Taiwan justifies warring against the people who live on Taiwan is even less inspiring than fascist Japan’s claim that it was invading Southeast Asia to liberate the region from Western colonialism.
If the PRC opts to invade Taiwan, it is reasonable to expect the plan will include knocking out nearby US forces. Striking first would give China early momentum. In this sense the comparison to the Pearl Harbor attack is apt. Japan tried to destroy the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor so the Americans could not interfere with Japanese plans to seize Southeast Asia.
The Chinese would do better to emphasize two other lessons from the US-Japan conflict in the Pacific War that are highly relevant to a hypothetical US-China war.
The Japanese government hoped that a decisive opening blow would persuade Washington to sue for peace and acquiesce to Japan controlling the Asia-Pacific region. Instead, however, the United States committed itself to fighting and winning a total war against Japan, with the ultimate goal of replacing the Japanese government and political system.
That US commitment to fight despite the expected high cost in blood and treasure was crucially important to the Pacific War’s outcome.
Commitment would also matter in a US-China war over Taiwan. The PRC’s threat that it would “pay any price” to unify with Taiwan is credible because the CCP has tied the achievement of this objective to the party’s legitimacy to rule China. For the USA, however, defending Taiwan is optional and the cost is potentially exorbitant. Advantage: China.
Also crucially important to the outcome of the Pacific War was industrial might.
The US economy was over five times the size of Japan’s economy during the Pacific War. US industrial capacity was unparalleled. America produced 300,000 military aircraft, compared with 65,000 for Japan. The United States built more ships in 1941 alone than Japan built during the entire war. After the Battle of Midway in 1942, in which the Japanese lost four large aircraft carriers, Japan built only six more, while the USA built 17, plus over a hundred escort carriers.
The Americans prevailed over Japan not because of superior skills or equipment, but because Japan could not keep up with US war production.
In a US-China war today, however, it is China that would enjoy superiority in manufacturing capacity.
War gaming suggests the US would run out of long-range precision-guided munitions during a war against China. Moreover, because of shortages of skilled workers and key components, it would take at least two years to significantly increase production rates. China may be deploying advanced weapons up to five or six times faster than America can.
But due in part to the way Beijing has chosen to read them out publicly, China may be losing the contest to define the lessons of the Pearl Harbor attack. The PRC government is failing to drive a wedge between the United States and Japan. Nor is China persuading Americans that Chinese foreign policy is strictly defensive.
A fair reading of history continues to suggest that the American fear of a figurative second Pearl Harbor attack, with China taking over the role of Japan in the sequel, is justified by China’s advantages relative to 1941 Japan.
Denny Roy is a senior fellow in politics and international relations at the East-West Center in Honolulu.