US Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks participates in a discussion with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leadership, Hawaii, December 14, 2021 © Reuters / US Air Force; Staff Sgt. Brittany A. Chase

The US military has constructed a tool to help it predict which actions will upset China and cause strategic friction in the Pacific, such as warship maneuvers, arm sales, and missions to Taiwan.

According to Reuters, the tool looks at previous actions which have impacted relations between the two countries, and uses that data to calculate ‘strategic friction’ and predict which actions in the near future could also lead to a negative response.

The Biden administration’s deputy secretary of defense, Kathleen Hicks, was reportedly briefed on the new tool in Hawaii on Tuesday. In an interview, Hicks said the US needs to be looking at a far broader set of indicators, weaving that together and then understanding the threat interaction with China.

An unnamed US official told Reuters that there was a demand for the tool after China predictably condemned the US in October for sending a warship to the Taiwan Strait just off the Chinese coast.

The tool will reportedly look at US actions such as congressional visits to Taiwan and arms sales to allies in the region to predict what China’s response will be up to four months before it happens.

Chinese social media users ridiculed the tool, arguing that it seems pretty easy to model what actions will damage relations between the two countries.

One person noted that these questions could be solved with a phone call.

The tool also puzzled social media users in the West.

Is this to help them find the actions to antagonise China or avoid them? An alternative is to be mindful, diplomatic and shut down the tools, one Twitter user said.

Tensions between mainland China and Taiwan have escalated over the past few years, with Beijing staging large military drills near the island. While Beijing sees Taiwan as an inalienable part of China’s territory, the island has considered itself independent since 1949, when the losing side of the Chinese Civil War fled there as communist forces took over the mainland. The US government also announced this month that it would diplomatically boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing human rights concerns.