In August 2022, after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei, Beijing suspended several channels of military dialogue with Washington, including theatre-commander talks. The timing was striking: the Taiwan Strait was crowded with warships and missiles were being fired into nearby waters, and the mechanisms designed to prevent a misreading of intentions had been deliberately disconnected. It was not an accident. It was a signal.

The logic behind such decisions is easy to state, if hard to defend. A hotline is a favour as well as a safeguard, because it gives the other side reassurance, predictability and a means of managing risk. A government that feels wronged can therefore withhold it, much as it might withhold a trade concession or a diplomatic visit. The channel becomes valuable to the other side precisely when tension rises, which is exactly when withdrawing it hurts most.

Beijing is not alone in this. Moscow curtailed contacts with NATO after 2014 and again after the invasion of Ukraine, while India and Pakistan have repeatedly seen working-level communications downgraded after attacks in Kashmir. Critics, including many former officers, argue that this treats safety as a bargaining chip and invites disaster. The Cold War offers a sobering precedent: the Moscow-Washington hotline was created in 1963 largely because the Cuban missile crisis had shown how slowly messages travelled when seconds mattered.