基辛格：中美关系取决于双方选择
来自 / 联合早报 | 文 / 蓝云舟
11/17/2021
中美领导人举行的视频峰会是两国避免冲突的“良好开端”，两国关系下来的走向取决于双方选择的道路，但共存是必须的。
美国前国务卿基辛格昨天通过越洋视讯出席彭博创新经济论坛，接受彭博社总编辑米思伟提问时形容，中美关系“走过了隘口，来到了悬崖，从这里可以眺望到两个不同方向”。
“接下来就取决于双方选择哪个方向了。”
基辛格说，美国总统拜登和中国国家主席习近平举行的“习拜会”是两国化解分歧的良好开端。接下来两国必须按照双方领导人承诺要前行的方向，进行实质磋商。“双方必须持有的观点是，为了人类的生存，能力相当的科技强国之间不能发生冲突。双方必须试图将分歧保持在一定程度内，让共存不仅变得可能，也成为必要。”
Oct 24, 2021
被问及美国如何看待中国时，基辛格说，双方因科技和经济关系，势必将把对方视为竞争对手，美国舆论也朝视中国为对手的方向偏移。
他提醒，双方有必要从这样的姿态转向适应和减缓纠纷，并意识到“不可能在不造成人类毁灭风险的情况下分出输赢”。
米思伟也请基辛格解读中国的意图和合作意愿。基辛格认为，中国领导人将致力于把国家的能力发挥到最大。美方的任务是确保关系起码对等，而中方如果也明白自身利益，双方就有可能做出一些能减缓竞争、甚至使双方有可能合作的安排。
两人在20分钟的对话中也谈及中美在人工智慧领域的竞争。基辛格说，人工智慧是人类思想上的巨变，人类不一定完全知道每项人工智慧得出的结果背后的理由，只知道是由一系列的演算（algorithm）得出。
如果纯粹通过竞争的视角理解人工智能领域的互动，又无法清楚定义要达到怎样的优越程度才算是具有战略效用，中美将陷入一场竞赛，竞赛中的意外可能引发无法预见的后果。
基辛格希望双方能通过科技讨论找到出路，并且从中也调整经济竞争关系。“任何一边都不会接受长久处于卑劣地位，但双方也必须理解，对方不会让出长久的优越地位。所以基于这些现实进行对话至关重要。”
谈到中美是否有必要制定网络领域的管理原则、实现某种现代形式的“裁军”，基辛格说，网络战争的逻辑是以超出人类能力的速度来行动，因此各国倾向于为武器系统装置自动反应能力。“不过在这些课题上，如果不纳入人的因素，系统就可能作出你无法预见的判断，事态也可能出现自动升级的严重威胁。”
基辛格说，如何在网络系统里加入人的判断，是各国不会与其他国讨论的，但“没有这样的讨论，就不可能取得有意义的约束”。
习近平发出警告：台独势力若突破红线 大陆将采断然措施
11/16/2021
中国国家主席习近平今早在与美国总统拜登举行的视频会晤中就台湾问题表态说，美方一些人搞“以台制华”的趋势十分危险，是在玩火，他警告说，如果台独分裂势力突破红线，大陆将不得不采取断然措施。
此次会晤前，中美在台湾问题上的冲突越发尖锐，根据中国外交部发布的新闻稿，习近平今天在会晤中说，台海局势面临新一轮紧张的原因是台湾当局一再企图“倚美谋独”，而美方一些人有意搞“以台制华”，“这一趋势十分危险，是在玩火，而玩火者必自焚。”
习近平说，一个中国原则和中美三个联合公报是中美关系的政治基础。历届美国政府对此都有明确承诺。台湾问题的真正现状和一个中国的核心内容是：世界上只有一个中国，台湾是中国的一部分，中华人民共和国政府是代表中国的唯一合法政府。
他强调，中国实现完全统一，是全体中华儿女的共同愿望，“我们是有耐心的，愿以最大诚意、尽最大努力争取和平统一的前景，但如果‘台独’分裂势力挑衅逼迫，甚至突破红线，我们将不得不采取断然措施。”
另据美国白宫官网发布的新闻稿，拜登说：“美国仍坚持在《台湾关系法》、三个联合公报和六项保证引导下的‘一个中国’政策。强烈反对单方面改现状，或是破坏台海和平与稳定的努力。”
拜登：美国强烈反对单方面改变台湾现状
11/16/2021
美国总统拜登今天（16日）与中国国家主席习近平举行视频会晤时强调，美国仍坚持“一个中国”政策，强烈反对单方面改变台湾现状，或是破坏台海和平与稳定的努力。
据白宫官网发布的新闻稿，拜登说：“美国仍坚持在《台湾关系法》、三个联合公报和六项保证引导下的‘一个中国’政策。强烈反对单方面改变现状，或是破坏台湾海峡和平与稳定的努力。”
中国外交部则在官网上引述拜登的话说，美国政府致力于奉行长期一贯的一个中国政策，不支持台独，希望台海地区保持和平稳定。
拜登也对于北京处理新疆、西藏和香港课题的做法，以及人权课题提到美国关注的事项。新闻稿接着说：“他清楚了解到需要保护美国工人和工业，避免他们受到中国不公平贸易和经济行为的影响。”拜登也就确保印太地区自由开放的的重要性进行讨论，并传达了美国持续在该地区坚守承诺的决心，并重申了航行自由和安全飞越对该地区繁荣的重要性。
白宫公布，两国领导人在会上就美中关系的复杂性，以及负责任地管理竞争的重要性进行讨论。
拜登强调管理战略风险的重要性，并说需要建立合乎常理的护栏，以确保竞争不会滑向冲突，沟通渠道持续开放。新闻稿公布：“他提出了我们利益交汇的具体跨国挑战，例如健康安全。两位领导人特别就气候危机对世界而言的存在性质，以及美国和中国所发挥的重要作用进行他欧尼。他们也讨论了采取措施，解决全球能源供应问题的重要性。”
拜登也说，美国将继续捍卫自己的利益和价值观，并与盟友和伙伴一道，确保21世纪的道路规则，能推动自由、开放和公平的国际体系，并强调“将在国内进行深远投资，会是他优先处理的事项。与此同时，我们也在应对时代挑战方面，与海外盟友和伙伴结盟保持一致。
【视频】拜登：须确保中美关系不滑向冲突 习近平强调相互尊重
11/16/2021
中美两国元首在拜登政府上任10个月后，今早（16日）首次举行视频会晤。中国国家主席习近平强调，中美应该加强沟通和合作，既办好各自国内的事情，又承担起应尽的国际责任。中美也应该相互尊重、和平共处、合作共赢。美国总统拜登则认为，两国领导人必须确保美中关系不滑向冲突。
Nov 15, 2021
综合中国央视新闻、新华社、路透社、美国公共电视台（PBS）以及美国全国广播公司商业频道（CNBC）报道，中美两国元首视频会晤早上8时46分许开始，习近平和美国总统拜登就中美关系和双方共同关心的问题交换意见。会晤分上下半场举行，下午12时24分全部结束。
会议开场的气氛友好，拜登首先发言，他面带笑容地说，很高兴见到习近平，并希望两人下一次能面对会议开场的气氛友好，拜登首先发言，他面带笑容地说：“很高兴见到你，主席先生。我希望下次就能够像以前一样，就是我到中国访问的时候，能够亲自面对面地跟您交谈。因为我们过去已经有很多对话的机会，我希望今天我们也能够本着这样的这个做法，进行开诚布公的对话。”
拜登接着低头看着笔记，说：“我期望继续我们好像以前那样的坦诚直率的讨论。就好像以前我也曾经说过的，做为美中两国的领导人，也应该做到的就是，我们的责任是确保竞争不会滑向冲突，无论有意的或是无意的，我们的竞争应该是坦率、直接的。”
他强调，美中需要建立涉及竞争的、合乎常理的护栏，“清晰坦诚地对待我们之间的分歧，在我们利益交汇的领域一道努力，特别是在诸如气候变化等重大的全球问题上。这样做其实并不是给对方施舍什么恩惠，或者是卖什么人情，而是我们对世界的责任担当。作为两个大国，美国的领导和中国的领导，都应该做到这一点。”
“因为我们两个大国之间的关系，不但是攸关于我们两个国家，也攸关于全世界。我们的责任不单是对我们各自两国的人民，也对于世界。也就是为什么今天我们在对话的时候，我们也认识到，所有的国家都必须恪守同样的道路规则，为什么美国永远捍卫我们的利益和价值观，捍卫我们的盟友和伙伴们。也因此我们将讨论存在我们之间的一些关切的领域，从人权到经济，以及确保一个自由开放的印太地区。”
拜登说到“捍卫我们的利益和价值观，捍卫我们的盟友和伙伴们”时，左手拿起桌子上的黄色荧光笔，将之抓紧。
他把黄色荧光笔从左手转到右手，放到桌上文件的右边，接着说：“我其实跟世界不同的领导说到我们两国关系时，我都说到这一点，也就是，非常重要的就是对我们之间的问题，关乎我们双边关系的问题，进行坦诚直接的沟通和讨论，我们从不回避问题。我们在进行对话之后，对于各自的想法都是非常清晰的。对于我们的当务之急和意图，我们有非常直接坦诚的对话。因此，我期待着今天晚上跟你着手围绕着广泛而实质的议程展开讨论。”
习近平在开场时也是面带笑容地说：“看到老朋友我感到很高兴”。他接着说，当前中美发展都处在关键阶段，人类的“地球村”也面临诸多挑战。中美作为世界前两大经济体和联合国安理会常任理事国，应该加强沟通和合作，既办好我们各自国内的事情，又承担起应尽的国际责任，共同推进人类和平与发展的崇高事业。这是中美两国和世界各国人民的共同愿景，也是中美两国领导人的共同使命。
习近平强调，推动中美各自发展，维护和平稳定的国际环境，包括有效应对气变、冠病疫情在内的全球性挑战，都需要一个健康稳定的中美关系。中美应该相互尊重、和平共处、合作共赢。他愿同拜登一道，形成共识，积极行动，引领中美关系积极向前发展。这是造福两国人民的需要，也是国际社会的期待。
习近平发言时全程抬头，面向视频中的拜登，没有看稿。
央视新闻在习拜会结束后报道，习近平在会上强调，中美两国是两艘在大海中航行的巨轮，“我们要把稳舵，使中美两艘巨轮迎着风浪共同前行，不偏航、不失速，更不能相撞。 ”
习近平提出新时期中美相处应该坚持的三点原则：一是相互尊重，二是和平共处，三是合作共赢。地球足够大，容得下中美各自和共同发展。要坚持互利互惠，不玩零和博弈，不搞你输我赢。
双方也就事关中美关系发展的战略性、全局性、根本性问题以及共同关心的重要问题进行了充分、深入的沟通和交流。
美国记者获准在习拜会开始时观察10分钟，记者们在白宫西厢会议室观察。
习拜会中国会场则位于北京人民大会堂。央视新闻引述消息人士报道，陪同习近平出席的中国官员有中共中央办公厅主任丁薛祥、副总理刘鹤、中央外事工作委员会办公室主任杨洁篪、外长王毅、副外长谢锋。
美国方面则有国务卿布林肯、国家安全顾问沙利文、财长耶伦、国家安全委员会印太政策协调员坎贝尔（Kurt Campbell）、国家安全委员会中国事务高级主任罗森伯格（Laura Rosenberger），以及国家安全委员会中国事务主任乔恩·钦（Jon Czin）。
（视频来源：中国央视新闻）
中国学者和美国前政要警告 以“竞争”定义中美关系加剧冲突风险
来自 / 联合早报 | 文 / 杨丹旭
10/26/2021
中国军方学者、退役少将姚云竹在香山论坛专家视频会上，抨击美国以“竞争”定义中美关系，“是一个消极的以零和逻辑推导出来的互动模式”，也令其他国家面对更大的选边站压力。美国前驻华大使芮效俭也重申不认同以“竞争”定义中美关系的立场。
中国学者和美国前政要呼吁，避免以“竞争”定义中美关系，否则将加剧两国冲突风险，令其他国家面对更大的选边站压力。
中国军方学者、退役少将姚云竹前晚在北京香山论坛专家视频会上，抨击美国以“竞争”定义中美关系，“是一个消极的以零和逻辑推导出来的互动模式”。
她指出，受竞争框架影响，双方都会担心合作产生的好处会对对方更有利，因此很难有合作意愿。“即使在符合双方共同利益、符合全球利益的问题上，中美也会倾向于各行其是，而不是协调合作。”
美国拜登政府提出对华关系“竞争、合作、对抗”三分法，但主张要确保两国之间的竞争是负责任的；北京则反对用“竞争”定义中美关系，也拒绝拜登政府提出的三分法，而是强调两国关系应为互利共赢。
姚云竹批评美国以“竞争”凝聚国内共识，刺激中国的民意向负面方向发展，导致政策选择余地缩小。“如果要采取任何合作的政策，都会不得不面对更多、更大的国内压力。”
她也指，中美的所谓战略竞争已引起很多国家紧张和忧虑，担心中美关系越紧张，其他国家同中美各自发展双边关系会越困难，“难道中美真的要逼得其他国家选边站吗？”
中美元首9月通话时，讨论了两国确保竞争不演变为冲突的责任，为日益加剧的中美博弈设下护栏。
姚云竹认为，相较于竞争，双方合作的状态和对合作的期待，会更有利于避免冲突、预防和管理危机，因此中国反对以“竞争”来定义中美关系。
美国前驻华大使芮效俭（Stapleton Roy）在同一场围绕“大国关系与亚太安全”的讨论中也提出：“如果我们任由战略竞争主导双边关系，这会造成巨大伤害，不仅损害两国利益，也会更广泛地损害东亚地区乃至世界的利益。”
芮效俭：任何大国都负有特殊责任
芮效俭在1991年至1995年担任美国驻华大使。他在问答环节中，重申不认同以“竞争”定义中美关系的立场。芮效俭说，所有大国关系都会有竞争元素，但任何大国都负有特殊的责任，不应简单地掉入以“战略竞争”定义大国关系的模式。
中美关系目前正处于两国建交42年来的低谷。芮效俭不讳言，美国民众现在对中国有强烈敌对情绪，中国对美国所做的行为也让美国民众更易敌视中国，并倾向认为中国正与美国对抗，目标是把美国赶出西太平洋。
芮效俭认为，当前的局面双方都有责任，未来中美关系往哪个方向发展，取决于两国领导人，尤其是他们在管控分歧和构建共同利益上的技巧。
芮效俭说：“如果华盛顿和北京无法调和各自的利益和雄心，军事冲突的风险将加剧，资源会从经济发展转移至危险、昂贵的军备竞赛，也有可能导致核扩散，让东亚国家面对更大的选边站压力。”
（记者是《联合早报》北京特派员）
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson: Competition Should Not Be Used to Define the Overall Picture of the China-US Relations
The Paper: It is reported that on 15 October EST, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman stated in her remarks in Washington that with regard to China, the position of the US is clear, and that the US will compete with China where necessary, work with China when it will be in the interests of the US and the world, and challenge China when necessary. Do you have any comment?
Zhao Lijian: The relevant remarks by the US side are the repetition of the old rhetoric of the so-called approach of “competition, cooperation and confrontation”. What the US stated is in essence a cover-up for its containment and oppression against China under the pretext of competition, the root cause of which lies in the wrong perception by the US side who stubbornly views China as a strategic rival.
How the US and China understand and get along with each other bears on the fundamental interests of the two peoples, and draws attention from the regional countries and the international community. China holds the view that China and the US share extensive common interests and profound cooperation potential. Competition does exist in some areas such as trade, but it should not be used to define the overall picture of the China-US relations. We must point out that US’ constant slandering and smearing against China is not “competition”; decoupling and suppressing Chinese enterprises by using national security as an excuse is not “competition”; still less should it be “competition” to level up military deployment around China or form various anti-China cliques.
The US side should forego Cold War zero-sum mentality, view China and China’s development from an objective perspective, form a deep understanding of the mutually beneficial nature of China-US relations, and adopt rational and practical China policies. It should enhance dialogue and communication with China, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, properly handle differences, and embark on a path of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.
(Source: Foreign Ministry Regular Press Conference on Oct. 18, 2021 )
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傅立民文章：中美竞争最终将如何收场
5/12/2021
核心提示：文章指出，如果美国被中国和“世界其他国家的崛起”逼下台，那也是因为自满的美国人未能让一种曾经成功过的制度去适应解决政治和经济积弊，并为新突破奠定基础。中国和其他国家与此毫不相干。
参考消息网 5月11日报道 俄罗斯《全球政治中的俄罗斯》双月刊网站5月3日发表题为《中美对抗将如何收场》的文章，作者为美国布朗大学沃森国际与公共事务研究所客座研究员、美国前助理国防部长傅立民。全文摘编如下：
现在，美国在所有方向上开始与中国竞争，人们不清楚这种竞争将把我们带向何方。在我们开展深入探讨之前，应当先思考几个关键问题：中美的赌注有多大？双方在已开始的斗争中将动用哪些现有战术能力和未来战略能力？长期竞争会对双方造成何种可能的影响？这场斗争最终将如何收场？
中美各有核心利益诉求
那么，让我们把过去视为客观现实并努力专注于未来。
中国政治精英认为，有五样基本的东西值得一赌：
一是彻底打消欧洲和日本帝国主义肢解中国的企图，以及美国以冷战方式实施干涉并策动台湾独立的念头；
二是为弥补过去中国国家尊严所受屈辱而争取地位和尊严；
三是严格防范可能破坏中国稳定并损害中国利益和领土完整的行动以及外国军事干预的发生；
四是让中国顺利重返其在遭受欧洲帝国主义干涉前所占据的经济和技术高地；
五是在地区和全球事务中扮演符合中国体量及其日益增强的国力的角色。
美国的政治精英也在五个方面投下赌注：
一是让美国维持其在全球和地区的政治、军事、经济和金融领先位置；
二是保住美国作为印太等地区中小国家可靠军事保护国的所谓“声誉”；
三是维护美国在所谓“世界秩序”中的优越性；
四是通过降低对不受美国及其盟国控制的供应的依赖来获得经济安全；
五是实现再工业化、提高高收入岗位的就业率，并恢复国内平静的社会经济形势。
现在，中美两国间的力量平衡正在迅速变化，而且趋势对美国不利。今天的中国拥有比美国更广泛的国际联系。它已成为包括欧盟在内的世界上大多数经济体的最大贸易伙伴，在全球贸易和投资中的领先优势不断扩大。中国在全球科技创新中发挥的作用越来越大，而美国的阵地却越来越小。
盟友未必唯美马首是瞻
中国崛起首先带来的是经济而非军事方面的挑战。自冷战结束10年后至今，我们从未在中美关系中看到过类似今天的敌对状态。今天的中国军队有能力保卫自己的国家免遭任何外国攻击。
值得庆幸的是，中国依旧竭力通过谈判而非军事手段的方式解决台湾问题。而这样的谈判可以确保和平的延续。目前，中国的战略目标是提高美国向亚太地区投射力量的成本，但并不直接威胁美国。
拜登承认：为了有效与更加强大的中国开展协作，需要强化自己的立场并争取别国的帮助。为此，他在政府测试国会有关消除美国自身弱点的意愿并与盟友及伙伴进行磋商前，迟迟未出台有关对华政治经济和军事路线的决策。
但如果美国当局听从那些希望与中国对抗的人士的意见，那么它会意外地发现，并不是很多人赞成这么做。拜登可能面临复杂的政治选择：要么弱化对中国的敌意以争取第三国支持，要么坚持对抗立场而不惜疏远大多数欧洲和亚洲盟国。
现实情况是：欧洲人感受不到来自中国的所谓“军事威胁”，而东南亚和南亚国家认为台湾问题是中国人的内部事务并竭力置身事外。甚至像日本这种对台当局“地位”有着直接战略关切的国家也不想冒险介入冲突。
实力对比正向中国倾斜
中美实力不对称状况的转变可能让形势变得更复杂，过去长期为美国带来优势的经济、技术和军事力量对比现在正向有利于中国的方向发展。
在社会转型初期，迎来了基于科学的新产业浪潮。这些产业包括人工智能、量子计算机、云分析、数据库、安全区块链等等。中国向科研和教育设施及开发和应用这些技术的劳动力资源投入巨资。相反，美国目前则面临长期预算赤字，因为政治僵局和没完没了的战争让华盛顿背上沉重的财政负担。这种局面如不扭转，中国和其他国家将很快令美国失去一个世纪以来在科技和教育领域的全球主导地位。
即使美国克服当前政治机能失调和财政赤字，中国在科技、工程和数字领域的崛起也将对美国全球和地区主导权构成挑战。这是一个多方面的问题，美国在解决这个问题时，有时会弄巧成拙。比如，将北京排除在国际太空合作之外，结果，中国发展自己的航天能力。
今天，美国极力阻止中国在5G网络占据优势，反倒促使中国建立有竞争力的半导体产业。人类历史表明，任何技术突破迟早都会以这样或那样的方式被复制，而且成果只会比原先更好。
最大威胁并非来自对手
付出的大量战略努力扩大和升级了中美之间不可调和的矛盾。双方都认为对手是其崩溃的可能原因。然而，最大威胁实际上来自国内趋势和事件，而非外国势力的行动。中美的世界地位取决于它们在国际舞台上如何行事，而非对手的行动。
如果美国被中国和“世界其他国家的崛起”逼下台，那也是因为自满的美国人未能让一种曾经成功过的制度去适应解决政治和经济积弊，并为新突破奠定基础。
美国在全世界的声望下降和追随者减少，与美国的国内政治事件、战略失误、对盟国和伙伴的公然蔑视、虚伪专断的制裁、作为主要外交工具的胁迫和低效外交有关。中国和其他国家与此毫不相干。
现在，为了与中国竞争，美国在很多方面也在借鉴北京建立的制度。华盛顿呼吁实行工业化政策，大幅增加科研开支，以及设立基础设施投资的特别银行和基金等。
Sino-American Antagonism: How Does This End?
Remarks to the Confucius Institute, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, Brown University
By video link from Washington, D.C.
15 April 2021
Fifty-three years ago, as a young foreign service officer, I helped ensure that Taipei rather than Beijing continued to represent China in the United Nations Security Council and elsewhere internationally. Since then, I have seen relations between China and the United States evolve from mutual ostracism based on stereotypes that bore little resemblance to reality to varying degrees of cooperation and mutual understanding and back again. Now we’re once again off to the races in all sorts of struggles with China with nary a clue where any of them will take us.
It seems to me that before we get too far along this path, we ought to pause to think a bit about a few key questions. These have been strikingly absent from our policy debate. Specifically:
- What are the stakes for China and for the United States respectively?
- What current tactical and future strategic capabilities does each bring to the fight we’ve now begun?
- What are the likely consequences for each side of protracted struggle with the other?
- How are these struggles most likely to turn out?
So, in my remarks today, I’ll take the past as given and try to focus on the future.
The Chinese political elite appears to believe that five main things are stake:
- A final reversal of the carve-up of China by European and Japanese imperialism, warlordism, the Chinese Civil War, and America’s Cold War intervention to separate Taiwan from the rest of the country.
- Status and “face” (self-esteem fed by the deference of others) that offset past foreign insults to national dignity.
- Assured defense against foreign “regime change” operations or military interventions that could threaten the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, China’s return to wealth and power, or the consolidation of China’s claimed frontiers.
- China’s uninterrupted return to the high economic and technological status it enjoyed before its eclipse by European imperialism.
- A role in the management of the affairs of the Indo-Pacific region and the world commensurate with China’s size and burgeoning capabilities.
The American political elite also appears to believe that what’s at stake[1] is five things:
- U.S. retention of global and regional politico-military, economic, technological, and monetary primacy.
- America’s reputation as the reliable military protector of lesser states in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere.
- American paramountcy in a world order guided by the liberal democratic norms professed by the European Enlightenment and the American Revolution
- Economic security through reduced dependence on supply chains not controlled by the United States or countries beholden to it.
- Reindustrialization, higher levels of well-paying employment, and the restoration of domestic socioeconomic tranquility.
The People’s Republic of China came into being seventy-two years ago. For over one-third of its existence, the United States has been actively committed to the overthrow of its “Communist” government. That appears once again to be a hope, if not an explicit objective, of U.S. policy.
China and the United States have never been evenly matched except in self-righteousness, unwillingness to admit error, and a tendency to scapegoat each other. But, in many respects, the balance between the two countries is now rapidly shifting against America. The world expects China to regain its historical position as one-third to two-fifths of the global economy. China already has an economy that produces about one-third of the world’s manufactures and that is – by any measure other than nominal exchange rates – larger than that of the United States. President Trump’s trade and technology wars convinced the Chinese that they had to reduce reliance on imported foreign technologies, develop their own autonomous capabilities, and become fully competitive with America.
China is now in some ways more connected internationally than the United States. It is the largest foreign trade partner of most of the world’s economies, including the world’s largest – the European Union (EU). Its preeminence in global trade and investment flows is growing. The 700,000 Chinese students now enrolled in degree programs abroad dwarf the less than 60,000 students from the United States doing the same American universities still attract over one million foreign students annually but nearly half a million international students now opt to study in China. China’s role in global science and technological innovation is growing, while America’s is slipping. Chinese have come to constitute over one-fourth of the world’s STEM workers. They lead the world in patent applications by an increasingly wide margin.
Only four percent of American schools offer classes in Mandarin, but (with increasing competence) all Chinese schools teach English – the global lingua franca – from the third grade. America’s xenophobic closure of Chinese government-sponsored “Confucius Institutes” promises to cripple even the current pathetic level of student exposure to the Chinese language in U.S. schools. Meanwhile, the increasingly unwelcoming atmosphere on U.S. campuses has reduced applications by Chinese and other foreign students to American universities, especially in the physical sciences and engineering.[2]
The challenges posed by the rise of China are clearly more economic than military, but China and the United States are now locked in a level of armed hostility not seen since the first decade of the Cold War. Back then, U.S. forces dedicated to “containing” the People’s Republic and championing the rival Chinese regime on Taiwan were incomparably more modern and powerful than the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Chinese forces were arrayed to resist an anticipated American attack they knew they could not defeat. The U.S. Cold War policy of containment blocked China from effectively asserting ancient claims to islands in its near seas, while opening the way for other claimants to occupy them.
The Chinese military can now defend their country against any conceivable foreign attack. They also appear to be capable of taking Taiwan over American opposition – even if only at tremendous cost to themselves, Taiwan, and the United States. It is disquieting that Beijing now judges that intimidation is the only way to bring Taipei to the negotiating table. But it is reassuring that China still strives for cross-Strait accommodation rather than military conquest of Taiwan and its pacification. The U.S. forces deployed along China’s coasts are there to deter such a conquest. But their presence also has the effect of backing and bolstering Taiwan’s refusal to talk about – still less negotiate – a relationship with the rest of China that might meet the minimal requirements of Chinese nationalism and thereby perpetuate peace.
The danger is that, with the disappearance of any apparent path to a nonviolent resolution of the Taiwan issue, China could conclude that it has no alternative to the use of force. It would not be surprising for it to calculate that to hold America at bay, it must match U.S. threats to it with equivalent threats to the United States. This is, after all, the strategic logic that, during the Cold War, led the Soviet Union to match the missiles the United States had deployed to Turkey with its own in Cuba. No one should rule out the possibility that Sino-American relations are headed toward an eventual reprise of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
America has long been in China’s face. The way things are going, in the future, China may also be in America’s. In the meantime, the aim of Chinese strategy is to raise the costs of American trans-Pacific power projection against it, not to threaten the United States.
President Biden has recognized that to deal effectively with an increasingly formidable China, the United States must strengthen itself as well as enlist the help of other countries. He has therefore deferred immediate decisions about what politico-economic and military China policies he should adopt until his administration can test the willingness of Congress to redress American weaknesses and can consult with allies, partners, and friends abroad. But, if Washington listens to those it seeks to recruit as auxiliaries in its opposition to China, it will discover that few of them share the all-out animus against China to which so many Americans have become committed. President Biden may well find he faces a hard political choice between whether to moderate American hostility to China to garner third country support, or to stick with confrontational policies that separate the United States from most of its European and Asian allies.
The awkward reality is that Europeans do not feel militarily threatened by China. Southeast and South Asians see Taiwan as a fight among Chinese from which they should keep their distance. By contrast with Taiwanese, they fear intimidation, not conquest by China. Even those countries, like Japan, with a direct strategic interest in the status of Taiwan don’t want to risk being drawn into a fight over it.
The Taiwan issue is a legacy of the Chinese civil war and U.S. Cold War containment policies. America’s allies look to Washington to manage it without reigniting conflict between the island and the rising great power on the Chinese mainland. If the U.S. does end up in a war with China, America is likely to be on its own or almost so.
To further complicate matters, past asymmetries are in the process of reversing themselves as balances of economic, technological, and military power that long favored Washington shift in favor of Beijing. The Greeks invented the concept of a “Europe” distinct from what they called “Asia.”[3] Chinese connectivity programs (the “Belt and Road”) are recreating a single “Eurasia.” Many countries in that vast expanse see an increasingly wealthy and powerful China as an ineluctable part of their own future and prosperity. Some seem more worried about collateral damage from aggressive actions by the United States than about great Han chauvinism. Few find the injustices of contemporary Chinese authoritarianism attractive, but fewer still are inclined to bandwagon with the United States against China.
By 2050, China is predicted to have a GDP of $58 trillion – almost three times larger than America’s today and more than two-thirds greater than the then-projected U.S. GDP of $34 trillion. China’s rapidly aging population leaves it with no apparent alternative to Japanese-style domestic automation and the offshoring of labor-intensive work to places that still have fast-growing working-age populations, like Africa. China is investing heavily in robotics, medicine, synthetic biology, nanobot cells and other technologies that can enhance and extend the productive lives of the aged. It is also adjusting and expanding its social security and public health systems. The United States faces analogous challenges, aggravated by increasingly xenophobic immigration policies, acceptance of mediocrity in education, crumbling infrastructure, and the pyramiding of national debt to finance routine government operations as well as correctives to damage from past self-indulgence. Americans talk about these problems but have yet to address them.
A wave of new science-based industries is in the early stages of transforming human societies. Examples include artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cloud analytics, blockchain-protected databases, microelectronics, the internet of things, electric and autonomous vehicles, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, biopharmaceuticals, 3D/4D and bio-printing, virtual and augmented reality, nuclear fusion, and the synergies among these and other emerging technologies.
China is making major investments in the scientific and educational infrastructure and workforce needed to lead the development and deployment of most of these technologies. By contrast, at present, the United States is in chronic fiscal deficit, immobilized by political gridlock, and mired in never-ending wars that divert funds needed for domestic rejuvenation to the Pentagon. America’s human and physical infrastructure is already in sad condition, and it is deteriorating. If these weaknesses are not corrected, China and others will soon eclipse the century-long U.S. preeminence in global science, technology, and education. Or, as President Biden put it, China “will eat our lunch” and “own the future.”
Even if the United States overcomes its current political dysfunction and fiscal malnutrition, the upsurge in Chinese science, technology, engineering, and mathematics capabilities promises to challenge America’s retention of global as well as regional primacy. The competition is not limited to the Asia-Pacific region. It is multifaceted, and, in attempting to deal with it, the United States has sometimes been too clever by half – for example, excluding Beijing from international cooperation in space. This has led to an increasingly robust set of indigenous Chinese space-based capabilities, many of which are of military relevance.
Similarly, the U.S. effort to head off Chinese dominance of 5-G communications is now spurring the creation of a globally competitive semiconductor industry in China. In the short term, the Chinese microelectronics manufacturing sector faces great difficulties. It is always easier to buy things than to learn to make them. But, in the longer term, China has the will, the talent, the wherewithal, and the market to succeed. Human history is full of proofs that, one way or another, sooner or later, every technological advance can and will be duplicated, often with results that surpass the original.
The PLA has copied American practice by harnessing commercial technological innovation to military purposes. Its 军民融合 or “military-civil fusion” program recognizes that market-driven research and development and university-led innovation frequently outpace in-house efforts by the military establishment. As the United States did before it, China is linking industry and academia more closely to its national defense. The pace at which China develops innovative military applications from civilian-developed technology now promises to accelerate.
In response to U.S. military dominance of its periphery, China has invested in anti-ship, anti-air, counter-satellite, electronic warfare, and other capabilities to defend against a possible American attack. Some Chinese weapons systems break new ground – among them terminally-guided ballistic missile systems to kill carriers, quantum communications devices, naval rail guns, and stealth-penetrating radar. In the event of armed conflict, the PLA can now effectively block U.S. access to China’s near seas, including Taiwan.
The PLA Navy has many more hulls than the United States, its ships are more modern, some of its weapons have greater range, and its home-based battlefield support is much closer to the potential war zone. Chinese industry’s surge and conversion capacities now vastly exceed those of the United States. In any future war with China, the U.S. armed forces cannot expect to enjoy the technological superiority, information dominance, peerless capacity to replenish losses, and security of bases and supply lines they have had in past wars.
The strategic effects of the broadening and escalating antagonism between the United States and China have already been considerable. Let me cite some examples.
- It is dividing the world into competing technological ecospheres that are beginning to produce incompatible equipment and software, a reduction in globally traded goods and services, and an accelerated decline in American dominance of high-tech industries.
- It is generating an active threat to the U.S. dollar’s seven-decade-long command of international trade settlement. Increased use of other currencies menaces both the efficacy of U.S. sanctions and the continued exemption of the American economy from balance of trade and payments constraints that affect other countries.
- It has distorted and possibly destroyed the global “rules-bound order” for trade, helping to proliferate sub-global, non-inclusive free trade areas and forcing the development of ad hoc rather than institutionalized multilateral trade dispute resolution mechanisms.
- It is hampering global cooperation on planetwide problems like pandemics, climate change, environmental degradation, and nuclear non-proliferation. (For a time, scapegoating of China served to divert attention from a pathetically ineffectual U.S. domestic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
- It is pushing China and Russia into a broadening entente (limited partnership for limited purposes). It may now be driving Iran into affiliation with this dyad.
- It has helped to replace diplomacy with offensive bluster, blame games, and bullying that lower respect for both China and America in other countries, while imposing painful collateral damage on nations like Canada and Australia.
- It has brought about an alarming rise in the danger of a war over Taiwan, while accelerating both conventional and nuclear arms races between China and the United States.
There is no sign that either side intends to change course. Nine-in-ten U.S. adults are now hostile or ill-disposed toward China. Chinese hostility to the United States has risen to comparable levels.
To be sure, popular views are both ill-informed and fickle. And at least as many things could go wrong as go right for both China and the United States. The January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol is a reminder that scenarios that once seemed preposterous can yet occur. Both China and the United States face internal as well as external challenges. This is a moment of fragility in the life of both countries. Game-changing events are not impossible to imagine.
In the near term, for example:
- A reversal of progress in countering the global pandemic could bring about a collapse in the global economy and lead to widespread unemployment and political unrest in both China and the United States.
- The death of the Dalai Lama could destabilize Sino-Indian relations. Beijing might find itself at war with New Delhi, which lusts to reverse its 1962 humiliation by the PLA, and which is once again aggressively probing the de facto border between the two countries. A Chinese defeat in the Himalayas could catalyze a disruptive change in China’s leadership. A victory could lead to Chinese strategic ebullience as well as Indian abandonment of nonalignment in favor of entente with the United States.
- A war in the Middle East or a crisis in Korea could challenge America while offering China an apparent opportunity to strike at Taiwan with relative impunity.
- The emergence of less prudent leadership in Taipei could lead to decisions there that impel Beijing to invoke its 2005 anti-secession law and use force to recover Taiwan despite an expectation that the United States would intervene.
- Other events involving Taiwan, such as a return of U.S. forces and installations to the island or the revelation of yet another Taiwanese nuclear weapons program, could trigger a Chinese use of force.
- The division, disorder, demoralization, partisanship, political gridlock, and uncontrolled immigration now troubling the United States could force Washington to focus on restoring domestic social order at the expense of attention to foreign commitments.
- The death or incapacitation of the top leader in either China or the United States could lead to disputes over succession that weaken government authority and decision-making, distracting and inviting miscalculation by one or the other side.
Of course, none of these things may happen, but the fact that they are not unimaginable underscores the shakiness of current strategic realities.
In the somewhat longer term, still other developments could alter the course of the contest. For example:
- Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomacy and economic bullying may so thoroughly alienate other countries that, to the extent they can, they turn their backs on China and join the United States in opposing it.
- Beijing’s obsession with political control could – not for the first time in China’s long history – suffocate its private sector and stifle innovation.
- China’s semiconductor, artificial intelligence, and robotics companies will either succeed or fail in their drive to outperform their American, Taiwanese, and other competitors. If they succeed, their competitors’ industries could be hollowed out and China could dominate cyberspace and related domains. If they fail, China will fall behind.
- Aging in China and a reversion to xenophobic immigration policies in the United States could reduce working-age populations, damage productivity, slow growth, and increase the welfare burden in either or both societies, forcing reductions in “defense” outlays and generating pressure for mutual disengagement from military confrontation.
- Chinese and other experiments with digital currency trade settlement could dethrone the dollar from its post-World War II global hegemony, force the United States to bring its balance of payments and trade into equilibrium, lower U.S. living standards, and greatly reduce American international power.
- Beijing’s brutal efforts to assimilate minorities to Han culture may not only fail but alienate Muslim and other foreign partners, while remaining a cause célèbre in the West, and empowering a broad international effort to ostracize China.
- The cognitive dissonance between Washington and allied capitals about China and other issues could effectively gut America’s alliances, leaving the United States isolated in its hardline decoupling from China.
- Japan might go nuclear, altering the calculus of deterrence in Northeast Asia, and enabling it to declare strategic autonomy from the United States without forgoing American non-nuclear protection.
- The United States and the Russian Federation could replace their current mutual hostility with an entente directed at balancing and constraining Chinese power.
- Climate change could not only inundate major Chinese and American coastal cities (like Shanghai and New York) but also lead to natural disasters like crop failures, super storms, floods, forest fires, and the devastating displacement of populations, leaving little enthusiasm and fewer resources in either country for competition with the other.
- Conversely, disunity at home could lead demagogues in either China or the United States to rally patriotic support by pursuing aggressive policies abroad.
- A failure to reforge mechanisms for international cooperation on public health issues could allow new pandemics to overwhelm national capacities to resist them.
- The PLA Navy could match the U.S. Navy’s deployments along China’s coasts with its own deployments along America’s, deterring U.S. intervention in China’s near abroad while creating the preconditions for an agreement by which each side would pull some or all of its forces back to its own side of the Pacific.
Few or none of these game-changing developments may happen. But they reveal the stakes both sides and the world at large have in finding ways to wind down the adversarial antagonism that has now gripped Sino-American relations.
Each side has come to see the other as the possible cause of its downfall. But each is actually more menaced by trends and events in its homeland than by what any foreign power might do to it. The position of each in the world depends more on how it conducts itself internationally than on how the other does. In a world in which power and influence are unevenly distributed not just between the U.S. and China but also among lesser players in world affairs, neither China nor the United States can expect to exercise unchecked dominance at either the regional or global level. China will not displace America from international primacy, but neither will America be able to retain primacy.
If China falters, it will not be because the United States has opposed it but because Beijing has adopted self-corroding policies and practices that obviate the successes of “reform and opening,” alienate foreign partners, and impair further progress. Mao’s China was a failure in terms of returning China to wealth and power but laid the basis for Deng Xiaoping to set aside ideological rigidities and sponsor the eclectic adaptation of international best practices to Chinese circumstances. Changes in Beijing’s domestic policies, the entrepreneurial energy these released, and the foreign relationships they enabled explain the differences between China from 1949 to 1979 and China from 1979 forward. Policies can determine outcomes.
To develop, Beijing has declared, China needs a “peaceful international environment.” It is bordered by 14 countries, four of which are nuclear-armed and four of which harbor unresolved territorial disputes with it. Its civil war with recalcitrant forces on Taiwan has not concluded. Japan and the United States, two countries with which China has been at war in still-living memory, are unreconciled to its renewed wealth and power. These factors place China on the defensive and constrain any impulse on its part to project its power beyond its periphery. To practice market Leninism successfully, China needs friends.
Deportment helps determine friendships. “Friends” are either (1) the rare comrades you would yield your own life to save and whom you expect would do the same for you; (2) partners who will go out of their way to do you a favor as you would for them; (3) companions whose presence you enjoy but with whom you share no real commitment; (4) sycophants who want something from you and strive to ingratiate themselves with you to get it; and (5) parasites who seek cunningly to exploit their association with you for their own interests without regard to yours.
The Chinese people are widely admired abroad. But there is no enthusiasm for either global or regional leadership by China’s government. Others acknowledge its accomplishments, but few find it appealing. As the Chinese phrase puts it, 笑里藏刀—their smiles conceal daggers. Insincere attachments that rest on sycophancy or parasitism are flattering but do not embody respect and are neither reliable nor steadfast. They can conceal disdain, create liabilities, and invite perfidy.
If China continues to allow its security services and diplomats to browbeat foreigners and treat other countries in the arrogantly abrasive and bullying manner it has recently adopted, the only international relationships it will have will be hypocritical, scheming, and untrustworthy. Many abroad will fear China, but none will faithfully support it, few will follow it, and some will opt to oppose it. China will “lose face.” And, when “face” is at stake, China has a well-established record of irrational reactions that make it its own worst enemy.
Similarly, if the United States is eclipsed by China and “the rise of the rest,” it will be because Americans, mired in complacency, failed to adjust a once brilliantly successful system to address accumulated politico-economic problems and lay a basis for resumed advance. China can neither compel America to reform nor stop it from doing so. Americans alone can reaffirm their constitution, fix their broken politics, restore competence to their government, strengthen their society by reducing its economic and racial inequities, rejuvenate the competitiveness of their capitalism, abide by the norms of international conduct they seek to impose on others, respect international diversity and other countries’ sovereignty, and discard militarism in favor of diplomacy.
The ongoing slippage in U.S. prestige and followership internationally owes far more to self-disfiguring American domestic developments, strategic blunders, open contempt for allies and partners, sanctimoniously high-handed sanctioneering, offensively coercive foreign policies, and self-implemented diplomatic disarmament than it does to an imagined onslaught on the preexisting global order by China or others. The Punch and Judy show put on by senior American and Chinese diplomats at Anchorage played well back home in both countries. It did not inspire foreign confidence in the wisdom or capacity for empathy of either side.
China achieved much of its post-Mao developmental success by applying ideas learned from America. In many respects, in the name of competing with China, the United States is now turning to copying elements of the resulting Chinese system. Politicians in Washington are calling for industrial policies; major ramp-ups in spending on science and technology; the creation of specialized banks and funds dedicated to infrastructure investment; national security-derived protectionism, subsidies; and preferential licensing for key technologies and national champion companies; and what amounts to currency manipulation to produce a cheaper dollar.
The United States also appears to be progressively adopting aspects of Beijing’s intolerant and intrusive definitions of political correctness and “national security,” even if Washington still leaves internet censorship and the manipulation of public opinion to corporate oligopolies rather than imposing government controls. But there is no need to point this out to those attending this session of the Confucius Institute at the University of Idaho. Some of you have personally experienced the “cancel culture” built into the latest round of Sinophobia in the United States.
American populism’s strategic dementia now competes with Chinese exceptionalism’s imperious demeanor. To one degree or another, in both countries, groupthink has become the enemy of constructive engagement. Each side’s resentment of its alleged past or current victimization at the hands of the other adds bitterness to the equation. Only Beijing’s habitual risk aversion now averts a bloody U.S. rendezvous with Chinese nationalism in a war over Taiwan.
All things being equal, if there is no war over Taiwan or other game-changing event, current trends – American protectionism, decoupling from supply chains connected to China, and cognitive dissonance with allies and partners – seem more likely to continue than to halt. This suggests a future in which:
- China’s neighbors and the many dozens of countries participating in its Belt and Road Initiative draw steadily closer to Beijing economically and financially. Brave talk notwithstanding, the United States no longer has the open markets, financial resources, or engineering capabilities to counter this. Washington has shown no capacity to sustain the level of diplomatic engagement with the countries of the Indo-Pacific, Central Asia, East Africa, Russia, or EU members states needed to match Beijing. It is failing to do so even in Latin America. You can’t best something with nothing other than rhetoric and, for now, that’s effectively all the United States is offering.
- As the division of the global market into separate trade and technological ecospheres proceeds, China will take the global lead in a widening list of consequential new technologies. Its scientific and technological achievements will attract foreign investors and corporate collaborators regardless of their misgivings about China’s political system. Where markets remain open to them, Chinese companies – state-owned and private – will compete successfully for market share with American, European, Japanese, and Korean companies.
- The growth in Chinese power – combined with persistent concerns about erratic behavior by America’s wounded democracy – will cause major regional powers like India, Indonesia, and Japan to develop regional coalitions, defense industrial cooperation projects, and collaborative diplomacy designed to balance China — with or without the United States.
- As its naval and air power expand, China will consolidate its military dominance of its periphery. Americans will be forced to think twice about intervening to protect Taiwan from PLA coercion or controlling China’s near seas. Armed clashes with the Chinese Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Forces are conceivable. These could either undermine or stiffen American willingness to escalate hostilities with China.
- The domestic and foreign purchasers of U.S. government debt could conclude that it is backed by little more than “modern monetary theory” and cease to buy it. This alone would end the “exorbitant privilege” of the United States, deprive Washington of the ability to enforce unilateral sanctions, and make the American dominance of the Indo-Pacific economically unsustainable.
- Taiwan’s increasing military vulnerability and dependence on mainland Chinese markets for its continued prosperity could compel it to negotiate a relationship with the rest of China sufficient to appease the demands of Chinese nationalism.
China seems confident that some of these or similar scenarios will unfold in the decades to come. Its strategic confidence and resolve contrast with a lack of similar conviction in America, where short-term cluelessness, enforced by fiscal fecklessness, still rules the day. The challenges to American status and presuppositions from China are real. They will not be overcome with fantasy foreign policies based on unrealistic assessments of current and future circumstances.
A deeply imbedded faith in liberal democratic ideology led some Americans to theorize that, given enough exposure to the United States, Chinese political culture would inevitably evolve into a version of America’s. That this did not happen was not a failure of “engagement,” as American Sinophobes would have it. China’s retention of its own authoritarian political culture reflects its system’s delivery of results that more than satisfied the material needs of the Chinese people while restoring their pride in their nation. What’s happened in China may or may not disprove theories about the inevitability of political liberalization in middle-class societies. This deserves reflection. But so does the thesis that, without fundamental domestic reform, the United States can outcompete a China that is rising on its own terms, not America’s, in a world in which the United States no longer calls the shots.
The future of China will be made or unmade in China. The future of the United States will be made or unmade in America. Neither is foreordained.
[1] See, e.g., Senator Tom Cotton’s articulation of U.S. objectives vis-à-vis China: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/210216_1700_China%20Report_FINAL.pdf
[2] https://www.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimonies/116-session-1/maintaining-us-leadership-in-science-and-technology
[3] https://chasfreeman.net/the-challenge-of-asia/
Source: https://chasfreeman.net/sino-american-antagonism-how-does-this-end/
China beating US by being more like America
Cultivating human capital will be essential if the US rather than China is to be the base of the next industrial revolution
By BRANDON J WEICHERT
4/25/2021
The United States transitioned from an agrarian backwater into an industrialized superstate in a rapid timeframe. One of the most decisive men in America’s industrialization was Samuel Slater.
As a young man, Slater worked in Britain’s advanced textile mills. He chafed under Britain’s rigid class system, believing he was being held back. So he moved to Rhode Island.
Once in America, Slater built the country’s first factory based entirely on that which he had learned from working in England’s textile mills – violating a British law that forbade its citizens from proliferating advanced British textile production to other countries.
Samuel Slater is still revered in the United States as the “Father of the American Factory System.” In Britain, if he is remembered at all, he is known by the epithet of “Slater the Traitor.”
After all, Samuel Slater engaged in what might today be referred to as “industrial espionage.” Without Slater, the United States would likely not have risen to become the industrial challenger to British imperial might that it did in the 19th century. Even if America had evolved to challenge British power without Slater’s help, it is likely the process would have taken longer than it actually did.
Many British leaders at the time likely dismissed Slater’s actions as little more than a nuisance. The Americans had not achieved anything unique. They were merely imitating their far more innovative cousins in Britain.
As the works of Oded Shenkar have proved, however, if given enough time, annoying imitators can become dynamic innovators. The British learned this lesson the hard way. America today appears intent on learning a similar hard truth … this time from China.
By the mid-20th century, the latent industrial power of the United States had been unleashed as the European empires, and eventually the British-led world order, collapsed under their own weight. America had built out its own industrial base and was waiting in the geopolitical wings to replace British power – which, of course, it did.
Few today think of Britain as anything more than a middle power in the US-dominated world order. This came about only because of the careful industrial and manipulative trade practices of American statesmen throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century employed against British power.
The People’s Republic of China, like the United States of yesteryear with the British Empire, enjoys a strong trading relationship with the dominant power of the day. China has also free-ridden on the security guarantees of the dominant power, the United States.
The Americans are exhausting themselves while China grows stronger. Like the US in the previous century, inevitably, China will displace the dominant power through simple attrition in the non-military realm.
Many Americans reading this might be shocked to learn that China is not just the land of sweatshops and cheap knockoffs – any more than the United States of previous centuries was only the home of chattel slavery and King Cotton. China, like America, is a dynamic nation of economic activity and technological progress.
While the Chinese do imitate their innovative American competitors, China does this not because the country is incapable of innovating on its own. It’s just easier to imitate effective ideas produced by America, lowering China’s research and development costs. Plus, China’s industrial capacity allows the country to produce more goods than America – just as America had done to Britain
Once China quickly acquires advanced technology, capabilities, and capital from the West, Chinese firms then spin off those imitations and begin innovating. This is why China is challenging the West in quantum computing technology, biotech, space technologies, nanotechnology, 5G, artificial intelligence, and an assortment of other advanced technologies that constitute the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can focus on making cheaper cars and better roads?
Since China opened itself up to the United States in the 1970s, American versions of Samuel Slater have flocked to China, taking with them the innovations, industries, and job offerings that would have gone to Americans had Washington never embraced Beijing.
America must simply make itself more attractive than China is to talent and capital. It must create a regulatory and tax system that is more competitive than China’s. Then Washington must seriously invest in federal R&D programs as well as dynamic infrastructure to support those programs.
As one chief executive of a Fortune 500 company told me in 2018, “If we don’t do business in China, our competitors will.”
Meanwhile, Americans must look at effective education as a national-security imperative. If we are living in a global, knowledge-based economy, then it stands to reason Americans will need greater knowledge to thrive. Therefore, cultivating human capital will be essential if America rather than China is to be the base of the next industrial revolution.
Besides, smart bombs are useless without smart people.
These are all things that the United States understood in centuries past. America bested the British Empire and replaced it as the world hegemon using these strategies. When the Soviet Union challenged America’s dominance, the US replicated the successful strategies it had used against Britain’s empire.
Self-reliance and individual innovativeness coupled with public- and private-sector cooperation catapulted the Americans ahead of their rivals. It’s why Samuel Slater fled to the nascent United States rather than staying in England.
America is losing the great competition for the 21st century because it has suffered historical amnesia. Its leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as its corporate tycoons and its people must recover the lost memory – before China cements its position as the world’s hegemon.
The greatest tragedy of all is that America has all of the tools it needs to succeed. All it needs to do is be more like it used to be in the past. To do that, competent and inspiring leadership is required. And that may prove to be the most destructive thing for America in the competition to win the 21st century.
Source: https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/china-beating-us-by-being-more-like-america/
Feb 18, 2021
Aug 4, 2020
