Lack of equity in China-US relationship reason for confrontation
Over the past two to three years, global media has been anticipating a "new Cold War" between China and the US. And frankly, it has already started.
Under the current challenging circumstances, veteran diplomats such as Chinese ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai are walking on thin ice as they struggle to hold together a dangerous situation; it is reminiscent of the maelstrom that Zhou Enlai faced when the Red Guards attacked and set fire to the British embassy in Beijing in 1967.
In particular, confrontation has been hugely damaging to the dividends that China has reaped from reform and opening up over the past 40 years.
What is a cold war? It is when short of engaging in a "hot" military war, there exists intense and sustained conflicts, containment, and rivalries between two countries on all fronts, despite basic diplomatic, governmental, trade, and civilian exchanges being maintained.
What is the US doing? Simply put, it is duplicating the Cold War strategies of confrontation, containment and retaliation it used against the Soviet Union. Such tactics are easy for the Americans to operationalise. In particular, confrontation has been hugely damaging to the dividends that China has reaped from reform and opening up over the past 40 years.
It is reported that the US might revoke the operating licenses of Chinese telecommunications companies in the US, and this is seen by some analysts as the Trump administration distracting from the current pandemic to show China how tough it is.
The facts are true, but the analysis is misleading. Is the US government acting against Chinese technology companies because of the pandemic? Does anyone remember that the US almost stopped the supply of microchips to ZTE in 2018 to drive it out of business? And isn't Huawei's CFO still out on bail and awaiting trial in Canada? These tough moves are not expedient, but part of the US strategy of confrontation against China.
Confrontation to the US means playing tit for tat. And the other side of the coin is equity, in terms of fairness, openness, transparency, rule of law, freedom, regulations, the market economy, and civil society. Over the past 40 years, the US has been saying that it is fine that US-China relations are not quite equitable, as long as China gradually works towards equity.
... even though China's national strength, economic level, and people's lives are greatly improved, the various "promises" that it gave years ago are not happening.
So, in the past 40 years, with the low tariffs in the US and high tariffs in China, the trade deficit has hit hundreds of billions of US dollars. Chinese communications and information companies can freely enter the US market, but US communications operators cannot enter the Chinese market; journalists from China's official TV and media can work freely in the US, but US journalists and media face a host of restrictions in China.
But now, 40 years later, the US has realised that many equitable rights that it should have in China are still far out of reach. And even though China's national strength, economic level, and people's lives are greatly improved, the various "promises" that it gave years ago are not happening. The US elites, companies, people, and government are starting to lose patience with China, and are getting suspicious.
China can call this "the US wanting to suppress China's rise" - after all, the US is starting to call strongly for equity with China, otherwise, there will be confrontation. The uneven China-US relationship of the past 40 years is over.
This means that China and the US can either help each other for mutual benefit or get locked in perpetual battle. The ball is now in China's court. For instance, if anti-US, pro-North Korea movies from China can be found online in the US, why can't "sensitive" US movies be publicly aired in China?
In terms of trade, apart from buying more US agricultural products, China is not too keen on implementing other major reforms, which is as good as choosing confrontation. The US is not wasting any time on negotiations either - it is maintaining high tariffs on imports from China until China is willing to change.
...it seems that the US is intending to treat the Chinese government and its people separately.
After completing all the steps of confrontation, the next two steps for the US are presumably containment and retaliation. Containment means undertaking measures such as sanctions, embargoes, and decoupling. Retaliation means giving as good as one gets, like how the US and the Soviet Union kicked out each other's diplomats. At the moment, China's navy and air force are "circling" Taiwan, while the US fleet is also passing through the Taiwan Strait with military planes patrolling nearby. Both sides are playing a dangerous game.
Currently, there is no equity between China and the US, so the only option is confrontation. And unlike the original Cold War, it seems that the US is intending to treat the Chinese government and its people separately, because the contact between the people of the US and the Soviet Union years ago was much less than between the US and China now.
Hopefully, the wisdom of the people in the US and China will also make a positive contribution in stopping the China-US Cold War. After all, history is written by the people.