Politics

When it would have been advantageous to watch and wait while the US leadership transition is carried out, China has decided to up the ante with a high-profile show of wolf-warrior diplomacy. Is it setting itself up for a boomerang effect?

Given rising cross-strait tensions, there have been increasing calls in mainland China for reunification by force with Taiwan. However, recent statements by key Chinese advisers on Taiwan issue seem to suggest otherwise, and Chinese academics have since been engaged in a debate. While both sides appear to be in opposition, Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan thinks it is necessary to look beneath the surface.

Zhou Wenxing observes that the Biden administration needs to turn a new page on US-China relations. One way to do this would be to go with a derivative of the US’s engagement policy of the past. Only this time, it should not seek to change China, but change its own view of how cooperation and peaceful coexistence with China can be achieved in the next decade and beyond.

The Maldives is well aware that it is of a geostrategic importance to powers seeking to dominate the Indian Ocean and what some term the Indo-Pacific. It has responded well to China’s overtures in the past, but with political pushback against China, and other suitors, not least India and the US, calling on its door, how best should it play its cards?

Values underpin multilateral cooperation, asserts economics professor Zhu Ying. The Chinese case is no exception. Their international engagement has been driven by values, whether in the early period of “leaning to one side” and becoming an ally of the Soviet Union, or the present “multilateralism with Chinese characteristics” held up by mechanisms such as the BRI. Question is, what incentive does the international community have to meet them halfway?

Zheng Weibin asserts that the US will soon be stepping back into an international arena that is much changed. The US cannot hope to regain a unipolar dominance, if it arguably ever had it. Rather, a multipolarity ruled by regional pockets of issues-based interests is taking shape, starting in Asia.

With US President-elect Joe Biden all but ready to be installed in the White House in January, Japanese academic Masafumi Iida explores how the new administration might shape the US's relations with East Asia, especially in terms of the US's military presence in the Indo-Pacific region. He argues that it is necessary for the US to learn from the failures of the Obama administration in underestimating the prowess and ambitions of China.

Lance Gore firmly believes that the social contract between government and people is seeing a radical upheaval around the world. In China’s case, a new social contract will be shaped by the triumvirate of Chinese culture and heritage, the traditions of the CCP, and the influence of liberal ideals. Only the strengths of each should be retained, while the shortcomings be discarded.

Even though the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will only be held in 2022, already there have been changes made this year to the top leaders of several provinces in China. More are expected in the coming months, with hot seats in Jiangsu, Shandong, and Henan — the three major provinces with larger economies and population size — closely watched. Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu looks at the implications of this exercise in bringing in new blood.