China’s strategic opportunities are Beijing’s to lose

Zhou Bo says worries over the slowing Chinese economy and China’s current uneasy rivalry with the US have cast a shadow over the country’s future. But the doomsayers need not worry, as China’s success has always been in its own hands

Zhou Bo

Published: 3:03am, 18 Feb 2019

Why you can trust SCMP

It’s more than likely that a final solution to the six-month US-China trade war can be reached when President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump next meet, with a few affordable concessions from China, But what after that? The first two decades of the 21st century has been officially described as “a period of important strategic opportunity” which China “must seize tightly”. The question is: is that opportunity slipping away?

Many are crying wolf over two challenges in particular – the slowing of the Chinese economy and the ever-competitive nature of China-US relations. But how serious are they? Yes, China’s economy is slowing, but that is because it has been growing at an incredible average annual rate of 9.5 per cent for 40 years and people’s expectations still remain high. With per capita gross domestic product reaching nearly US$10,000 by 2018, China is already an upper middle-income country. According to Standard Chartered, even if China’s economic growth rate drops to 5 per cent by 2030, it will still surpass the US to become the world’s largest economy.

The greater challenge looks like American bipartisan consensus on a toughened China policy. China was labelled a “top competitor” in the latest versions of both the US national security strategy and its national defence strategy. When asked about China-US relations at a dinner in Beijing, in November 2018, Henry Kissinger reportedly said that they would never return to where they were.

This is probably true, but it is also misleading, in that it gives people a wrong impression, as if the US had been generously supporting China in the “good old days” (in Michael Pence’s words, “We rebuilt China in the last 25 years”) but became disappointed only recently. From Beijing’s view, Washington has never ceased its efforts to change China through a “peaceful evolution” strategy. This explains why Beijing has been calling for a new major-power relationship built not on confrontation but on equality and mutual respect.

China has risen peacefully but will the US go down without a fight?

If the US cannot fix Afghanistan or North Korea, how can it bring the second-largest economy to its knees with an increase in trade tariffs? The economic interdependence between the two countries is such that “decoupling”, as Washington has threatened, is like taking blood capillaries from the body.

A full-blown war between the two nuclear powers is next to impossible. And the closing gap between the two militaries will further reduce the likelihood of conflict. Although there are times of dangerous close encounters by naval ships in the South China Sea, by and large, both sides have been careful in keeping their distance, in line with rules that both have agreed.

John Ross, a director of London’s economic and business policy under former London mayor Ken Livingstone, said that China cannot be murdered; therefore it must be persuaded to commit suicide. If so, what grave mistakes would be suicidal for Beijing? Beijing does not need to look far to draw inspiration about what not to do. Three lessons crucial to its success in the past are still relevant for the future.

The first is the need to further reform and open up, as the Chinese leadership recently reiterated. Only through continuous reform and opening up can China achieve what it aspires to and, no less significantly, assure the rest of the world that it will integrate itself more closely with the international system. In this way, it can become “the builder of world peace, the contributor to global development, and the guardian of the international order”, as it has promised.

The second lesson is to exercise caution in the use of force. One of the greatest achievements of China’s rise is that it has been peaceful. China was involved in a few wars after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, but none since 1980. Comparatively, the US is now entangled in more simultaneous small wars than at any point in its history. These protracted wars have significantly reduced America’s national strength. As long as China continues to build up its military strength but exercises restraint in the use of force, it might create a miracle in human history – that is, a rising power finally catches up with an existing power without firing a shot.

The third lesson is not to see the US as an enemy even if China itself is treated as a competitor. This is not “love thy enemy”. A less confident US is now paranoid that China wants to drive it out of the Indo-Pacific, but as long as China continues to rise peacefully and live in amity with its neighbours, the US can hardly turn such an arch-rival into a bitter enemy, and the international community would not have to take sides.

When Americans fear China, what are they really afraid of?

Looking around the world, Western liberal democracies are in glaring disorder, ranging from Brexit and France’s “yellow vest” protests to Donald Trump’s protectionist “America first” policy, to the extent that Google has developed the “Tell Me Something Good” feature for its voice assistant.

If disorder reflects a loss of direction, then one of China’s greatest strengths is its sense of direction, that is, clearly mapped plans for the short, medium and long term, coupled with the concerted efforts of the entire Chinese population working in the same direction. So far, none of the plans have gone unfulfilled, with quite a few realised well in advance.

This gives Chinese people confidence for the future: to eliminate poverty and turn the country into a well-off society by 2020; become modernised by 2035 and realise the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049 when the People’s Republic celebrates its centenary. As long as China does not make a strategic mistake, no external force can reverse its course. China’s strategic opportunities, now as in the past, are in its own hands.

Zhou Bo is an honorary fellow with the PLA Academy of Military Science in China

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