Fog of strategic mistrust is stopping the US and China from seeing eye to eye
The rivals blame each other for changing the Asia-Pacific security order and upsetting the status quo, and disagree over the true aim of US sanctions and path to peace in Taiwan
For peace to endure, they must focus on clearing the causes of their strategic mistrust
Unable to articulate a strategy on China in the league of coherent grand strategies such as “containtment”, “detente”, or his predecessors’ “responsible stakeholder” and “pivot to Asia”, US President Joe Biden’s China strategy is a bewildering utility cupboard – the US sometimes competes with China, sometimes cooperates with it, and at other times confronts it.
Conveniently, Chinese policymakers have organised Biden’s China strategy into what they call the “five noes”: the US seeks no cold war, no conflict with China, no change to the Chinese system, no containment of China with allies, and no support for Taiwan’s independence.
But it is unhelpful to define US-China relations by its negative attributes, and the genial political posture reflected in the “five noes” is undermined by the consistently hawkish and restrictive actions taken against China.
Indeed, Chinese President Xi Jinping does not believe America’s stated position. During the “two sessions” earlier this month, he told China’s top legislators that “Western countries, led by the United States, have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China”.
Strategic misunderstanding has long afflicted relations between the US and China. Neither has managed to assure the other of the validity of its world view and the sincerity of its intentions.
Four strategic questions are central to the state of US-China relations today. One, who is changing the status quo of Asia’s security order? The US believes it is China. It believes China has prematurely imposed “one country, one system” on Hong Kong, and created artificial islands and unfairly claimed large bodies of water in the South China Sea.
It also believes that in building the world’s largest navy fleet, China aspires to break America’s “first island chain” of defence in the Pacific. The US has enjoyed unparalleled military dominance in the Pacific since annexing the Philippines in 1898 and more so after winning World War II. From Alaska to Taiwan, the Pacific has been and continues to be America’s strategic sphere; China’s ambitions have upset this status quo.
But China believes it is the US that is provoking military tensions in Asia, particularly over Taiwan.
Japan is militarising. The Philippines is welcoming four new US military bases. Australia is being armed with nuclear submarines in a landmark deal under the Aukus alliance with Britain and the US. South Korea and Japan are moving towards a historic detente, helped by US mediation. India has secured unprecedented US defence partnerships. The US is again seeing Central Asia as a frontier of realpolitik. Militarily arming the Indo-Pacific to encircle China is a de facto reality.
China believes it must avoid US entrapment to stay on track in its historic rise. A war would destroy China’s path to prosperity but so would naivety in not preparing for one. It is clear China prefers winning without a war to a war without wins.
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China warns Aukus against going down ‘dangerous road’ over nuclear-powered submarine pact
China warns Aukus against going down ‘dangerous road’ over nuclear-powered submarine pact
Two, who changed the US-China status quo? Wouldn’t China dream of returning to the pre-trade war era of Chimerica? China could continue to benefit from US frontier technology, markets and capital. But destiny was reversed after former US president Donald Trump slapped tariffs on US$350 billion of Chinese goods.
US policymakers believe that, as China grows, its global ambitions will become more pronounced and its business practices more threatening – it has been accused of forced intellectual property transfers, unfair industrial policies and technological infringements on US national security.
But the characteristics of Chinese economic behaviour have not changed for at least three decades, though its impact has grown alongside China’s scale. Although Chinese practices have not categorically changed, the US attitude towards and tolerance of China have.
Three, what do US sanctions aim to achieve? The US has pointed to national security concerns in sanctioning Chinese technology, investments and parts of its supply chains. This is pre-emptive. The assumption is that any Chinese company can cause a national security threat at the Communist Party’s command, so sanctions must come early and strike hard.
China has sought to delegitimise this discourse. Foreign minister Qin Gang said US policies were motivated by the need to outcompete China, leading to a broadening of the notion of national security, and politicisation and weaponisation of economic and trade issues. In short, China believes the US is manipulating the concept of national security to conceal its true agenda of containing China’s rise.
The Chinese are good learners of history. Japan emerged from World War II a market economy, democracy and US ally – and was still sent on an economic downward spiral for decades since the 1985 Plaza Accord. Even if China today were a democracy and US ally, the US would not celebrate China’s rising above America. It is unAmerican to accept a future in which America is number two.
So from China’s view, no system change or economic adjustment, not even political democratisation, would avert this destined century of rivalry with the US. The Chinese see no incentive for change and recognise the only path is to confront the challenge and not concede.
Promoting cross-strait dialogue is out of fashion in today’s Washington, where predicting the timing of a war in Taiwan has become a preoccupation. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told The Atlantic that Taiwan “is not China’s internal affairs”. His predecessor Mike Pompeo further called Taiwan a “deeply domestic US issue”.
That Taiwan is China’s internal affair had been the cornerstone of US-China relations. The two countries now hold opposing views on this issue.
The US and China must focus on clearing the causes of their strategic mistrust and look for the origins of the relationship upheaval.
Strategic clarity is strength, and strategic coherence a virtue. Both are demanded of great leaders of great nations should hope for enduring peace be preserved.
Shirley Ze Yu is a political economist and a senior practitioner fellow with the Ash Center of Harvard Kennedy School
