Future Development of Sino-US Relations and World Landscape

(Experts’ Commentaries)

Shi Yinhong, Tang Yongsheng, Ni Feng, Wu Baiyi, Fu Mengzi, etc.

The Policies of the United States and Other Major Countries toward China and the Future World Architecture

Shi Yinhong, Professor, College of International Relations, Renmin University of China

The COVID-19 outbreak has accelerated and complicated the changes unseen in a century. In this context, the United States and some other major countries are quietly changing their policies toward China, and the future world landscape is emerging, thus many issues deserve our attention and exploration.

I. A trend of U.S. policy towards China

The major pandemic outbreak affects the whole world. Currently, the historic ultra-tough policy on China launched by the Trump administration since the beginning of 2018 is being forced to quietly scale back on the strategic and economic fronts. On the strategic front, the situation is complex and complicate, and sometimes even becomes contradictory. On the one hand, the following U.S. activities are reduced, slowed down or even suspended for the most part of the COVID-19 outbreak: intensified joint U.S. -Japan military operations against China in the East China Sea; building a four-country Indo-Pacific strategic alliance with Japan, Australia and India; strengthening strategic and military cooperation with the Taiwan authorities and arms sales to Taiwan. On the other hand, the United States is intensifying its military activities targeted at China. The U.S. guided-missile destroyers passed through the Taiwan Straits on March 25, May 13, June 4, August 18 and August 30, 2020. On March 27,the so-called "Taipei Act" is passed, which seriously escalates U.S. "diplomatic" support for Taiwan authority. On June 9 an American navy transport plane made a rare fly-over the island. On August 4, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar announced that he will lead a delegation to Taiwan as part of the implementation of the Taiwan Travel Act enacted in 2018, and is the highest-ranking U.S. official and the only cabinet secretary to visit Taiwan since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the United States in 1979. The U.S. navy launched live missiles with great fanfare in the South China Sea near the Philippines. U.S. Navy warships conducted four "freedom of navigation operations" to challenge China's sovereignty claims in the South China Sea from March to May, and two more on July 14 and August 27. The frequency of U.S. military flights over the South China Sea has increased significantly, reaching 2,000 sorties in the first half of 2020.U.S.two aircraft carrier strike groups conducted drills in the South China Sea from July 4 to 10 and again from July 17, marking the first such exercise in the South China Sea since 2014 and the second such exercise by two aircraft carrier strike groups since 2001.

There is little doubt of a partial contraction on the economics and trade front. In January 2020, the first phased trade agreement between China and the United States was reached, and its main content is China’s commitment in two years period to double its imports worth $200 billion from the United States to exchange for the United States to cancel its decision on $166 billion tariffs imposed on China's exports to the United States, while, the United States will halve another $122 billion high tariffs imposed on China's exports to the United States. The trade war between China and the United States de-escalated significantly for the first time. However, a promised surge in imports from the United States surpassed the actual demand of China's slowdown economic growth rate, hiding the potential rise of the U.S. continuing forced selling "reference parameter" in China after the two-year period, adding to the Chinese burden of reduced foreign exchange reserves, and very significantly reducing China's demand and capacity for large purchases from the rest of the developed countries and some developing countries, and adding more difficulties to China's diplomacy and strategy.

As for the second phase of trade negotiations, it has become almost impossible, and the second phase of trade agreement is certainly out of reach. Trump told the press on July 10 that relationship with China is "severely damaged" by the COVID-19 outbreak in China that "could have been stopped, but is not stopped", and that he no longer wants to sign the second phase of the trade deal. In Trump’s view, China seems unable to fulfill the commitment on imports from the United States, nor accept the U.S. requirements for sharp change of the economic system and industrial policy, thus trade talks has little practical significance, his government will maintain the high tariffs indefinitely, and prolong the high tariffs worth $372 billion imposed on China's exports to the United States.

On the political/ideological front, the Trump administration continues to deter and push back China's "soft power" projection in the United States. In early March 2020, it designated China’s official news agency in the United States as a "foreign mission" and expelled 60 of its 160 journalists. More than three months later, four more Chinese state media organizations in the United States were designated as "foreign mission". On August 13, the Confucius Institute in the United States was designated by the U.S. State Department as a "foreign mission", which "conducts global propaganda of the Communist Party of China with Chinese government funds".

The Trump administration's political and ideological attacks on the Chinese Communist Party are raised to the height by Robert O 'Brien, U.S. national security adviser, in a long, carefully crafted speech in the Arizona state capital on June 24. O 'Brien said in the speech that the Chinese communist party leaders are seeking beyond China's borders ideological control, vigorously "reshaping the world in accordance with the idea of the Communist Party of China ", spending large sums of money in the past years for overseas publicity, aiming to "destroy" unfriendly "media institutions in the Chinese worldwide" and affecting the English media channels. Decades of efforts to cajole China into moderating and liberalizing the Communist Party's leadership system backfired, he accused, leading to "the greatest failure of American foreign policy since the 1930s," until Trump reversed the established bipartisan policy of accommodating China.

In a speech in Washington on July 14, David Stilwell, America's Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said that the Chinese Communist Party's new imperial behavior is not by its nature an accident, but an essential feature of the nationalist and Marxist-Leninist mindset. This speech can serve as the footnote for O 'Brien lecture on the origin of Chinese foreign behavior, also "beating the drum" for "Pompeo Doctrine" that clamored the day before China's maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea "completely illegal", and how similar it is to the article "the Sources of the Soviet Conduct" in 1947written by George Kennan with the signature "X", the ideological horn for the old Cold War undoubtedly rang out again in the world.

On July 23, as a new surging tide of ideological movement of the Trump administration on lashing out at the Communist Party of China, China's basic political and social system and the foreign policy system, and also as the most official declaration with fundamental characteristics to reverse the U.S. policy toward China for decades, Secretary of State Pompeo made a sensational speech at Nixon Library in California. He claimed that since Nixon's visit to China in 1972"the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get things done. We must not continue it. We must not return to it". He said that the truth is that our policies – and those of other free nations – resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that fed it". If we don't act now, eventually the Chinese Communist Party will erode our freedoms and subvert the rules-based order that a free society has built; if we bend our knees now, our children's children will be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party whose actions are the primary challenge to the free world. These views definitely constitute a new Cold War declaration.

II. Changes of some countries' policies toward China

There seems to be a more dramatic potential disconnect between China and Russia. Apart from phone calls and expressions of support between the two presidents on April 16 and July 8, 2020, there is little public contact between them in about six months that had been frequent, enthusiastic and regular for years. Putin, by contrast, spoke to Trump four times in a row over a two-week period beginning on March 30 to discuss possible cooperation between the United States and Russia in battling the COVID-19 outbreak and stabilizing global energy markets. On April 26, Putin and Trump issued a rare joint statement on the linking-up of Soviet and American forces on the bank of Elbe River at the end of World War II, citing it as an example that Russia and the United States could work together. Notably, Russia is wary of becoming too deeply involved in the rapidly intensifying rivalry between China and the United States, and is keen to preserve or strengthen its independence in foreign policy. Some of “master hands” in Russian foreign policy circle have recently urged the Russian Federation to advocate a "new non-alignment" between China and the United States, and to try to lead "a community of countries that will not side with any pretenders of global or regional hegemony".

The Australian government, at the urging of the United States, has actively cooperated with its anti-China policy. It is the first to propose the international independent investigation on the origin of COVID-19 outbreak and spread, and announced early sanctions on Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in China regarding Hong Kong National Security Law, and also announced a surge of nearly $200 billion military budget in the next decade, used to enhance naval and air power against China in the south Pacific and central Pacific.

India passed regulations in mid-April 2020 that severely restrict Chinese direct investment in India. Anti-China sentiment in India has risen sharply since the worst fighting between India and China in 45 years, which erupted on June 15 in the Kalawan Valley in Kashmir. The Modi government has significantly increased forward troop deployments along the Line of Actual Control between China and India in Kashmir, and in early September Chinese and Indian troops clashed near Lake Pangong, and shots were fired between the two countries the first time in 45 years.

The Japanese government has generally echoed the U.S. policy toward China on key issues. The United States and Japan have recently completed an agreement to purchase 105 U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets, which is a major step to increase the U.S.-Japan strategic force advantage against China. At a closed-door meeting of the Future Investment Council held in early March, Prime Minister Abe pledged to take steps to encourage Japanese companies to call back manufacturing of high-value products from China. Japan's parliament has earmarked $2.2 billion from the huge COVID-19 bailout fund to help Japanese companies pull out of China. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said publicly on June 8 that Japan was at the forefront of expressing "serious concerns" about the enacting of Hong Kong's National Security Law. Two days later, Mr. Abe told parliament that Japan hopes to take the lead in getting the G-7 to issue a joint statement on the situation in Hong Kong.

The current South Korean government's actions since the COVID-19 outbreak have shown its friendship toward China, but it remains to be seen whether it can stand up to American cajoling and pressure. The Trump administration is incubating an "Economic Prosperity Network" plan to shift global supply chains away from China, which makes South Korea an important partner it is courting.

The major Western European countries generally take a neutral stance towards the competition between China and the United States, or are closer to the United States in some areas and to China in others. They follow up the United States to attack China on the political top-hot issues in today's world, also believe in the so-called "concealment" and "falsification" of the COVID-19 outbreak by the Chinese government, and also attacked China to formulate and implement the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding the National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, criticized China's position and policy system on Xinjiang and the South China Sea issue. "Decoupling" from China in the high-tech sector is a demand the U.S. government has made to its European Allies, and has found more echoes across the Atlantic during the COVID-19 outbreak. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has reportedly ordered the drafting of a plan to reduce Huawei's involvement in the development of 5G networks in the United Kingdom to zero by 2023.

Regarding the trend of "decoupling" in the field of high technology and the pattern of confrontation in the field of politics and ideology, the antagonism between the Western developed countries and China has become obvious and even relatively fixed, even despite of many internal differences and generally with no "leadership" in the Western developed countries. In view of this situation, some forces are engaged in transnational ideological mobilization and political coordination. In early June, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and some members of the European Union established Intra-parliamentary alliance on China issue, which said that China, given "under the rule of the Communist Party of China, represents a global challenge", thus the alliance members should "gather together to coordinate response to the challenge".

Moreover, a development directly related to the prospect outlook for global governance is that China's chance of filling the vacuum as the Trump administration abdicates America's original "global leadership" role is limited, and less than the current prediction made by many at home and abroad. China's "soft power" appeal in the world, its available resources and experiences are quite limited, while the relevant domestic and foreign obstacles China will encounter are considerable, including the complexities caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

III. Trends of the world landscape in the making

The above views of the "master hands" of Russia's foreign policy and some well-known "world views" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Macron, together with the clear statement of Indonesian foreign minister on September 8, 2020 that his country and the Association Of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) "don't want to get into the (China-U.S.) entanglement" indicate some kind of ideological pattern for the future world, based on power, interests and psychological patterns in the future world. Sooner or later, the post-pandemic era will come, countries of the rest of the world, with the exception of a few "loyal allies" who side with either China or the United States, will be forced to lean somewhat more toward the United States or toward China for their own national interests. Meantime, they strive to maintain or strive for varying degrees of neutrality and policy independence, being closer to the United States in some areas and to China in others. The global politics and economy and "psychological world" will split into two "close camps" with a very large "middle zone". The "middle zone" includes a few major powers that individually are not as weighty as the United States or China, but are powerful, independent and "strategic" enough to extract significant concessions from the United States or China, depending on their different preferences on relevant issues and domains.

In the above-mentioned future world architecture, the two "close camps" already have consolidated ideological systems, which can hardly be changed, although very large "intermediate zone" contains multifarious countries with various political, social system and ideology systems, but will gradually form a ideological commonality, or their common ideology distinct characteristics, i.e. concepts such as world multi-polarization, the global hegemony contention without overall feature, world's major issues diversity, "leading role" differentiation in different area, the rest of countries does not enter military alliance with superpower or fix comprehensive partnership (especially long-term strategic companion), etc. As French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on September 13, 2020 that the EU must define its own interests, must be strong and independent -- independent of China and the United States. This is critical to succeed in the 21st century. It may be this "middle zone", rather than any superpower, that represent the main trend in future world politics.

As a result, there is a great possibility in the future, i.e. global politics and ideology environment change too much to become less tolerant with hegemony power politics, but more strongly inclined to national rights and independent policy, egalitarian international public opinion will play greater role, in a high-tech era it is more difficult for any superpower to have advantages in all different functional areas.

IV. China's response strategy

Before the new U.S. president takes office on January 20, 2021, the Trump administration is likely to intensify its efforts to contain China in the following aspects: increasing legal sanctions against China over issues such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang; strengthen "law enforcement" actions on alleged Chinese espionage, infiltration and subversion activities against the United States; continue to exclude Chinese high-tech companies from operating in the United States, and continue to pressure countries such as Germany, etc. to join the United States in suppressing Huawei's 5G development and other Chinese high-tech progress. As in the South China Sea, it continues to engage in "freedom of navigation operations" that deny China's sovereignty claims and maritime rights and interests with high frequency and intensity, and will demonstrate large-scale advanced forces in the South China Sea to deter China; will continue the comprehensive attack on the Communist Party of China, China's basic system and its foreign policy system. Moreover, there is a growing likelihood that the Trump administration will take the following steps: a limited military strike in the South China Sea against one or few of the islands and reefs where China has deployed its forces; unprecedentedly damage or even publicly abandon the traditional "one China" policy.

Faced with this grim situation, what should China do? To be sure, symmetrical countermeasures are sometimes completely necessary, as in the case of ordering the closure of the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu to counter the closure of the Chinese Consulate General in Houston. However, meantime, we must understand: if we are lack of the peer capacity, we don't often engaged in symmetry countermeasures, or exacerbate counter tools to the risk of depletion, reduce the strategy and policy flexibility and room for maneuvers, decrease understanding and sympathy of international public opinion and world opinion, makes the hawks appetite of domestic public exert more pressure and restriction on the government policy, and may play into the hand of American super-hawkish evil intentions.

At the moment, China and the United States strongly condemn each other from completely opposite positions and "moral heights" and only ask each other to make some or even a series of fundamental concessions. Particularly, the Trump administration announced that its goal is to subvert and eliminate the ruling position of the Communist Party of China in China, which makes it completely impossible to significantly ease Sino-U.S. confrontation or competition on one or two major issues, not to mention the overall stability of Sino-U.S. relations and the tendency to reverse the deterioration of the situation. China and the United States should stop this phenomenon, and China could take the initiative to avoid large-scale military conflicts between China and the United States as the fundamental common interests, the least "common divisor" and the leading issue, conduct dialogue or negotiations that are practical and focused, and have specific and important proposals, and regard all possible minor or trifle compromises as branch efforts to serve the maintenance of this fundamental common interests.

China should resolutely, sufficiently and persistently implement strategic and military contraction, especially in the aspect of South China Sea, Taiwan and arms competition, which are taken as the basic negotiation terms so as to make the new U.S. administration shrink correspondingly sooner or later, seek to reduce the risk of Sino-U.S. strategic frontier collision, promote new strategic stability between China and the United States, and strive to divide the U.S. political attitude towards China. Generally speaking, we should not push developed countries and any developing countries other than the United States and the United Kingdom to the opposite of China for a period of time. We should be patient with their anti-China behaviors, so as to facilitate the particularly important strategic concentration in the current period, reduce the number of first-line and second-line counterparts, and strive for more neutrals and sympathizers, especially through sufficient and timely compromise and concrete arrangements. We should earnestly maintain and develop the cooperative and mutually beneficial relations with the EU, ASEAN and South Korea.

Closely related to China's national direction, hundreds of millions of people in China have two contradictory scenarios about the basic situation: "absolute picture" and "relative picture". The "absolute picture" refers to the fact that the prevention and control of the COVID-19 outbreak represents a huge economic and social cost in China, and the global pandemic outbreak also causes the external economic and political environment to deteriorate or the external difficulties increase sharply. Therefore, China is in general terms weaker than before the pandemic outbreak, so striving for the economic recovery and prevention of the pandemic coming back on the basis of major victory achieved in the epidemic prevention and control constitutes an overwhelming priority. Thus, the rest of the state affairs must be sufficiently contracted, restrained, and economical. However, the "relative picture" means that the domestic anti-pandemic, political and economic situation of the United States and some of its major allies is not as good as that of China, and the changing balance of power between China and the United States seems to accelerate rapidly. Therefore, China's peaceful rise has a new historical opportunity, and it is necessary and feasible for China to make great achievements in military, economic, diplomatic and ideological fields. These two different scenarios will jointly dominate China's policy for a long time to come, and make it more complicated.