You have your interests and I have my interests, and I think we actually have a doctrinal and institutional struggle, a just struggle.
Sometimes Confucius always asks why we have to restrict capital, why we have to restrict not only domestic capital, but international capital as well. Maximize capital accumulation, he hopes that this model to maximize his interests, do not allow countries like China in the periphery of the world system to enter the center of the world system, and Europe to talk, we now think China is like a huge meat worm along a plant climbing up, originally we G7 all in the food chain high-end, as a result of your huge meat worm up, in the middle of the G7 has been the G6. It’s all pushed down, leaving the U.S. at the top, and if you go up, the U.S. will go down, and then the U.S. will definitely quit, that’s how they describe it.
What is the main reason for the deterioration? It is that the quantitative change in the power strength of the two countries is leading to a qualitative change. China’s growth is actually really impacting the US-dominated world order and is also crisis the US global system and global hegemony, which is objective. It is that your growth has changed the world power pattern, and even changed the position of the United States in the world, so the United States can only suppress you, and China is forced to resist the United States hegemony and bullying, which is a certain inevitability of deterioration.
Roosevelt talked about the four elements of human rights, including the right of man to avoid scarcity. Why can’t the Chinese develop? Why is China’s development not working, and why are you trying to suppress us? So it is unjust. So the resolution of the Sino-American conflict is not that the Chinese are giving up their right to development, but that the Chinese are going to continue their development, and the United States you have to give up your global hegemony, and we have to see this justice in the Sino-American struggle.
This is a report drawn by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which has very many elements and weighted indices in it, and even how many atomic warheads are used as references in the indices.
This is an assessment done in 2015, the United States is about 25% in the middle of the G20, 25% in the middle of the major countries, 20% in China, and the China-US crossover is in 2023-2025. As soon as the epidemic happened in China they immediately adjusted the momentum in China, and when it happened in the U.S. they picked up the momentum again and said that the crossover might happen even earlier. The combined national power US National Intelligence Council revised metrics are a little more reliable and a little more reliable than the purchasing power assessment.
According to recent IMF estimates, China could probably reach 73% of U.S. GDP in 2020, compared to 68% last year, an increase of 5 points, and this momentum is likely to be surpassed by another 5 points per year before the epidemic is over, so of course the U.S. will be under pressure.
This is the September survey with 13 Western countries, and one of the items in the survey is saying who is leading the world economy today? It’s interesting that the percentage of those who believe that the United States is the world’s economic leader is 34 percent, but China is actually leading 48 percent, which must make Americans uncomfortable, and we’re all apprehensive, but that’s the result of the survey of 13 countries.
How do you know? One is the change in history, which is part of the change in the world’s overall situation, the rise and fall of one, which is a major international political phenomenon. The second is that we have to distinguish between right and wrong, that we have the right to be free from lack of development, and that it is wrong and unjust for the United States to contain us, to suppress us and to adopt hegemony. The third is that we have to have a distinction between priorities, in the current deterioration of Sino-American relations is not the main cause of China, but the United States. It is Trump first said it was Wuhan virus, Chinese virus, including Pompeo, are going to engage in legal judge to try us, said we intentionally leaked, create biological weapons.
At the same time we should be prepared for the long term, as long as China still wants to develop, the United States will continue to suppress. There is a basic understanding of how to deteriorate and that is to keep developing ourselves, which is both a strategy and a tactic. Developing ourselves strategically elevates the U.S.-China bargain and the pattern of power in the world. At the same time developing oneself both loyal to one’s own affairs is more effective than going on the offensive against the United States, so developing oneself is the most effective defense as well as the most powerful offense.
What does the future hold for China and the U.S.? I will focus on a few aspects of China’s attitude. China’s attitude is still the 14-character policy, no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, win-win cooperation. When I went to do exchanges with the United States in 2015, this policy had already been proposed at that time, but the United States did not accept it. I asked the American strategists, why didn’t you accept it? What’s wrong with it? He said, there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just that because you China proposed it, we’re not used to having our bilateral relationship defined by other countries, it’s up to us Americans to define how our bilateral relationship should be defined, you can’t do that, we don’t accept that, that’s the United States is not prepared to treat you equally. This is what becomes our aspiration and goal to strive for, not even what can actually be achieved.
Wang Yi also made such a statement, and Cui Tiankai also made a statement, saying that he has no intention of competing with the United States for global status and wants to live in peace, which is partly correct and partly diplomatic rhetoric, why? Although China has no intention to compete with the United States for dominance, you are actually competing with the United States for global dominance, which is what the Americans told me to my face, don’t talk about how you don’t have the will, we Americans don’t believe in will, will can change overnight, it takes decades for power to change, and some countries can never change, Bhutan wants to threaten the United States and make an enemy of the United States, will we pay attention to him? We ignore him, you China say you are not an enemy of us, the United States, but you have the power to threaten us, you can beat us, we think you are a threat, it’s as simple as that.
President Xi spoke on September 3 about five promises, two of which are saying that we must defend our rights and you cannot interfere with us. Yesterday, he also spoke a paragraph above the commemoration of the anti-American aid to the U.S., itself. This time very large-scale propaganda, I think it is related to the background of the times. In particular, President Xi that speech I suggest that we take a good look at it, it’s very interesting and very personal. For example, Chinese people do not believe in evil, should be persistent against foreign aggressive forces, called when there is pressure, the waist does not bend, the legs do not shake, very colloquial. The books can’t write it, what is important is to convey a message that when facing this kind of struggle, we should be brave enough to fight, the first step is to fight, then to fight well.
What are the bottom lines and boundaries that we talk about in dealing with relationships? It is our bottom line to firmly uphold the rights of Chinese people to pursue a happy life and to ensure China’s development and security. From what I can see so far, I think it’s being handled very well. For example, China currently has some contact with both Trump and Biden. We generally feel that Trump is a guy who doesn’t keep his word, who signs agreements and reneges on them, and is not very good to deal with. Nonetheless, we’re almost unilaterally honoring our economic agreements, because after that incident they had some intentional commitments, like not increasing sanctions on our Chinese high-tech companies, but they’re still engaged. Hard you come around China to stir up trouble, we are also preparing for military struggle, is really doing, preparing a local war against China, both hard and soft are doing.
Also betting on both sides, with Biden as well, a while ago all the people on the U.S. side were afraid to engage with China, but recently some relaxation, especially some of the Democratic Party think tank senior officials, former senior officials, future senior officials are starting to communicate with the Chinese think tank semi-officially on track two, they generally bring this message that we will restart the U.S.-China relationship, you have to be patient, China is also striving for this turn of events. We’re still holding the rules and regulations in this rather sinister situation.
The U.S. officially currently the Trump administration has a strategic approach to dialogue that identifies the U.S. and China as great power rivalry and it’s very clear that the U.S. is prepared to pay the necessary price for a great power rivalry between the U.S. and China, and at the same time we’re going to use a whole-of-government approach to deal with China. That’s consistent with what we were proposing at the time, that we also want a whole-of-government approach to get into the game with the United States. They DHS also proposed to confront China across borders.
From the U.S. government’s point of view, this is a national policy determined by U.S. national interests, and I’m afraid it’s hard to change which president comes into power, but the strategy is different.
There are ten themes in the middle of Trump’s journey about the second phase, and the third one is to end the dependence on China, which has five articles in total, which also has some quantitative goals, such as moving one million jobs back from China and so on and so forth. We in China announced four, the fifth one didn’t, and this fifth one is very sinister, which is to make China responsible for spreading the virus around the world, and this one is a hint that he left behind, and if Trump has a second term, there will be some problems in the second term, what does that include? For example, for China’s financial assets in the United States, some Chinese enterprises in the United States and so on, they are now sovereign immunity, I see the U.S. court rulings are dismissed on the basis of sovereign immunity. There is a black man when in prison, he hasn’t got it, but he said it caused me to reduce the quality of life, the required $10 million, he also sued, I see by the U.S. court to dismiss, but later I guess will rise, and now the United States is pulling other Western countries intentionally to claim from China.
Biden will have some changes, his attitude towards China has been stated, China is a competitor not an enemy. He may adopt a policy towards China, first of all their team believes that the financial policy has failed, but can not be completely no contact, so they advocate a predominantly containment of contact, trying to build a front against Chinese domination to contain China’s development.
One of his danger points is that the Democratic Party platform has eliminated the one China policy, and Biden probably gave an interview to a media outlet the day before yesterday saying that he wants to improve U.S.-Taiwan relations. I don’t know if it’s campaign language or a real policy change, but if that’s the case, it could be a trigger point for US-China relations, but I don’t think there’s much room for that, and they’re going to hit a wall soon. There is also the issue of Xinjiang, they are now leaning on Xinjiang as a human rights issue, leaning on ethnic cleansing, trying to put the label of ethnic cleansing on China, for China to form a kind of anti-China alliance.
He has assembled a diplomatic team of 2,000 people, with 20 groups, 49 co-chairs, some who are going to use the secretary of state, with national security assistants, but of course this is all speculation. In general it’s based on a couple of Democratic presidents with Obama’s crew as the bottom. The main few people Blinken, Rattner, Sullivan, Campbell, some of them not so good to say, they actually have been in touch with China and have come, just this year, come and given ideas to China, saying you should do this, and after this is done I think it will give Trump a bit of a problem, which may help improve the relationship between China and the United States. What can be said about this? He has a certain strategy and there is a basic consensus that China and the United States should not go into a cold war mode, should not go into a state of conflict and strive for coexistence, which is the understanding of several of them. But the engagement with China is over and the main reason for the deterioration of U.S.-China relations is China’s lack of modesty and prudence in provoking the basic interests of the United States, that’s their view, so there will be conflict, but that bottom line will be better than it was.
In addition to the two presidents-elect in the administration, it also involves the U.S. Congress, which is now essentially extremely anti-China. The U.S. Congress is more anti-Chinese than the U.S. Congress after Pearl Harbor, because at that time there were still some votes against the U.S. Congress declaring war against Japan, and now there are many bills related to China that the U.S. Congress passed almost unanimously, which is a terrible thing to feel. But I think the U.S. Congress is also doing a brinkmanship strategy, why? Rubio is the most anti-China. When he got more on the Taiwan issue a while back, he said it’s a matter of moderation, that’s China’s bottom line, don’t do it, and it seems they still understand that. But in general, 366 bills have been introduced since 2019, one a day, 12 became bills. Most recently on October 20th, this report was formally filed, over 130, with a lot of China-related and six Taiwan-related in between, which would lead to a very difficult change in U.S.-China relations from the U.S. point of view, with Congress in the way.
Some of the think tanks, the Brookings Institution has argued that there are some lessons to be learned from the Trump administration’s China policy now, and they suggest that the relationship between the two countries should be re-examined, that the U.S. relationship should be maintained, that leadership should be reinvented, that China policy should return to positive reciprocity and so on, and they also talk about some practices.
Rand is a slippery think tank because he speaks for whoever pays more, but some of the reports are of a good standard, this one is of a good standard, and the general point is how to deal with China? Look at how China is going to develop. There are four of them. The first one is rising, China achieving completion. The second is a rising China. The third is a stagnant China, and the fourth is a China in internal strife.
He thinks the first is the least likely, why? This is tantamount to using the extrapolation that because it needs to make the fewest mistakes to be a finisher, and China has made a lot of mistakes at this point, it can’t be a finisher, but the greatest likelihood is that it will rise, followed by stagnation, with the least amount of civil unrest. The U.S. may take a parallel approach to China, collide with it, or go its own way.
There are five key issues at the Center for International Strategy that need to be re-examined in general, and I won’t go into more detail here.
It’s the strategic framework of competition with China, and the overall view is that China is not the Soviet Union or Japan, and that the U.S. is no longer able to contain China in the middle of the four-part strategic framework of geopolitics, markets, suppliers, and competitors, and this is their basic conclusion
The U.S. strategy toward China is divided into five stages. The first stage is rejection, which is about 2010. The second stage is anger, which is now until 2020, the third stage is into depression (2030), the fourth is bargaining (2040), and the fifth stage is acceptance (2050), so we still have to continue to simmer.
This is the U.S. national competitive strategy, the United States is now competing with us to basically take a mixed competition approach, and the original not quite the same, before the military war, economic war field is very clear, trade war is trade war, sanctions is sanctions, now mixed with each other to achieve national goals, including the inferior use of military force and military means to constantly leveraging financial leverage also in changing international policy, this we need to recognize this.
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