In the era of the global village, either the American eagle or the Chinese dragon can react promptly to a puff of air across the wide Pacific Ocean, and on April 28, just after Biden delivered his “U.S.-China Victory in the 21st Century” speech to Congress, the Chinese magazine “Seeking Truth” published Xi Jinping’s January 11 internal speech “Grasping the New Development Stage, Implementing the New Development Concept, and Building a New Development Pattern” on April 30. The content of this speech at a seminar for provincial and ministerial-level cadres had been revealed one after another, and “Seeking Truth” did not say “published in full”, and the once widely quoted “rising east and falling west” by Western commentators did not appear in the text.
Looking at the full text of Biden’s first speech, the theme is, of course, to highly affirm his own “100-day New Deal”, the main point being that the six trillion dollar stimulus plan can increase employment opportunities, and that he proposes to impose higher taxes on the rich and corporations, and of course he did not forget to list the vaccines developed with huge investment under Trump as his historic achievement. Midway through his speech, he turned to “Xi Jinping’s bet that democracy in the U.S. can’t catch up with dictatorship,” elevating the U.S.-China rivalry to a “battle of democracy versus dictatorship.
Although Xi’s speech published in “Seeking Truth” deleted the words “the west is strong and the east is weak, which is the stock and history; the east is rising and the west is falling, which is the increment”, the specific expressions still exist, such as “China’s economic strength, scientific and technological strength, comprehensive national power and people’s living standard have jumped to a new level, becoming the world’s second largest The world’s second largest economy, the largest industrial country, the largest country of trade in goods, the largest foreign exchange reserves ……” and so on.
In his speech, Xi said that socialism with Chinese characteristics “has strong political, theoretical, institutional and cultural advantages in promoting development,” which can be seen as the CCP’s response to Biden’s statement that “China and the United States are a battle between democracy and autocracy. Although the article removes Xi’s judgment in his previous speech about the U.S.-China game that “the biggest source of chaos in the world today is the United States” and “the United States is the biggest threat to China’s development and security,” it also retains “the most recent For some time now, the world has been most characterized by the word ‘chaos’ and this trend seems to continue” and Xi’s emphasis on institutional confidence: “This time, in response to the global pandemic of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, how the leadership and institutional superiority of each country The highs and lows are immediately apparent. Time and momentum are on our side, and this is where our determination and bottom line lies, as well as our resolve and confidence.”
Institutions are the surface, economy is the inside
In his speech to Congress, Biden focused on promoting his two major programs, the $2 trillion American Jobs Initiative, which focuses on investing in public transportation, railroads, airports, water pipelines, roads and bridges, high-speed networks and other infrastructure, and the $1.8 trillion American The other is the $1.8 trillion American Family Plan, which focuses on providing free preschool education for America’s three- to four-year-olds and will also provide Americans with free community college education and paid family leave.
While these two programs focus on solving America’s domestic problems, Biden’s rationale for selling them and what they will accomplish is predicated on “competition with China” and that these spending programs are critical for America to win the future because Xi Jinping is “very eager for China to The U.S. has a “strong desire for China to become the most important and influential power in the world”. But Ian Bremer, chairman of the Eurasia Group, told the press that Biden mentioned China only because it is “useful in American domestic politics.
Xi’s speech is a judgment of its own advantages: “In today’s world, the most scarce resource is the market. Market resources is China’s great advantage, we must fully utilize and play this advantage, and constantly consolidate and enhance this advantage, forming a strong support for building a new development pattern.”
This paragraph allows me to explain a little. I have written a series of three articles on how and to what extent the world’s economic dependence on China is formed. The developed countries in the world today need China as a huge market to sell their products, and the resource powers need China as a buyer to buy their raw materials and resources, and all have varying degrees of dependence on China. This has been the trend since China joined the WTO in 2001. As for Taiwan and Hong Kong, their economic dependence on China is formed for different reasons, almost as an economic community. Consider the good news announced by former Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers Foreman at the China Development Forum 2021 in late March: “The United States has launched a huge fiscal stimulus, which means people will buy goods from China, Europe, and Japan.”
Considering the economic dependence of countries around the world on China and the reality that the United States is becoming big government and absorbing and digesting socialist economic policies, it is clear that the U.S.-China rivalry in the Biden era is much more than democracy vs. dictatorship.
Recent Comments