Good morning everyone, I just listened to Director Xu’s report and was very inspired. Recently in Beijing, the old meeting, the meeting is to study the U.S. elections, fortune telling for the two U.S. presidents, all kinds of things. In fact, in 2016, due to the political situation in the United States has a great impact on China, so China is also paying attention to research. The last time we had a meeting, at that time the general consensus was that Hillary won. The CITIC Foundation is also a researcher at the Academy of Social Sciences, Lu Xiang, who I attended several times, was the only person at that meeting who thought Hillary was dangerous and Trump was possible.
But this time it’s different, because our foundation is a high-end national think tank, we have taken on some issues from ministries and commissions, including China-US relations. After last year’s trade war, we strengthened our research on China-U.S. relations, and Mr. Kong personally led us to intensive meetings on different topics, such as the financial issues almost once a week, and also came up with some views. I will report to you on the views I have come up with in the process of following the research on China-US relations.
We are now in the process of forming an analytical framework in the study of U.S.-China relations. When making judgments within this analytical framework, we may be close to some facts or able to keep up with some changes. For example, when our think tank had an internal reference earlier, what is the qualitative problem of China-US relations and China-US game? At that time it was more popular to talk about the Thucydides trap, the rise of Athens and the fear of Sparta, or the rise of China and the fear of the United States, there is no right or wrong here, we came to the conclusion that there is a conflict between the hegemony of the United States and the development rights of China, so our struggle is more of a struggle against bullying, and we should recognize this.
First of all, let’s talk about the current situation, now China-US relations are in a downward spiral, here is a list of some things, we all know these things, by listing these things to give you a feeling, in the middle of these things almost entirely dominated by the United States, the United States is on the offensive, the United States take offense, we are taking the defensive, is a passive response, this can be seen to cause China-US relations spiral down the main reason is not China.
By August it was more tense, and a while ago there was talk of a cold war in US-China relations? In August, a Japanese newspaper said the U.S. might take action against the South China Sea, and at that time I read the Western commentary about whether the August gunfire would occur. Why the Guns of August?There was World War I in August 1914 and there was a very famous American journalist who wrote a famous book that won the Pulitzer Prize called “Guns of August. Whether there would be this massive conflict that would rise to a world war was something they were considering. In September when it was more clearly said will not be for the Huangyan Island or Taiwan Sea some things, October said will not have a scare, all over, we now see out seems to be all right, this all right is not peacefully over, in the process in the middle of a lot of things happened, a lot of game, leading to the current results, is the bottom between China and the United States, not to the hot war, but also to maintain the strategic Gaming and in technology and economics and technology, and not directly to military confrontation, that’s one result.
I have two diagrams here, one of which is a diagram of the East Wind 21 and 26 where we happen, what does this diagram say? The United States at that time, two aircraft carrier fleet in the South China Sea region to carry out exercises, practice landing and so on, our side also did exercises, but it seems to the United States deterrence is not enough, first, the United States in late July launched the Minuteman 3 strategic nuclear weapons to the Pacific region, not to our side to hit, hit the central Pacific atoll place, he said this is already arranged. A few days later we launched the Dongfeng 21 and 26 again and hit a ship maneuvering south of the Paracel. After hitting this ship, I saw the United States military representative in Geneva make an exasperated statement, saying, “Have the Chinese considered the political consequences if you kill thousands of American soldiers on the aircraft carrier? They think China is showing him strength. But why is China trying to show strength? It’s because the U.S. provoked it in the first place.
And what China has done sends a clear signal to the United States not to take military risks. So it’s been more stable for a while. Next to a chart talking about China missile specific circle, this is the U.S. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments drawing, you can roughly look at, this is the U.S. estimate, closer to this line is our tactical missile control line, the second island chain that is a 1500 kilometer line, the U.S. military and strategic assessment agencies, they basically came to the conclusion that in the current 1500 kilometer range around China U.S. Don’t take advantage, don’t make military provocations against mainland China.
Last year after the parade saw to the Dongfeng 17, they think it is 2500-4000 kilometers may not work, which means they have to adjust some strategy, I want to talk about what these things are? This is an important foundation for the boundary of confrontation between China and the U.S., which makes it difficult for a large-scale invasion to occur. That is to say, what level of possible confrontation, we are to have prior assessment, this is the part of the assessment, they believe that facing China from sea to land this is their initial strategy, later called sea and air integrated warfare (second round), and now to the offshore blockade, and not within Malacca, is beyond Malacca to the Indo-Taiwan region, are gradually and gradually to far away from the assessment.
The U.S. Department of Defense released a report on September 1, “China’s Military and Security Development Report 2020”, this report is not very objective, certain aspects of China’s overly high affirmation, some aspects of conscious suppression. In fact, China is different from the United States militarily, the U.S. strategy is called global power, global perception, global strike, and China is local, so China’s geo-threat capability is not particularly strong, but it can still defend itself. The U.S. has intentionally kept the Chinese nuclear weapons piece very low, and some reports say that only one can hit the U.S., under their first strike. But they don’t do a concrete analysis of this report, which is clearly nonsense.
We are officially talking about how many nuclear weapons we have, and the more official one is that Premier Zhu Rongji visited the U.S. in 1998 and said we have more than 200 missiles, which is not much of a threat to you. 20 years have passed, and there will certainly be some changes, and the U.S. has always had nuclear strike as one of their military options, but in the middle of this option, there are some adjustments and changes that make them more and more uncertain.
There are three main changes here. The bottom line for China’s security is that we must maintain the ability to have a second nuclear strike. The first change for the United States is the discovery of the Great Underground Wall. They used to be very good at detecting our satellites and marking the location of all our silos on the road, thinking they could destroy as much as they wanted the first time. Then they suddenly discovered that China had dug a 5,000-kilometer underground Great Wall, which meant that all the silos were connected to each other, and the underground could be empty, so you had no idea how much you could destroy the first time.
The second time was the issue of the South China Sea ambush zone, you may remember the Wang Wei crash, why are American reconnaissance planes always in that part of the South China Sea? They suddenly found Chinese nuclear submarines in the South China Sea, using the South China Sea more than 3,000 meters underground water depth, there are many folds, the use of island reefs to build up after becoming a sea launch area. Because the medium is under the sea is very difficult to detect, may become we did not do the trinity, but the sea is there, and now we also made the Yellow Sea, so that the United States feel more difficult to assess.
The third they think China already has a super-fast strike system, that is, our missiles Dongfeng 41, Dongfeng 26, 21, 17, Mach number has been to more than a dozen, burst speed than their anti-missile system, so basically the anti-missile system failed, so the United States also feel more scratching their heads. This ensures an important border for China to confront the United States.
As I said earlier, first, a large-scale invasion of China is not likely to happen, because China has a denial line. Secondly, a large-scale nuclear attack on China is unlikely to happen, so let’s think about the border first, and you’ll find that we’re still secure when we think of the worst possible place.
Trump has a characteristic, in fact Trump this person does not want to fight a war, he on September 7 Labor Day specifically have a statement, he said I do not want to fight a war, really want to fight a war is the Pentagon and some of the arms industry group, and he in the Lincoln Memorial in a speech, the spokesman always talk about China engaged in epidemic, we should not retaliate against it, as if to talk about the military threat of war. Trump immediately interrupted, we do not talk about this problem, we do not consider this kind of problem, I’m afraid this is also their border, but do not rule out some American right-wing politicians want to drag the China-US relations to the middle of the irreversible state.
Before the National Security Law in Hong Kong, the judgment was basically that engaging in financial warfare was a self-inflicted loss of a thousand to the U.S. and an 800-kill to us, which they might not do. But after the NSA, especially after the U.S. Congress made some demands, it was generally believed that it was possible to take certain measures to conduct financial warfare. At that time, it is more likely to say that, even if you do not target a major bank, it is only in the middle of the SWIFT system you strengthen the audit, do not let you real-time accounts, so that the whole Chinese economy will have a great impact on you.
Now, although the topic of China is very lively, in fact, in the middle of the U.S. election, the topic has been marginal, the marginal effect is diminishing, because I think the Democratic Party has also adopted a similar strategy to Trump, because you scold China, I scold more than you. You say tough on China, I’m tougher than you, I’ll also say you have an account in China and so on, so that these methods also basically offset.
It is worth noting that in December, after the November 3 vote, there may be confusion in the United States regarding the counting of votes, but after the electoral votes are cast on December 8, including the ruling will probably be finalized by December 8. From Dec. 8 to Jan. 20, these tens of days are probably the time for some surprises in government garbage time, so it’s important to take this precaution.
What will the consequences be for China? I’ve been to many meetings, including various meetings in the US, and think that Biden getting 270 (most electoral votes) is the probability. Is it also probable that the Democrats will control the House of Representatives enough to control the Senate? It could be between 1-2 votes, which was originally said to be possible, but the Democrats had a senator who suddenly had a sexual harassment incident and was influenced by that person, so it could change.
According to the US constitution, the vice president is the chief of the senate he has one vote, so it is possible for the DPP to control the senate if elected. But there are still black swan events, such as the debate yesterday, I see their judgment, the judgment of Trump is called, the good news is Trump did not lose points yesterday, the bad news is Trump did not add points yesterday, for Biden for yesterday’s performance was average, but fortunately he did not faint on the stage, why? Because he’s very old. Because Trump’s last tactic was to press him quickly and get him to react slowly. Because Biden probably does have a little bit of Alzheimer’s and sometimes his reactions just break off and he can’t remember, and he wants to cause that, but everyone didn’t do more dropping points yesterday, and there was talk about will Biden be in a shooting incident? These are also there, as we talked about a while ago, and a case was solved for the assassination of Biden.
Other than these extreme events, these are small probability events. The more probable event is Trump not admitting defeat in the election, and then provoking it. Why? Because the United States is about 40% of the votes are mailed, and 80% of the middle 40% of the votes belong to the Democrats, so in the case of the ballots opening at the door on November 3 it is possible that Trump will vote more, but as the number of mail-in ballots increases, the Democrats may win. It is possible that I will declare victory when the ballots come out at the door on November 3, not recognizing the mail in, thinking you are cheating, so he will change the postmaster, already preparing for this, and the question of the justices is now in his favor, so the probability is that he will mess up.
As the American civil unrest spreads outward and makes attacking China a major grip or breakthrough to win partisan political dominance, that’s when McCarthyism will really come, just as it did under Truman. By that time there will be issues in the Taiwan and South China seas, and Japan is putting out the word again that there is a possibility of a surprise Trump visit to Taiwan, and people in Taiwan are quite happy, so it is a high-risk zone in December to January.
After we finish talking about these phenomena and concerns, let’s go into a deeper analysis of why the U.S.-China relationship is deteriorating now. We are not talking about a downward spiral, not only downward, now almost into a mud pit, I have listed some factors here, I will not expand on.
I listed these factors is to say that the deterioration of China-US relations is the result of a combination of factors in the long run, not a single factor, not a single spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our dislike of the United States, so it is useless to admit, because there are a large number of factors such as geopolitical factors, factors of national power changes, the clash of civilizations, and even racial conflicts. For example, the director of the policy research office of the U.S. State Department, a black woman, they said that our competition with the Soviet Union in the Cold War was a competition between Caucasians, we are not with China, they are another race, that is to say not a clash of civilizations, it is already going to be a racial conflict. There’s also media manipulation, interest groups, ideology, new crowns, and also the personalities and private desires of American politicians. Why is Pompeo particularly anti-China? People think he just wants to be the representative of the right wing of the Republican Party, and then prepare to run in 2024, he also has some of his own will, including some of our policies and some behavior, such as our “One Belt, One Road” is when we want to do their own expansion, but he thinks that your strategy is to attack him. We do 2025 is to engage in industrial upgrading, but this also changes the balance of power, the Americans also think that this is to smash my pot, so he will smash you. That is to say it’s not that we’re at fault, but you’re doing this will further pull apart the US-China incremental velocity and cause the US situation to deteriorate, so there are very many factors that lead to this. Let’s not think that if China says something soft.
We come down to what is the main contradiction in the U.S.-China relationship? It’s simply a conflict between the United States’ need to maintain global hegemony and China’s need to sustain development. The U.S.-China rivalry isn’t between an emerging power and a conservative power.
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