Washington-Beijing strategic competition and global reality

Rayhan Ahmed Topader :

A rapid unraveling of the US-China relationship which had been widely viewed as stable and mutually profitable despite long-standing disputes has unsettled global politics.

Although both capitals appear committed to peacefully resolving their differences, the intensifying acrimony and distrust have raised fears among many observers that the two countries could be headed towards confrontation.

Great power rivalry between the United States and China is frequently couched in bilateral terms with regions of the world merely serving as arenas of competition.

Rarely considered is the reality that while third countries may be significantly weaker than either the United States or China, they are neither totally helpless nor completely without leverage or absent agency.

As Southeast Asia is where great powers meet, the region’s states have a challenging balancing act to play, but also have options in how they manage the risks and opportunities presented by this competition.

Indeed, the two powers competing agendas in Southeast Asia have become a recurrent theme of recent headlines.

In July, Southeast Asia’s significance to both the United States and China was at center stage at Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi.

Both diplomats followed their respective well-rehearsed scripts on Southeast Asia, with each attempting to convince Southeast Asian states to distance themselves from the other. We see this over and over again.

The US analysts and policymakers reiterate the upward trend of unhelpful and coercive and irresponsible Chinese actions in the South China Sea and their threat to Southeast Asia’s maritime interests.

And Chinese analysts and policymakers underscore to Southeast Asian counterparts the dangers associated with the so-called US ‘Cold War’ provocations and destabilizing economic policies.

This suggests that US-China tensions are leading to growing pressure on Southeast Asian states to make a choice between two critical relationships.

The US stance on bilateral relations with China, according to the situation, is one of strategic competition in the coming decades viewing for global power as well as regional power.

Indeed, the US is preparing for war with China. High- ranking US Airforce General Mike Minihan foresees war as early as 2025.

This contrasts with the Chinese approach of cooperation for mutual benefit to solve the most pressing global problems. In short, each country’s leadership presents different paradigms of relations.

The Chinese strategy is compatible with a socialist mode of collaboration and community. The US construct reflects a capitalist fundamentalism of competitive social relations.

Which paradigm may prevail is discussed below based on observations made in China on a recent US Peace Council delegation where we met with our counterpart, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament.

The Chinese view, based on what they call Jinping Thought, is that the US-China association as the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

As Chinese president Jinping has explained, How China and the US get along will determine the future of humanity.

This view is predicated on the acceptance of a high degree of integration between the two countries’ economies.

They see this entwining as something to be promoted because both countries stand to benefit from each other’s development. Overarching the bilateral relationship from the Chinese perspective is a stance of friendly cooperative relations.

A common prosperity, they believe, can be built on three principles. First is mutual respect.

A critical aspect of that pillar of mutual relations is not crossing the red lines of either of the two global powers. Second is peaceful coexistence.

This entails a commitment to manage disagreements through communications and dialogue. And third is win-win cooperation.

That the US and China occupy such dominant positions in the world entails concomitant responsibilities.

According to the Chinese, major countries have major responsibilities to humanity.

They point out that global problems, such as climate change, cannot be solved without US-China cooperation. Indeed, the US and China together contribute to 40 per cent of the planet’s current greenhouse gas emissions.

Beijing contrasts their posture with what they explicitly criticise as the Biden administration’s zero-sum mentality. In a zero-sum game, one player’s gain is equivalent to the other’s loss.

This differs from the Chinese vision of ‘win-win’ relations based on cooperation for mutual benefit. The Chinese take exception to the US definition of bilateral relations as one of antagonistic strategic competition.

The opposing paradigms were displayed at the APEC summit in San Francisco on November 15, where the two world leaders met face-to-face for the first time in two years.

Peaceful coexistence for the Chinese necessitates a tolerance and acceptance of different social systems and modes of being.

Xi further commented, ‘the planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.’ Fortune acknowledged that Xi offered a vision different from what it characterised as Biden’s winner-take-all mentality.

The business magazine noted that Biden has continued Trump’s tariffs on some Chinese products while tightening export controls and investments in high-tech areas such as advanced chips.

Although the Chinese have no bases in North America, a Chinese spy balloon that strayed over American skies a year ago posed an unprecedented challenge, according to the Pentagon.

A study by the semi-governmental RAND Corporation provides further insight into the official US posture.

Commissioned by the US Army, the title of the study says it all; War with China thinking through the unthinkable.

The best minds that money can buy were paid by the US taxpayers to game Armageddon.

Starting from the official US national security doctrine of full spectrum dominance, the analysts at ‘Rand’ played out various US war scenarios with China.

China has become the workshop of the world. Statista estimates that China will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2030.

In contrast, China’s belt and road initiative is a global infrastructure development programme which has invested in over 150 countries.

No wonder Biden fears that the Chinese alternative in his own words ’tilts the global playing field to its benefit.’

For some, socialism does not exist in China or for that matter anywhere else, past or present.

For them, socialism is an ideal that has yet to be realised. Others uphold China under Mao Zedong but not under the subsequent Deng Xiaoping revision.

At the other end of the spectrum are proponents of China having already achieved socialism.

In between, reflecting China’s mixed economy with state-owned and private enterprises, are various shades seeing China in transition between socialism and capitalism.

The Chinese leadership’s view is that the material conditions necessary for the full realisation of socialism are still in the process of being developed.

There was also little discussion on the Biden administration’s signature Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, except to say that it existed. In contrast, China’s economic initiatives and expanded economic relations with individual states loomed large.

There is also the sense that the United States has not taken sufficient advantage of Southeast Asian interest in greater economic and diplomatic engagement a perception that for some states is also reinforced by Washington’s normative democracy agenda.

Given the above context, it will be especially important from this year through the US general election in 2024 to determine the competitive situation between the United States and China, and how other countries, including US allies, will position themselves relative to this competition.

The writer is a researcher.