- Hubert Walas
USA vs Chiny.
Nearly 30 years have passed since Francis Fukuyama published the book "The End of History". The beginning of the 90s was the time when the Soviet Union collapsed and the rule of the United States was unquestionable. A unipolar world where it seemed that the rivalry of systems was over and liberal democracy and globalization would continue to expand, A world without world wars because there was no one to challenge Washington's global hegemony. However, only 30 years have passed, and the world is again starting to talk about the likelihood of a great war - unfortunately for a reason.
Nixon's Frankenstein
When Richard Nixon came to Beijing in 1972, ending 25 years of no Washington-Beijing relationship, he could not have known that history would then judge this as one of the key starting moments of the greatest strategic rivalry in all US history. Nixon, however, might have suspected something, as later he said “I hope I didn’t create Frankenstein”. The full establishment of diplomatic relations with China, which culminated in Jimmy Carter's presidency in 1979, combined with the doctrine of Chinese opening to the world introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, was a mix that allowed China to grow to monstrous proportions for 40 years. Foreign capital began to flow into China, the Middle Kingdom became the factory of the world - we all know this story. Deng Xiaoping, a visionary and architect of Chinese success, in addition to introducing groundbreaking economic reforms in communist China, outlined several principles that aimed to guide the Chinese people in the new era and restore the country to its rightful place. Written in 24 Chinese characters, the Deng doctrine draws on ancient Chinese concepts and allows us to understand how the Chinese achieved their present status. Here are the 6 Deng Principles: Watch cool and calm (冷静观察), secure your positions (站稳脚跟), deal with challenges in peace and quiet (沉着应付), hide your possibilities (韬光养晦), wait for your time without stepping forward (善于守拙), do not look up to demand leadership (绝不当头).
The communist apparatus of power over the years carefully followed these principles, recognizing the US world leadership, the dollar paradigm based on the Bretton Woods system, and an unfavorable place in the world division of labor, where most of the profits flow to the US and Western Europe. The question now is, why has Washington not responded to China's rise earlier? It seems that this was predictable. A country that for centuries was the most powerful in the world until the great geographic discoveries of Europeans initiated by Christopher Columbus; a country with 4 times the population of the USA; a civilization with an uninterrupted history of 4,000 years, with 100 years of humiliation fresh in its memory - by connecting such an organism to the world system, one could expect that sooner or later China would claim its own. Thus we should more appreciate the vision of Deng Xiaoping, the patience of the Chinese elite and the Chinese society itself, who with the backbreaking work of billions of people restored the country to its rightful place. On the other hand, we have the American administration, which, convinced of its undivided rule, probably at the peak of its power in 2001, allowed China to join the World Trade Organization, thus offering the final ingredient to the Chinese growth. While the United States of America got engaged in capital-intensive and eventually pointless conflicts in the Middle East. In retrospect, Washington's passivity and belief in its greatness are reminiscent of the attitude of imperial China in the nineteenth century towards the barbarians, i.e. Great Britain and other European countries, which, as a result of the opium wars, brought great China to its knees and started the Chinese century of humiliation. The current Sino-American rivalry in this context resembles the opium wars, but its outcome is not predetermined.
Stopping the dragon
China's growing status began to be perceived as a threat by the Barack Obama administration, which launched the Pivot to the Pacific strategy in 2009. Its culmination was the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement which turned out to be unsuccessful. The Obama administration's failed strategy to contain China was one of the reasons for its defeat in the 2016 election and the victory of Donald Trump, who entered the White House with anti-Chinese slogans on his lips. The American anti-Chinese activity didn’t come out of nowhere - it intensified after Xi Jinping came to power in China, who in 2012 became the head of the Chinese Communist Party and immediately took over as president. The reign of Xi from the perspective of 8 years can be seen as an intermediate end to the doctrine of the 24 signs of Deng. China remains restrained, but Washington's offensive actions have prompted Beijing to break with some of Deng's principles. China began to expand. Diplomatically and economically - mainly to African countries, offering civilization growth in exchange for access to natural resources; technologically - challenging American and European giants, in the domain of telecommunications, electronics, e-commerce, and the automotive industry - by not always legal means; militarily - developing its nuclear potential, navy, missile forces and expanding its influence in the South China Sea; and finally by proposing mega-projects like Belt and Road initiative to the countries of Eurasia, which would drive development in the largest landmass in the world, and more importantly not fall under the jurisdiction of Washington, whose hegemony is based on the ocean fleet. The effectiveness of these actions is debatable, not all of China's actions are fruitful, but Beijing's influence on the world system has become powerful. That causes Washington's ever-growing anxiety, and thus fuels efforts to contain the Middle Kingdom.
It boiled down to imposing further tariffs, sanctions, closing the market for more Chinese products, or signing a US-Chinese trade agreement, clearly unfavorable to Beijing. However, each time Washington's strategy was calmly accepted by Beijing and turned out to be insufficient. The massive trade deficit is at a level similar to that at the beginning of the Trump presidency, jobs have not returned from China, and the unemployment has deepened further after the pandemic crisis; Huawei has become the largest phone manufacturer in the world, despite the lack of Google’s Android support for Huawei; and the $ 200 billion Sino-US agreement will probably never be fulfilled. For this reason, the Trump administration is growing nervous, which is heated by internal pressure and the pre-election fight before the elections in November 2020. Joe Biden, Trump's counter-candidate on behalf of the Democrats, accuses the incumbent president of his too weak approach to the Chinese issue, which confirms that regardless of the results of the November elections, the anti-Chinese line will remain maintained.
War of systems
The communication of the elites in Washington is a good illustration of the nervousness that is increasingly appearing in the context of China. Robert O'Brien, the national security adviser to the Trump administration, named Xi Jinping the successor of Joseph Stalin. Even more significant was the speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who did not focus on attacking China or the Chinese per se, but the Chinese government apparatus, the Chinese Communist Party. There were words about authoritarian rule, terrorized society, and the war between liberal democracy and the Marxist-Leninist regime. Thus, Washington is trying to ensure that the overthrow of China is not only about the United States, but also for the whole world, which adheres to the freedom of human rights and democracy. While such slogans are certainly well received by activists, they don’t speak to the leaders and strategists of the allied states who practice realpolitik. Once again, the US is not presenting its allies with a clear strategy on how to deal with the growing China issue, which only increases the unrest in the region. Australia, one of the key US allies, explicitly stated that it is shaping its foreign policy on its own and have no intention of damaging its relations with Beijing. Moreover, the call to overthrow the CCP only escalates the conflict and leaves Beijing no room to maneuver, as it becomes an existential issue for the party.
Continuous escalation is beyond dispute. The 5G issue, the closure of consulates, a change in Hong Kong legislation, the war for talent, technology, and trade. Pompeo calls this rivalry Cold War 2.0, which is worse in many ways. Some analysts go one step further and warn that the likelihood of a hot global conflict, the kinetic war, is now at its greatest in 70 years. Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister who speaks Chinese fluently and is currently president of the Asia Society Policy Institute think tank, warns in his Foreign Affairs article that tension in the South China Sea is growing every day and that a random spark could cause a tragedy. However, the source should be looked deeper. The pressure in the backyard makes crisis management even more difficult. In Beijing, pressure on President Xi continues to grow after a series of eliminations of political opponents, the COVID-19 virus, a trade war, and the first crisis in decades. The degree of opposition he is facing is evidenced by personnel changes in the highest positions of the Communist Party's elite. The situation is no different in the White House - huge public debt, galloping unemployment, hundreds of thousands of victims, and riots all over the country. The situation is boiling.
World's center of gravity
Geographically - hegemonic rivalry is mostly focused on the South China Sea - currently the most strategically important water body in the world, the gravitational center of global geopolitics. The statistics leave no doubt - it is a transport destination for half the tonnage of global sea freight, which is worth ⅓ of total sea transport. The South China Sea is the second most traveled ocean road, a sea rich in natural resources. However, its strategic importance is fundamental - there are key trade routes from the Middle East, Europe, and Africa to East Asia. The control over these routes and the flow of resources is the goal of both China and the United States. Besides, there are numerous territorial claims. The most important of these is the Chinese claim against Taiwan, the incorporation of which has been the goal of the Chinese Communist Party since the Kuomintang escape to the island in December of 1949. In addition, there are claims against the sea itself, which Beijing sees as China's inner sea. To this end, the Communist Party is pursuing a “9-dash line” strategy that covers claim territory, which is 80% of the South China Sea. The United States, of course, rejects all of Beijing's claims. This leads to the constant militarization of the region on both sides - the Chinese have greatly developed their anti-access capabilities in recent years. According to some experts, Beijing's missile capabilities are currently not inferior to the technology of the Americans. What’s more, there is a constantly expanding military fleet, which, according to James Fanell, former intelligence director of the Pacific fleet, in 2030 will be larger than the combined US and Indian fleets. It will consist of 430 warships and 110 submarines.
Of course, there are simultaneously many reasons against the outbreak of kinetic conflict.
- Deep economic interdependencies that would result in exorbitant costs;
- Uncertainty of the war result on both sides;
- Counteracting actions from the other world countries in pursuit of this conflict;
- and finally the nuclear question,
which always leaves the risk of mutual annihilation. However, the continued militarization of the region, the weakening domination of the American superpower over China, and the nervousness of both centers of power in Washington and Beijing mean that the recently unlikely scenario of world conflict is once again being taken into account in real terms. Although its probability is low, it is not excluded. Therefore, in the next episode, we will take a closer look at the strategic situation in the Western Pacific and discuss the vital challenges faced by the Chinese and the Americans.
