Opinion | Who's on the right side of history? As Xi and Biden postulate, whoever emphasizes economy wins
By Augustus K. Yeung
INTRODUCTION
Competition with a curb and a curse, as is in the case of China and the United States, will only lead to polarization, leading to ultimate economic decoupling.
Since the last Beijing Winter Olympics, the United States and its Western allies chose boycotting and then accusing China of cozying up to President Putin who waged war on Ukraine on February 24, giving the US President Joe Biden an opportunity to shore up his image in domestic politics.
Meanwhile, China has since been under these "forces of circumstance" to move closer to Russia, which is not exactly China's choice.
For example, the recent alleged spy balloon saga could have been a peace gesture orchestrated by the US, but the Biden administration – under the pressure of its Republican political rival – chose the military option, shooting down the "spy" balloon, much to China's dismay.
History shows that in the Mao Zedong era, the US had been frequently sending identified spy planes deep into China's territory, which protested thousands of times. Washington, however, did not take it seriously – until the U2 spy plane flying 20,000 feet above mainland China was shot down. (Similar US spy intrusion also happened to the USSR.)
But Washington didn't even issue a warning before deciding to order the US military to shoot it down, thereby stalling the Secretary of State Antony Blinken's much anticipated visit to China, to manage differences and put bilateral relations on an even keel.
Rivalry between China and the U.S intensifies, with the shooting down of a "spy" balloon by the US. It has now defined domestic political speeches in which their respective leaders each laid out claims for their contrasting systems to be on the right side of history.
There was no obvious reason to expect anything remarkable when Xi Jinping gave a keynote address to a study session of officials ahead of the annual meetings of China's parliament in March, or when Joe Biden delivered his annual State of the Union speech to Congress a few hours later. But both turned out to be very important landmark events – during which two sides looked comfortable in contrasting their political systems. Ultimately, this underlines the need to contain competition within the realms of peaceful coexistence.
Xi said China had debunked "the myth that modernization means Westernization" and hailed the Chinese model as a paradigm for developing countries to follow. He said China's path "showed a new modernization model, different from the West", which he called a "brand new form of human civilization". He urged Community Party members to promote Chinese modernization which "expands the path choices for developing countries…and provides China's solution for human beings to explore a better social system". China proved developing countries could advance economically and improving governing systems.
Biden's speech reflected the view that the Ukraine war has united the West more than ever, with democracy on the rise and rival systems in retreat. American was now facing the China challenge firmly and squarely and, while the latest sanctions had slowed China's technological development, the US believes its own economy is growing strongly, with manufacturing expanding again.
Separately, many American academics believe the sudden policy switch from dynamic zero-Covid and a slowing economy have sapped China's confidence, giving Biden and the US government an edge to speak from a position of strength.
But Xi's speech shows China does not agree that reopening was a sign of weakness. It sees the Covid policy switch as an adjustment to the position on the ground and that the West has misread what is happening in China.
There's no need to make a judgment about who is on the right side of history; it is more important that the two sides can coexist, leaving other countries to choose their own development models. (Source: SCMP)
CONCLUSION
It is expected from the two speeches that competition between China and the West will only become more intense, although Blinken's visit to Beijing will eventually resume when the dust from the downed "spy" balloon have died down.
China-US intense competition needs to be contained, managed and kept under strict control to ensure it is peaceful and cooperative if not cordial. Direct open conflict will negatively affect countries in the region, especially now that the US military has secured a foot hole in that part of the Philippines – closest to Taiwan. Recent newspapers reported.
From the perspective of many English-speaking Chinese scholars who have privately preferred to keep the United States rather than Russia as a friend, America's antagonism is pushing China into the bosom of the Siberian bear, which historically has shown territorial ambitions. Not so, the United States.
The fact that there are thousands of Chinese students going to the United States is a vote for former US President Richard Nixon's much-appreciated peace initiative, which finally guided the Middle Kingdom back into America's orbit of influence. The WTO says so.
As the two leaders' latest speeches have shown, their competition is now edging towards ideology, with each side boasting its own great "political system". This is hardly a good omen as economic issues are less polemical and more manageable than political issues that historically further drives the world's two greatest economic powers painfully apart.
As the two leaders engage in a war of chips, perhaps they should widely and wisely take into consideration or even consult observers' expert opinions and engage each other in a way that does not lead the once much-cherished China-US bilateral relationships to a downward trajectory.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict in Eastern Europe bloodily illustrates that any war as such displaces families, kills good-people-turned-soldiers on both sides; it brings world economy to chaos.
Sadly, no one knows when this war in coming to an end as the conflict zones are now adversely affected by the freezing weather – in which electricity supply is imminently in danger of being cut off.
The author is a freelance writer; formerly Adjunct Lecturer, taught MBA Philosophy of Management, and International Strategy, and online columnist of 3-D Corner (HKU SPACE), University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Augustus K. Yeung:
Opinion | US China-bashers dramatized balloon incident into a Hollywood blockbuster
Comment