There is no doubt that the relationship between the U.S. and China is crucially important not only for the welfare of the U.S. and China, but also for the welfare of the world. That relationship impacts the health, economics, war and peace, and the survival of the human race. Unfortunately, the trajectory of that relationship from the past two decades is leading us to increasing tension, conflicts, ultimately to war, and possibly mutual annihilation.
That relationship does not have to progress in that direction. It can lead to a direction that is mutually beneficial for the U.S. and China, as well as for the rest of the world. However, it will require a change in attitude that is not easy. But it could decide on the ultimate welfare of our children and grandchildren in the U.S., China, and the rest of the world. Are we courageous and farsighted enough to make that change?
That is the subject of this article.
What Is the Current Relationship?
In the last 40 years, China has transformed itself from an extremely poor and backward country into a healthy country where most of the poverty throughout the country has been eliminated. It is ranked second in the world (2nd only to the U.S.) in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [1], and is ranked first in the world in terms of GDP if purchasing power parity (PPP) is taken into account [2]. China is now engaged in the whole spectrum of the manufacturing process, not only in the lower ends requiring only cheap labor, but also in high technology areas which require deep technical knowledge and also creative innovations. For example, it tops the world in terms of the number of patent applications. [3] China has also developed militarily, with a formidable air force and navy to supplement its large army, with a nuclear arsenal and missiles to deliver them. After suffering more than 100 years of foreign domination and occupation, enduring numerous unequal treaties, China has stood up and is now able to defend its territories that have been encroached on by foreign powers.
Because China has stood up and is now able to defend itself from foreign powers that want to continue their encroachments on China, the U.S. and other foreign powers have been adopting an attitude and position with respect to China that is still based on the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
U.S. Attitude Toward China:
Because the U.S. is leading the world in terms of economic and military power, the attitude of the U.S. toward China is the most important and that attitude influences strongly the attitude of the other countries. What has been the attitude of the U.S. toward China since China’s rapid rise in the last 30-40 years, especially during the last 10-15 years? In short, the U.S. considers China to be a major threat, not only economically, but also politically, militarily, and ideologically. Furthermore, the threat is not only to the U.S., but also to other countries in southeast Asia and the rest of the world. The U.S. considers China to be a country that needs to be held back, to expose and magnify any mistake or shortcoming, to criticize and attack the country from all angles, to transform China fundamentally, and to find other countries to form alliances to isolate, surround, and weaken China. This attitude is not just representative of one political party, but it represents the view of both the Republican party and the Democratic party over several decades of our presidential administrations, including that of President Biden. It also represents the position of essentially all the major think tanks of our country and the editorial position of all our mass media. [4]
Why Is the U.S. Adopting This Attitude?
The usual answer is that China is now the U.S.’s chief economic competitor. If China is not held back, if China is not exposed, if we don’t find partners to isolate, surround, and weaken China, then China will unfairly out compete the U.S. and unfairly replace the U.S. as the leading financial power in the world.
Even if we ignore the racist and unethical mentality behind that attitude, the above argument may make sense superficially from the U.S. perspective except that it ignores two important considerations.
First, why can’t the U.S. compete successfully against China? Traditionally, it was because of cheap labor in China, so that products made in China are significantly cheaper than products made in the U.S. As the standard of living in China continues to increase, that gap between the standard of living in China and in the U.S. will continue to decrease. Therefore, China will need to move up to the higher end of the economic chain to manufacture products that require more technical knowledge and greater creativity and ingenuity. China has been doing that, and China is doing very well in this higher end of the economic chain. Some examples are high speed trains, large engineering projects like complex bridges, sea terminals and wharfs, solar energy, electric buses, satellites and space explorations, 5G networks, quantum computers, etc. This was already mentioned previously in China leading the world in the number of patent applications. [3]
Why can’t the U.S. continue to remain at the top of the economic chain and outperform China? Since the U.S. is the most technically advanced country in the world and still leads the world in research and also has the best universities in the world, it should be able to accomplish that. But the answer could be very much in the negative if we realize that the U.S. is now so dependent on foreign-born talent as can be seen in the make-up of its graduate students in engineering and a few related science programs. As a matter of fact, the statistics are downright frightening. Here are the data from a 2017 Inside Higher Ed report [5]:
Field of Study
Percent International
Number of Full-Time International Graduate Students in 2015
Number of Full-Time U.S. Graduate Students in 2015
Electrical Engineering
81%
32,736
7,783
Petroleum Engineering
81%
1,258
302
Computer Science
79%
45,790
12,539
Industrial Engineering
75%
7,676
2,539
Statistics
69%
4,321
1,966
Economics
63%
7,770
4,492
Mechanical Engineering
62%
12,676
7,644
Civil Engineering
59%
9,159
6,284
Chemical Engineering
57%
5,001
3,834
Pharmaceutical Sciences
56%
1,931
1,502
Metallurgical/Materials Engineering
55%
3,723
3,103
Agricultural Engineering
53%
726
654
Agricultural Economics
53%
881
796
For example, the percentages of international graduate students in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2015 are respectively 81% and 79%! I think 15-20 years in the future, for the U.S. to compete successfully in the higher end of the economic chain, there has to be an overhaul in the U.S. in addressing for the country as a whole what is important for our country, how to prepare ourselves for the long haul, and the drive needed to achieve that.
In other words, the U.S. must look within itself to reinvent itself: to refocus on education, to rebuild our long-neglected infrastructure, to rekindle our commitment to hard work, to welcome the competitive challenge, to unleash our desire to do the best to our abilities, and to elect leaders who work for the benefits of the whole country, and not opportunists who work to enhance their own political future. We must not keep on blaming other people and other countries for our own shortcomings.
The second argument is that the market is not necessarily a zero-sum game. One country’s gain does not always mean another country’s loss, i.e., the output of a team working collaboratively could be greater than the sum of the individual parts. For example, outstanding research breakthroughs are often the results of research collaborations of two or more researchers working together over an extended period. Mutual discussions can trigger new ideas and creative thoughts. Furthermore, some problems require more than one country to solve.
Problems like global warming and climate change, poverty and hunger, terrorism, nuclear wars and annihilation are huge problems that require the world to work together to solve, instead of sabotaging each other. Furthermore, each country has its own strengths. For example, U.S. imports a large amount of minerals like cobalt, indium, tellurium, and rare earth elements, while China imports a large amount of minerals like iron, copper, and beryllium. [6] By pooling our resources, we may have a much better chance of solving these problems, instead of making the problems more serious and unsolvable that could lead to mutual annihilation and the end of civilization as we know it.
It Is Time to Adopt a New U.S.-China Relationship:
In the previous section, we discussed why the U.S.’s current attitude toward China of adopting an antagonistic view toward China does not make sense, and is not good for the U.S. or the rest of the world. That attitude will not help the U.S. to compete more successfully versus China and will not make the world economy grow and will not help to solve the world’s many urgent problems.
Let us consider another attitude. First we need to take a historical perspective that China was under foreign domination and occupation and endured more than 100 years of unequal treaties. China is not going to take that any more. That is why China is not going to let any foreign country like the U.S. to try to make Taiwan or Hong Kong to become independent [7], or Japan trying to occupy the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea [8], or any country trying to take away any of the islands in the South China Sea that historically and legally belong to China. [9] Therefore, anyone who accuses China of taking aggressive action toward any territorial dispute has not studied past history and is trying to impose more unequal treaties on China. If they have studied their history, they will not make any more such accusations against China, they instead will understand that it is the other countries taking aggressive actions toward China’s territories.
If you listen to almost any statement from world leaders, especially those from leaders of the West or their think tanks, or read almost any article in the Western mass media about China, invariably the statement or article will always include some major negative or critical comments about China. This is not to say that there aren’t things in China that should not be criticized. But the criticism is often not warranted by the evidence at hand, even though that there are often contrary evidence provided by more knowledgeable people, including foreigners who have been living in China for extended period.
Very often, these negative assessments hide the true motive of trying to camouflage their true intentions, which often include aggression toward another country. This is especially with the U.S. who has the power to instigate various umbrella or color movements to destabilize another country’s government, and is now exhibiting the dangerous sign of even destabilizing the U.S. government itself.
Summary:
With the emergence of China as a bona fide competitor to the U.S., the U.S. should look upon China as a worthy competitor. Instead of trying to knock down China at every opportunity and to force fundamental changes in the Chinese government and system, U.S. should on the one hand seriously look within itself to see how we can improve our country for the benefits of the American people and to compete successfully against China, and on the other hand while competing with China, figure out ways in which U.S. and China can work together collaboratively to grow the pie and to work with other countries to solve the many serious problems the world is facing. Instead of adopting a Tonya Harding-like foreign policy toward a competitor [10] by unethically making false accusations about China and sabotaging against China, U.S. should work with China and other countries of the world to grow the pie for everyone and to find common areas of cooperation that can help solve many of the world’s pressing and critical problems.
We are now in an age of nuclear weapons and with the ability to mutually annihilate each other as well as the rest of the world. It is time for the U.S. to abandon the outdated imperialistic foreign policy of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and adopt a foreign policy based on equality of men and equality of nations. [11] It is not easy to make this change of attitude, especially when the current attitude reflects both the Republican party and the Democratic party. What we really need to address is whether continuing with the traditional strategy or adopting this new strategy is in the best interest of the U.S. and the world. After all, the difference could be avoiding nuclear war and world annihilation, and gives our children and grandchildren a viable world to live in.
[6] “China, the U.S., and the Competition of Resources That Enable Emerging Technologies,” by A. L. Gulley, N. T. Nassur, and S. Xun, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 17, 2018: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/16/4111.
U.S.-China Relationship at a Crossroad
There is no doubt that the relationship between the U.S. and China is crucially important not only for the welfare of the U.S. and China, but also for the welfare of the world. That relationship impacts the health, economics, war and peace, and the survival of the human race. Unfortunately, the trajectory of that relationship from the past two decades is leading us to increasing tension, conflicts, ultimately to war, and possibly mutual annihilation.
That relationship does not have to progress in that direction. It can lead to a direction that is mutually beneficial for the U.S. and China, as well as for the rest of the world. However, it will require a change in attitude that is not easy. But it could decide on the ultimate welfare of our children and grandchildren in the U.S., China, and the rest of the world. Are we courageous and farsighted enough to make that change?
That is the subject of this article.
What Is the Current Relationship?
In the last 40 years, China has transformed itself from an extremely poor and backward country into a healthy country where most of the poverty throughout the country has been eliminated. It is ranked second in the world (2nd only to the U.S.) in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [1], and is ranked first in the world in terms of GDP if purchasing power parity (PPP) is taken into account [2]. China is now engaged in the whole spectrum of the manufacturing process, not only in the lower ends requiring only cheap labor, but also in high technology areas which require deep technical knowledge and also creative innovations. For example, it tops the world in terms of the number of patent applications. [3] China has also developed militarily, with a formidable air force and navy to supplement its large army, with a nuclear arsenal and missiles to deliver them. After suffering more than 100 years of foreign domination and occupation, enduring numerous unequal treaties, China has stood up and is now able to defend its territories that have been encroached on by foreign powers.
Because China has stood up and is now able to defend itself from foreign powers that want to continue their encroachments on China, the U.S. and other foreign powers have been adopting an attitude and position with respect to China that is still based on the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
U.S. Attitude Toward China:
Because the U.S. is leading the world in terms of economic and military power, the attitude of the U.S. toward China is the most important and that attitude influences strongly the attitude of the other countries. What has been the attitude of the U.S. toward China since China’s rapid rise in the last 30-40 years, especially during the last 10-15 years? In short, the U.S. considers China to be a major threat, not only economically, but also politically, militarily, and ideologically. Furthermore, the threat is not only to the U.S., but also to other countries in southeast Asia and the rest of the world. The U.S. considers China to be a country that needs to be held back, to expose and magnify any mistake or shortcoming, to criticize and attack the country from all angles, to transform China fundamentally, and to find other countries to form alliances to isolate, surround, and weaken China. This attitude is not just representative of one political party, but it represents the view of both the Republican party and the Democratic party over several decades of our presidential administrations, including that of President Biden. It also represents the position of essentially all the major think tanks of our country and the editorial position of all our mass media. [4]
Why Is the U.S. Adopting This Attitude?
The usual answer is that China is now the U.S.’s chief economic competitor. If China is not held back, if China is not exposed, if we don’t find partners to isolate, surround, and weaken China, then China will unfairly out compete the U.S. and unfairly replace the U.S. as the leading financial power in the world.
Even if we ignore the racist and unethical mentality behind that attitude, the above argument may make sense superficially from the U.S. perspective except that it ignores two important considerations.
First, why can’t the U.S. compete successfully against China? Traditionally, it was because of cheap labor in China, so that products made in China are significantly cheaper than products made in the U.S. As the standard of living in China continues to increase, that gap between the standard of living in China and in the U.S. will continue to decrease. Therefore, China will need to move up to the higher end of the economic chain to manufacture products that require more technical knowledge and greater creativity and ingenuity. China has been doing that, and China is doing very well in this higher end of the economic chain. Some examples are high speed trains, large engineering projects like complex bridges, sea terminals and wharfs, solar energy, electric buses, satellites and space explorations, 5G networks, quantum computers, etc. This was already mentioned previously in China leading the world in the number of patent applications. [3]
Why can’t the U.S. continue to remain at the top of the economic chain and outperform China? Since the U.S. is the most technically advanced country in the world and still leads the world in research and also has the best universities in the world, it should be able to accomplish that. But the answer could be very much in the negative if we realize that the U.S. is now so dependent on foreign-born talent as can be seen in the make-up of its graduate students in engineering and a few related science programs. As a matter of fact, the statistics are downright frightening. Here are the data from a 2017 Inside Higher Ed report [5]:
For example, the percentages of international graduate students in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2015 are respectively 81% and 79%! I think 15-20 years in the future, for the U.S. to compete successfully in the higher end of the economic chain, there has to be an overhaul in the U.S. in addressing for the country as a whole what is important for our country, how to prepare ourselves for the long haul, and the drive needed to achieve that.
In other words, the U.S. must look within itself to reinvent itself: to refocus on education, to rebuild our long-neglected infrastructure, to rekindle our commitment to hard work, to welcome the competitive challenge, to unleash our desire to do the best to our abilities, and to elect leaders who work for the benefits of the whole country, and not opportunists who work to enhance their own political future. We must not keep on blaming other people and other countries for our own shortcomings.
The second argument is that the market is not necessarily a zero-sum game. One country’s gain does not always mean another country’s loss, i.e., the output of a team working collaboratively could be greater than the sum of the individual parts. For example, outstanding research breakthroughs are often the results of research collaborations of two or more researchers working together over an extended period. Mutual discussions can trigger new ideas and creative thoughts. Furthermore, some problems require more than one country to solve.
Problems like global warming and climate change, poverty and hunger, terrorism, nuclear wars and annihilation are huge problems that require the world to work together to solve, instead of sabotaging each other. Furthermore, each country has its own strengths. For example, U.S. imports a large amount of minerals like cobalt, indium, tellurium, and rare earth elements, while China imports a large amount of minerals like iron, copper, and beryllium. [6] By pooling our resources, we may have a much better chance of solving these problems, instead of making the problems more serious and unsolvable that could lead to mutual annihilation and the end of civilization as we know it.
It Is Time to Adopt a New U.S.-China Relationship:
In the previous section, we discussed why the U.S.’s current attitude toward China of adopting an antagonistic view toward China does not make sense, and is not good for the U.S. or the rest of the world. That attitude will not help the U.S. to compete more successfully versus China and will not make the world economy grow and will not help to solve the world’s many urgent problems.
Let us consider another attitude. First we need to take a historical perspective that China was under foreign domination and occupation and endured more than 100 years of unequal treaties. China is not going to take that any more. That is why China is not going to let any foreign country like the U.S. to try to make Taiwan or Hong Kong to become independent [7], or Japan trying to occupy the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea [8], or any country trying to take away any of the islands in the South China Sea that historically and legally belong to China. [9] Therefore, anyone who accuses China of taking aggressive action toward any territorial dispute has not studied past history and is trying to impose more unequal treaties on China. If they have studied their history, they will not make any more such accusations against China, they instead will understand that it is the other countries taking aggressive actions toward China’s territories.
If you listen to almost any statement from world leaders, especially those from leaders of the West or their think tanks, or read almost any article in the Western mass media about China, invariably the statement or article will always include some major negative or critical comments about China. This is not to say that there aren’t things in China that should not be criticized. But the criticism is often not warranted by the evidence at hand, even though that there are often contrary evidence provided by more knowledgeable people, including foreigners who have been living in China for extended period.
Very often, these negative assessments hide the true motive of trying to camouflage their true intentions, which often include aggression toward another country. This is especially with the U.S. who has the power to instigate various umbrella or color movements to destabilize another country’s government, and is now exhibiting the dangerous sign of even destabilizing the U.S. government itself.
Summary:
With the emergence of China as a bona fide competitor to the U.S., the U.S. should look upon China as a worthy competitor. Instead of trying to knock down China at every opportunity and to force fundamental changes in the Chinese government and system, U.S. should on the one hand seriously look within itself to see how we can improve our country for the benefits of the American people and to compete successfully against China, and on the other hand while competing with China, figure out ways in which U.S. and China can work together collaboratively to grow the pie and to work with other countries to solve the many serious problems the world is facing. Instead of adopting a Tonya Harding-like foreign policy toward a competitor [10] by unethically making false accusations about China and sabotaging against China, U.S. should work with China and other countries of the world to grow the pie for everyone and to find common areas of cooperation that can help solve many of the world’s pressing and critical problems.
We are now in an age of nuclear weapons and with the ability to mutually annihilate each other as well as the rest of the world. It is time for the U.S. to abandon the outdated imperialistic foreign policy of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and adopt a foreign policy based on equality of men and equality of nations. [11] It is not easy to make this change of attitude, especially when the current attitude reflects both the Republican party and the Democratic party. What we really need to address is whether continuing with the traditional strategy or adopting this new strategy is in the best interest of the U.S. and the world. After all, the difference could be avoiding nuclear war and world annihilation, and gives our children and grandchildren a viable world to live in.
[1] “List of Countries by GDP (nominal): ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)#cite_note-China-THM-23.
[2] “List of Countries by GDP based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP).
[3] “World Intellectual Property Indicators”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Indicators.
[4] For U.S. government’s policy toward China, see, e.g., “Biden, Covering Range of Thorny Issues, Talks With Xi for First Time as President,” by Michael Crowley, The New York Times, February 10, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/us/politics/biden-xi-jinping-call.html. For an example of U.S. think tank position, see, e.g., “The Longer Telegram: Toward A New American China Strategy,” by Autonomous from the Atlantic Council, February 2021: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Longer-Telegram-Toward-A-New-American-China-Strategy.pdf. For a brief summary of this long position paper, see, “The Atlantic Council’s Anti-China Containment Strategy,” by Andrew Korybko, Global Research, February 01, 2021: https://www.globalresearch.ca/atlantic-council-anti-chinese-containment-strategy-fail/5736087. Note: A recent Rand think tank report “Implementing Restraint: Changes in U.S. Regional Security Policies to Operationalize a Realist Grand Strategy of Restraint,” Rand Corporation, 2021, adopts, relatively speaking, a less aggressive global strategy taking into account restraints on what the U.S. can do.
[5] Elizabeth Redden, “Foreign Students and Graduate STEM Enrollment“, Inside Higher Ed, October 11, 2017.
[6] “China, the U.S., and the Competition of Resources That Enable Emerging Technologies,” by A. L. Gulley, N. T. Nassur, and S. Xun, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 17, 2018: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/16/4111.
[7] For a discussion Taiwan and the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, see, e.g., the section “America’s Foreign Policy Toward China Since the Late 1940s) in the article “U.S.-China Relationship Can Use Another Anson Burlingame”: http://www.dontow.com/2016/12/u-s-china-relationship-can-use-another-anson-burlingame/. For a discussion of Hong Kong, see, e.g., the article “Hong Kong: Past, Present, and Future”: http://www.dontow.com/2019/09/hong-kong-past-present-and-future/.
[8] For a discussion of the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, see, e.g., the article “Diao Yu Tai Student Movement: Recollection 50 Years Later”: http://www.dontow.com/2020/09/diao-yu-tai-student-movement-recollection-50-years-later/.
[9] For a discussion of the islands in the South China Sea, see, e.g., the article “South China Sea: Abuse of World Power,” by Don M. Tow, China-US Focus, September 15, 2016: https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/south-china-sea-dispute-abuse-of-world-power/, and the article “Some Thoughts on the South China Sea Dispute”: http://www.dontow.com/2015/12/some-thoughts-on-south-china-sea-dispute/.
[10] “United States’ Tonya Harding-like Foreign Policy”: http://www.dontow.com/2015/06/united-states-tonya-harding-like-foreign-policy/.
[11] “U.S.-China Relationship Can Use Another Anson Burlingame” by Don M. Tow, China-US Focus, December 20, 2016: https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/us-china-relationship-can-use-another-anson-burlingame.