Abstract
The Trump Administration declared China a strategic competitor and a revisionist power. It escalated a trade war to a fullfrontal clash with China. Some experts qualified it as a new Cold War between the US and China. Both countries are undergoing dramatic transformation. Their destinations will determine the course and outcome of the emerging US-China rivalry. This article argues that while engagement is now defined by competitive interests, the profound interdependence continues underpinning the bilateral relationship. Although there is no precedent to guide economic and geostrategic competition between the two largest and deeply intertwined economies and heavily militarized superpowers, the US and China must find some balance of interests with each other and avoid violent confrontation that serves neither’s interest. This level of engagement requires vision and flexibility. With strong economic interdependence, the existence of an international institutional order, limited ideological confrontation, and nuclear second-strike capability, leaders of two countries have no choice but find ways to manage their competition and continue futher engagement with each other. Authors conclude that the stronger China grows, the harder it gets for Washington to force it back down. Driving PRC into a corner is the way to make China even tougher. So it could cause more severe consequences for both countries.
Highlights
The Trump Administration declared China a strategic competitor and a revisionist power
Authors conclude that the stronger China grows, the harder it gets for Washington to force it back down
Neither containment nor disengagement is a viable option. It is still in the US interest to encourage China’s reforms and foster a prosperous and secured China acting as a responsible stakeholder in the international system it is up to the Chinese to decide if it is in their interests to do so
Summary
The US—China relationship has always been defined by a mix of cooperative and competitive interests since normalization in the 1970s. Scapegoating China for the negative externalities of trade helped politicians to avoid facing the difficult problem of compensating the losers of globalization This shift in rhetoric predates Trump’s hostility toward China and helped create anti-China economic nationalism. Witnessing these developments, one long-time China watcher warns that because a populist upsurge in American politics demands higher priority for U.S interests in response to self-absorbed and increasingly powerful and authoritarian China working covertly and overtly against American interests, the most substantial negative change in American policy toward China in fifty years has taken place [Sutter 2018]
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