New Changes in the China-U.S.Relationship

By Martin Jacques,

Professor and Senior Research Fellow with the University of Cambridge

Currently, I am sure the great majority of us would prefer that the era, beginning in the late 1970s, of globalisation and multilateralism will continue, and that the era was characterised by relative stability and cooperation in the relationship between the United States and China.That stability had depended on two things.First, a huge inequality in the relationship, with the United States by far the dominant partner.Second, the long enduring American illusion that the only future for China,if it was to be successful, was to become like America.History has undermined both propositions.Over a period of 40 years, the most remarkable in global economic history,China overtook the U.S.economy in terms of GDP purchasing power parity.Furthermore, it is patently clear to everyone that China is never going to be like the United States.The United States hugely miscalculated, a victim of its own hubris.Its response is a volte face: a desperate search to find ways of reversing China’s rise or at least slowing it down.The United States is right that the underlying reason for China’s rise is economic.So it is logical to start with a trade war.But the United States will not stop at that.It seems likely that disputes will in time encompass most if not all aspects of their relationship.The China-U.S.negotiations may reach to a substantial result, but we should not be too optimistic, since the relative stable 40-year China-U.S.relations is coming to an end.And the new scenario for the China-U.S.relations is most likely to last a long time, my guess is at least twenty years, perhaps longer.

There will not be an outbreak of a new cold war between China and the United States.There are only two similarities between the current situation and that in the Cold War: the United States is one side; and a Communist Party is the governing party in the other side.(In truth, though, the Chinese Communist Party and Soviet Communist Party have barely anything in common.)So the tense China-U.S.relations does not mean a cold war.Firstly, the United States is in deferent development stage.During the Cold War, the United States was still a rising power.Now it is a declining power.The Americans are an angry and worried,desperately trying to hold on to what it had and the world which it created.While China has achieved the most remarkable economic rise in human history, and is in the ascendant.Secondly, China and the United States have different understanding of the national power support.During the last Cold War, the rivalry and confrontation for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union and focused on military competition.Currently, while military strength remains America’s most coveted form of power, China’s military capacity has also grown fast, but its views on war and peace are entirely different with that between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.In Chinese thinking, one Chinese ancient military strategist calls Sun Tzu who wrote warring tactics entitled Sun Bin Art of War, but regarded war as something to be avoided rather than embraced, and upheld negotiations rather then fighting to solve disputes.In addition, the Chinese view that the two most important modes of power, both historically and in the contemporary context,are economic and cultural.The Chinese believe in tackling matters in the long run with patience.We can see this in the manner that China has responded to Trump: firm but restrained, and kept the lines of communication open.All of this tells us that China will be a very different kind of great power.

The U.S.response to Huawei corporation is out of its fear.Nowadays China’s growth rate is still three times that of the United States, its standout economic achievement over the last decade has been its sharply rising capacity for innovation.Even five years ago, the West was still questioning whether China could ever be innovative rather than imitative.No one asks that question anymore.The speed with which Alibaba and Tencent have joined the Silicon Valley tech giants in the premier league of technology has been quite remarkable.Huawei is the global leader in telecommunications,most notably 5G.Of course, most Chinese companies lag well behind their American equivalents in terms of productivity, but the direction – and speed – of development is irresistible.China is a technology major power in the making.It is this, above all, that has stunned the United States.The underlying motive for the attack on Huawei has not too much to do with security; above all, it is about a fear of China’s competitive challenge.

The United States faces being a biggest loser with the trade war.Imposing higher tariffs and pursuing unilateralism will make the U.S.economy increasingly less competitive, as a result, it will emerge from the protectionism,whenever that might be, seriously weakened.Henry Paulson, the former U.S.Treasury Secretary, makes exactly this point in an article in Financial Times.Both economies, of course,will suffer, but in the long term the U.S.economy is likely to be much the bigger loser.

It is the United States that is the most uncertain factor impacting the global security.The United States fought many wars of expansion during its rise.In contrast, China’s rise has been characterized by an extraordinary path of peaceful development, and adherence to the strategic focus.In the face of its decline,Trump’s first clear expression of and response to this process is the authoritarian turn, the erosion of democracy, drifting of American prestige, leading to U.S.social division and retrogression.America is almost totally unprepared for its own decline.One must hope that it is not too a harrowing experience either for the United States or for the rest of the world.