US President's National Security Advisor Sullivan visited China from August 27 to 29, and China and the United States held a new round of strategic communication in Beijing. When meeting with Sullivan on August 29, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that China and the United States must first clarify whether the two countries are rivals or partners.
China has always disliked and even rejected the idea of ??Sino-US competition and has repeatedly emphasized that the two countries should be "partners rather than rivals".
But Washington's decision-makers don't think so. At the beginning of its term in 2021, the Biden administration singled out a "growing rivalry with China" as a key challenge facing the United States. “It is the only competitor (China) potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system."
In the recently concluded Democratic National Convention, both the current President Biden and the Democratic presidential candidate Harris explicitly mentioned and emphasized the competition between the United States and China. In his speech at the convention on August 19, President Biden said, “When I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States. If you haven’t noticed, no one is saying that now.” On August 22, Harris bluntly stated, “I will make sure that …… America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century; and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership."
Based on the performance of Trump's first administration, if he returns to the White House, it is very likely that he will continue to pursue competitive, if not confrontational, policies towards China. It must be acknowledged that there is now a bipartisan consensus among Washington's policy circles which China must be seen as a primary rival.
However, the United States cannot afford to abandon cooperation with China. After all, as the two most powerful and influential countries in the world today, they are compelled to engage in some cooperation when facing increasingly complex international affairs. Moreover, although the trade war erupted between the US and China during the Trump administration, and the annual trade volume between the two countries has shown a decreasing trend. The total trade volume in 2023 is still quite high.
US data shows that the total imports from China in 2023 amounted to $427.24 billion, the lowest since 2012; US exports to China reached $147.81 billion, marking the third-highest record in history. China's data for the same year indicates that the total trade volume between China and the US was $664.451 billion, with a trade surplus of $336.131 billion in favor of China.
Therefore, the Biden administration has repeatedly emphasized that, although competition with China is an objective reality, this competition should be healthy and fair. He believes that the world needs the United States and China to responsibly manage their competition to prevent it from escalating into conflict, confrontation, or a new Cold War.
As the world's leading power for decades, the United States naturally does not want to see its position replaced by another country. Therefore, Washington has become accustomed to defining potential challengers as rivals, even when it comes to its allies. For example, when Japan's economy rapidly developed in the 1970s and 1980s, the US launched a trade war against Japan to curb its further growth. Similarly, when the development of European allies threatens US interests or when they display sufficient independence, Washington also tends to suppress them.
The fact that the US views other countries through a competitive lens is nothing new. Any country or international actor capable of challenging the US might be regarded by Washington as a rival, especially China, a country led by the Communist Party and widely recognized as the world's second-strongest power. Essentially, this is the inevitable attitude of an established power toward a rising or emerging power.
However, it is increasingly evident that without China’s participation and cooperation, the US and its allies alone cannot solve certain global challenges, such as climate change. Therefore, we noticed during his meeting with President Xi Jinping on August 29, Sullivan explicitly stated that President Biden “looks forward” to holding a phone conversation with the Chinese leader “in the coming weeks”.
Obviously, cooperation between the United States and China is indispensable. This may be the fundamental reason why Beijing repeatedly emphasizes defining the two countries as partners. In traditional Chinese culture, there are strong ideas such as "harmony but not uniformity", "harmonious coexistence" and "the beauty of shared harmony". In contemporary China, there are five principles guiding international relations, such as mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. Beijing prefers to view international relations from the perspective of cooperation. Even if there are conflicts between the United States and China, Beijing is not willing to label bilateral relations as confrontational.
Moreover, China and the United States may have different understandings of "rivals". As a newly emerging power with a strong sense of confidence, China hopes international community respect its vision, both for itself and for the world. When its development faces pressure from the US, China is inclined to see this as Washington's attempt to curb its further rise. Therefore, when the US talks about engaging in “competition” with China based on rules, China perceives it as being targeted by Washington.
Beijing really dislikes Washington referring to the two countries as rivals, believing that the term “partners” is more appropriate. However, in American political terminology, “partner” typically implies a friend or ally, and since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, China has never been viewed by the US as a friend, let alone an ally.
In fact, whether China and the US are referred to as rivals or partners, the bilateral relationship is an objective reality that won't change in essence because of different labels. In a world where cooperation is unavoidable, it is more important for Washington and Beijing to approach specific issues pragmatically and rationally. The more concrete problems that are resolved, the smoother the bilateral relationship will be, and the better the world as a whole will function.
First published in Tehran Times
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