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China-US relations in the shadow of the future

2022-05-04 11:44:58Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA DR. MARSELA MUSABELLIU
China-US relations in the shadow of the future
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In building peaceful relations between the great powers it is important that each party is ready and able to articulate a vision for the future. Each party must believe that even if the other party were dominant, it would still have an acceptable place for it in the prevailing order. How will the United States accommodate China's growth, economic weight, and political interests in the current world order?

The call for a new kind of relationship of great powers is a response to a problem in the history and theory of international relations, which tells us about the danger of conflict between a rising power and a dominant power, otherwise called the "Trap of Thucydides ”. But in the times we live in the problem is not our reading of history, but our reading of the future.

China-US: quo vadis?

In 2009, President Obama stated that relations between the United States and China are the most important bilateral relations of the 21st century. In fact, positive China-US relations are vital not only for both countries but also for the world at large. More than four decades after the formal establishment of diplomatic relations, the two largest economic powers in the world have established close and unprecedented ties. Many challenges were added to this relationship after Donald Trump came to power in 2016. The Trump administration undertook the most profound change in U.S. policy toward China (which had remained somewhat unchanged for decades) by seeing China as a existential threat to the international order and American way of life. Different factions characterized the threat in different ways under the Trump administration, and Washington under his leadership made the crucial shift of policy from cooperation to confrontation. In 2018, the U.S. government, for the first time, labeled China a "strategic competitor."

Further the Biden Administration, although holding in place the key policies of the Trump era, has had a less apocalyptic view, treating China as a competitor for global influence, but the narrative remains almost the same. But another hot issue is gaining ground among some policymakers: The United States is in a "Cold War" with China! Harvard professor Joseph Nye says President Biden's actions suggest that his strategy for dealing with China may really suffer from Cold War thinking, which closes the mind to the traditional two-dimensional model of chess. China, is a three-dimensional game. And if we continue to play two-dimensional chess, we will lose. - says Nye. In the Cold War of the last century with the Soviet Union, The "game" was based on a simple two-dimensional premise - between their respective military. But with China, the game becomes three-dimensional because of a distribution of power at every level - military, economic and social.

On the other hand, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated that it is not the US intention to keep China oppressed but the west will protect the international order from subversive efforts by any country, including China. He has already put forward the so-called CCC (Cooperate - Compete - Confront) thesis which focuses on the idea that "in US-China relations there are three options: Cooperation where you can, Competition when needed and Confrontation when needed". But, apparently the political discourse is escalating outside the above schemes.

In the Cold War era, the two camps were isolated from each other and formed two parallel markets, which brought incalculable negative impact on the development of the world economy. As in the century of globalization countries become more and more interdependent in market supply, production and division of labor. A new cold war will inevitably lead to the collapse of the industrial chain and losses for both sides and beyond.

21st Century Geopolitics and the Chinese "Challenge"

Is China a status quo power or a revisionist power? - Asked Professor Alastair Johnston since 2003. And this question dominated the geopolitics of the last two decades, whether China is a status quo power that will continue to live in accordance with regional and international norms or whether it is an ever revisionist power more willing to challenge US hegemony.

In recent years, Washington has stepped up its efforts to build anti-China coalitions in the Indo-Pacific and beyond as China is labeled "subversive" and focuses on many aspects, and what stands out most is the word. "Challenge".

But is China a subversive and aggressive power as portrayed? - Professor John Gong, says that China has never done anything to overthrow foreign governments, has not been involved in any 'satellite' war, or any other kind of foreign intervention for nearly four decades. Perhaps the feeling in the west is not about China being a revisionist or power-overthrowing state, but it is more about the fact that China is setting an alternative example and that alternative example is a kind of eclipse of the model that the west has promoted . China's development model is becoming attractive, and hence the so-called "challenge". China has never had the intention or interest to rewrite the rules of the international system, what the Chinese government has consistently expressed is that they want to be part of it.

China went from a poor agrarian country to a large industrial country in a very short time, and contrary to expectations, for this growth China has not conquered a single country, no shot fired and this is unprecedented in human history. every great power from Athens to Rome, to the British Empire until the rise of America, all were accompanied by bloodshed, colonization, slavery, war. China's growth has been faster in time than all of them and without violence or threat, and instead of celebrating these achievements, there is only antagonism and accusatory rhetoric. To the Chinese this is indecent and somewhat disappointing.

Hegemony, history and the future

Political history tells us that the world order has adapted different collective norms and common preferences from one epoch to another. In the field of international relations, hegemony generally refers to the ability of an actor to shape the international system. Usually this actor is a state, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Hegemony as a status quo shows a situation of great material asymmetry in favor of a state, which has: sufficient military power to systematically defeat any potential contestant in the system; controls access to raw materials, natural resources, capital and markets; has a competitive advantage in the production of value-added goods; generates an accepted ideology that reflects this status quo;

A number of scholars have examined the fall of the hegemons and the order they dictate. For some, such a decline tends to be disruptive because the stability provided by hegemony gives way to a vacuum. Others have argued that cooperation may continue even during the hegemonic decline due to expanded institutions or contributions from non-hegemonic powers.

But, in this geopolitical narrative, the growth of China cannot be applied because the state that "challenges" hegemony has no hegemonic form within itself. In fact, the rise of China has given other states more opportunities to choose who to deal with economically and politically. China's prosperity does not come from the conquest of other countries but through unstoppable national work between generations.

China is not the usual adversary, and therefore has no common antithesis. The Cold War mentality with China cannot be applied, as China is not the Soviet Union. They sought global dominance, and Soviet intervention was present in almost every state. China can not be accused of expansion because, it has played with the rules of the game that are set and dictated by the West, in short the rules of globalization.

Misconceptions as the basis of any misunderstanding

Misconceptions about China are also noticed by an expression of Napoleon Bonaparte that is gaining ground in recent years: "Let China sleep, because when it wakes up it will shake the world" .... but, as Hajdar Muneka, former ambassador says Albanian in China: “In fact, China has never slept. Not even in its darkest period. From her difficulties she has emerged even stronger. "Because in the deep consciousness of every Chinese is patience and faith in the future."

Returning to Josep Nye, he states that the Cold War metaphor, though appropriate, is somewhat "lazy" and potentially dangerous. It obscures and deceives us by underestimating the real challenge we face - and by offering ineffective strategies. ”For better or worse, China and the United States are bound in a“ cooperative rivalry ”that requires a strategy that can meet those two contradictory things - to compete and to cooperate - at the same time.

Finally, China's development must be viewed rationally, without exaggerating the various forms of threat theory and without using China's legitimate interests as excuses for manipulating world politics. Less politics, less ideology and more practical benefits for people. Nearly three decades ago, the doctrine of "Peaceful Growth" appeared in China - at the time, many people thought it was neither credible nor achievable. But if you look back with the clarity of retrospect, this rise in status has already occurred and it is not external factors but internal factors that determine China's growth success.

In a world still plagued by pandemics, economies that are not recovering, and the hardships of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, it is very easy to find 'enemies' and create a battlefield of words, but escalating aggressive discourse in tense times risks transform the (Cold War) mentality into paranoia - and paranoia has only brought boomerang effects throughout history.

 


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