China-US relations are in tatters. Can both sides cool their hostile strategies to avoid disaster?

The framework that has kept US-China relations stable for almost 50 years is in pieces and dangerous trends point to a new cold war or even a hot one
Both sides lack a long-term strategic vision. Donald Trump is desperate to be re-elected, while China’s overconfidence could lead to miscalculation and disaster

Lanxin Xiang

Published: 1:30am, 14 Sep 2020

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The US-China relationship is in free fall. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Nixon Library speech signals the de facto, if not de jure, end of the so-called communique framework for maintaining stability between the two countries.

The framework that has supported the bilateral relationship for almost five decades consists of three documents: the Shanghai Communique of 1972, driven by the countries’ common fight against the Russians; the communique on establishing diplomatic ties in 1979; and the August 17 Communique of 1982, pledging engagement in education, technology and science, and the United States’ gradual reduction in arms sales to Taiwan.

While Beijing still prefers to hold on to this framework, hawks in Washington, including those on presidential nominee Joe Biden’s team, seem determined to demolish it.

But the hawks are on shaky ground here. Neither of their two arguments – that the West should have nipped in the bud China’s economic opening, which lifted millions out of extreme poverty, and that China’s rise has benefited only China – is morally or factually sound.

For Pompeo and his ilk, the logic is clear: no more framework means they are free to promote regime change in China. No doubt the hawks, taking advantage of an erratic president, are happy to see a new cold war, or even a hot one.

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In his desperation to win the election, President Donald Trump could well create a war presidency, having missed the chance to win the battle against the pandemic.

An “October surprise” (an event timed to sway an election) in the form of a limited military clash with China is no longer unthinkable. Indeed, the hawks must be eager for a new Berlin crisis in the East (whether in Hong Kong, Taiwan or the South China Sea) so as to fully institutionalise the military machine for a new cold war.

More dangerously, there are corresponding trends in both countries that are pointing to a major clash sooner rather than later.

To begin with, both sides lack a long-term strategic vision. While a new cold war is being initiated by the US, there is no George F. Kennan-like figure this time. (Kennan, the first director of the US State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, was the father of the Soviet containment policy.) The long view taken by a more recent Policy Planning director, Kiron Skinner, is that China is a “great power competitor that is not Caucasian”, reflecting nothing but an atavistic fear of the “Yellow Peril”.

Meanwhile, China may have a long historical perspective, but it is incapable of articulating a convincing vision for maintaining world peace and international cooperation. Its assertive “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy is driven by fantasy, not the reality on the ground. Gross overconfidence inevitably leads to miscalculations. Also, an overstretched China has neither the economic nor military capacity to handle geopolitical challenges.

Moreover, narcissists tend to escalate even trivial rivalries into confrontation. We are witnessing today a strange scene in Washington: the chief diplomat behaves like a chief propagandist, and his president is so idiosyncratic and buffoonish that Mussolini pales in comparison.

Oddly enough, political establishments in Washington and even in Brussels seem happy to goad them on in this vicious campaign of China bashing, perhaps to test Beijing’s limits. There has been no serious dissenting voice on either side of the Atlantic.

Beijing, on the other hand, appears calmer, but its propaganda is out of control. Many firebrands such as Zhao Lijian and Hu Xijin give Pompeo a run for his money. Nationalistic populism is surging in both countries. But nationalism is a tiger: it is easier to ride the beast than to get off unscathed. It is surely folly for leaders on both sides to believe they can harness this fervour as a source of unity.

Finally, there is strategic hubris on both sides. There are those in Washington who believe that democratic values will prevail in this cold war, like they did last time.

This view fails to take account of the source of legitimacy in Chinese politics, which has been operating on its own logic for thousands of years.

The Cold War strategy of not recognising the legitimacy of the Communist Party’s rule cannot work unless the majority in the country concur. The projection that the party has already lost the “Mandate of Heaven” is both premature and ahistorical.

In fact, the US cannot win a cold war with China without allies, and it will need not only Western democracies but also a majority of UN member states to take its side. But, in less than four years, the US has squandered much of the soft power it accumulated in the decades following the Second World War.

It is unclear that it can even win an ideological war with China, as Beijing gains more and more goodwill in the large number of countries that are part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

Furthermore, China is no Soviet Union, and Washington’s old strategy of destroying the Soviet economy by drawing Moscow into an expensive arms race will not work – though it is true that Washington can still thwart China’s economic growth in other ways.

Under the circumstances, the risk of miscalculation is high on both sides. It is imperative for both Washington and Beijing to reconsider their global strategies to avoid miscalculation. The US must abandon its project of regime change in China. Its record of success in changing regimes is rather dismal to begin with.

Beijing must be prepared for the dismantling of the communique framework and the volatility that will follow. It should reconsider following Deng Xiaoping’s admonition to hide its strength and bide its time, and perhaps re-evaluate the Belt and Road Initiative. The pandemic actually gives Beijing a moral justification to instigate strategic retrenchment in disputed territories and Taiwan, while significantly reducing its commitment to the belt and road strategy.

Lanxin Xiang is Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and author of The Quest for Legitimacy in Chinese Politics

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