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Opinion | Unstable world needs US and China to thaw ties and provide better global leadership
- Wang Yi’s visit to Washington is a welcome sign amid a backdrop of rising violence and increasingly chilly US-China relations
- Next, Biden and Xi should meet at the Apec summit to prevent further cracks from appearing, and provide the leadership the world desperately needs
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The annual US Department of Defence report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”, also called the China Military Power Report, was released on October 19. Its central assertion is that Beijing’s national strategy is to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049.
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The 212-page report further adds that this strategy aims to “revise the international order in support of the PRC’s system of governance and national interests” and that Beijing views the United States as deploying a whole-of-government effort meant to contain China’s rise.
Predictably, Beijing lashed out at the US assessment. A Defence Ministry statement said that, “We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this report”, adding that it “exaggerates and hypes the non-existent ‘Chinese military threat’.”
This is not necessarily an incorrect statement, given that the Pentagon report highlights Chinese military capabilities quantitatively without appropriate context, or the contrast with existing US military capability in each area, be it nuclear weapons, missiles, ships, submarines or air power.
The previous US report on Chinese military power, in November 2022, described China as a “pacing threat”, implying that Beijing was setting the pace and priority for US responses to safeguard its security and strategic interests. Chinese officials made similar protestations against the Pentagon at the time, accusing the US of distorting facts, creating divisions and inciting confrontation.
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The intervening period resulted in a sullen freeze in bilateral relations. This was further aggravated by the Chinese balloon incident in January.
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