NEWS//U.S. China relations: What's in store?
Politico’s China Watcher newsletter ended the year with predictions about China-U.S. relations in 2022. Those predictions were made by China Watcher’s “all-star cast of expert contributors.” 316NOW shares four for those predictions.
Culmination of culture battle
Both Washington, D.C., and Beijing should be herding students through the gates for study exchanges in 2022. With rising anti-Asian hate and America’s ongoing pandemic, some Chinese students are dragging their feet to study abroad in the land of coronavirus. The U.S. should do its best to assuage their fears, not only because Chinese students are a big source of tuition revenue, but also because they are future brokers of U.S.-China relations. 2022 will witness the culmination of a political culture battle between the U.S. and China, likely to be on full display at the Beijing Winter Olympics: Ameri-cracy versus Chino-cracy.
DIANA FU, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto
Rules-based international system
My New Year’s wish: we finally abandon the fantasy that the CCP is interested in cooperating with us. [And] build off of President JOE BIDEN’S democracy summit and work with partners to strengthen deterrence and protect the rules-based international system against threats posed by Beijing and Moscow.
MATT TURPIN, former China director at the National Security Council and editor of the Hoover Institution’s China Global Sharp Power Weekly Alert
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
Xi Jinping has made clear his intent to promote "socialism with Chinese characteristics" at the expense of Western liberalism, so we are in a zero-sum competition. While Xi may avoid confrontation during the Olympics and the 20th Party Congress, he will maintain his offensive aims and persist in trying to achieve them for the foreseeable future. The good news is that Americans are both increasingly aware of this set of challenges and moving to protect themselves. Representatives from major U.S. institutions in finance, tech, law, and academia have all told me they are worried and working to limit their [China] exposure.
JACQUELINE DEAL, senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and president of LTSG, a defense consultancy
Likelihood of conflict
Beijing’s drive to legitimize autocratic practices worldwide, its technological and military buildups, and its aggression in the Taiwan Strait have raised the likelihood of conflict between the superpowers. The United States has reacted with a clear attitude but has not articulated an effective strategy to stabilize U.S.-China relations and advance American interests and values. Finding that strategy is the United States’ most pressing foreign policy challenge.
ROBERT DALY, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center
Source: China Watcher