Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.
by Dr. Peter Laurie
There’s a gathering storm in the world. No, I’m not talking about the COVID-19 pandemic. There are forces swirling around that might lead to a third world war, this time a nuclear holocaust. I’m talking about the US versus China as the great power conflict that threatens to engulf the world in the coming decade.
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing inevitable about this conflict. China and the US are not inherent antagonists locked in a global struggle for power, like the Soviet Union and the West during the Cold War.
Let me go further: an America-China axis of cooperation and peaceful competition may be just what the post-pandemic world needs to provide a reformed architecture of multilateral cooperation that is so essential for the world’s small states. We depend more than others on a rules-based international order not only for our security but for our economic well-being.
But, but, but… the decaying carcass of the Trump presidency is setting up this conflict to try to deliberately lock in the Biden Administration to a doomsday scenario.
Secretary of State Pompeo has argued that it is Marxist-Leninist ideology that informs President Xi Jinping’s “decades-long desire for global hegemony of Chinese communism.”, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, that, “Beijing intends to dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.”
In mid-November, the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff released a 74-page report arguing that China aims to overturn the existing world order in the service of its communist goals and hegemonic ambitions.
Even worse still, there are many in the American foreign policy/national security establishment, both Republicans and Democrats, who would perversely welcome such a posture. It gives them a focus: America needs and loves to have a global adversary with which it can pursue a win-lose game.
The real danger is that there are two ultra-nationalisms at play here: The Chinese people and leadership are determined that after a hundred years (1839 to 1949) of intervention, subjugation and humiliation by Europe, Russia and Japan, they will now proudly take their place as a major force in the world.
On the other side, the US, in the period since the Second World War and culminating in their triumph over the USSR in the Cold War (1949-1979), have grown accustomed to being No 1 in the world, both militarily and economically, and see any nation that looks like replacing them at the top as an existential threat.
The fact is, however, that China will become by 2030 the No. 1 nation in the world at least economically, and maybe even technologically, though probably not militarily.
To both sides I say: take a deep breath and chill. Read some history. States and empires rise and fall. We can all co-exist. Barbadians endured over 300 years of national oppression and humiliation, but now we’re free we’re not seeking revenge or glory. We just want to live in peace and determine our own affairs, ‘friends of all satellites of none’.
Getting back to this much vaunted US v. China conflict, the whole communist ideology thing is nonsensical. The problem with that argument is that China is not a communist country. It’s a state capitalist country.
Unlike the Cold War between the communist USSR and capitalist America, China and America don’t represent different social and economic systems competing for the world’s allegiance. China has long ceased to be communist, if it ever was. It’s an authoritarian state capitalist country. The US — well, God knows what it is now: the Trump presidency has used and is using every means to ravish the democratic process, and corruption under Trump has scaled unprecedented heights. It will be interesting to see how the US, after Trump, will manage to lecture the world on democracy and corruption.
The competition between the US and China, such as it is, is economic and technological. China is a $15.4-trillion economy, the No.1 global trading power, capital exporter, and leading tech state.
The problem is that the US has failed for decades to use the power of the state to advance its technological development. Perhaps under Biden that may change.
So why are so many analysts of international relations obsessed with China?
Because since the election of Xi Jinping in 2013, China has embarked on a new international path with a more aggressive stance.
So far, there have been three transformational leaders in China: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Mao is now the most privately reviled person in China largely because most Chinese bear the wounds of his disastrous Great Leap Forward that resulted in a famine that killed tens of millions of people, and the equally devastating Cultural Revolution that killed millions and left many more psychologically scarred.
Fortunately, the presidency of Deng Xiaoping lifted China out of its desperate economic plight with many market reforms and the promotion of foreign investment that launched the country on a path to state capitalism and prosperity.
Deng, who was a shrewd statesman and a skilled negotiator with many international contacts, had as his motto ‘hide your strength, bide your time’.
In contrast, Xi, who’s dedicated himself to cleaning up corruption and the environment, fighting poverty and increasing market reforms, wants unapologetically to secure China’s place as a great power with a strong presence all over the world. In other words, the time for China biding its time is over. His imaginative ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ aimed at developing infrastructure in six economic-commercial corridors around the world is an instance of his drive to ensure China’s influence in international affairs.
China’s problem is likely to be arrogance and overreach. It’s heavy-handed approach to the crisis in Hong Kong is an example. Its treatment of labour on overseas projects has created tensions. Let me be clear: arrogance and overreach are not Chinese characteristics. That’s simply the way all great powers have behaved and still behave.
The recent Chinese leadership has always, of necessity, been pragmatic, largely for one good reason: its continuance in office depends on its delivering the economic goods to its citizenry. The citizens of China are very savvy and demanding of their government (like Bajans really) and China’s economy has to grow at least by 5FVE per cent annually to meet popular demands, so this constrains the scope of actions of the leadership.
All this means that China, although bent on asserting itself internationally, is always willing to cooperate and negotiate pragmatically. It’s not in its interest to be locked into a confrontational posture. Besides, the rest of the world has no interest in choosing between the US and China.
My hope, therefore, is that under Biden the US and China can find ways of getting along while each pursues peacefully its own national interests. That way the gathering storm will dissipate, just like the nightmare of Trumpism.
Dr. Peter Laurie is a retired permanent secretary and head of the Foreign Service who once served as Barbados’ Ambassador to the United States.
