Washington must dust away Cold War cobwebs

SONG CHEN/CHINA DAILY

Wrong mindset means US policymakers fail to see that even if the nation wins its competition it will still lose

The United States, in its National Security Strategy report this year, highlighted the strategy of "outcompeting" China, proposing two major areas of competition -- geopolitics and key technologies, and set out the goal of guaranteeing the absolute edge of the US in shaping the international order.

Outcompeting China is the overarching goal of the series of actions that Washington is implementing in its China strategy. These include a technology blockade, the reshaping of supply chains, the strengthening of its alliance network and a readjustment of its military deployment.

From the perspective of the US, it is natural that it should strive to outcompete its rivals in its competition with major powers. The problem lies in its ways of competing. Its strategy defines a relatively singular standard for winning the competition among major countries. Although the Joe Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it does not seek comprehensive confrontation or decoupling with China, it continues to overstretch the concept of security and geopolitics. For instance, the administration is pushing the notion of the so-called Chinese debt traps, and trying to engineer the reshaping of supply chains, so as to undermine China's international cooperation. The national security strategy stated that in the competition with China, as in other arenas, "it is clear that the next 10 years will be the decisive decade", which exaggerated the urgency of the so-called China threat to justify the fact that Washington has provoked a bloc confrontation.

Guided by this logic, the US is committed to destroying the external environment for other major countries in its diplomatic practice, and thus it is not acting constructively on pressing issues, even though Washington has repeatedly emphasized its positive significance and responsible attitude as the leader of the "liberal international order". Taking the Asia-Pacific region as an example, the US has accelerated its military deployment and diplomatic lobbying to build up its alliances and isolate China, but is never generous when it comes to regional cooperation. It was reluctant to provide favorable market access for Asia-Pacific countries during negotiations on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, and it only committed $150 million to the 10 ASEAN countries at the US-ASEAN summit. In Latin America, the US is eager to show its leadership in revitalizing the regional economy and responding to the pressure of immigration, but it used this year's Summit of the Americas as a tool for its values-based diplomacy, and the results have been lackluster. In Europe, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment proposed by the US and other G7 members is facing great uncertainty in financing, and there are also significant differences over the focus of cooperation among the G7 members. On issues such as climate change and the pandemic response, the US pays more attention to putting pressure on China rather than implementing its commitments. The US actively promotes ideology-based major-power confrontation, but it has made slow progress on development and governance issues. This imbalance has led the US to greater destruction to the current international structure rather than contributing to it.

This is the paradox of the current mainstream security concept in the US. On the one hand, the US needs to strengthen its influence on various issues in order to compete for leadership. On the other hand, policymakers in Washington have given priority to "absolute security", and other issues must give way to it. A true liberal international order should feature a multipolar pattern. The US needs to respond to the diverse demands of various countries and respect differences in policies and values of various countries. But the core of US strategy remains unipolar and hegemonic, which requires the US' allies to make sacrifices to help advance its geopolitical strategy. In an era of frequent multi-dimensional global challenges, it is difficult for the US, obsessed with hegemony, to lead the global order constructively, and to gain the support of the international community in the long run. One stark example is the Summit of the Americas in June. The US, eager to dominate the agenda, refused to invite Cuba and other ideologically different countries, which turned the leaders of Mexico and other countries away from the summit. In the absence of these stakeholders, the summit could not lead to outcomes on issues such as illegal immigration and public health.

US foreign policy, which is centered on geopolitical confrontation, is being questioned by many parties due to its huge negative externalities, and it is unsustainable in the long run. The strategic deployment of the US in the Asia-Pacific, especially its nuclear deterrence against China and the frequent tricks it has played on the Taiwan question, has led to an increased risk of conflicts between major countries, which has aroused widespread concern among countries in the region. In non-security areas, the US policy of containing China is also having undesirable consequences for other countries. For example, the inflation in many Western countries is related to the supply shortage caused by the so-called reshaping of supply chains. On issues such as climate change, the political provocation from Washington undermines the basis for China and the US to engage in dialogue. The US' insistence on intensifying major-country confrontation has prevented countries from concentrating their resources on facing the looming global challenges, and instead brought heightened nuclear risks and a series of new problems. Many countries have indicated that they do not seek decoupling from China, which is evidence of the unpopularity of Cold War-style confrontation.

In a word, the more the US concentrates its resources on the major-power geopolitical confrontation, the more difficult it will be for it to portray itself as a responsible major power on non-security issues, and to project international influence. Regardless of the prospects for the competition between Beijing and Washington, it is difficult for the strategy to outcompete China to bring absolute security and leadership to the US.

The US' strategy to outcompete China is fundamentally a product of the Cold War mentality that prevails in Washington. Due to the fact that there was little overlap between the blocs of the US and the Soviet Union, the US could build an alliance system that excluded the Soviet Union and was capable enough to meet the common challenges of member states. However, there are no clear-cut blocs in today's international landscape. China is an indispensable stakeholder in international politics, development and governance, and an important partner of countries in the world, including the US and the other Western countries. The US, which is highly embedded in the globalization system, cannot bypass China to solve its increasingly complex internal and external challenges, nor can it outcompete China or exclude China in a Cold War way.

In the face of the highly uncertain international environment, some US policymakers regard China as the source of internal and external dilemmas, and are therefore determined to outcompete China by any means within a short period of time. But they should realize that global challenges, ranging from the Ukraine crisis to the economy and COVID-19 pandemic, are in fact all related to the US strategy of major-power competition, which gives far greater priority to confrontation than cooperation. China is no obstacle for the US to "build back better"; the outdated Cold War-style security concept is.

The author is an assistant research fellow of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn