There is much talk of restoring US global leadership under Biden, but for Beijing this ignores the extent to which global power has shifted, explains Nigel Inkster. It believes that the superiority of the Chinese system will prevail, even if that entails a struggle in the short to medium term.
Joe Biden had his first call as president with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on 10 February, after having already spoken to all his major Western counterparts, a sequencing that was both deliberate and telling. The two men know each other from when they were exact counterparts as vice-presidents during the Obama administration. But much has changed since then. Accounts of the conversation, which lasted for two hours, were light on detail and even more so in terms of conveying mood. But there was nothing to suggest that the current strained relationship will ease in the foreseeable future.
What follows is an attempt to set out how China will have seen the background against which this contact took place and what it expected from it. Sometimes the terminology is necessarily formulaic, reflecting the way that Chinese policies are couched. But it draws on that language to convey a sense of how key issues are perceived by a Chinese Communist Party that has always used language in deliberate and calculated ways to shape perceptions and determine outcomes.
The state of the world, according to Beijing
The world is facing a period of change not seen in the past 100 years, Beijing argues. Peace and development remain the themes of the times, even as the international environment is becoming increasingly complex with a significant increase in instability and uncertainty. The East is rising, the West is in decline and the tide of history is flowing in China’s favour. The United States is riven with contradictions of class, race and generation that have given rise to widespread violence, culture wars and deep political division. The invasion of the US Capitol building has shattered the myth of American democracy. And the manifest failures of the US government to manage the COVID-19 pandemic testify to the inherent strengths of the Chinese system.
But although America’s power is waning, it is still substantial and its hegemonic ambitions are undiminished. It is clear that the United States will never be willing to accommodate China as long as it is ruled by the Communist Party and that it will pursue all means to contain and suppress China’s rise. During the Trump administration, America abandoned all restraint and launched a succession of attacks on China, with confrontation replacing cooperation. These included a trade war, a technology war, an increase in so-called Freedom of Navigation incursions into China’s territorial waters and violations of China’s core interests in relation to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, where America has collaborated with secessionist forces and come close to abandoning the one-China policy that has been the cornerstone of Sino-US relations.
The Trump administration sought to disguise its own incompetence in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic by heaping blame on China and even demanding that China make financial reparations for the damage caused by the virus. And it launched a succession of vicious attacks seeking to drive a wedge between the Party leadership and the Chinese people, and calling for regime change.
A struggle before Beijing is ultimately vindicated?
In the long term, in Beijing’s eyes, the superiority of the Chinese system will prevail, but in the short to medium term China faces a long and arduous struggle. Although Trump created enormous problems for China, his chaotic administration exacerbated America’s existing weaknesses in ways that benefited Beijing. The new Biden administration will be more predictable, but will not make any fundamental change in policy: if anything, it will be more aggressive in seeking to contain China’s rise. It will work to restore alliance relationships, re-engage in multilateral diplomacy, seek to play the human-rights card and continue to interfere in China’s internal affairs. Competition and decoupling cannot be avoided.
China will wish to avoid conflict with a weakened America that may be tempted to lash out, while making clear its readiness to defend its core interests. It can be expected to continue building up its military capabilities and strengthening its presence in the waters over which it claims sovereignty. Meanwhile, the argument in Beijing is that it should seek to persuade the US government to correct its errors and recognise that confrontation will harm both countries, with international cooperation holding the key to addressing the pressing problems of our age. It will seek to persuade America’s main Western allies, whose confidence in America has been shaken by Trump’s behaviour, that joining an anti-China alliance is a strategy that goes against the tide of history and is doomed to fail.
For China, the Trump-initiated trade war has failed to achieve its objectives. The US trade deficit with China has grown, manufacturing jobs have not returned and the burden of the tariff war has fallen on US consumers. And a key victory in Beijing’s eyes is that, in the face of the trade war, its commitment to its model of development based on market socialism remains undiminished. It can be expected to continue its United Front activities to persuade the US financial and technology communities to lobby in favour of maintaining open trading relations and further open markets as an incentive.
At the same time, China can be expected to continue its efforts to reduce its dependence on US and other Western markets by resolutely promoting the ‘dual circulation’ economic model, enhancing domestic consumption while maintaining necessary access to global markets. It will also seek, on the one hand, to limit its dependence on US and Western technology by investing in indigenous innovation in key areas such as advanced microchips, while, on the other, continuing to seek access to advanced Western technology by all possible means. And it will continue to develop a digital renminbi as a means of ensuring that in the long term it is less vulnerable to US financial sanctions.
Time to accept the inevitability of China’s rise
There is much talk in Washington of restoring US global leadership under Biden, but, for Beijing, this ignores the extent to which power has moved and dispersed in the modern era, and how much America’s international standing has been damaged by recent developments.
While China will argue for a return to a more balanced and restrained international discourse, it will also seek to protect what it sees as its ‘core interests’ and will not be prepared to make concessions in specific areas in isolation from the wider relationship. The view in Beijing is that the United States and other Western nations will need to get used to the reality that they can no longer cherry-pick when it comes to dealing with China.
According to Beijing’s long-term vision, America will have to realise that it is futile to try to prevent the so-called ‘Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Race’. China has no desire to replace America as the global hegemon. But it cannot be prevented from taking its rightful place on the world stage and the world cannot but accommodate itself to China’s rise. Any attempt to do so will be condemned by posterity.
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