America and China: Nonviolent enemies

The Philippines has changed its foreign policy direction from being an ally of China to being an ally of the United States. The relationship between the United States and China has become critical as it will have a direct effect on our policies.

Recently, there have been talks that US-China relationship should be mended and the two countries should find ways to live harmoniously. The fact is that the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated since the assumption of the presidency by Xi Jinping.

There is a state of thinking that the extreme tension between the United States and China comes from the supposedly inevitable conflict between an existing superpower and a rising superpower. This is the well-known Thucydides principle of the inevitability of conflict between the existing dominant nation and a rising power out to challenge it.

It would be beneficial to the world if the tensions between the two nations could be defused. But in the history of great power struggles, a peaceful settlement has not been historically possible.

Prominent political scientists like Michael Colaresi, Karen Rasler and William Thompson have written that there have been 27 great power rivalries since 1816.  These rivalries have each lasted for an average of 50 years. Nineteen out of the 50 ended in a war with one side beating the other into submission.

Another six of the rivalries ended with an alliance against a third common foe. The rest ended with a tense standoff between the two conflicting countries.  Perhaps this is the best that can be hoped for because this at least avoids full scale fighting.

The United States and China are highly unlikely to be able to find a harmonious way of cooperating in the present world. Firstly, their vital interests are in conflict.  They are competitors in the worlds of technology and trade. Secondly, their respective political systems are completely opposite. Ideologically, China believes in authoritarianism and the United States practices capitalism and liberal democracy.

After the fall of Mao Zedong, there was an attempt for the two superpowers to work closely together. But this was the time of Deng Xiaoping when China introduced capitalism to a certain degree to the Chinese economy.

The United States made a lot of effort to make China an integral part of the liberal world order which is led by the United States and Western Europe.

This attempt to integrate China was viewed by many top business leaders as a plot to weaken the grip of the Chinese Communist Party. It was also viewed by Chinese leaders as an attempt to make China dependent economically and politically on the West.

In an article by Michael Beckley, professor of political science at Tufts University, he wrote: “The United States and China have become what political scientists call ‘enduring rivals,’ meaning countries that have singled each other out for intense security competition. Over the past few centuries, such pairs have accounted for only one percent of the world’s international relationships but more than 80 percent of its wars. Think of the repeated clashes between India and Pakistan, Greece and Turkey, China and Japan, and France and the United Kingdom.”

The thinking that greater trade and investment between the two rivals will ease the relationship does not also seem feasible.  The fact that China imports most of its raw materials and presently relies heavily on exports to the United States and its allies has obviously caused China to worry that these countries would cut off its access to resources and markets in a crisis.

China has also seen how the West has used economic sanctions as a weapon to weaken other countries like Russia and Iran. China has therefore tried to control what it considers as “chokepoints,” which it deems strategically critical for the free flow of its external trade with the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, this has been used as an excuse for China to take over territories that legally belong to other countries.  One example is, of course, China’s illegal seizure of Philippine territories in the West Philippine Sea.

Under Xi Jinping, China seems to be preparing for a worst-case scenario and is building a literal fortress around China and his personal power.

One major cause for potential conflict is Taiwan. There is a critical national election in this country in January. The existing dominant party is the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The main opposition party is the Kuomintang (KMT), which favors reunification with China. At the moment, William Lai of DPP is polling ahead of his opponents. However, the Taiwan situation seems to be in an impossible dilemma. China will not allow independence. The United States will not allow reunification.

It seems that the best outcome for the superpower rivalry would be a cold war that both sides will not allow to develop into a violent conflict. The two sides can engage in a technology race and cooperate to solve the climate crisis. They can use nonviolent means to compete, like providing aid and development to increase their influence.

A tense but nonviolent relationship between the two superpowers is the best that the world can hope for.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]