Sound Sino-US relations crucial to world's sustainable development
日期：2023-10-05來源：
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By Ivan Chu and Edward Wong
The good wishes for Chinese people’s “peace, happiness and prosperity” extended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on behalf of the United States before the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China must have been music to the ears of not only Chinese and American people but also to those of people around the world.
It remains to be seen whether Blinken’s well-wishes were merely a diplomatic nicety or a gesture conveying Washington’s desire to improve Sino-US relations. A further deterioration in the two countries’ bilateral relations would in no way bode well for Chinese people’s “peace, happiness and prosperity”, or for the overall well-being of the American people and all other people around the world.
The US has taken the initiative to facilitate a series of exchanges between the two countries with several high-ranking US officials having visited China over recent months. These exchanges have resulted in the establishment of two joint working groups focusing on economics and finance. Their establishment is seen as an effort to improve ties and enhance bilateral cooperation on important issues.
Indeed, Blinken said in his brief statement congratulating the People’s Republic of China on the occasion of its 74th anniversary, “As the United States continues to work with the international community to solve the world’s most serious challenges, we welcome the cooperation of the People’s Republic of China in addressing shared challenges, including the climate crisis, public health, counter-narcotics, food security, and global macroeconomic stability.”
But some observers believe that Washington’s seemingly softened stance on Beijing is merely a tactical shift to secure the latter’s cooperation, which would be enormously helpful to the administration of US President Joe Biden as it struggles to overcome some daunting domestic problems before next year’s presidential election. They opined that before Washington eventually accepts the reality that its efforts to perpetuate the US-dominated unipolar world order are futile, it won’t abandon its anti-China crusade.
Washington’s efforts to preserve the unipolar world order and the global hegemony it enjoys under this international order are doomed because they do not serve the best interests of most countries. That is why more and more countries have embraced international efforts that will, in effect, enhance multipolarity and weaken US hegemony; and that is why for all their lip service, many US allies have refused to take orders from Washington. This trend is evident when the dots are connected:
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) announced, after its 2023 summit in Johannesburg in August, its enlargement with the admission of six new members (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) from January 2024, and that more than 20 other countries are vying for admission.
The US and its NATO allies suffered a setback in the 2023 G20 summit held in New Delhi last month. The Financial Times noted that the New Delhi declaration “refers only to the ‘war in Ukraine’, a formulation that supporters of Kyiv such as the US and NATO allies have previously rejected as it implies both sides are equally complicit ... a blow to Western countries that have spent the past year attempting to convince developing countries to condemn Moscow and support Ukraine”. Whereas the statement of the 2022 G20 summit in Bali deplored the “aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”.
Last year, India imported a daily average of 1.02 million barrels of Russian crude, representing an 11-fold increase from the previous year and 20 percent of the country’s overall oil imports, despite US sanctions on Russia.
In February last year, the Biden administration formally released its Indo-Pacific Strategy. Eighteen months on, nothing has been done in this regard, mainly because India and Southeast Asian countries are not so easy to push around now. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have been vocal about their abhorrence of the attempts to force them to take sides in the US-China rivalry. Indonesia, the ASEAN chair this year, reiterated in February that ASEAN countries should not become a proxy for any power. And India has aspirations for a multipolar world order with itself as one of the poles.
In August 2021, Biden urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, to increase oil production to help curb rising US gasoline prices, to no avail, and then made the same request again in July 2022 when he visited Saudi Arabia, again to no avail. It is also noteworthy that Saudi Arabia has greatly strengthened its economic and trade ties with China in recent years, notwithstanding the US’ raging trade war against China.
The European Union, a key US ally, suffered a setback in its “strategic autonomy” drive as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But some observers believe the EU and its leaders remain committed to “the strategic purpose of affording a political autonomy independent from US foreign policies”, described by European Council President Charles Michel as “goal number one for our generation” in 2020. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz approved, in late October 2022, a deal for China to purchase a partial stake in Germany’s Hamburg port despite strong opposition from the US; in the following month, he became the first leader of a G7 state to visit China since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and declared in a pre-departure op-ed published in Politico that “we do not want to decouple from it (China)”.
These developments suggest that the balance is tilting toward multipolarity, and that the concept of a global community with a shared future, as propounded by Chinese President Xi Jinping 10 years ago, is gaining traction in the international community. After all, the choice between mutual benefit versus zero-sum competition is not a difficult one to make. China’s recently released white paper, “A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions”, serves as a blueprint for achieving this vision and demonstrates the country’s commitment to it, and is likely to further strengthen the international community’s confidence in it. For the sake of the world’s sustainable development, it is time for Washington to abandon its Cold War mentality and comply with the global trend in promoting multipolarity.
Ivan Chu is a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies. Edward Wong is a researcher of Hong Kong Sustainable Development Research Institute.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of Bauhinia Magazine.
Sound Sino-US relations crucial to world's sustainable development
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2023-10-05 09:52
2023-10-05 09:52
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By Ivan Chu and Edward Wong
The good wishes for Chinese people’s “peace, happiness and prosperity” extended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on behalf of the United States before the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China must have been music to the ears of not only Chinese and American people but also to those of people around the world.
It remains to be seen whether Blinken’s well-wishes were merely a diplomatic nicety or a gesture conveying Washington’s desire to improve Sino-US relations. A further deterioration in the two countries’ bilateral relations would in no way bode well for Chinese people’s “peace, happiness and prosperity”, or for the overall well-being of the American people and all other people around the world.
The US has taken the initiative to facilitate a series of exchanges between the two countries with several high-ranking US officials having visited China over recent months. These exchanges have resulted in the establishment of two joint working groups focusing on economics and finance. Their establishment is seen as an effort to improve ties and enhance bilateral cooperation on important issues.
Indeed, Blinken said in his brief statement congratulating the People’s Republic of China on the occasion of its 74th anniversary, “As the United States continues to work with the international community to solve the world’s most serious challenges, we welcome the cooperation of the People’s Republic of China in addressing shared challenges, including the climate crisis, public health, counter-narcotics, food security, and global macroeconomic stability.”
But some observers believe that Washington’s seemingly softened stance on Beijing is merely a tactical shift to secure the latter’s cooperation, which would be enormously helpful to the administration of US President Joe Biden as it struggles to overcome some daunting domestic problems before next year’s presidential election. They opined that before Washington eventually accepts the reality that its efforts to perpetuate the US-dominated unipolar world order are futile, it won’t abandon its anti-China crusade.
Washington’s efforts to preserve the unipolar world order and the global hegemony it enjoys under this international order are doomed because they do not serve the best interests of most countries. That is why more and more countries have embraced international efforts that will, in effect, enhance multipolarity and weaken US hegemony; and that is why for all their lip service, many US allies have refused to take orders from Washington. This trend is evident when the dots are connected:
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) announced, after its 2023 summit in Johannesburg in August, its enlargement with the admission of six new members (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) from January 2024, and that more than 20 other countries are vying for admission.
The US and its NATO allies suffered a setback in the 2023 G20 summit held in New Delhi last month. The Financial Times noted that the New Delhi declaration “refers only to the ‘war in Ukraine’, a formulation that supporters of Kyiv such as the US and NATO allies have previously rejected as it implies both sides are equally complicit ... a blow to Western countries that have spent the past year attempting to convince developing countries to condemn Moscow and support Ukraine”. Whereas the statement of the 2022 G20 summit in Bali deplored the “aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”.
Last year, India imported a daily average of 1.02 million barrels of Russian crude, representing an 11-fold increase from the previous year and 20 percent of the country’s overall oil imports, despite US sanctions on Russia.
In February last year, the Biden administration formally released its Indo-Pacific Strategy. Eighteen months on, nothing has been done in this regard, mainly because India and Southeast Asian countries are not so easy to push around now. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have been vocal about their abhorrence of the attempts to force them to take sides in the US-China rivalry. Indonesia, the ASEAN chair this year, reiterated in February that ASEAN countries should not become a proxy for any power. And India has aspirations for a multipolar world order with itself as one of the poles.
In August 2021, Biden urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, to increase oil production to help curb rising US gasoline prices, to no avail, and then made the same request again in July 2022 when he visited Saudi Arabia, again to no avail. It is also noteworthy that Saudi Arabia has greatly strengthened its economic and trade ties with China in recent years, notwithstanding the US’ raging trade war against China.
The European Union, a key US ally, suffered a setback in its “strategic autonomy” drive as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But some observers believe the EU and its leaders remain committed to “the strategic purpose of affording a political autonomy independent from US foreign policies”, described by European Council President Charles Michel as “goal number one for our generation” in 2020. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz approved, in late October 2022, a deal for China to purchase a partial stake in Germany’s Hamburg port despite strong opposition from the US; in the following month, he became the first leader of a G7 state to visit China since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and declared in a pre-departure op-ed published in Politico that “we do not want to decouple from it (China)”.
These developments suggest that the balance is tilting toward multipolarity, and that the concept of a global community with a shared future, as propounded by Chinese President Xi Jinping 10 years ago, is gaining traction in the international community. After all, the choice between mutual benefit versus zero-sum competition is not a difficult one to make. China’s recently released white paper, “A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions”, serves as a blueprint for achieving this vision and demonstrates the country’s commitment to it, and is likely to further strengthen the international community’s confidence in it. For the sake of the world’s sustainable development, it is time for Washington to abandon its Cold War mentality and comply with the global trend in promoting multipolarity.
Ivan Chu is a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies. Edward Wong is a researcher of Hong Kong Sustainable Development Research Institute.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of Bauhinia Magazine.
