The US cannot strong-arm a determined China

By Mu Lu Source:Global Times Published: 2019/7/24 22:28:40

Despite being a historically unpopular US president, Donald Trump is cruising toward reelection in 2020. The first reason is the economy. The US now has a pretty good economic growth, which can serve as Trump's leverage in his campaign. Second, Trump's core voters are immovable. Third, there are problems among the Democrats. They don't have an outstanding candidate, and if they cannot inspire swing voters, they would probably lose them. Although some "reluctant Trump voters" have already shown "willingness to bail on Trump by voting for Democrats in last November's midterms," the Democrats could still blow it.

Let's assume Trump will be reelected. What will happen to China-US relations? The world will want to know Washington's stance toward Beijing. 

Trump's current policies are mostly determined by his cabinet, which includes anti-China hawks. Trump's policies have not been completely shaped, which can be seen through the two totally different open letters to him.

However, this doesn't mean China can expect too much from the US if Trump continues for another four years. It is not likely to see a change in Washington's attitude as the open letter "China is not an enemy" suggests. Hence, we should be fully prepared to continue the long-term game with the US.

Hawkish US politicians use confronting China's rise as their most important task. This assures their political careers. So we don't need to go tit-for-tat and try to convince them, but rather focus on our own business. They will proactively change their minds once they realize their paranoia doesn't work. We believe Washington is basically keeping a Cold War mind-set and trying to curb China's technological development, which has sparked China's national competitiveness of China. As long as Chinese high-tech companies like Huawei lead the field, the US won't desist. The US wants to decouple China from the global economy, attempting to damage China's economic environment to block its growth. Such efforts will eventually harm the US and "undermine the economic interests of all nations," because the deep ties between Beijing and Washington are determined by globalization. China is an important topic for the US political circle. This determines how the US approaches China. We need to unswervingly adhere to our strategy toward the US - focus on development, and constantly boost the strength of our economy, technology and military, and calmly face the threats and challenges of the US. 

The US is no longer the superpower it used to be, that it can freely manipulate China. Regardless of who is elected US president in 2020, as long as we hold our ground and do what we should, the US won't be able to strong-arm us anymore. 



Posted in: OBSERVER

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