US sensitive about newly diminished global status

By Diao Daming Source:Global Times Published: 2012-6-18 20:35:03

Chinese were shocked by a survey released on June 13 by independent opinion research group Pew Research Center. According to its poll, among the 21 surveyed nations, 42 percent of the public believes that China is the world's leading economy. In contrast, only 36 percent still insists the position is held by the US.

China's stable economic growth has indeed impressed the world. But the public's misconceptions can be easily disproved by data from the IMF, which shows that China's 2011 GDP, $7.29 trillion, is half that of the US' $15.09 trillion. And if the comparison is made by GDP per capita, the US public is actually nine times richer than China's.

However, what's odd this time is Washington's reaction to the survey. While the Chinese took the survey with a pinch of salt, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney protested the result, insisting that the US economy "is still the largest in the world."

The US has become increasingly intolerant to China's peaceful rise, as it cannot even take a public attitude survey lightly now. Moreover, the survey noted that "Obama has not lived up to the expectations people had for him when he first took office," which may hurt Obama's chance for a second term in this election year.

For the Chinese public, it is a joy to see a positive forecast about China's economic future and its leadership in the international community, but between there and reality is still a huge gap that China has to close to catch up with the developed countries.

Besides, this report may also motivate some US politicians to hype China's threat to the US, calling for policies that will eventually hurt the interests of both nations. We must beware of this.

Observing from a middle- to long-term prospective, emerging countries like China will continue to rise while traditional Western powers continue to relatively decline. This is a trend that can hardly be reversed, and the US is already thinking from the perspective of a weaker country.

For instance, the US had never participated in the East Asia Summit until last year, when Obama not only went to Indonesia for the meeting but also brought along a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. This indicates that the US is much more concerned about China's status in Asia than before.

China needs to have certain wisdom and skills to deal with a sensitive US in this new era, and to establish a new relationship with our US counterparts that can surpass the restraints of history as this will affect the peace, stability and development of our world.

The author is an assistant director at the Tsinghua Center for US-China Relations. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

 



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