Division or dialogue with China?
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard
TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022
TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
Division or dialogue with China?

Analysis

Andrew Sheng & Xiao Geng, Project Syndicate
26 November, 2020, 09:10 pm
Last modified: 26 November, 2020, 09:28 pm

Related News

  • Shanghai achieves 'zero Covid' status but normal life is weeks away
  • Oil prices fall on China's weak economic data
  • China's economy skids as lockdowns hit factories, retailers
  • China's economy cools sharply in April as lockdowns bite
  • Reasons why duty-free access did not jack up exports to China

Division or dialogue with China?

Joe Biden’s presidency amounts to a golden opportunity to initiate a direct and honest dialogue with China on issues that require constructive engagement. But time is of the essence. If Biden begins his term by choosing division over dialogue, changing course will soon become difficult, if not impossible.

Andrew Sheng & Xiao Geng, Project Syndicate
26 November, 2020, 09:10 pm
Last modified: 26 November, 2020, 09:28 pm
Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters

Americans don't agree on much of anything nowadays. Yet they are largely united in their belief that China represents an existential challenge to their country and the international order it has long led. This combination of internal division and external demonization has made the Sino-American rivalry increasingly inescapable – and potentially catastrophic.

America's internal divisions have been fueled in recent years by social media, which, by populating users' feeds with tailored content, creates "echo chambers" that reinforce, rather than challenge, their beliefs and values. When alternative ideas do make it into the echo chamber, they are often distorted or smeared. And when someone within the chamber calls into question shared beliefs, they risk being instantly ostracized or, in contemporary parlance, "canceled."

This ultra-reactive demonization of diverging views not only flattens discourse; it also narrows the space between disagreement and conflict – even violent conflict. Widespread frustration with leaders' failure to deliver justice, security, and opportunity heightens the risks further.

The same tendencies can be seen in America's approach to China. For example, the US State Department's just-released report, "The Elements of the China Challenge," villainizes the Communist Party of China, describing it as "unconstrained by respect for individual liberty and human rights."

The report also stokes fear of China's supposed "authoritarian goals" and "hegemonic ambitions," which imply a desire to infuse the US-led global order with its own social and political model. And it recommends that the United States build a united front against China, in order to secure – by military force, if necessary – "freedom" for the world.

None of this has gone unnoticed in China, which has been conducting its own, increasingly unfavorable assessment of the US. It now seems clear to China's leaders, citizens, and businesses that, far from a land of freedom and opportunity, the US is a deeply fragmented society, blighted by systemic racism, rising inequality, and a lack of common purpose – ills that have long been obscured by fantasies about the "American Dream."

Moreover, far from being the exemplar of democracy, the US has a highly distorted political system. Its institutions, including the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and practices such as gerrymandering, strategic reduction of polling places, and onerous voter verification rules, mean that the majority does not always rule. Wealthy donors purchase influence, whether by financing campaigns or buying up the media.

As China has shed long-held illusions about the US, its hopes for a constructive bilateral relationship have diminished. To be sure, President-elect Joe Biden is unlikely to sustain the roller-coaster ride of surprise attacks, reversals, disruptions, and near-misses President Donald Trump engineered. But less chaotic does not necessarily mean less confrontational: Biden has called Chinese President Xi Jinping a "thug" and pledged to lead a coordinated campaign to "pressure, isolate, and punish China."

So, China is preparing for the worst. This may mean a continuation of Trump's trade war or more senseless finger-pointing over the spread of COVID-19. It may even mean military tensions involving Taiwan, the South China Sea, and China's western borders.

But this does not mean China is stooping to American-style isolationism and demonization. On the contrary, despite the ham-fisted "wolf warrior" tactics of some diplomats, China has taken important steps to advance international cooperation in key areas of shared concern. For example, on climate change, Xi committed at the United Nations to achieve peak carbon-dioxide emissions before 2030 and to aim for carbon neutrality before 2060.

On trade, China has signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, whose 15 member countries account for 30% of humanity. Much to the world's surprise, it has also indicated that it might join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which emerged after Trump withdrew the US from the original Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The US – which is struggling to get the pandemic under control, and seems to be headed toward a double-dip recession – would do well to take a similar approach. Trade is the only way it can escape its current economic predicament. That includes trade with China – the first major economy to recover from the pandemic shock, and the only one to record positive GDP growth in 2020.

But this will be impossible, as long as misapprehensions, antagonism, and mutual suspicion dominate the bilateral relationship. As former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said, the US has two key powers: the power of inspiration and the power of intimidation. In dealing with China – an economic powerhouse with a population of 1.4 billion – intimidation will not work. China will not be cowed into submission on its domestic affairs, such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan.

There is still time, however, for the US to use the power of inspiration to show that it and China can be equal partners in peace, working together to confront shared challenges. There is a moral dimension to this imperative. Many outsiders, including Chinese, cannot comprehend how the world's most technologically advanced country could have allowed over 260,000 people to die from a virus that much poorer countries have combated far more successfully with simple measures. For cooperation to work, the US needs to demonstrate its ability to think in terms of "we," rather than "I."

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains, "The world is divided into the people like us and the people not like us, and what is lost is the notion of the common good." China's enduring commitment to multilateralism indicates that it recognizes this. It is time for the US to do the same, and to embrace a direct and honest dialogue on issues that require constructive engagement.

Biden's presidency amounts to a golden opportunity to initiate this crucial conversation. But time is of the essence. If Biden begins his term by choosing division over dialogue, changing course will soon become difficult, if not impossible.


Andrew Sheng, Distinguished Fellow of the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the UNEP Advisory Council on Sustainable Finance, is a former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. His latest book is From Asian to Global Financial Crisis.

Xiao Geng, Chairman of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance, is a professor and Director of the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School. 

Disclaimer: This opinion first appeared on project-syndicate.org, and is published by special syndication arrangement.

Top News

division / dialogue / china

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • EU’s Green Deal: Will Bangladesh’s export suffer in the long run?
    EU’s Green Deal: Will Bangladesh’s export suffer in the long run?
  • Illustration: TBS
    How Putin revived Nato
  • File photo of Sheikh Hasina/Collected
    Returned home to bring smile on people' faces: PM

MOST VIEWED

  • Despite Bangladesh having about 24,000 km of waterways, only a few hundred kilometres are covered by commercial launch services. Photo: Saad Abdullah
    Utilising waterways: When common home-goers show the way
  • Illustration: TBS
    How Putin revived Nato
  • Food inflation pain puts emerging markets between rock and hard place
    Food inflation pain puts emerging markets between rock and hard place
  • NATO prepares to add Finland and Sweden to northern defenses
    NATO prepares to add Finland and Sweden to northern defenses
  • EU braces for storm as Ukraine fallout cascades in economy
    EU braces for storm as Ukraine fallout cascades in economy
  • Paelvi Pulli, head of security policy at the Swiss Defence Ministry gestures during an interview with Reuters in Bern, Switzerland May 4, 2022. Picture taken May 4, 2022. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
    Neutral Switzerland leans closer to Nato in response to Russia

Related News

  • Shanghai achieves 'zero Covid' status but normal life is weeks away
  • Oil prices fall on China's weak economic data
  • China's economy skids as lockdowns hit factories, retailers
  • China's economy cools sharply in April as lockdowns bite
  • Reasons why duty-free access did not jack up exports to China

Features

Despite Bangladesh having about 24,000 km of waterways, only a few hundred kilometres are covered by commercial launch services. Photo: Saad Abdullah

Utilising waterways: When common home-goers show the way

1h | Panorama
Illustration: TBS

How Putin revived Nato

3h | Panorama
The reception is a volumetric box-shaped room that has two glass walls on both the front and back ends and the other two walls are adorned with interior plants, wood and aluminium screens. Photo: Noor-A-Alam

The United House: Living and working inside nature

3h | Habitat
Pcycle team members at a waste management orientation event. Photo: Courtesy

Pcycle: Turning waste from bins into beautiful crafts

4h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Can your coworker be your closest friend?

Can your coworker be your closest friend?

4h | Videos
The mystery behind Pyramid

The mystery behind Pyramid

4h | Videos
Finland, Sweden decide to join NATO

Finland, Sweden decide to join NATO

16h | Videos
Where you can swim for Tk5

Where you can swim for Tk5

18h | Videos

Most Read

1
Representative Photo: Pixabay.
Bangladesh

Microplastics found in 5 local sugar brands

2
Mushfiq Mobarak. Photo: Noor-A-Alam
Panorama

Meet the Yale professor who anchors his research in Bangladesh and scales up interventions globally

3
Impact of falling taka against US dollar
Banking

Taka losing more value as global currency market volatility persists

4
Govt tightens belt to relieve reserve
Economy

Govt tightens belt to relieve reserve

5
Union Capital asked to return Tk100cr FDR to BATBC 
Banking

Union Capital asked to return Tk100cr FDR to BATBC 

6
How Bangladesh can achieve edible oil self-sufficiency with local alternatives
Bazaar

How Bangladesh can achieve edible oil self-sufficiency with local alternatives

The Business Standard
Top
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • About Us
  • Bangladesh
  • International
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Economy
  • Sitemap
  • RSS

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net

Copyright © 2022 THE BUSINESS STANDARD All rights reserved. Technical Partner: RSI Lab