Doing our own thing well is China's greatest ability, and it is also our greatest advantage in the game of the United States. We very much welcome the signs of détente in Sino-US relations, and they definitely deserve our serious attention and maintenance. At the same time Chinese need to remember that the most reliable is always ourselves.
National security adviser Sullivan said on the 16th that the interaction between the leaders of the United States and China should lead to a series of tasks to high-level and powerful interlocutors on both sides to promote progress, thereby ensuring that the possibility of friction and conflict is reduced. Sullivan's remarks further confirm the willingness of the US side to ease tensions with China.
Sullivan Infographic
In a public address at the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think tank, Sullivan outlined four aspects of U.S. policy toward China, including working together on pressing issues of common U.S.-China interests, addressing challenges that the two countries once worked together and now face important tests, effectively managing differences through improved direct communication (such as the Taiwan issue), resolving unresolved issues in the phase one economic and trade agreement, and using all tools to counter China's "unfair economic behavior." This is similar to Blinken's "cooperation, competition, confrontation" trichotomy.
Recently, the United States has repeatedly stressed the need to add a "guardrail" to the fierce competition between China and the United States that will not turn into a conflict, and China does not take this word from the United States, and we often talk about controlling differences. Because the fierce competition mentioned by the US side contains the meaning of legitimizing them to suppress and contain China, the so-called "guardrail" is mainly a unilateral constraint on China based on the interests of the United States and allies. The starting point for managing differences is more equal, requiring both parties to assume obligations.
The positive significance of the "guardrail" theory is that the US side feels that there is a growing risk of uncontrollable conflict between China and the United States due to excessive wrestling or misjudgment, and they have a clear willingness to reduce this risk. Neither country wants to slide into an unmanageable strategic confrontation, thus increasing the urgency of the summit meeting and the practical implementation of the results of the meeting.
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It should be noted that the position where Sino-US relations sound the alarm is in a relatively broad area of Sino-US relations, not the situation in which the United States has forced China into a strategic corner. This is due to China's effective resistance to the overall threat of the United States in recent years, creating a space for strategic maneuvering with the United States, and winning its own right to speak and calmly playing the game against the United States.
The U.S. strategic containment of China has not changed, and it probably will not change, but it has recently slowed down and adjusted the scale of pressure, leaving some room for much-needed Sino-US cooperation in areas such as climate. They have a need for cooperation, but they are still reluctant to accept reality, or want to emphasize their original competitive strategy. Washington is likely to be swaying in the future.
Overall, China has proven itself to be resilient over the past few years, with most of the indicators generated by the trade war being more favorable to our side, while the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the WEAKNESS of the United States, making it even more unable to organize new attacks on China. Our strength continues to grow in the game, and the gap between China and the United States has further narrowed. All of this has dampened the ambitions of some political elites in the United States to use brute force to quickly crush China or to defeat China's growth momentum. China's line of running its own affairs has achieved initial success, striking a blow at Washington's arrogance toward China.
At the beginning of the Biden administration, he repeatedly preached "starting from the position of power" to deal with China, but compared with the historical situation, the support provided by the United States today's position of power is one of the smallest. The scale of production between China and the United States is roughly the same as that in international trade, and China's potential and staying power are obviously higher than those of the United States. Do America's political elites still believe they can succeed in containing and transforming China? The Biden administration recently said it would no longer seek to change the Chinese system, unlike simply releasing smokescreens that paralyzed China.
We conclude that U.S. policy toward China is volatile and often inconsistent with deeds, but China's continued to do its own thing is our constant trump card for dealing with their ever-changing counterparts. Doing our own thing well is China's greatest ability, and it is also our greatest advantage in the game of the United States. We very much welcome the signs of détente in Sino-US relations, and they definitely deserve our serious attention and maintenance. At the same time Chinese need to remember that the most reliable is always ourselves.
Source: Global Times