Mahbubani: If Biden continues to follow Trump's old path toward China, the United States will go to disaster

South Korea's Global Asia Quarterly website published an article by Mahbubani Mahbubani, a scholar at the National University of Singapore, entitled "Is Trump's China Policy Right or Wrong?" Biden's Answer Will Affect the Future" article recommends that the Biden administration stop and conduct a calm analysis of the U.S.-China relationship before developing a clear, reliable, and comprehensive long-term strategy toward China. The full text is excerpted below:

The most important question that the Joe Biden administration must answer when formulating its China policy is actually quite simple: Is Donald Trump's China policy right or wrong? Right now, the one-sided consensus in Washington is that even if Trump is wrong on everything else, he is right on China. So the real danger of the Biden administration is to continue many of Trump's policies. If so, the United States will be headed for disaster.

The purpose of this article is simple: to recommend that the Biden administration stop and conduct a calm analysis of the U.S.-China relationship before formulating a well-organized, reliable, and comprehensive long-term strategy for China. At present, the United States lacks a strategy. Henry Kissinger personally confirmed this to me. The lack of calm analysis and calm strategic calculations actually means that the US China policy has shifted from one fallacy to another. From one extreme to the other, without a stop in the middle of realism, the US China policy will fail.

Trump has done no harm to China

The reality is that the Trump administration's China policy has damaged the position of the United States, done no real harm to China, and failed to prevent China from continuing to develop trade and economic relations with the rest of the world. Therefore, the theme of this article is very simple: If the Biden administration continues to implement the Trump administration's China policy, the result will only lead to the weakening of the United States, China becoming stronger, and far more countries in the world developing substantive relations with China than the United States.

The reason for the failure of Trump's China policy is simple. Trump's policy is not based on an assessment of the realism of America's opponents. So the Biden administration can take a simple and easy step. If the United States takes sensible steps that embody "decent respect for human views," what will it learn from what other countries think of China?

First, no one shares the Trump administration's view that the Chinese Communist Party will disappear. Instead, they would agree with Harvard's Kennedy School assessment that china's approval rating of 1.4 billion Chinese increased from 86.1 percent in 2003 to 93.1 percent in 2016.

Second, and more importantly, no one sees China as a communist exporter that undermines democracy. Many Americans claim that the CCP represents a threat to American democracy. Why, then, do india and Indonesia, and even European countries, see the CCP as a threat to their democracies? The greatest mistake in geopolitical calculations is to allow ideology to override realist analysis.

Third, most serious leaders in the world see Xi Jinping as a competent, competent, and constructive leader. The undeniable reality is that American leaders are dealing with a far-sighted and strategic leader. On the contrary, the Trump administration has sensationalized, harming China's interests, but not the United States. Importantly, while Trump has been praised in the United States for his attacks on China, no major country has backed his China policy. They may see these policies failing.

World Welcomes "Pause" of Sino-US Competition

If this analysis is correct (and it turns out to be), the first important step the Biden administration should take is to acknowledge that Trump's China policy has failed. With this consensus, the Biden administration should plan another china policy. Such an alternative approach can be achieved in five steps.

The first step is to press the pause button for geopolitical competition between the United States and China. Why? Two reasons. The entire world will welcome this "pause" because most countries want to focus first on fighting the challenges of the moment, such as COVID-19. In addition, such a "pause" will buy time for the Biden administration to reverse ineffective policies, such as Trump's tariffs and export restrictions. The goal of these measures is clearly to weaken China's economic power. So weakened? The data shows no weakening. U.S. policymakers should reflect on this important statistic: In 2009, China's retail market was $1.8 trillion, compared to $4 trillion in the United States, more than twice as large as China's. By 2019, China's market size was $6 trillion, more than three times the size of the original, while the size of the U.S. market had only increased to $5.5 trillion, less than 1.5 times.

The second step, during the "pause," is to realistically assess which of Trump's policies are counterproductive and strengthen China's power. The Trump administration's erratic trade war and detention of Ms. Meng have effectively cemented the unity of the Chinese regime because it evokes deep memories of China's "century of humiliation," when Western laws were enforced on Chinese soil. The Biden administration should immediately hint to the Canadian government to release her. This will be in the national interest of the United States. This is the real geopolitical calculation.

The third and most difficult step is to develop a realistic understanding of the real strengths and weaknesses of strategic opponents. Admittedly, this is the most important step in any strategic competition. In its efforts to understand China, the Biden administration should bear in mind an important view of George Kennan, America's greatest strategic thinker, that the outcome of geopolitical competition depends on the extent to which the United States can universally leave the world with the image of a nation that knows what it wants, successfully solves the problems of internal life and assumes the responsibilities of a world power, and has the mental vitality to hold on to itself in the current major ideological currents.

There is no doubt that the United States in general remains the more successful society of today and is ahead of China in many areas. In my writings, I have stressed that China should never underestimate the United States. But the United States would be equally wrong to underestimate China.

Insults offending China would be counterproductive

The fourth step is to develop a comprehensive long-term strategy to control competition with China. This is not an easy task. Some past scenarios are not available. For example, containment is not possible. More and more countries are trading more with China than with the United States. Actually, a lot more. The United States also has no military advantage, especially in areas close to China's coast.

It is wise for the Biden administration to seek the cooperation of allies and partners to jointly formulate a new China policy. Many allies and partners, including Japan, India, Britain, and Australia, share strategic concerns about China's rise in power. However, no country is willing to join the containment policy. It's not just for economic reasons.

All the countries around China are asking the question: Which economy will be stronger in ten or two years, the United States or China? Most pragmatic analysts predict that the U.S. economy will take a back seat in the next ten to two decades. Undoubtedly, when the US economy changes from the world's first to the second, the world's strategic calculations, including the United States itself, will change. But only a few brave souls dare to speak openly about this topic in the United States. For any politician in the United States, talking about this almost inevitable outcome is a political taboo: The United States could become the world's second-largest. This is another reason why the Biden administration should engage in a lot of strategic rethinking before continuing to fully implement Trump's policies.

The fifth and final step the Biden administration must take may seem simple: Stop abusing and offending China. This may be difficult given the U.S. habit of passing on value judgments to other countries. However, the Biden administration should consider not offending China for two reasons. First, even today, the United States is the only country to offend China. No other government in the world has done so. In this case, it will not look like China, but the United States, who will be isolated. Second, publicly offending China would put unwitting pressure on the entire Population of the West to seriously complicate Sino-US relations: the fear of the "Yellow Peril." This fear has surfaced from time to time, leading to an upsurge in anti-Asian violence in the United States.

In the end, what most people want to see is a rational understanding and rational dialogue between the United States and China, the world's two major powers. Verbal abuse never works. The best definition of a good diplomat is: he or she sends you to hell, but speaks in a way that makes you feel as if you're going to enjoy the trip. Diplomacy has been around for thousands of years. This is the best weapon the Biden administration can use to build a new relationship with China and find a balance between competition and cooperation.

Source: Reference News Network