by Burree Sultan 11 October 2023
The strategic confrontations and competition between the USA and China are gearing up day by day. The ratcheting up of nationalism and psychologies of exceptionalism and righteousness make it difficult to show weakness or back down in the face of perceived affronts to their dignity or interests. There have been numerous changes in the last few years. The rise of China is very much cautious for the USA. The rising China in different states of position has the ultimate projective impacts over the USA-led order. There is also the question of whether China will maintain the order or will it make a new order under its supervision. If that happened there would be a new power struggle and new spectrums of conflicts would awaken. There are dual theories related to this phenomenon one claims that there would be a peaceful rise of China while other calls it serene the conflict is inevitable in this sense.
Xi’s visionary implementation of the new liberal economy of China externally is one the sagacious moves which is highly calculated where there will be openness of the market and where there would be constraints in this way. There are now rhetorical changes in the position of China while sayings of the President Xi and giving a new perspective to the world are new dynamical positions of China. Xi’s vision of a new peaceful world is the answer to all the speculations in this regard. China is no longer hiding behind the bars of openness while the world is already experiencing the warrants of its growth spectrums. There was a time when the USA gave leverage to China.
Jack Sullivan, one of the renowned analysts said, “Our export controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance. We are simply ensuring that U.S. and allied technology is not used against us. “There are indeed vivid differences in terms of the USA’s limited approach towards the tech-based exports in the world. Here is an example of the Chinese wonderful approach in this context. Once during the skirmishes in recent times when India banned some products of China in India and youth wearing the shirts with logo, “Boycott China”. It would be surprising to know that Chinese companies were selling and making these shirts. It is common in the business community that even sell your worst enemy what he wanted to use against you. So, this kind of behavior has been utilized by the Chinese for the last few decades in this regard. Unfortunately, this behavior is missing in the context of the USA. The USA is getting into high-tech and elite-oriented mechanisms in the market to get maximum GDP. Though there will be high income in this context the space left by the USA would be filled by the Chinese in this way. The example of solarization in Africa can be mentioned here.
China’s economic rise in recent decades shows the sensible moves of the Chinese. The USA has contextualized security dynamites for the containments of China and somehow Trump Trade war can be mentioned here but at the same time, the USA was giving huge space to China in the market where there were strong bolts of the USA. China’s leverage is increasing in underdeveloped states where there are immense resources like the space of Afghanistan left by the USA while now China is the first country that has sent its official envoys to Afghanistan. The case study of Soloman Island is also important in this context. The strategic position of Soloman Island is essential in the context of Australia which is a Western Country and ally of the USA while in general, it is also important for the USA in the context of Maritime Shifts of powers. Now the space is being carried by the Chinese. So, here the analysis can be made that China is getting stronger in front of the USA.
The American decision to slow China’s technological development is akin to the folly revealed by the old Cliché but modern China is showing that technological advancement can’t be halted at any more position in this regard. When was the time when Chinese youth had a dream that they would like to go to the USA for education and a long stay here it is changing now? The internal data basis is configuring the mutual retrospective of the Chinese. Chinese youth internal consolidations are being noted resultantly therein.
Since the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, several efforts have been taken to slow down the growth of China on different sides including nuclear weapons, space, satellite communication, semiconductors, superconductors, and artificial intelligence. There is a resultant progression in the fields of technological advancement about 5G innovation, new commercial drones, and electric vehicles (EVs). But these things failed to bring China down.
There must be a new and market-oriented approach to follow by the USA in this context. The market-based approach should be followed by the USA by making a new policy orientation for the developing and underdeveloped states in this context. There must be a counter-effective model like BRI that should be launched by the USA for the development and connections of the developing and underdeveloped states. Similarly, the USA must attract these nations by investing in them in ease of the way. There is time for the US to build a new and flexible economic model for the world, the time has passed when there was no accountability as the world is moving towards bipolar or eventually multipolarity so the USA must attract the states not coercive appeal. There must be a strategic change in the cooperation vs. punishment approach by the USA. There is a time when the USA must sustain the monetary conjunctions of the global institutions under the trajectory of the new dynamics and changing equilibrium in this context. The end is very simple there are elements of power transition globally, there is no doubt that there are some fault lines that the USA has gone through but remember this point, there is no projection of China on how it will behave when it comes into power globally. The world is moving to Western values and the ultimate freedom of the masses, there must be sustainability of these values globally.