"The first thing to say is that there probably won't be a war with China," begins a column by Nicholas Christoph, a 20-year New York Times columnist and recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, one of which he received for his coverage of events 1989 in Tiananmen Square.
This is a bit like an anecdote about a teacher who taught lessons according to the principle: first to stun, then to interest, and only then to explain.
Was the United States going to fight China?
Was such a turn of events on the agenda at all?
Everyone is aware of the Trump trade war, but Christophe is not writing about it at all: "The United States is likely to be drawn into what is arguably the most dangerous confrontation with another nuclear power since the Cuban Missile Crisis."
In other words, we are not even talking about the Cold War, but about a completely “hot” conflict.
Options are being considered: Chinese troops invade one of the islands controlled by Taiwan, but located closer to the shores of the PRC (Pratas or Tszinmen);
submarines of the Chinese navy cut the submarine internet cables linking Taiwan to the mainland;
Xi Jinping orders to launch a cyberattack to bring down the banking system of the island ... Of course, Christophe stipulates, most experts do not consider such a scenario likely (not to mention a full-scale invasion), but the risk is still very high, much greater than in previous decades “partly because "Writes Christophe," that Xi is a cocky and risky bully who believes the United States is in decline. "
This is where the fun begins.
Most experts dealing with this problem admit that the US authority in the world and in the countries of the Pacific region in particular has really shaken.
"America's debilitating political polarization has undermined its international authority," writes, for example, Professor Brahma Chellani of New Delhi (by the way, a respected scholar in India).
But who is to blame for this polarization?
The Democratic Catechism requires a clear and unambiguous answer: of course, Trump is to blame for everything!
However, it is in the case of China that it is difficult to blame Trump, even if one really wants to.
It is not for nothing that Professor Chellani's article is titled "In relation to China, Biden should be like Trump."
Yes, of course, American society is highly divided, polarized, and this also applies to the political elite.
But there is one area in which a broad bipartisan consensus is attainable: the need to confront China.
“Trump,” Chellani says, “understood this ... His tough policy toward China is his most important and constructive legacy in foreign policy.
If Biden does not take a similar approach, the undermining of US global leadership will become inevitable. "
The Americans themselves write about this inconvenient fact much more restrained and, of course, not forgetting to kick the ex-president.
"The Trump administration was right to change its attitude towards China, but the way it did it was self-destructive, very inconsistent and spontaneous," Paul Hanley, one of the largest US specialists on China who was in charge of relations with the country, admits through clenched teeth. at the National Security Council under Bush and Obama.
However, even his enemies cannot argue that Trump has been tough with China - sometimes even too much.
As for Biden, no one is yet confident in his toughness.
Moreover, according to the conspiracy theory popular among Trump supporters, Biden and his entire family are "in the pocket" of the Chinese communists allegedly due to their corrupt schemes (given the Big Guy's business indiscriminateness, there is nothing particularly improbable in this version).
Why are there conspiracy theorists!
Even highly influential Republican senators directly accuse the Biden administration of flirting with the Chinese Communist Party.
“One of the really troubling trends that came up last week,” Senator Ted Cruz told Fox News Primetime, “when Biden's (administration -
KB
)
candidates
followed one after the other, was China's warm embrace. ... One of the most dramatic shifts to come in the next four years is that the Biden administration will crawl into bed with China.
Look at the candidates that Joe Biden is nominating - they have an unsettling feature of being apologists for the Chinese Communist Party. "
Exaggeration?
Maybe.
But the senators still have reason for alarm: the candidate for the post of Secretary of Commerce, Governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, during a Senate hearing, refused to confirm that she would uphold the sanctions against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Under Trump, this company and 70 related firms were blacklisted: they could not purchase components and technology from American manufacturers without the approval of the transactions by the US authorities.
So, the Chinese giant was forced to abandon the use of the Android OS and proprietary Google services, and not only in America, but throughout the world, and suffered colossal losses.
And now the likely Minister of Commerce in the Biden administration has refused to promise the senators that it will keep Huawei banned.
"This is the news that has been long awaited in Beijing," Karl Rove, a former senior political adviser to Bush, wrote sarcastically in a column in The Wall Street Journal.
Not only Republican politicians who are in opposition to the Democratic president are worried, but also academic experts.
Eric Sayers of the American Enterprise Institute admitted in an interview with the Financial Times that "the concern over which course Biden will take on China is very strong ... there are serious concerns about a return to Obama's mid-2010s approach."
What was this approach?
Back in 2009, the United States actively seduced China with the prospect of creating a mechanism for dual management of world politics, in which Beijing would be assigned the role of a formally equal, but in fact, of course, a junior partner (the so-called Big Two, or G2).
But then Obama was greeted coldly in Beijing - despite the fact that the progressive president, in order not to tease the Chinese leadership, even refused to meet with the 14th Dalai Lama, and made it clear that China was not ready for such an alliance with the United States.
After that, a new stage began in relations between the two powers - the stage of "Pacific containment of China."
Although it sounded menacing, Trump, in general, was right when back in 2011 he said: “China is not our friend.
They are our enemies.
And we behave with them as if they were our friends, and they take off our president's last shirt.
And unfortunately, you and I, too, because our country is suffering ”.
And how could it be otherwise, if the mighty process of de-industrialization of America, launched under Clinton, meant the transfer of production facilities from the United States to China and other countries of Southeast Asia?
It was then, under Obama, that the imbalance in trade relations between Washington and Beijing reached its peak, which, at the cost of tremendous efforts, Trump dealt with during his four years of presidency.
And the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, for which Trump was cursed by all liberals and environmentalists in the world, should first of all correct the imbalance between the two countries.
Trump believed that China would only increase its production, while the United States, under the yoke of the Paris Treaty, would have to reduce its industrial capacity.
All these achievements of the Trump era, Biden crossed out in the very first days of his stay in the Oval Office.
So those who fear a return to the Obama days generally have reason to worry.
True, there are people in Biden's circle who believe that the policy of the previous administration in the Chinese direction would not be bad to continue.
At the hearings in the US Senate, where the candidacy of the new secretary of state was approved, Anthony Blinken - a grated kalach who served as deputy national security adviser and deputy secretary of state under Obama - honestly admitted that Trump was right to be tough on China (and measures to counter Islamic Terrorism in the XUAR called "genocide" of the Uyghur population).
The State Department issued a stern warning to Beijing after Chinese fighters and bombers invaded Taiwan's air defense zone and simulated an attack on the nearby US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, just three days after Biden's inauguration.
And the presidential national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking at the American Institute for Peace, said that China should pay for what it does in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, as well as for "belligerence and threats" towards Taiwan.
"President Biden [and his team] are gearing up for a great start in China," unexpectedly praised his successor, O'Brien, Trump's latest national security adviser, known for his hawkish stance on Beijing.
On the other hand, Biden himself in relations with Beijing has so far demonstrated, if not gentleness and friendliness, then a clear reluctance to escalate.
Here's just one example.
In November last year - after the election - Donald Trump issued a decree barring American businessmen, pension funds and corporations from investing in Chinese companies associated (precisely or presumably) with the Chinese military.
44 firms were blacklisted, and the deadline for terminating transactions with their securities was set at January 28, 2021.
But on January 27, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury Department extended this period for another four months, until May 27.
Why?
Officially - to avoid turbulence in the financial markets.
Unofficially ... suffice it to say that the blacklist included monsters such as oil giant China National Offshore Oil Corporation, China's leading chip maker SMIC, and smartphone maker Xiaomi.
And the Chinese telecommunications giants China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, a few hours after Biden's inauguration, asked the New York Stock Exchange to reconsider the issue of their removal from the list of American depositary shares of ADS and allow them to trade their shares in New York "for the duration of the audit." ...
The cost of the issue is hundreds of millions of dollars (and possibly billions).
By the way, permission was granted.
The only thing we can say with certainty now is that the Biden administration lacks a clear understanding of how to deal with China.
“Oh, by the way, we don't have a Chinese strategy.
I'm just not sure if we can do this, "Nicholas Christophe writes, not without sarcasm, referring to an 80-page report published at the end of January by the Atlantic Council titled" A Longer Telegram: Towards a New American Strategy for China. "
The name is significant: the report of the adviser of the American embassy in Moscow, George Kennan, which he sent to the US Secretary of State in 1946, was called a "long telegram".
In this report (actually sent by telegram) Kennan substantiated the strategy of "containing the USSR", which formed the basis of the post-war relations between the two superpowers.
The "longer telegram" basically echoes Kennan's ideas almost eighty years ago: according to this document, Washington must do everything possible to contain the growth of Beijing's influence by drawing red lines for it and waging an ideological war with "communist China" both inside and outside the United States.
For this it is necessary ... "to create a state mechanism for the development, approval and implementation of such a strategy" for the next 30 years.
That is, 80 pages of a detailed document is not a strategy, it is just a statement of intent to create such a strategy!
Perhaps the most curious thing in this document is the point concerning the unfortunate need for the United States “to change the balance ... of relations with Russia, whether they (the States. -
KB
) like it or not.
Strengthening U.S. alliances effectively is critical, as is Russia's secession from China in the future.
Allowing Russia to fully sink into China's strategic embrace over the past decade will remain the greatest geostrategic mistake of successive US administrations for centuries. ”
Whether Biden will return to the Obama policy of flirting with China, or continue the tough line of his predecessor, his main goal in any case will be to maintain America's geopolitical leadership.
And without separating Russia from China, the United States will not be able to cope with the growing geopolitical rival, the author of The Longer Telegram transparently hints.
And here, perhaps, it is worth listening to him, especially since the "divide and rule" tactics has always been characteristic of Washington's diplomacy.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.