Daily Times

Even though US politics is intensely polarized since Donald Trump became US president, there is one area, though, where both sides of the country’s divide, the Republicans and the Democrats, are united – Communist China. United States (US) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China has emerged as “the central threat of our times”.

            US Defense Secretary Mark Esper dwelt on it recently in his address to an international security conference in Munich, Germany. He said, “The Chinese Communist Party is heading even faster and further in the wrong direction – more internal repression, more predatory economic practices, more heavy-handedness and most concerning for me, a more aggressive military posture.”

Elaborating, he said, “The Communist Party and its associated organs, including the People’s Liberation Army, are increasingly operating in theatres outside its borders, including Europe, and seeking advantage by any means, and at any cost.”

And they have even set targets.

For instance, “They have said that by by 2035, the Peoples Republic of China intends to complete its military modernization, and, by 2049, it seeks to dominate Asia as the preeminent global military power.”

Esper continued, “We want China to behave like a normal country, and that means the Chinese government needs to change its policies and behaviors.”

Dealing with Communist China has been, for the US, a process of trial and error. When it was part of the Cold War in the 50s, nominally under Soviet influence, it represented a threat to the ‘free world’ under the US leadership.

When the PRC emerged in 1949, it was seen as a threat to the region, as in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere, which the US sought to combat and push back.

At the same time, even as Communist China was seen as a serious threat externally, China itself plunged into deep internal chaos with Mao Zedong taking on the Communist Party establishment to smash the ‘headquarters’ through the Great Cultural Revolution. It lasted through the 60s and much of the 70s until the new leader, Deng Xiaoping, established his political pre-eminence following Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.

Deng Xiaoping’s China left behind the politics and chaos of Mao’s permanent/perpetual revolution. Deng wanted to make China into a strong nationalist state by making it into an economic and political powerhouse, as well as by modernizing its military force. And for that he was prepared to lift his ideological blinkers and make use of capitalist mode of economic development, but with complete political control by Communist Party apparatus.

When transiting from Mao chaos, Deng seemed to give some hope that China might also open up politically to democratic change, which encouraged elements in the society at large, and even within the ruling Communist Party, to push for democratic change. And that led to the democracy movement, spearheaded by students, with tragic results of Tiananmen Square massacre resulting in thousands of deaths; with the People’s Liberation Army let loose on peaceful protesters in May 1989.

This created an intense reaction in Western countries with a setback to China’s relations with the US and its allies. But the setback was temporary.

When Deng Xiaoping sorted out the internal situation and continued China on its path of economic development, the outside world, while still criticizing abrogation of China’s human rights, started to adjust to the reality of China’s growing political and economic weight in the world.

China was admitted to the World Trade Organization. With its low manufacturing costs from cheap labor (with virtually no trade union rights), China started to become the factory of the world, flooding the world markets with low cost manufacturing goods.

With such cheap labor and uninterrupted production (with no labor movement/strikes), more and more Western companies set up their manufacturing/assembly lines in China.

Dealing with Communist China has been, for the US, a process of trial and error

At the same time, with a growing middle class in China hankering for Western labels (even when made in China), China was able to bargain entry of Western goods into Chinese market by insisting on technology transfers.

In the meantime, with China becoming the factory of the world and domestic manufacturing increasingly losing its primary place, the US expanded its financial sector, packaging and repackaging credit and debt into multiple forms, giving the appearance of ever increasing wealth. These shoddy financial instruments were like Pyramid schemes, which when debts were called in, started to crumble.

This then became the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2007-2008, which in some form or the other is still haunting the world.

While the GFC affected China too, but it sought to turn it into a plus by launching an ambitious economic stimulus program, that not only accelerated its economic development (though creating a pollution nightmare) but also helped lift sectors of the global economy.

In Australia, for instance, China’s economic stimulus, by way of a large-scale construction program, contributed to Australia’s economic prosperity by way of demand for its resources sector, like iron ore. Other regional economies also came to increasingly depend on trade and investment from China.

Its continuous economic growth enabled China to use its growing economic pie to modernize and expand its military power and project it to back up its vast sovereign claims over islands in the South China Sea.

And Beijing has become increasingly more assertive and aggressive by occupying many of theses islands, with contested sovereignty claims by other countries, and militarizing them; thus turning South China Sea into its internal waterways, much more so after Xi Jinping became China’s President for life.

It is not that all this happened overnight. China’s sovereignty claims over South China Sea islands have been long standing but it lacked the economic, political and military power to make it a physical reality in all cases.

Now it has the political and military power to confront other claimants, including even the United States, which seeks to exercise the freedom of the seas through these international waterways. So far, their navies have avoided direct confrontation but it has been close enough.

All these years, since the War on Terror at the beginning of this century after the al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks in New York, the US military power has been overstretched in the Middle East.

åChina has been able to build up a countervailing power role, which is frustrating the US. This was very much evident at the international security conference in Munich, Germany.

Ever since Trump has become President, his administration has sought to take on China, particularly over trade where China has continued to enjoy a hefty surplus in their trade relationship, thus leading to a tariff war between the two countries; which, at present, is having a pause but might resume anytime. Which involves the entire issue of reshaping the global strategic picture in the coming years.

The US seems united internally to push back China’s onslaught to create a new world order over a period, where it is the dominant power.

Xi Jiping’s China is equally determined to reassert its Middle Kingdom image, where all power was seen to begin and end with China. Its global Belt and Road initiative, as well as making China into a technology superpower, attest to such ambition.

Will the US like to be sidelined? Seems unlikely. If so, the world might be in for serious trouble in the years ahead.

The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist