The present situation of US - China relations is tense, like an overwound clockwork with no release mechanism. The U.S. has developed its targeting-China strategy through at least three U.S. Presidential Administration eras (Obama-Trump-Biden) with bipartisan consensus and mass media support. The clockwork of the anti-China strategy was wound up so tight because, in each election cycle, the two parties in the U.S. were motivated to blame the U.S. problems, domestic and foreign issues, on a foreign target. The U.S. bipartisan politics pass legislations and execute administrative power with ‘bickering-horse trading-voting district and election impact’ concern, it is difficult to trace and pin the consequences of any legislation or administrative order to a single party or even a single president. Hence, the convenient way out is to blame a foreign country and promise that we can be tougher on the targeted enemy to play on citizens’ patriotism. The Soviet Union, Japan, EU, and Russia had been the ‘target in the past, now China is the principal target.

    For the next presidential election in 2024, both political parties in the U.S. are trying to direct the voters' attention to China. It is true that China has risen rapidly in the past two decades. It has lifted a billion of its people out of poverty and grew its economy to become the second largest in the world. Both U.S. parties and every presidential candidate are bound by this artificially created ‘political correctness’ and the politicians are motivated to demonstrate who can be tougher on China. This is the reason that the anti-China clockwork has been wound up so tight. China apparently has seen through the U.S. China policy and decided not to waste time engaging in meaningless dialogues with the U.S. They see that the U.S. is saying one thing and doing the other. For China, it has felt simply frustrated and useless in its attempt to improve U.S.-China relations. At the last high-level meeting in Alaska on March 18-19, 2021, China had finally exhausted its patience, it felt that their effort has been fruitless except serving the media mainly for the U.S. election drama. (The way the U.S. managed the meeting and the media’s presence has clearly contributed to China’s anger.) Since then China has laid down conditions for dialogue. Without dialogue means no means to release the overwound clockwork.

     A wound-up clockwork would take time to release its energy, second by second and minute by minute. But in real-time the world has felt the tension between the U.S. and China, the painful effect of the COVID pandemic and other natural disasters, the man-made war between Russia and Ukraine, and the global inflation and its consequences on the world economy. In addition, the U.S. orchestrated world-wide semiconductor technology and product sanctions against China has an effect of turning over the apple cart of the supply chain, manufacturing, and product distribution of the entire world semiconductor industry. The U.S. plan is long in sanctions and punishment for exporting products, technology, and investments to China but short in building a realistic alternative solution to satisfy the world dependence on the semiconductor industry. Biden’s Administration is overestimating the cards in G7 countries and wishfully hoping that the U.S. can rebuild a new semiconductor world order with the three little dragons that it can influence. This is very doubtful simply because the U.S. is no longer the world's largest consumer or market of semiconductor products.

    China is the world's largest manufacturer, hence the largest consumer of semiconductor products. Under globalization, China indeed relies on the supply of the world semiconductor industry, particularly the U.S., Japan South Korea, and Taiwan. However, economic principles tell us, in the complete cycle of capital-material-technology-manufacturing-markets, markets are the primary driver and capital is the lubricant. China possesses the largest semiconductor market and holds plenty of capital, it is in able to invest and build its own complete semiconductor supply chain. The U.S. focuses on hi-end semiconductor technology, design and nano-meter manufacturing, which is to a large extent misguided by their importance in hi-end military applications. It is true that in a prolonged war using hi-technology weapons, hi-end semiconductor technology would be a key element, however, in the consumer world, the root semiconductor manufacturing processes based on 14- and 28- nanometer technology are the real workhorse. China has no problem gearing up its manufacturing to meet the demand. So in a non-military confrontation, China may be slowed down a little in its economic development, but it will catch up quickly in a short time.

    Assuming the U.S. is plotting to engage in a hi-tech military confrontation with China, does the U.S. hold all the winning cards? No, it does not, that is why the road of U.S.-China relations is very rocky if it is pursuing a non-peaceful road. First, taking a broad assessment of China’s military capability, one can see that China is now having an independent Beidou system totally independent of the U.S. GPS system (GPS was helpful to Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war). China’s navy is advancing at 2.5 times the pace of the U.S., it already has three modern carriers more than sufficient to defend its coastlines and economic zones. China was able to put a space station single-handedly in space, there is no doubt about its capability in missiles and supersonic jets and weapons. The high-end nanometer technology is at the end of its physical limit, there isn’t much lead there for the U.S. and EU to hold. Besides, the process of moving TSMC’s hi-end nano factory to Arizona is facing numerous problems including labor skills, racial discrimination, and higher cost issues. In addition, China for retaliating the U.S. sanctions, has started its control of export of gallium and germanium vital components for hi-tech and hi-end military weapon development.

   Therefore, we may extrapolate and predict that the present anti-China strategy is not a sensible choice. Taking a peaceful road to build U.S.-China relations makes better sense and mutual benefits. This peaceful road does exist since there is no concrete proof that China is destined to replace the U.S. as the world hegemony. All the China threat stories are fiction based on imaginary assumptions. On the contrary, a peaceful road for U.S.-China relation does exist if the U.S. elects to take it. Unfortunately, the peaceful road for U.S.-China relations is rocky in the present 'political correctness' road.
 
Ifay Chang. Ph.D., Inventor, Author, TV Game Show Host and Columnist (www.us-chinaforum.org) as well as serving as Trustee, Somers Central School District




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David P. Goldman, Deputy Editor of Asia Times, and Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute wrote an opinion paper in Newsweek (7/31/2023) entitled, ‘China Was the World’s Greatest Economic Miracle and It Will Be Again’. Goldman clearly presented the reasons for China’s rise as seen from its steady growth of GDP from 1979 (GDP per capita $404) to 2015 attributed to Deng Xiaoping’s opening China’s economy to the world and turning farmers into industrial workers. Then with the right policies to usher in the digital economy sustaining continued economic growth to reach a GDP per capita of $11,560 in 2022. China is now leading in advanced 5G technology and robotic and AI-assisted manufacturing. 
 
China’s impressive success compared to India can be correlated with China’s massive investment in education program which produces the world’s largest STEM manpower and its inclusive trade policy which focuses not only on the developed countries but also reaching to developing economies including the Global South. Goldman also discarded the ‘China collapse’ promoters by arguing that population decline does not equate to economic demise at all as evidenced by South Korea’s transformation from cheap labor to hi-tech contender. Goldman points out that China’s post-COVID 21% unemployment among college graduates is a high-class problem that eventually will be turned into a productive force to support the world economy. 
 
What Goldman did not say as a main thrust for driving its rapid rise is that China has a positive national program with huge forward momentum to lift its people out of poverty and accumulate wealth. Any external negative program targeting stopping China’s growth and development momentum will only pump up China’s energy to work harder for achieving a better life. The Chinese government’s strategy of creating even wealth distribution for the poor has succeeded in elevating the majority of the population. The increase of the number of Chinese tourists found worldwide is a piece of evidence. The U.S. anti-China trade and economic policies did not slow down China’s economic growth but hurt its own industries.
 
Goldman used the U.S. orchestrated worldwide sanctioning Huawei policy to illustrate the above point. “The Chinese telecom giant Huawei claims to have 6,000 contracts to build enterprise 5G networks to support factory AI applications, Huawei offers a Cloud-based AI system to enable firms to create their own applications.” Due to the U.S. sanction on chips, Huawei can’t sell a competitive 5G smartphone, but Huawei is leading in other industrial applications of AI running very well on the chips made by China at home. It is no surprise that Chinese factories, ports, airfields, and mines are far more efficient than any others in the world.
 
China is the largest market for many products from agriculture, consumer goods, and industrial applications, including robots. China’s rapid advances in EV manufacturing and export (Goldman cites Model-T automobile industrial revolution for analogy) do suggest that China may lead a fourth industrial revolution offering a $10,000 electric vehicle as the lead product. The anti-China rhetoric has little impact on China’s progress and the negative sanctioning tactics at best will slow China a bit but in the long run they only make China more self-sufficient. Goldman’s comments on China’s quantitative and qualitative success in education and STEM manpower creation offer a piece of strong evidence. One should not be surprised that China is breaking new frontiers in many technological domains including its own global positioning system and space transport.
 
Goldman’s warnings or predictions are credible, but his suggestions for what the U.S. should do are too casual. He suggested we need a crash program to rebuild industry and regain our technological edge, on the scale of JFK's Moonshot or Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. No, we don’t. Although China is advancing in its space program, it is not a major thrust but more a prestige or PR project. The U.S. national debt situation and U.S. currency credibility concern do not warrant our heavy investment in moonshot or any offensive military capability (in the name of defense). What we need is an economic policy based on economic principles to produce a win-win outcome favoring the U.S. By win-win, it calls for collaboration.
 
Let’s use simple language to illustrate the ‘win together’ argument. Let’s say, the U.S. and China each invest $100B in a collaborative joint venture which yields an annual return of $10B (a reasonable 5% return). This means nominally every Chinese will get $3.57 ($5B divided by 1.4 B people) and every American will get $15.1 ($5B divided by 330M people), which is not a bad deal for Americans. Can we find such programs? Sure, we can, healthcare solutions are one category, green energy is another, and the farming and agriculture industry another obvious one. There are many more even in competitive AI and manufacturing sectors. Apple and Tesla can make billions of dollars of profits working with the Chinese is proof of ‘win together’ ideas. Goldman’s prediction can be expected to happen, but the U.S. can peak again with China is also believable.
 
There are numerous opinions about U.S.-China relations and its future course, but unfortunately, the current mass media has adopted an unjustified ‘politically correct’ anti-China attitude and stance. This is a poisonous attitude that will eventually hurt the U.S. and China both even to the world. The ‘win together’ concept is far more a correct political philosophy, not only for China and the U.S. but also for the entire world. It is time for American think-tank scholars to break out of the legacy bondage of Thucydides’ Trap to welcome the ‘win together’ notion. In fact, post WW II, the U.S. attracted many talents from all over the world simply because it offered lots of win-together  opportunities  for the foreign immigrants. Today, the U.S. has changed as shown by its policies, it has become more selfish and less confident. For example, the infamous 'China initiative' policy targeting Chinese American professionals working in academic and industrial institutions has created a chilling atmosphere in the most creative and innovative work environment. We must let our politicians understand that China peaked and will peak again with good reasons, and the U.S. can also peak again by finding and creating win-together opportunities and collaborating with China.





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