US-China hostility must end for the benefit of both countries – and the rest of the world

The relentless China bashing that has given way to tit-for-tat military posturing is depressing, as closed mindsets feed paranoia
That US-China trade has grown despite the tensions signals the strong natural drive for partnership and cooperation

Wang Wen

Published: 1:00am, 2 Mar 2023

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Here we go again. A giant Chinese balloon floats across North America, and US politicians want to shoot it, and China, down. Surely the sabre rattlers know how much is at stake – and how little another kerfuffle will mean to the symbiotic aspirations of good people on both sides of the Pacific.

The ballyhoo over the balloon won’t make a pinprick in the billions of dollars’ worth of trade between the two countries that occur every month. This voluminous commerce is one of the greatest achievements in human history, and foundational to both countries’ success.

The Chinese people get jobs and resources to rebuild their country, and a sense of growing prosperity; the US gets shelves stacked with affordable goods that keep consumers content, and some of the best brains China has to offer. Over the past 30 years, there have been military incidents and fears of imminent confrontation, yet the sky remains the limit for the helium-filled trade between the two countries.

Since Donald Trump, however, the chest-thumping animosity has felt very different. Intractable ideological differences have become increasingly heated, but I’m not talking about the contradictions between the two countries.

China has become the whipping boy that soothes the bitter acrimony between the hard right and left in the United States. Hostility towards China is just about their only common ground, and no one dares to diverge from this demagoguery.

The hotter the rhetoric, the more cliquey they become. Few in Congress or beyond are willing to speak a single conciliatory word about China. Yet our codependent commerce flourishes unabated.

The US has accused China of high-altitude spying, and not for a second was China given the benefit of the doubt. The self-righteous and bellicose ranting over the balloon has forced many Chinese to recall the 2001 incident that cost Chinese pilot Wang Wei his life after his aircraft collided with an American jet conducting high-altitude surveillance over Hainan province. Wang died after his plane crashed in the South China Sea.

It doesn’t take top-secret clearance for people on both sides to see that technology and artificial intelligence have been a boon to the spy game.

There’s no stopping any industrial military complex from seeking any advantage, but tech failures have had deadly consequences. Chinese people still remember the 1999 tragedy when the US accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists.

These are needless and unintended tragic consequences sprung from closed and mean-spirited mindsets. They have engendered baseless conspiracy theories, and led to a proliferation of disinformation that serves to cement confirmation bias. The unfortunate result has been mutual paranoia.

03:30

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Chinese people feel the deck is stacked against us; the brutality we endured in the last century will never be forgotten or allowed to be repeated. While China’s military expenditure is increasing – some US$230 billion last year – it is but one third of what the US spends on its war machinery. Imagine the dividend our countries would reap if this balloon could start to deflate.

As it stands, the tit-for-tat manoeuvring of our respective militaries will continue. The finger-pointing and embellished accusations are not about to stop. This is depressing as there remains so much good the two countries could do together, to the benefit of each other and around the world.

The recent and heightened China-bashing led by the US feels disingenuous and hypocritical considering the huge gap in governance practices, principles and values among some of America’s most supported allies, to which it happily supplies billions of dollars worth of weapons of mass destruction.

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The riddle I’m working on is how to get Americans to understand that hundreds of millions of Chinese are leading productive, wholesome lives in pursuit of happiness. Chinese people have been the beneficiaries of a system that is evolving and unstoppable. US efforts to place roadblocks in our path simply haven’t worked and never will. The grave downside to this flawed approach is that Chinese people have long memories.

Of course, there are issues and ills in both societies that can be used to harangue and lecture the other. Perhaps we could create a chart to compare and contrast these challenges, and tick them off as needing a lot of effort to repair. Perhaps we can come to an understanding that these issues are none of the other’s business, and work to heal our own houses.

03:18

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It seems obvious that only the quiet, unstoppable current of commerce can carry all countries to a higher quality of life. But this fundamental and transformative good is being stalled by a giant wall of needless enmity. Unleashing the creative forces that link like-minded people who want to achieve something for themselves, their country and others, is surely what the world needs.

Just imagine how a little congeniality could allow us to manage the existential threats of climate change and pandemics. Progress on these issues would be a globally unifying force. Do we not have enough humanity to rally around the goal of eliminating suffering from poverty, disease and hunger?

Let’s all lower the nature of our nastiness; the stakes are far too high not to. Let us not even contemplate a war between China and the US. It would be an extinction-level event.

Wang Wen is a professor and executive dean at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China