Beijing should use smart power to get relations with the US back onto a cooperative track

Comprehensive competition between China and the United States has become the new normal of bilateral relations over the past few years, and the novel coronavirus outbreak is exacerbating this competition.

The nature of China-US relations has undergone substantial change over the past few years, evolving from a relationship featuring cooperation to one characterized by conflict, competition or even strategic competition. The US decision-making and policy implementation regarding China is changing, emphasizing a coping strategy and response mechanism in a whole-government and whole-society manner. To be blunt, the current US administration is mobilizing mechanisms and resources employed in the Cold War to confront China and push bilateral relations toward a new Cold War.

The pandemic has exacerbated comprehensive competition between China and the US as the two countries have demonstrated great differences in their anti-pandemic responses and results. Some US politicians and media are politicizing the pandemic and demonizing China’s efforts to strengthen international anti-pandemic cooperation because they fear China’s international influence will increase because of its actions during the pandemic.

China hawks in the US are promoting a comprehensive decoupling between the two countries and promoting a new Cold War. Today, China-US relations are different from any other time in history, with US right-wing Republicans holding core power and national security hawks, trade hawks and human rights hawks joining forces to promote tougher policies against China. It is abundantly clear that the ruling elite in the US is engaged in a war to defend the US hegemony and takes comprehensive decoupling from China as the strategic goal.

The current US administration has promoted a public opinion campaign to demonize China, claiming that China’s economic rise is a result of unfair trading practices and intellectual property rights theft, and the smear campaign against China has been intensified amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. US politicians in power and ultraconservatives are hyping the claim that China concealed information about the outbreak and are promoting the rumor that the virus leaked from a virology lab in Wuhan, further damaging the public opinion foundation of bilateral relations.

Right now, the US government is scapegoating China for its own failure to cope with the pandemic. By feeding “information” to friendly media outlets and networks and tapping into new media, it has launched an information war and public opinion war against China.

A global pandemic requires a global response. Anti-pandemic cooperation between the world’s two largest economies is the key to such a response, and the key to improving bilateral relations lies in strengthening strategic and political mutual trust.

Economic globalization will undergo fundamental changes in the post-pandemic era, but it is still not yet clear in which direction. It depends on interactions between countries’ domestic politics and international politics. China-US relations will be the deciding factor for the adjustment of economic globalization, exerting decisive influence on its depth and scope. There will be three possible outcomes.

The worst-case scenario is that China’s relations with the US and the West rapidly deteriorate with China and the US comprehensively decoupling from each other and a new Cold War taking stage, or even a possible “hot war” in some areas.

The best-case scenario is economic globalization will undergo moderate adjustments while maintaining its previous direction and the current structure of international political and economic relations remains unchanged.

The third possible outcome would be an in-between situation in which the US continues to promote the decoupling of the two countries in the technology sector and economic globalization splits into two parallel global markets where two global supply chains will form, centered on China and the US respectively. China and the US will maintain communications and exchanges, but high-level economic and technological exchanges will come to a halt. The coexistence of cooperation and competition will be the feature of bilateral relations, with competition foremost, but with cooperation still possible in nontraditional security-related areas such as climate change and international public health.

In my opinion, China, in the face of aforementioned uncertainties, should maintain strategic confidence, composure and patience to guide its relations with the US away from the risks by skillfully using its long-accumulated hard power and soft power.

China should uphold the principle of opening-up, adhere to the principle of a community with a shared future for humanity and open wider to the outside world. China and the US should reconfirm their common interests and prevent the influence of populism, nationalism and xenophobia.

To postpone or prevent a comprehensive decoupling, China should enhance its smart power by continuing to intensify communications with the US industrial and commercial circles and join hands with them to strengthen a mutually beneficial cooperation pattern with benign interactions to enable greater room for US companies to benefit from the Chinese market. It should also improve its relationship with US traditional and new media and help them eliminate bias by telling China stories practically and realistically with moderation and patience. Moreover, we should beef up exchanges with US think tanks to promote in-depth discussions over different civilizations and governance models between China and the US as well as between China and the West.

The author is a professor at the School of International Studies and the director of the Center for International Political Economy at Peking University. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.