David Firestein, president and CEO of the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Relations between the United States and China are "severely strained" but positive changes are possible in 2021, said David Firestein, who heads the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.
"We have to get this right," Firestein said of the relationship. "We need to get back to serious diplomacy and come together with a mindset of problem-solving rather than merely blaming and demonizing."
David Firestein, who heads the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, believes that the US-China relationship is "the world's most consequential bilateral relationship, and virtually no global challenge can be resolved in the absence of US-China collaboration"
He believes, as the late former president George H.W. Bush did, that the US-China relationship is "the world's most consequential bilateral relationship, and virtually no global challenge can be resolved in the absence of US-China collaboration".
He added: "I am troubled by the deterioration in the relationship that we have seen this year and over the last several years."
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Firestein, who is president and chief executive officer of the foundation, said that in the past three or four years, there has been a fundamental shift in Washington's approach and mindset in dealing with China. The result is a pervasive adversarial mindset among US leaders in both the executive branch and Congress.
In 2020, the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a major trust-drainer in the relationship when US political leaders, particularly Republicans, choose to frame COVID-19 in adversarial terms, characterizing China as "the bad guy", Firestein said.
Such framing has tainted perceptions of China by leaders and the public, Firestein said.
"Almost with every passing day, we see some new thing happening, typically on the US side, that marks a new element of deterioration in the relationship," Firestein said.
The mindset of some in the US for "decoupling" from China is unrealistic as well as problematic, he said.
"Purely from the US perspective, the notion that the largest economy of the world would decouple from the second-largest economy and soon to be largest economy just makes no sense by any definition," he said.
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The US has seen the "categorically negative effects" of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump, he said.
As a result, the US now has the largest average annual merchandise trade deficit with China of any presidential administration in history, as well as the largest deficits with the world as a whole.
'Misguided policies'
"We turned, under these misguided policies, a historical US-China agricultural surplus into an agricultural deficit," Firestein said. "Our nation has lost well over 200,000 manufacturing jobs since Jan 20, 2017."
Purely from the US perspective, the notion that the largest economy of the world would decouple from the second-largest economy and soon to be largest economy just makes no sense by any definition.
David Firestein
Decoupling is much easier said than done. "We are two, three years into the trade war, but even today, the US-China trade relationship is among the largest in the world by volume," Firestein said. "That suggests how difficult it would be to disengage from one another."
The notion of decoupling and dividing the world into two economic trade camps would also be "a horrible idea" for the world, Firestein said.
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He is hopeful that the bilateral relationship will rebound in a more positive direction to at least some degree in 2021, even though it certainly will not be a "night-and-day "change.
Firestein said that US President-elect Joe Biden accurately and appropriately frames China as a formidable competitor to the United States, but added that he will bring a less emotional, less ideological, more rational, more fact-based and more clinical approach to the relationship.
