The United States and China are currently engaged in a fierce containment and countercontainment struggle, and both sides are sparing no effort to win over allies and partners to enhance their own strengths.
For a long time, the US has had a clear advantage over China in this regard; thus it believes that China will be at a permanent disadvantage in building a coalition network. Indeed, the US has forged military alliances with many countries, and provided them with security guarantees. In contrast, under the “partnership without alliance policy”, China has not established a military alliance with any country, although it has maintained security cooperation with a few countries. Interestingly, although China has not made formal commitments to any country’s external security, many countries, mainly non-Western countries, have cooperated with China to varying degrees in safeguarding their security.
In the economic sphere, the story is quite different. Currently, China is the primary trading partner of more than 120 countries, while only a few countries, such as Mexico and Canada, have the US as their primary trading partner. In terms of infrastructure construction, far more countries cooperate with China than with the US. The gap between China and the US is rapidly narrowing regarding investment, foreign aid, and technology.
Many Western and Chinese strategic scholars believe that when it comes to winning other countries’ support, the US’ advantage lies in its ability to provide security guarantees for its allies and partners. In contrast, China’s advantage lies in offering opportunities for economic development. This argument is undoubtedly too simplistic, but it is not groundless.
To contain China, the US continues to propagandize the theories of “China threat”, “peak China”, “China collapse”, “great-power rivalry”, “war between democracy and autocracy”, and “new Cold War”. The US maliciously exploits the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the Sino-Indian border to undermine China’s relations with its neighbors. However, Washington’s shenanigans have not worked. Most countries hope to maintain good relations with China and the US, and are unwilling to take sides. Countries in the Indo-Pacific region, especially Southeast Asian countries, have an unequivocally neutral stance.
Paul Staniland, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, wrote in Foreign Affairs in May: “Economics may be the biggest arena in which Asian swing states reject pressure to firmly choose sides in a US-Chinese competition. Asian states are heavily focused on economic growth, and they will seize opportunities to take advantage of the US-Chinese competition — for instance, by working with the United States to relocate supply chains out of China into their own markets. But such efforts can run alongside working with China on other economic issues.”
Looking to the future, China’s competitive advantage will increasingly surpass that of the US in gaining support from other countries because economic development is much more critical than security guarantees for more and more countries. China provides increasing economic development opportunities without political strings attached. More crucially, unlike the US, most countries do not regard China as a significant security threat. In contrast, the economic benefits the US can provide to other countries will only diminish, especially regarding trade, investment, and infrastructure. Yet, the US will still require those beneficiary countries to adopt Western-style democracy, human rights, development models, and open markets in reciprocity. What annoys many beneficiary countries is that the US requires them to align with its anti-China stance. Nevertheless, the US’ tactic of driving a wedge between China and other countries has largely failed. More importantly, the US’ competitive advantage in providing security guarantees is declining. Although the current world is not peaceful, and regional conflicts occur one after another, more and more countries have a declining demand for US security guarantees and believe that these guarantees are unreliable. They even feel that some US foreign and military policies are counterproductive to its allies and partners’ security.
In the economic field, China’s rise, reform, and opening-up have brought the country closer to other countries in terms of economy, trade, science, technology, and finance. Today, most countries prioritize economic development and improving people’s living standards, as they are critical to the political survival of the ruling elites. The Belt and Road Initiative promoted by China has allowed many countries to obtain dividends from China’s development, so the number of participating countries continues to increase.
In addition, BRICS, with China as the core member, is expanding unabatedly, and its share of the global economy is comparable to or surpasses that of the G7. The BRI and BRICS have given China a competitive advantage worldwide at an economic level far superior than that of the US.
In recent years, a critical development is that in addition to increasing oil trade with China, oil-producing countries in the Middle East are also increasingly investing in China.
At the same time, ideas such as protectionism, unilateralism, xenophobia, anti-globalization and “America First” have pushed the US to become economically insular. Still, it has resorted to economically selfish predatory approaches and bullying to continue to infringe on the interests of other countries. Today, the US is less interested in concluding multilateral trade agreements with other countries or participating in international economic and trade organizations.
In terms of providing security guarantees, more and more countries are losing confidence in the US’ security commitments. Japan and South Korea are concerned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will distract US’ focus from Asia. European countries are worried that the US might eventually abandon Ukraine to its fate.
At the same time, the US is also aware that its economic and military prowess is declining in comparison with China. Therefore, Washington increasingly demands its allies and partners share the cost of maintaining security, rendering them even more skeptical. European countries are the US’ most important allies, but their confidence in US security guarantees is wavering, especially considering that Donald Trump may become the next US president. In a survey of Britain, France, and Germany by the Eurasia Group’s Institute for Global Affairs, only 6 percent of the respondents said that the US would be a “very reliable” guarantor of European security over the next decade.
If the US becomes increasingly unable to fulfill its commitments to Ukraine, other countries will also lose confidence in US security guarantees. In recent years, isolationism has been on the rise in the US, clearly in both the Republican and Democratic parties and American society. Voices calling for strategic “retrenchment” are getting more vociferous, further eroding other countries’ confidence in US security guarantees.
As many US allies and partners are losing confidence in US security guarantees, they must find other ways to maintain their security. In Europe, countries such as France and Germany have increased defense spending and seek to establish European military forces outside of NATO. This trend is particularly evident in the war-torn Middle East, especially after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Although Arab countries still rely on the US for security, they have understood that the US, which insists on allowing Israel to carry out genocidal atrocities in Gaza and insists on being an enemy of Iran, is not qualified to build lasting peace in the Middle East. The Israel-Hamas conflict has united Arab countries, eased and improved relations between Arab countries and Iran, and strengthened security cooperation among countries in the Islamic world. At the same time, disappointed and angry with the US and Israel, Arab and Islamic countries are actively exploring solutions to achieve permanent peace in the Middle East. An essential part of this is to allow the Palestinian people to establish an independent Palestinian state by United Nations resolutions. To put it bluntly, Middle Eastern countries no longer expect the US to bring peace to the region, so they must rely more on mutual cooperation.
In addition to the US becoming increasingly unable to fulfill its security guarantees to its allies and partners, its foreign policy after the end of the Cold War often caused them to feel insecure. The US has ignored Russia’s safety concerns and blatantly promoted NATO’s eastward expansion despite the reservations of some major European countries, resulting in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and insecurity in Europe as a whole. The second Persian Gulf War, also known as the Iraq War, initiated by the US in 2003 triggered long-term turmoil in the Middle East. To contain China, the US insists on shielding and supporting the “Taiwan independence” forces, long making the Taiwan question a powder keg in East Asia, and seriously threatening regional security. In contrast, in recent years, with the rapid rise of China’s international influence, Beijing has become increasingly skillful in assuming the responsibility of maintaining world peace, and more and more countries have also encouraged China to play a role in promoting peace and maintaining regional or their national security. International calls for China to play a more proactive role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and Middle East peace are growing increasingly louder. More and more Arab countries are willing to strengthen their cooperation with China in security affairs, including purchasing arms from and conducting military exercises with China. It can be said that although the US still has an advantage over China in providing external security guarantees for other countries, China’s advantages in this respect are also increasing.
In general, in terms of winning support around the world, China can offer other countries more economic development opportunities and provide them with security guarantees. Not only is the US unable to isolate China, but it is itself becoming increasingly isolated internationally. This is because the US unreservedly connives in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, is in a grave moral crisis, and is severely denounced by the international community.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
